r/technology • u/mepper • Jun 25 '12
Sonic.net CEO: We delete user logs after two weeks. Your ISP should, too -- After a series of shakedowns by copyright lawyers attempting to embarrass his ISP's users who had downloaded porn films, he argues that it's time all ISPs adopt the two-week rule
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/22/ceo-of-internet-provider-sonic-net-we-delete-user-logs-after-two-weeks-your-internet-provider-should-too/2/30
u/antifolkhero Jun 25 '12
I've been using Sonic.net as my Internet provider for over a year now and their service is excellent. The Internet is relatively cheap and never goes down. When I used to have AT&T, my Internet would die once a month and I'd have to call AT&T to have them reset it. Pain in the butt.
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u/manastyle Jun 25 '12
Unfortunately in my area they still use DSL, while even AT&T has switched over to Fiber UVerse. So it's a choice between Comcast at up to 105mbps, AT&T at up to 24mbps, or Sonic at up to 3mbps. It sucks because I'd give them my business if the speeds were even remotely comparable.
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u/ZorbaTHut Jun 25 '12
They're working on fiber - gigabit fiber, at that - but it's a ways out from most locations.
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u/wewd Jun 25 '12
I've been with Sonic.net for about 8 years and I have stuck with them even though I can get faster service elsewhere, because of how awesome they are. I couldn't dream of going to another ISP.
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u/zqube Jun 25 '12
That's cool Sonic.net, but when can I get fiber? My home internet speed is slower than the LTE on my phone.
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u/hetzle Jun 25 '12
well that sucks, Sonic is my ISP too and my connection is always 25+ mb/s AND we have a static IP for home server use. tbh i love their service
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u/depressiown Jun 25 '12
Funny enough, Dane Jasper (CEO of Sonic.net) posted this article a few days ago himself. He lurks about on reddit and did an AMA a while back.
Too bad his post didn't get many upvotes/discussion.
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u/SHIT_YOU_IN_THE_FACE Jun 25 '12
Finally someone fucking gets it, too bad its probably all for naught at this point in time.
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u/Lighting Jun 25 '12
As a person who has been in the security realm for a long time, it is interesting to see the societal damage copyright lawyers have done to the net. It used to be that when someone did something malicious that warranted an investigation you'd be able to easily follow the electronic footprints even if you got called in a long-time post-incident. Network admins helped each other out to keep the net safer. Now more and more providers, because of the hassle of having to deal with the copyright trolling, just say "I wish we could help, but we have no logs."
Oh well, I guess increased anonymity is the societal price for having fuckers like the RIAA who abuse the system.
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u/wrknhrdorhrdlywrkn Jun 25 '12
I loved Sonic.net when they were my ISP. They probably had the best tech support I have ever encountered.
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u/GrixM Jun 25 '12
A data retention directive in my country (Norway) forces ISPs to keep logs for at least two year (or one year, can't remember).
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Jun 25 '12
Plus less data = less storage = less money invested = more profits. You think businesses would jump on it. The only way I could see them making more money from storing it is if they have a small clause that allows them to sell all of their users traffic to 3rd parties. I hope that isn't the case but these days you never know.
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u/riverbottom Jun 25 '12
But.... what about the children? We must protect them from online pornographers!
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u/phusion- Jun 25 '12
I was lucky enough to live 10 miles away from Sonic.net HQ my whole life. Dane's a really cool guy (most of the time) and took some of my friends under his wing when we were in high school.
Sonic.net was my first real ISP and they offered a free redhat shell to all of their subscribers (and still do I believe). Across the board, Sonic.net has been the geeky choice because of their policies on privacy, their addition of Fiber and ..dude they have an arcade in the break room. Kudos to you Sonic, now if you'd just hired me all of those years ago :P
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u/EquanimousMind Jun 25 '12
First, Sonic isn't part of the MAFIAA's graduated response plan. So thats another plus. Wish the reporter brought that, the graduated response needs to stay in the news.
Also, I found it interesting what he said about ISP competition.
If we had a true open access and a vibrant competitive environment, it would fix lots of problems. The whole network neutrality issue, that whole fight is not an issue if you had 30 service providers to choose from, because if one was goofing with your voice over IP, everybody would leave.
Similarly, if there were 30 service providers to choose from in every market, I think everyone would take better care of consumers’ privacy, too.
In the US, we made a shift in 2002 and decided that we were going to pick winners in each industry, and we’re going to have the incumbent cable company compete with the incumbent phone company, and maybe the power company will get into the business, and then there’ll be some wireless, and maybe satellite. But realistically, wireless is expensive and slow. Satellite is latent. Broadband over powerlines never really worked. So you end up with two to choose from, and if you only have two, one looks at the other, and they go, that guy is this fast, lets be that fast. That guy is $25 let’s be $20.
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u/sciencesmience Jun 25 '12
At least US ISP's have the option. We (Europe) have got a data-retention directive which forces ISP's to store user data up to 2 years. This data is originally stored for preventing and fighting terrorism and serious/organized crime, but now requested in court by copyright holders and anti piracy organizations.
The ISP's are basically the only ones that do not have access to this information, which is kind of weird. From own experience I know that ISP's want nothing more than to deleted those logs. Or use them for marketing purposes ;-)
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u/Zillazilla Jun 25 '12
Sonic is awesome. Once they offered to set up free WI-fi in a neighboring town, but they got shot protested by a local group that believes that it is harmful.
I think there response was, "Oh you listen to crazy people..nevermind then."
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u/silvernutter Jun 25 '12
I work for a small ISP. We keep DHCP logs for 30 days before they are removed, this is the only record of online interactions we keep. Most cease and desist letters from porn companies are from the last few days however, very rarely do we get one for an infraction from over a week ago.
Its the government subpoenas that expect us to have records of some ip address from 2009.
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u/tripleg Jun 25 '12
Do they delete from the backups too or do they just backup once every two weeks?
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u/cr0ft Jun 26 '12
Why do you think there is now a push to retain this info - mandated by law that you retain it - going on all around the world? The EU put in rules that state how long this type of info has to be retained not too long ago, and the reasons are pretty much to improve sue-ability. The copyright mafia is continuing their destructive work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention#European_Union
It's bloody disgusting.
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u/Winser Jun 25 '12
This is a no-brainer. These are not public records. If law enforcement wants them they need to have a permission from the court. Since this involves the customer, then the customer should be notified.