ISP Surfing Records
I used to work at an ISP, it was quite fun work. In the early days of the internet we were the geeky forerunners and we all pretty much made up the rules as we went along. Security wasn’t a big issue, the only people who used the internet weren’t that type. But as the net grew, the responsibilities did too. All ISPs servers are constantly under attack from a variety of sources.
However one of my main worries was always about the logs we kept. Every ISP has them, in fact in most countries they are legally obliged to keep them. The logs contain the raw data of every single piece of data that goes through their portal. So that includes every email, IM message and web site each and every one of us has accessed.
It’s quite a responsibility, an entire online record of everything each user does over the internet. Even more worrying is the fact that the vast mjority of it is in clear text. This is due to the fact that most internet protocols such as HTTP operate in clear text. Which makes the first requirement of any one who wants any hope of anonymous surfing – that of encryption. Without it your surfing record is easily accessible to any one at the ISP, the Government, a hacker with access or in fact any individual with a court order.
Categorised as: Computing