HMRC can now view your internet history

[SimonMac]

It's a good job nobody can fake an email address then

Just as easy as making sure you have to click a link in the email too which IIRC is what BT require

[djf]

Not a problem ... just use the TOR browser instead.

[DaveB]

Starbucks use BT, so I would assume they will already have it covered.

I would imagine the days of free wifi will continue, but you will have to provide an email address or the like to confirm before be allowed to access any content

and they will quietly collect enough info about the device you use to link it to the activity recorded. OS / Browser / MAC etc.

[sal]

That's the easy part. Big providers already know who had which IP and when. That is already evidence that can be used.

Not quite, as evident by all the copyright infringement scams debacle. AFAIK ISPs can't reliably prove that your account/household used a particular IP at a specific time.

[Mordac]

Not quite, as evident by all the copyright infringement scams debacle. AFAIK ISPs can't reliably prove that your account/household used a particular IP at a specific time.

Not if you reboot your router several times a day. Make sure you get a new IP address each time, obviously. The only people sharp enough to do that are IT contractors and terrorists, precisely the folk these laws are designed to catch. Which makes it just about the most pointless law ever. Soon it will become a criminal offence to turn your router off (or suffer a power cut) in which case my parents will be off to chokey, they always turn theirs off when they are not using it, indeed they turn everything off when they're not using it, which probably saves them a few quid a year in electricity. Anyway, it's virtually unworkable. They'll be running around tracing billions of records, and eventually they'll all give up. The smaller ISPs will go bust (they won't be able to maintain the records) and the bigger ISPs will tell the govt to get stuffed.

[SueEllen]

Not if you reboot your router several times a day. Make sure you get a new IP address each time, obviously. The only people sharp enough to do that are IT contractors and terrorists, precisely the folk these laws are designed to catch. Which makes it just about the most pointless law ever. Soon it will become a criminal offence to turn your router off (or suffer a power cut) in which case my parents will be off to chokey, they always turn theirs off when they are not using it, indeed they turn everything off when they're not using it, which probably saves them a few quid a year in electricity. Anyway, it's virtually unworkable. They'll be running around tracing billions of records, and eventually they'll all give up. The smaller ISPs will go bust (they won't be able to maintain the records) and the bigger ISPs will tell the govt to get stuffed.

I only learnt to do that because some US based forum blocked me about 15 years ago.

I had to explain to them that IP addresses in the UK weren't fixed and all people did was reboot their routers one or more times to get assigned a new one.

Oh and 15 year old boys who like to hack from their bedroom also know this trick even if they prefer to use next door's WiFi.

[SneakySimon]

IP Address

Learning lots on here - never knew about the switching on / off of the router could change your IP address......

When I lived in the USA, I used a software that changed my IP address to a UK address so I could gamble (UK Gambling sites block you) - I am guessing that was just as mask?

[VectraMan]

Not quite, as evident by all the copyright infringement scams debacle. AFAIK ISPs can't reliably prove that your account/household used a particular IP at a specific time.

Presumably part of this is to make ISPs log that too otherwise it would be extra dumb. I have a static IP so I'm screwed.

You can't control whether switching off your router will give you a different IP, and you also can't control whether the ISP is properly logging who is using which IP. Even with a VPN you can't control whether the VPN provider is logging who is using which virtual-IP; they might say that they don't but how can you know?

Anonymity on the internet is a myth and always has been.

[darrylmg]

That's the easy part. Big providers already know who had which IP and when. That is already evidence that can be used.

That's not my point.
My point is that these big companies can't even hold basic details without corrupting them somehow.
My wife's firstname has been mangled with EE.
My name now also has my firstname first letter twice at the beginning of my name.
What's to stop them incorrectly assigning me as the previous owner of an IP address by mistake. Lack of basic controls and change management somewhere.

[Contreras]

That's not my point.
My point is that these big companies can't even hold basic details without corrupting them somehow.
My wife's firstname has been mangled with EE.
My name now also has my firstname first letter twice at the beginning of my name.
What's to stop them incorrectly assigning me as the previous owner of an IP address by mistake. Lack of basic controls and change management somewhere.

Good point well made. The answer, theoretically, is that if required by law then they will need to get their tulip together.