Re: ISP logs

Tom Chance wrote:

>Ahoy,
>
>For an article I'm researching at the mo...
>
>What would a private organisation investigating copyright violation have to do 
>to get hold of ISP logs, to find an individual's address? I'm only vaguely 
>aware of the legality around this, so clarification would be much 
>appreciated!
>
>Regards,
>Tom
>  
>

very easy if the individual owns a domain name - go to www.samspade.org 
and type in the domain name, and it will show in the Whois records. i 
believe it is now mandatory in the UK to have your address kept in the 
Whois records - in the US, privacy laws make things slightly different. 
some crazy people also make their logs accessible to the public too, via 
their sites, to show how much wonderful traffic they have.

if the individual does not own a domain name but you know the name of 
their ISP, it is just as easy.

getting someone's account shut down involves simply making an 
/allegation/ of copyright violation. ISP's will often shut down 
someone's account simply on /allegation/ of harassment, copyright 
violations, filesharing etc, since the Demon case several years ago. its 
a 'hobby' of certain undesirable types on Usenet to hang out on support 
groups (of all places), harass and troll the person, and then report 
them to their ISP to have them shut down. it works. i've seen it happen 
several times. the process for most ISPs thesedays is to shut down 
first, ask questions later. they are shaking in their boots since the 
Demon case, and in the most part are unsupportive of their customers - 
again, unlike their US counterparts who will not take action or give any 
information away due to the privacy laws of the Constitution (i've 
investigated this while being in the US).

ISPs in the UK are more reluctant to /give out/ an individual's actual 
ISP logs and address, unless you are the complainant yourself and are 
making an allegation, via a solicitor. in this case i believe they would 
now be duty-bound to give out such information - it would be best to 
check with the guys on the ukcrypto list for more up-to-date info as 
i've been out of the country nearly a year now.

hth

best,

mC~

-- 
99% of aliens prefer Earth
--Eminem

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