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Sonic.net CEO: We Delete User Logs After Two Weeks. Your ISP Should, Too.
- jc4p 14y agoInteresting back-and-forth, but seeing sites like this really makes me appreciate having Readability one button away. The combination of the huge banner and the facepile on the bottom of the screen make it very distracting to read.
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- RKearney 14y agoNot to mention my Ghostery Chrome Extension found 25 tracking sites on the page. * 24/7 Media * Advertising.com * AppNexus * Bizo * BlueKai * DoubleClick * eXelate * Facebook Connect * ForeSee * Gigya Beacon * Gigya Socialize * Google +1 * Google AdWords Conversion * Google Analytics * Invite Media * Krux Digital * Legolas Media * Media Innovation Group * Right Media * ScoreCard Research Beacon * ShareThis * TargusInfo * Turn * Vertical Acuity * Visual Revenue I think that's a little excessive, especially for an article about keeping logs.
- shellox 14y agomaybe you should recommend them some other tracking sites, so that they can add them to their collection ;)
- taylorbuley 14y agoMany of our programmers and writers agree. We're an advertising-based business (free online news) so I view this as one consequence of that A small chunk of these are due to social and other 3rd party features, a good chunk plain old analytics tracking, and another small chunk are due to our "brand lift" advertising guarantees (e.g. in some cases its ensured that readers are actually seeing your below-the-fold advertisements before we charge you for them). That said, yes, more than a few Ghostery hits are so we can, e.g., buy an ad to reach Forbes readers when you're visiting Adweek.com or something. Ghostery is great and a useful instruction tool for showing the "boiling frog" that is pixels.
- gcb 14y agoTell your programmers to get informed on the safee standard being proposed at iab. Name may change.
- w1ntermute 14y ago> I think that's a little excessive, especially for an article about keeping logs. Well, it's a corporate decision on the part of Forbes, so there's no point in blaming the journalist who wrote this particular article.
- alexpoon06 14y agoMy name is Alex Poon. I am the head of engineering at Visual Revenue. Being a provider of analytics and optimization services, it is hard, if not impossible to piggyback on other data providers for data. We pay great attention to user experience of our customers and work to ensure that we don't cause any delay or breakage to their sites. Regarding individual user logs, we delete them immediately after data is aggregated.
- taylorbuley 14y agoGlad to see you guys reading HN too
- jedberg 14y agoI love sonic. We used them for the reddit office. They were the cheapest and fastest option. Once one of their reps stopped by just to say hi and make sure we were happy. I've been begging them to let me give them money for my home connection.
- latchkey 14y agoAs a Sonic.net customer for the past 7 years and a friend of Jake's, I applaud their efforts to not keep logs. That said, I'm curious what logs they are talking about.
- dsr_ 14y agoAssignment of IP addresses, through DHCP or other methods.
- latchkey 14y agoAh, I'm now on a static IP because I was having problems with their dynamic ones recently and they suggested that I switch. I wonder if the config file for that is considered a log.
- dsr_ 14y ago(I don't work for them, but I have worked at small and large ISPs.) The law enforcement agency will ask for a subpoena that will ask for "all records, logs, files, documents... relating to or describing the subscriber(s) using the IP address $dottedquad at or around $date(s)". The config file that keeps your static IP associated with a MAC address or whatever will certainly be turned over.
- pasbesoin 14y agoI wish I lived somewhere where I could use Sonic. Anyone who does should, IMHO, give them careful consideration when purchasing connectivity. And... if you live in Sebastopol or, I think, one of a limited number of other trial areas, affordable Gb connectivity! Aside from just offering better choices, we need Sonic and the like to push the BigCo's to do better. (Speaking as someone trapped in a BigCo oligopoly zone (BOZ?).)
- shahidhussain 14y agoI used Sonic when I lived in SF. Dane himself tweeted back when I mentioned them, and their customer service has been super transparent (you can see on their support page [1] how many calls are on and waiting), extremely honest and helpful, even for a nerd like me. I have nothing but admiration for these guys. [1] http://www.sonic.net/support/index.shtml http://www.sonic.net/support/index.shtml
- wpietri 14y agoYes. Love these guys. Every time I call support I get to talk to somebody with both knowledge and sense. In sharp contrast to when I had AT&T DSL or have to deal with Comcast for friends.
- lrem 14y agoYour ISP should, unless you live in a country that does prevent that. There's a law in European Union requiring us to keep logs between 6 months and 2 years. Oh, and there are countries like Poland, whose government asked to prolong that time, as 2 years is not enough (thankfully that was rejected). It's still a surprise to me that USA doesn't have anything like that. It's like the first time EU is first at something ;)
- swang 14y agoIt's because Law Enforcement in the US has been lobbying for longer times. From the article: DJ: I would speculate it would be an unpopular move that might result in more friction with law enforcement. Law enforcement has been lobbying to pass laws that would require service providers to keep 18-36 months of logs. It’s in their interests.
- lrem 14y agoOh cool... Polish government tried to enforce 10 or 15 years. We were discussing whether to keep it for them as printouts in 4 points font, or just as single copies of cheapest dvds ;) Thankfully, they were not allowed to do that.
