Jack Straw' View

[Roland Perry]

In article <003801bfe6cc$278e0940$3e0a989e@eloka>, Owen Lewis
<oml@eloka.demon.co.uk> writes

>It is
>widely practiced for a variety of  purposes. Plod practices it, BT practices

To draw up a list of suggested "Friends and Family", for example.

>it (as does every other PSTN provider). Facilities and communications
>managers practice it. I practice it. ISPs may or may not yet practice it but
>those that don't, as they grow up, will find good reasons why they should
>practice it.

I think the difference is that the information so gathered is often just
as useful when anonymised. For example, when running an ISP some years
ago I wanted to know how many hours a week the subscribers were using
the service. This was calculated from billing records and (amongst other
things) produced figures on the number of subscribers using zero hours
per month, and the number using more than <some arbitrary number,
perhaps 30> hours a month. I didn't need to know who the individuals
were, or indeed who/what they were communicating with when online.

On the other hand, when trying to trap a hacker, we *did* want to
investigate the sessions of individuals who had sessions longer than an
hour between midnight and 4am (given also that most users connected for
only a few minutes each session).

>The first police coup using an enhanced analytical capability was about
>89/90 when they busted a ring of bent solicitors and estate agents 

Oh dear, in 24hrs we have mentions of both bent police and bent
solicitors. My illusions are shattered...

-- 
Roland Perry