A Digital Certificate For Every Canadian 336
thepacketmaster writes "September 27 of this year, the Canadian government took a quiet step into the online world. Called Government Online, this broad project involves giving every Canadian citizen a digital certificate, which will allow citizens to access their personal government records online. So far they only have the Custom & Revenue Agency online with a simple Change of Address, but there are over a hundred more applications from various agencies ready to be put online. Could this be the start of something good, or is this Big Brother? How about voting online?"
well, depends (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends. Yes, it could be Big Brother, if the government is planning on using this as a way to track people. It also could be something very good, in that people could quickly and easily track themselves through the government. Unfortunately, this could also be a means for people to track you quickly and easily....leading to all sorts of uncool cracking/piracy,theft. It's a new tech, gonna have it's problems just like everything else.
Re:well, depends (Score:2, Interesting)
Nice huh?
Re:well, depends (Score:2)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/07
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/08/28
More links inside each story. Enjoy!
Re:Canuck Police State (Score:2)
The party line in canada is; Do what the party tells you or be kickd out of office. But for lawful access as scary as it seems they are having public discussion on it right now, I know this for the simple fact I've been been at several meetings about it already. Regardless of the "good face" the goverment here will do what it wants regardless of what the people want.
I've been saying things like this for years.
Re:well, depends (Score:2)
Canadians are a bit too complacent when it comes to government bodies. Ask any Canadian why he pays 70 percent of his wages (if you make 6 figures it's closer to 80%) after all is said and done.
And for all the Canadians who are going to scream that this is wrong, 40% income tax (Federal and Provincial, upper tax bracket), 15% sales tax on most items (Ontario GST & PST), then Property taxes, (GST on that too), petrol tax (45%), sin taxes on booze and tobacco, and in Ontario, the idiot tax (Gambling). Taxes on hydro purchases, Natural Gas, food, drink... EVERYTHING! So I know what I'm talking about, now do you?
Re:well, depends (Score:2)
The aggregate tax rate in Canada is 35% (of GDP). The aggregate tax rate in America is 28%. Five percentage points of the difference is universal health care. Americans pay about twice as much for health care per captia, but that isn't counted as a 'tax'. The other two percentage points are things like snow removal and additional social services.
Gosh, how "Socialized". If you want to see socialization, look to Europe. The aggregate tax rate approaches 50% in some countries.
I make approaching six figures, and my income-tax rate is 22%. The 7% GST replaced a previously hidden manufacturer's tax. How many hidden taxes do Americans pay?
Re:well, depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps Canadians choose to live (a little) differently because most Canadians have a higher standard of living than Americans and Canadians in general have a quality of life. Dispite various yay-America sentiment, more guns, greater corporate control, and greater inner-city poverty does not a happy nation make.
Well, I trust my government more than I trust a corporation. I guess it comes down to spending your money NOT on the best product, but looking a little deeper. Who runs the company, what do they stand for, etc..I'd rather know the harsh truth, than some happy lie.
This isn't accurate. The fact of the matter is that Canadian corporations are extremely competitive internationally. They are assisted by an undervalued dollar (really, its purchasing power parity is $0.79US), but 40% of Canada's GDP comes from exports because Canada makes good products of all categories. No support-the-underdog sentiment is necessary.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
This has got to be one of biggest differences between Canadians and Americans. The American stance seems to be that government is bad, the smaller and less invasive they are the better. Conspiracy theories abound, and unfortunately I can't for surely say that they're unfounded. The irony is that instead of letting the government have any control, corporations have managed to gain control. The dollar rules much more in the states than here.
There seems to be a large Us vs. Them mentality between the Government and the People in the U.S. This isn't so in Canada. For one thing, the government is the people, not just in theory but in reality. If the government were to try and take over the country (a common reason for Americans needing their guns) how would they do it? Are you suggesting that my parents and sister (government employees) would take me (non-government worker) hostage? Its ludicrous to be afraid of the government.
