Frank Erskine wrote:
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:29:04 +0000, Andy Champ
wrote:

Huge wrote:
But, from March, ISPs will need to keep a log of your emails (to,
from[1] and dates, but not content.
They already do. Anybody who runs a mail server will have logs showing
what was sent where. Here's mine;

What's new is the ISPs will have to keep it for the guv'mint. I forget
how long for.

Until they lose it somewhere?

Not really, no.

Most log files are compressed and archived on the mail relay. And would
normally be deleted after some preset time interval.

Bcesue of what a mail relay is, its generally a machine with a fair
amount of disk space, and RAIDED to the hilt, so its pretty secure
against a disk crash.

Any competent ISP would be able to archive onto a second machine.
There would be no resin to go beyond that though. Tapes, DVDS and memory
sticks and portable media or laptops are simply not what you do with
trashy logs. You use those to inspect data you want to analyse
elsewhere. No one really wants to analyse logs.. unless you have an
urgent problem like a mail storm or some sort of denial of service attack.