Ladewig.com

Head over to CNews and read this scary article. Basically, Congresswoman Diana DeGette (Colorado, 1st District), wants to require “providers of Internet access services” to “retain records to permit the identification of subscribers to such services for law enforcement purposes” up to one year after the subscriber closes the account. According to the Congresswoman, there was a case where a child abuser supposedly could have been found if the ISP had retained logs showing users and IP addresses.

Now, the exploitation of children is a terrible thing, and law enforcement should pursue these cases vigorously. I also think that it isn’t unreasonable to ask ISPs to retain logs showing users and their assigned IP addresses, assuming that they only need to be kept for a limited amount of time, no more than a year, and that law enforcement would have to demonstrate why they need the information to get a warrant.

The problem is, the amendment, as it is written, doesn’t limit itself to ISPs and IP addresses. It says that anyone who provides a service on the Internet has to provide a way to identify subscribers to that service. And it is incredibly vague as to what exactly has to be retained. At the school where I work, would we have to keep records of all of our staff, faculty, and students? Do we have to just list IP addresses? Do we have to keep web logs? Do we have to keep copies of all of their email? What makes this scary is just how vague the amendment is as written. Is this blog a service? Are people who read the site subscribers? Do i have to track that you read this post?

I expect this kind of thing from some Republicans, using 9/11 and their “global war on terrorism” to justify all sorts of burdensome and intrusive regulations. But to have this come from a Democrat is especially disappointing.

Al Franken is broadcasting his show from Washington University in St. Louis today. I’m in the audience right now here in Graham Chapel. Al is going to sign books after his show is over, so I’ll be sticking around for that. Will post pictures later tonight.

This week is our tenth wedding anniversary, so we celebrated this evening with dinner at The Melting Pot. We had a wonderful meal and were part way through our dessert fondue (yum!), when the song that was playing in the restaurant caught my attention. I knew that it was from a movie or musical, but just couldn’t place it. After racking my brain for a while, eventually it dawned on us that the song was “Through the Eyes of Love” by Melissa Manchester from the movie Ice Castles. This may not sound like a big deal, but this song was one of two that our friend Steve Bogart sang at our wedding! Made for a very nice moment during our celebration of ten wonderful years!

I’m sitting at the commuter terminal at the San Diego airport waiting for my flight to LA and then back home. I’ve been out here for the Xiotech National MUG (Magnitude Users’ Group) meeting. This is the first national meeting I’ve attended, although I was involved in the CAB (customer advisory board) meetings as well as the regional MUG events. The two and half days here have been great. A lot of technical content, opportunities to network with fellow Magnitude owners, and one-on-one contacts with the folks from Xiotech, from the CEO on down (or on up since they’re org charts at Xiotech have the customer at the top and the CEO at the bottom).

There aren’t many pieces of hardware that I would say that I love, but with the Magnitude, both our original Classic and the 3D 1000 we traded it in for, I can honestly say I love them. If you’re looking at storage systems, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice if you do not consider Xiotech. Great product, great pricing, and great people.

Other than the dinner event last night, I never left the hotel complex. The one time I did get to go somewhere, however, it was a real treat. Everyone at the MUG was transported by bus to Gillespie Field in El Cajon for an evening at the Allen Airways Flying Museum. A private museum owned by Bill Allen, this is an amazing place. For the story of this unique place, check out this article from the San Diego Arts Guide. Vintage aircraft and artifacts including propellers, posters, toys, etc., are everywhere in this hangar complex. The museum is a private collection open by invitation only. The CEO of Xiotech, is a friend of Bill Allen’s and lives in this complex at the airport, so we had an inside connection.

On a side note, I’m trying out a Sprint Connection Card on this trip, and I’ve been really impressed. I’ve been able to get ~1 Mbps downloads on the Sprint network both at the hotel and here at the airport. Sure beats paying $9.95 or more per day to use hotel and airport networks.

Well, we board in ~15 minutes, so I better sign off and pack up the laptop.