So getting back to the main point, I too trust the government more than a corporation, as I think do most Canadians. Corporations have only one goal, and that's to make money, and that's bad. When people talk about privatizing things like jails it truely scares me. I work in private security, and its pathetic. No corner is left uncut. There's no conscience or social responsibility. This is much better left in the hands of government. I personally believe the same holds for most things, like utilities and such. After all, the goverment is basically a gigantic co-operative. Sure the government doesn't always do the right thing, but its rarely a big deal in the long run. My only real complaint about the government is the lack of efficiency that companies have to gain to stay afloat. Of course, a lot of that efficiency is gained through corner-cutting. The trick is to eliminate the bloat without cutting corners.
Anyway, that's my CDN$0.02.
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
The US government, sure, and I did say in my original post that such fears are not necessarily unfounded. But I do think its insane to be afraid of the Canadian government. They aren't any more likely than a corporation to try and kill me.
Re:sorry no (Score:2)
As far as I can tell, the form calculates *ALL* taxes, including what the typical person spends on taxes on consumer goods and services. The figures are way high for personal income tax (my personal income tax is about half the number the form reported). I also don't make outrageous purchases, don't pay any 'idiot' taxes, and take maximum advantage of tax shelters.
You might also consider that the Fraser Institute is a right-wing organization with an axe to grind.
Re:sorry no (Score:2)
What VAT? You must be thinking of Europe.
I really fail to see (Score:3, Informative)
The rampant knee-jerk paranoia on this site by certain people is just disgusting.
Re:I really fail to see (Score:2)
Nope I thought not, it's reality.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
As long as that's not Billy Bass...
i feel... (Score:5, Interesting)
that this is a better idea than what is available here in the US, where you can obtain anyone's private records through a third party, as long as you have money.
IRS Online (Score:2, Informative)
refund status [irs.gov]
efile [irs.gov]
More things are coming soon. None of it requires a digital certificate. They are going with a "private information" approach. For example, to change your address and things like that in the future you will need to know the exact AGI filed for a given year, etc.
Not sure if this is better or worse, but that is where it is going in the USA.
Re:IRS Online (Score:2)
So, if someone is scarfing my mail, they now have that, and everything else.
Joy.
We'll need some other shared secret, thank you.
you're rather clueless (Score:5, Informative)
To say Canada's crime is skyrocketing is ridiculous. I can walk through downtown Toronto (largest Canadian city) in any area at any time of day or night and not fear for my life at all. There are a couple bad neighbourhoods, but even they are many, many times safer than a bad neighbourhood in a major US city. Per capita there is not a single major US city that has lower violent crime than any major Canadian city. Stick your insanely relaxed gun laws up your ass, Americans, you guys have got it all wrong.
Re:you're rather clueless (Score:2)
I dunno, Regina has a pretty high per-capita crime rate. I don't know the exact figures, but this last year, Regina was (again) rated the Crime Capital of Canada. Toronto was #22.
Re:you're rather clueless (Score:2)
My ex is a nurse and she told me that there is at least 3 mugging related stabbings a week in toronto.
So we have second hand anecdotal evidence that Toronto, a city of over 2.5 million people, has 3 muggings per week. 3! So, that' 150 per year, over 2.5 million comes out to
Re:you're rather clueless (Score:2)
To compare to American cities, I recently bumped into two people from Baltimore (700,000 people) who were astonished to hear that Winnipeg (650,000 people) had a murder rate of less than 300 people per year. Winnipeg, known for having the highest murder per capita ratio in Canada, had 18 murders last year.
Sure, there's places in the city I'd be hesitant to go. I don't think I'd like to stroll into the Ox or the McLaren unarmed, especially at night. But places like those are pretty few and far-between in this city. Just try and tell me that equivalent-sized American cities don't have the same problems.
