The full Interview that was carried out via email with Adrian Kennard of AAISP on 3/12/10 is shown below:

> There are many acts that give extra tasks to ISPs to monitor and regulate data, such as Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Data Retention Directive and the new Digital Economy Act 2010.

You may want to read
http://revk.www.me.uk/2010/12/government-meddling.html

> * Do you feel the Government is passing too much responsibility onto ISPs to regulate content?

Definitely. We are, and should be, treated as "mere conduit".

> * Do you log emails and/or websites visited? How long do you keep the logs for?

We generally have normal logs on servers. Our mail servers have logs that run for a month or so and so many other servers as per normal logging on a linux box. We don't hold those logs longer as not yet asked to under data retention directive. If we were, we would only hold exactly what is required, which is pretty minimal.

We do not log web sites people access, or emails not sent though our mail servers, or anything that involves "snooping" on the internet traffic in any way. There really is no point as people can just encrypt what they do.

> * If yes: The majority of email is spam, this must take up a lot of resources?

Each mail server has normal log files, and we don't keep them that long, so not a big issue.

> * How much does undertaking these extra tasks cost?

Well, we are a small ISP and have not had to undertake extra tasks yet.
If we had to, it would cost. We don't know the costs yet as it will depend what we are asked to do. Simply holding logs we already have for
12 months (data retention) would not be that huge an issue. If we had to do any deep packet inspection and logging traffic going through the network would be a lot more costly.

> * Do you believe it is unreasonable to expect ISPs to pay for all this extra equipment, resource and maintenance? Are you reimbursed for your expenses? As a small ISP are you exempt from certain costs and legislation?

Of course. No way we should pay for this. If we can claim any costs we will. If we are facing lots of costs and not being paid it is likely we will restructure the company so that the infrastructure is run by a legal entity that has no assets (rents all equipment and lines from other companies we would run) and sells (to us) at cost. The second we get a request to put monitoring equipment in at our cost we would be insolvent and so legally required to wind up that company, no choice.
Obviously we would immediately replace it with a new legal entity taking over the same roles and run in the same way with no break in service.
The new company would not have had such a request (yet). Who knows if it would work.

> * Do you feel having this extra responsibility slows the expansion of your business and technology upgrades?

Thankfully, not yet. But could cause problems as we get bigger.

> * Have you ever had to release sensitive information about your users, do you feel this was necessary? And if you were forced to release information would you try and defend your users?

We have had probably two requests ever, one before RIPA and one under RIPA, from police. It is a shame this needs no court order. The details released were pretty minimal.

> * Have you been approached by copyright companies to send letters to your customers to stop downloading copyrighted material? How do you feel about this approach?

Yes, regularly. We advise them that they have mistaken us for a court (if it is a civil issue) or police (if criminal) and provide details of the web site for each.

The new DEA does not affect us yet (too small) but is so full of holes it will not have any impact if ever it does.

> * Do you feel your customers understand all these laws and acts related to copyright? If measures are taken to cut people off from the internet or limit their data rates or bandwidth allowances would this be a proportionate action/deterrent in your view?

The DEA, as is, will be ineffective as someone simply migrates to another ISP. We can set up a second retail company for that purpose so people can migrate from us to us in effect with no change. That wipes the slate clean. Obviously we don't want people doing anything wrong using our internet, but the system is there to allow punishment on allegation only, and punishment by association, both of which are basically wrong. The law as written now even stops people defending against an allegation in some cases even when they have a valid defence (e.g. open wifi services).

> * Is a user's IP address an accurate way to point your finger at the illegal downloader?

No. We allocate IPs to accounts on a permanent basis (i.e. not dynamic) but even then the IP is, at best, a machine on a network (a machine we cannot pin point), and not a "person". Many people use NAT so the IP is a router. Even someone in the premises cannot say which machine it was if NAT is used, let alone what person was using that machine when.

> * It has been suggested that over half of all internet traffic in the UK is from illegal file sharing, is this something that can really be measured and do you feel this is accurate?

I don't have anything to test that, so cannot say for sure.

> * Do you feel that ISP responsibilities in these laws portray ISPs negatively to their customers and weaken customer relations?

Well, they make us look like puppets of a police state, if that is what you mean!

> * There's a review on the controversial Digital Economy Act coming up, If it was up to you, what improvements would you make to it and any other acts and why?

Copyright owners already have special protection in law, making some actions actually criminal. There really is no reason for them to have this extra means to enforce punishment without due legal process. The idea that the courts are costly to use is a matter to address and applies to all sorts of civil wrongs, not just copyright. So the whole concept of such special legal help is flawed before you even look at any of the details.

The problem is that the business model is based on the idea that you can control copying of data by legal means. Copyright as a concept is based on that and the music and film industry rely on that model. The model is flawed because it is so easy copy now, something that was not envisaged when copyright was invented. The industry has to change the business model to one that does not rely on control of copying. Then the whole issue would go away and extra laws would not be needed. It is like having a law saying people must not chew their finger nails.

The DEA is full of holes:
- - The copyright holder has to work out who the ISP is, the last ISP in the chain commercially not technically, and no other IPS has to even read the infringement report. We have dealers that are the last ISP. We don't have to pass on reports or tell the copyright owner the IP relates to such a customer, we can ignore it.
- - The end user can migrate service quickly and easily. OFCOM have made sure of that. So if someone has any problems or threats of disconnection they just migrate. Old ISP has to keep the reports secret under DPA and throw the away once no longer a customer. Clean slate.
- - The Act allows for there to be internet users that are not subscribers (a concept OFCOM fail to understand) so there may be no way to use this process for some (possibly many) end users.

We have no so called "black boxes" in our network, and we state this clearly if asked. This means if ever we do, people will know because we stop answering that question.