Hi,
or phone numbers. If so, it's interesting to note that that's exactly what Tor is for - defeating _traffic_ analysis.
Since I live in Europe, just a short explanation of this. Yes, it is about traffic data and not content. So Tor is a good solution to this. But there are some other problems as well. In US there was a case Smith v. Maryland (Smith v. Maryland, 242 U.S. 735 (1979).), which diferentiates between content of communication and traffic data. However, there is State v. Hunt decision (State v. Hunt, 91 N.J. 338, 450 A.2d 952 (1982).), which says individual can expect privacy in traffic data also. But European Court of Human Rights in 1984 (interesting date :-D) in their Malone v. Great Britain decision clearly stated that traffic data are integral part of communication. There are some legal opinions that data retention won't go through so called triple principle test. This test requires that regulation must be a) legal (prescribed by law, law must be accesible to the public) b) necessary in democratic society for the pursuit of a legitimate aim and c) proportionate to the aim pursued. It is also important to know, that European Court of Human Rights critisized so called blanket measures in other decisions as well. So - if there is no suspicion, individual should not be put under surveillance. But data retention is that - surveillance and secret tracking without prior suspicion. The other interesting thing is that this directive was prepared and adopted in very short time. How that? It is likely that some strong lobby was behind direkctive. However, this idea of extended surveilalnce is not new and is NOT the consequence of antiterrorism measures. There are some documents from 1993 which show that extension of surveillance and harmonisation of this area is not new in Europe (see Interception of communications, report to COREPER, ENFOPOL 40, 10090/93, Confidential, Brussels, 16.11.93, published on Statewatch website in 1997). Terrorism is not the reason for this. BTW: one of the latest proposals (I thik this version was also adopted) said retention of data applies to ISP's only. No cybercaffes and public places included. The question is what are you doing in cybercaffe and wha in your home. In cybercaffe you are surfing, posting on forums and checking your mail. But you are not using P2P applications. P2P applications you are using at your home. So which lobby is behind directive? Actually, there is only one lobby strong enough. This is the lobby of anti-piracy groups and industry. It is important to know, that first directive proposals stated that retention is necessariy for fight against terrorism. But then they started to talk about "serious criminal offences". What are they? They are offences, which fall under European arrest warant. The warrant applies in the following cases: a) where a final sentence of imprisonment or a detention order has been imposed for a period of at least four months or b) for offences punishable by imprisonment or a detention order for a maximum period of at least one year. Piracy and filesharing fall under European arrest warrant in some european legislations. OK, it is true, that European arrest warrant is in "crisis" since German constitutional court rejected it, but note this: "no limitation to certain types of crimes for which access is allowed". Slovenian Ministry of justice (I live in Slovenia) declared they support data retention for all crimes which should be prosecuted officially. So next step will be fighting this directive in constitutional courts and finally on the ECHR. Meantime we should propagate using Tor. bye, Matej ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]