Masking IP-Addresses on logging?

[Cliff Wells]

On Thu, 2010-02-18 at 07:39 -0500, ts77 wrote:
> Hey there,
> 
> some of you might know that storing full ip addresses in germany is getting more tricky every day and considered a legal problem.
> Is there any way to store masked ip addresses in access logs with nginx while retaining the possibility to use web analytics software? 

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and I'm not from Germany. 

That being said, from my reading of the situation, I don't think there's
an issue with storing the IP address so long as it's only kept as long
as actually *needed* (i.e. for billing purposes or in your case, log
analysis).   Why not just do your analysis within some reasonable
time-frame and then delete or scrub the raw data?   

As to those who think that these laws are silly, I have three words for
you: Senator Joseph McCarthy.  It really ought not to be necessary to
have such laws, but of course we in the information fields can't be
trusted to not hoard data that puts people in peril.  I applaud Germany
and the E.U. for putting their citizen's privacy above corporate
interests.  

Regards,
Cliff