124
IPCO Annual Report 2017
Error Investigation 19
Responsible Party
Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Human or Technical
Technical
Cause
Failure to advise changes to Time Zone format
Data Acquired
Subscriber information relating to an IP address
Description
An Internet Service Provider (ISP) changed the format in how time is
recorded from a 24hrs format to 12 hrs. This change wasn’t notified
to any US or UK authority. The change in format didn’t include any
AM or PM against the time stamp provided. This created a number
of applications where the actual time sought was out by 12 hours.
Example: Time stamp from ISP read 12:34:29 taken by the Public
Authority as 12:34:29 PM. In fact the actual time was 12:34:29 AM
or 00:34:29 if the 24 hour clock was still being used.
Once discovered immediate steps were put in place to halt all activity
involving results from this ISP.
Every public authority was contacted and asked to complete a
questionnaire.
The results identified 173 incidents involving this ISP and could be
broken down as follows;
153 no error. In these the actual time e.g. 12:34:29 was PM that when
applied for in the 24hr format was one in the same.
17 recordable errors. In these the actual time was e.g. 00:34:29 but
applied for as 12:34:39 (24hr clock). However the same user held the IP
across both times.
3 reportable errors. In these the IP had moved, e.g. the customer for
the IP at 00:34:29 had changed to another by 12:34:39 (times of the
application).
Consequence
Search warrant executed at the address of an innocent person.
EU national linked but couldn’t be traced.
Package stopped before action taken.