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Thai Minister Orders Cafes, Restaurants to Collect Customers’ WiFi Data

111 points by peterkelly 7y ago

dynjo 7y ago
This has been the case for 11 years already!? https://thaicrisis.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/they-did-it-law-requires-companies-to-store-all-internet-traffic-for-90-days https://thaicrisis.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/they-did-it-law-...
- patchtopic 7y ago
  There are lots of laws in Thailand that are sporadically, selectively, unevenly or not at all enforced. The TM30 foreign resident laws in Thailand were put on the books in 1979 but they only decided to start enforcing them (albeit extremely inconsistently) in the last few months.
  - dageshi 7y ago
    Mobile data plans are cheap enough and good enough that most people, even travellers use them now. Enforcing this law could simply get free anonymous wifi turned off so all traffic goes over the mobile networks.
    - Cakez0r 7y ago
      My experience is that SIM card providers (at airports) will take a scan of your passport before giving you a SIM card, so they are probably already in compliance.
      - stephenr 7y ago
        They have to I believe by law - foreign tourists (not sure about non-tourists my sim is older than the law) also get different sims apparently. I’ll see if I can find a link about it. Edit: found it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/thai-regulator-backs-sim-card-plan-to-track-tourists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/thai-regulator... Edit: to clarify I don’t think the two are linked specifically - most services/purchases like this in Thailand require some form of Government ID. For locals that’s usually an ID card, some places will accept my Thai drivers licence others want passport.
  - stephenr 7y ago
    My wife was asked to submit a TM30 when I first dealt with the local immigration office here in town... 6 years ago? L I’m not saying it’s always been enforced but it’s not “the last few months”.
devoply 7y ago
VPN problemo solved.
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  They'll know you're using a VPN. You'll still be suspicious.
  - novok 7y ago
    Like every other business professional...
    - tenebrisalietum 7y ago
      It's possible to discern "privacy" VPNs like PIA or an OpenVPN/SSH tunnel to your house from corporate ones like Cisco Anyconnect, etc.
- angry_octet 7y ago
  It's traffic analysis. They know when something 'subversive' gets posted, they can filter out who was connecting to the site at that time, get a list of suspects. Obviously 99% of the traffic is coming from mobiles which have great metadata tagging already, also geolocation. Cafe wifi you can use from across the road, in a busy place etc, much harder.
  - devoply 7y ago
    Mobile use cloudflares 1.1.1.1 with vpn... free
    - throwaway32333 7y ago
      Does Warp actually hit the CF Bangkok endpoint when in Thailand? Is local regulation affecting Warp rollout location wide? This would circumvent the licensed international gateways as I imagine Cloudflare is backhauling this traffic to Singapore fine as a CDN edge but as ingest for VPN traffic sounds risky... Can you check? I bet your hitting the Cloudflare SGP cluster instead so still leaving Thailand via True/CAT/AIS/TOT/3BBJastel.
taurath 7y ago
That seems incredibly onerous, or a great way to ensure wifi isn’t offered.
- gaius_baltar 7y ago
  > That seems incredibly onerous, or a great way to ensure wifi isn’t offered. Perhaps that's the idea.
- tecleandor 7y ago
  I've been working there this summer and they're already requesting personal information and ID when logging in free Wi-Fi spots (although they don't verify it) . They probably log some other information. They usually do it through third party providers who manage their wifi spots, probably in exchange of some ads.
Canada 7y ago
This just isn't going to happen.
avgeek23 7y ago
What they gonna track ? How many whores people fuck in bangkok ?
PeterStuer 7y ago
Given how much confusion reigns e.g. in Europe around data retention for public wifi, don't be surprised when your local public hotspot or hotel wifi collects more than it should. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/public-wi-fi-forget-the-scare-stories-read-this/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/publi...

111 points by peterkelly 7y ago

This has been the case for 11 years already!? https://thaicrisis.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/they-did-it-law-requires-companies-to-store-all-internet-traffic-for-90-days https://thaicrisis.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/they-did-it-law-...

patchtopic 7y ago
There are lots of laws in Thailand that are sporadically, selectively, unevenly or not at all enforced. The TM30 foreign resident laws in Thailand were put on the books in 1979 but they only decided to start enforcing them (albeit extremely inconsistently) in the last few months.
- dageshi 7y ago
  Mobile data plans are cheap enough and good enough that most people, even travellers use them now. Enforcing this law could simply get free anonymous wifi turned off so all traffic goes over the mobile networks.
  - Cakez0r 7y ago
    My experience is that SIM card providers (at airports) will take a scan of your passport before giving you a SIM card, so they are probably already in compliance.
    - stephenr 7y ago
      They have to I believe by law - foreign tourists (not sure about non-tourists my sim is older than the law) also get different sims apparently. I’ll see if I can find a link about it. Edit: found it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/thai-regulator-backs-sim-card-plan-to-track-tourists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/thai-regulator... Edit: to clarify I don’t think the two are linked specifically - most services/purchases like this in Thailand require some form of Government ID. For locals that’s usually an ID card, some places will accept my Thai drivers licence others want passport.
- stephenr 7y ago
  My wife was asked to submit a TM30 when I first dealt with the local immigration office here in town... 6 years ago? L I’m not saying it’s always been enforced but it’s not “the last few months”.

devoply 7y ago

VPN problemo solved.

tenebrisalietum 7y ago
They'll know you're using a VPN. You'll still be suspicious.
- novok 7y ago
  Like every other business professional...
  - tenebrisalietum 7y ago
    It's possible to discern "privacy" VPNs like PIA or an OpenVPN/SSH tunnel to your house from corporate ones like Cisco Anyconnect, etc.
angry_octet 7y ago
It's traffic analysis. They know when something 'subversive' gets posted, they can filter out who was connecting to the site at that time, get a list of suspects. Obviously 99% of the traffic is coming from mobiles which have great metadata tagging already, also geolocation. Cafe wifi you can use from across the road, in a busy place etc, much harder.
- devoply 7y ago
  Mobile use cloudflares 1.1.1.1 with vpn... free
  - throwaway32333 7y ago
    Does Warp actually hit the CF Bangkok endpoint when in Thailand? Is local regulation affecting Warp rollout location wide? This would circumvent the licensed international gateways as I imagine Cloudflare is backhauling this traffic to Singapore fine as a CDN edge but as ingest for VPN traffic sounds risky... Can you check? I bet your hitting the Cloudflare SGP cluster instead so still leaving Thailand via True/CAT/AIS/TOT/3BBJastel.

taurath 7y ago

That seems incredibly onerous, or a great way to ensure wifi isn’t offered.

gaius_baltar 7y ago
> That seems incredibly onerous, or a great way to ensure wifi isn’t offered. Perhaps that's the idea.
tecleandor 7y ago
I've been working there this summer and they're already requesting personal information and ID when logging in free Wi-Fi spots (although they don't verify it) . They probably log some other information. They usually do it through third party providers who manage their wifi spots, probably in exchange of some ads.

Canada 7y ago

This just isn't going to happen.

avgeek23 7y ago

What they gonna track ? How many whores people fuck in bangkok ?

PeterStuer 7y ago

Given how much confusion reigns e.g. in Europe around data retention for public wifi, don't be surprised when your local public hotspot or hotel wifi collects more than it should. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/public-wi-fi-forget-the-scare-stories-read-this/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/publi...