Proposal to ban anonymous Internet access

Feb 8 15:23 UTC 2001

A WJR news report refers briefly to proposed legislation in 
Lansing to prohibit anonymous Internet access in Michigan.
The Wayne County sheriff is promoting this as a necessary tool to 
fight child pornography.

I don't have any further details.  Such a law, if passed and upheld
by the courts, would have an adverse impact on Grex -- at the minimum, 
"newuser" could no longer be run.

response 2 of 90:

Feb 8 15:59 UTC 2001

I don't see why "newuser" would be a problem, nor grex..

otoh, "newuser" would need an update, and places like the 203.197.98.6
wabbit-wingate would be a problem.

On the Gripping Hand, it still depends, (as usual), on the bureacratese
involved with this supposed "bill".

response 4 of 90:

Feb 8 18:09 UTC 2001

A detailed story is in the Detroit Free Press:
 
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend8_20010208.htm
 
There is a prominent link to it on the online front page.
 
The proposal is from state rep Bob Brown, D-Dearborn Heights:
from the Free Press story:  "The legislation that Brown plans to 
sponsor would require all ISPs doing business in Michigan to obtain
a valid and verified credit card or telephone number at the
time of registration and to hold on to that data for at least one 
year."

response 6 of 90:

Feb 8 18:24 UTC 2001

Based on the superficial coverage of the article, Grex would likely be 
required to verify accounts through obtaining a verified telephone 
number or credit card number.

The issue is email exchange of illegal materials. The primary method 
that police investigators use, is to join suspect newsgroups, IRC 
groups, mailing lists, etc., and to try to get people to send (or 
exchange) illegal materials to them. The difficulty is not likely to 
arise in the exchange of illegal commodities (such as online drug 
sales), as money and the illegal product must change hands. It is not 
likely to arise in the cases where the police trick somebody into going 
to a motel to meet what they believe to be a minor, as the suspect must 
go to the motel.

However, for the pure exchange of illegal electronic files - such as 
obscene .gif images - there may not be a way for the police to track the
 suspect except through the ISP's registration information for the 
suspect's account. Obviously, a suspect may presently use multiple 
anonymous throw-away accounts, accessing them through an  anonymizing
proxy or free dial-up service, making that task even more  difficult.

Requiring the verification information, and requiring that it be held 
for a year, will help law enforcement both identify suspects, and reduce
 the use of multiple throw-away accounts by suspects. However, it will 
put a very high burden (perhaps impossibly high) on operations like Grex
 or M-Net, which lack the resources and manpower to collect, verify, and
 maintain that information.

response 8 of 90:

Feb 8 19:20 UTC 2001

I haven't read the news story.  I don't know specifically what the law says.

That said, Grex logs what IP address a user comes from, and ISPs generally
log which IP addresses their users are assigned at what times, so as a
practical matter if the intent of the law is to be able to trace people
through ISP log files, and if the law is written to match that intent, Grex
would only have to verify information through its dial-up users.  Of course,
I have no reason to believe the law is being written in any way that makes
sense.

It should be noted, though, that law enforcement really isn't lacking any
ability that this gives them.  Since ISPs exist to make money, ISPs generally
don't go around handing out accounts without some way to bill for them, which
would generally be either a credit card number or billing address.  The real
challenge for law enforcement in going from ISP biling records would be that
it can be difficult to prove that the person using the account was the person
being billed for the account.  I assume that's the usual reason these
investigations generally get handled by arranging to meet the person somewhere
and seeing who shows up.  Even without accurate ISP billing data, though, this
sort of thing isn't impossible to track down.  Even if all the ISP knows is
what phone line the modem call came in on at what time, where the call came
from should be available either from the ISP's own caller ID logs, or from
the phone company's logs, with appropriate court orders.

I'm getting the rather strong impression that child pornography is the new
communism -- something that can generate enough hysteria to justify all kinds
of civil rights violations, with anybody who challenges them considered
immediately suspect.