On Tue, 13 Nov 2007, Florian Echtler wrote:
As a native German speaker, allow me to clarify: with respect to IP communication, the law mandates saving the following information for 6 months: - which customer was assigned which IP for what timespan - sender mail address, receiver mail address and sender IP for each mail - in case of VOIP: caller and callee phone number and IP address
It's all in the ETSI version of the Transport of Intercepted IP Traffic (http://www.opentap.org/documents/TIIT-v1.0.0.pdf) and the "FuncSpec" document (http://www.opentap.org/documents/101WAI-GT-FuncspecV1.0.1.doc) They might have updated it by now. It used to treat email different from other traffic, but with IM now, I am sure that has changed. See http://www.opentap.org/documents/ for other documents
So it wouldn't make much sense to create connection noise on a TCP or HTTP basis, as this stuff isn't logged. I think one should rather concentrate on generating email noise in this regard.
Instead of creating noise, one should fix the problem of sending out plaintext email, and encourage people to use email encryption such as Enigma for Thunderbird. Encrypt IM conversations with OTR, and via other ways pro-actively protect ones own privacy. That is a real structural solution. Don't blame others for not using an envelope around your own communication. For pointers on how to obtain more privacy via userfriendly software, see: http://chameleon.spaink.net/PTT.pdf Paul