DeLoreanDude wrote:
ThisUserNameIsTaken wrote:
his entire internet history is retained on his ISP's servers (everything from sites visited to connections made to files downloaded, and it gives the exact time, date, and file name for everything) for years
I heard of this, that scares me a bit because of privacy reasons... How long are those logs kept anyway?
I havent done anything wrong, that concept just dosent sound that nice to me, especially if anyone can just see these logs (who work at the ISP)... And what if the ISP's servers get hacked and the hacker downloads my whole internet history... Some URLs even have usernames and passwords in them!
I don't know how long they're kept, but it's for quite a long time. Every server does it though (websites, IM clients, ISPs, xbox live, etc. even some routers keep logs by default though those are very short lived unless you have the router forward the logs in emails). For example, IM servers (AOL, YIM, MSN, etc) typically keep logs of every conversation for five years. I wouldn't worry too much about your privacy being violated though. Since these logs record ALL of your internet activity there is an ocean of text to dive through the find anything interesting. Most of it is ads downloaded, virus definitions, connections made to multiple servers for images, and things of that nature. And ISPs have strict policies about not giving away that information unless they're hit with a warrant. I also doubt that a hacker would bother hacking an ISP for the logs they keep. Way too much crap to wade through for far too little useful information (not to mention we'd be talking about terabytes of information here). If a hacker is good enough to hack an ISP's logs they're probably going to go after something like credit card and banking companies instead.