- digitalboss 14y agoDane Jasper is awesome - met him a couple times at SF Night Owls - follow him here https://twitter.com/#!/dane https://twitter.com/#!/dane
- citricsquid 14y agoThe link is to Page 2 of the article, could a mod update it to link to the first page? http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/22/ceo-of-internet-provider-sonic-net-we-delete-user-logs-after-two-weeks-your-internet-provider-should-too/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/22/ceo-of-...
- simba-hiiipower 14y agosorry; noticed that right after i posted.. if someone could update it that would be great.
- rogerbinns 14y agoMy gripe with Sonic is they pull stunts on the telephony just like the scumbags such as AT&T. In my case they will not supply DSL without also supplying phone service, for which I have absolutely no use. I don't even have a physical phone to plug in and haven't for years. They claim the phone service is "free", but you get nailed with various taxes and fees. The taxes are a legal requirement. The fees are entirely up to Sonic, although some have regulatory maximums. And Sonic charges those maximums - something AT&T doesn't! If they were honest they wouldn't hide things like this, pretending something is free when it clearly isn't.
- Josh2600hz 14y agoHow do you deliver DSL without a phone line in the US? Even AT&T delivers a phone line on their "direct DSL", they just hide the costs of regulation in the rate. This, to me, isn't a case where sonic is to blame. This has more to do with restrictive FCC requirements than it does with Dane. Phones are due for a regulatory rework.
- gcb 14y agoYou are wrong. After getting a special number ( 1-800-288-2020) i was able to order dsl from att without a landline contract and phone taxes from California. Nothing. Catch is, the advertised price of $25/mo for 6mbps only last one year, and you have to sign up for two years, paying $55/mo on the second. Still beats paying $40 all around for the crappy cable latency i get here (at One block from the att repeater building!)
- sharkweek 14y agoI think this is a great idea, but I'm curious... -- so I'm playing devil's advocate with this question -- Couldn't there be some risk that it would be tough to build a case against someone involved in illegal activity? Like how much harder is it to build a case against CP offenses with only access to two weeks of logs?
- poink 14y agoThere's no way to answer that question broadly, since it depends on which other sources of information law enforcement can consult in a given case. For what it's worth, unless you retain data forever, it's always possible to delete it the day before you need it.
- eridius 14y agoI really wish I could use Sonic.net (for my home). Unfortunately (up to) 20MBps is just not good enough.
- dfischer 14y agoI wish we had Sonic in SoCal. Only option is basically Comcast and they fucking suck.
- heretohelp 14y agoDon't be too jealous, I'm in Mountain View and despite being a few blocks away from Google I have the same options. It's baffling. Only SF realistically has Sonic available to them. Supposedly some backwater in Central Valley has it too.
- dmckeon 14y agoIn theory, they can serve most of the state: http://www.sonic.net/sales/maps/ http://www.sonic.net/sales/maps/ but in practice, DSL distance limits apply. I would expect most densely populated areas of the northern SF bay counties, most especially the Santa Rosa area to be well served. OTOH, the 805(SLO) & 661(Bfd) area codes appear to be lagging.
- jrockway 14y agoMost people I know in Mountain View have the Comcast Business internet connection, which is basically a different company from Comcast. (Different customer service, different billing, different equipment, etc.) Apparently you can even negotiate the rate down to $75 a month, which is a lot less than I pay for Time Warner's "we are a monopoly so fuck you with a stick" package in Brooklyn.
- dfischer 14y agoWhy does this monopoly exist? Is it related to law? Or is it related to needing a massive infrastructure to support such a business? Why can't a company "start-up" to offer fast competition in a city like Los Angeles?
- sdfjkl 14y agoUK equivalent: http://aa.net.uk/ http://aa.net.uk/ "We have no so called black boxes to covertly monitor traffic and/or pass traffic monitoring to the authorities or anyone else. Obviously the law is such that we may have to add such black boxes, but we would resist as far as possible. We may even find we are not allowed to change this web page if ever that happens. However, I, as director, am happy to answer direct questions on this matter on irc (user RevK) or on usenet and you can get paranoid if I refuse to." -- http://aa.net.uk/kb-broadband-realinternet.html http://aa.net.uk/kb-broadband-realinternet.html
- VonGuard 14y agoSwitching this week. Bye bye Megapath/Speakeasy.
- lawnchair_larry 14y agoIt's worth noting that due to the PATRIOT Act, they do not delete your logs after 2 weeks if they receive a NSL. NSLs include a gag order, so you will never know if they stop deleting your logs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Letter The feds issue hundreds of thousands of these, and they require no warrant or judicial oversight. NSLs can not only be issued to individuals under investigation, but "communities of interest" - so basically the social network of anyone under investigation.
- nextstep 14y agoCan anyone give a recommendation if my ISP choices are Webpass and Sonic.net?
- awolf 14y agoWe have sonic.net in San Francisco. Unfortunately the speeds in our neighborhood (Haight Ashbury) are dismal. 7.5 Mbits/s, for the premium service. $90 /month. I love the ethos of the company, but we're suffering here and will be switching soon.