ZDNet UK 26/10/2001: "Home Office admits data retention plans"

[Caspar Bowden]

> Nigel Metheringham
...
> On Sat, 2001-10-27 at 19:01, Caspar Bowden wrote:
> > Assume 256 bytes per URL, 50 URLs per day for an average 
> non-Nethead 
> > user * 365 days ~ approx 5Mb per customer for a year
> > 
> > So an ISP with a million customers could store their entire 
> browsing 
> > activity for a year (without compression) on 200 DAT3 
> tapes. Doesn't 
> > seem too outrageous.
> 
> Figures I have heard for what one ISP has for their web cache 
> logs (processed each day to get aggregated destination stats 
> and the original then thrown away because they are too big to 
> keep around), leads me to believe you are 2 orders of 
> magnitude out (and you can guess in which direction :-) ).

It's arithmetic. Have you tried the sum yourself ?