And lastly, my grandmother does not and should not go anywhere near a firearm. Grandma vs. Gangsta Mallone in a gunfight means all kinds of innocent people dying. Shootouts are dangerous and unpredictable for even highly trained people, usually with plenty of unintended targets hit. I'd know, as I've been in one. That's precisely why guns are controlled. Stay safe using your head instead of leathal projectiles.
Re:you're rather clueless (Score:2)
Re:you're rather clueless (Score:2)
Yes, I'm an American. Yes, I'm pro-American. Yes, I poke fun at Canada. I just wanted to get that out of the way.
I've seen few people in the Western World more fiercely proud of their nation than Canadians, speaking in general terms. This kind of pride, though, is often the reason I poke fun at them. Anyone who tries to sit up on a high horse like this deserves it, and that includes my own country from time to time.
You should look around a bit, as there are many countries importing much of their economies, be it temporary because of economic disaster as North Korea does, or permanent because of poor resources, as some African and Middle East nations do. In addition, while the US is moving more towards a service-based economy, I think suggesting that our manufacturing capabilities have somehow become non-existent is an overstatement.
Finally, I'm interested in knowing how it is you can predict the economy decades in advance like that. Considering that a mere 15 or 20 years ago, there were fears of Japan taking too much control of the world economy and now the government is struggling to stave off bankruptcy, I'd think that would show that fortunes can turn too rapidly to try to predict such things.
Re:you're rather clueless (Score:2)
Some points:
Canada has one major party right now, and has only ever demonstrated at best a 2 party national system. At the moment, Canada is not much different from Mexico's one party system, albeit significantly less violent (a factor I would attribute to the cold environment).
I am not sure what you mean by Bipartisian state. Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, and the recent Bush upset over Gore, really indicates a relatively healthy competition. Most people take issue with the party system as a means of democracy; if you look at any given election in the US, there are generally dozens of parties, but the problem is in the mindshare necessary to make any of them effective.
"And second that the United States seems to be the ONLY country in the WORLD to be IMPORTING more in EVERY SECTOR OF ECONOMY, THAN THEY'RE EXPORTING."
I am not sure where you could have gotten that data, but I suggest you look again. The biggest export of the US is arms, which dwarfs every other export. They also have a significant surplus in WIPO copyright, patent fees, and automobiles.
"A little off topic though, final reminder, I do believe that Sweden is JUST as much socialist as the Norwegians are"
Sweden is often regarded as the most socialist state in the world (a label imbued by their tax rates if nothing else), so I am not sure what you mean by Sweden being as socialist as Norway.
An anecdotal note: Lumber is an interesting topic; the US has historically been very confused on the issue of making money from lumber. They have subsidized logging roads into their forests where the gross return from the logging is a fraction of the cost of the road. There are other reasons to build such roads (emergency response to airline crashes by vehicles, covert travel during wartime, etc.), but for the most part such expenditures have been attributed to a fickle government. Similarly in the lumber dispute, it seems as though the US government is fickle rather than focused.
Finally: A majority government is a blessing and a curse; I suggest you look into the Canadian laws about majority governments - it is riddled with oddities. If they fail to pass a motion, they are ousted, for example. The minority government has little more play than the media, and judging by the regular lineup of corrupt officials in the Canadian federal government of late, I would conjecture that it is in part influenced by the lack of potential punishment, a situation less evident in a minority government.
Re:you're rather clueless (Score:2)
It is possible to truly give up your Canadian citizenship, but it's a fairly convoluted process, and won't happen just because you signed some declaration or your US citizenship statement.
See here [richw.org] for more information.
Re:Next time you want some drugs (Score:2)
Re:you're rather clueless (Score:2)
Re:It's all your fault (Score:2, Insightful)
"You voted for gun control, and what have you got? Skyrocketing crime, criminals that are more and more dangerous..." wtf are you talking about? Hell just take a look at the amount of cops killed by guns in Canada, vs. the US... I don't know any figures but I'm pretty sure it's a lot less in Canada.
"You voted for big government, and this is what you got: Taxes going through the roof, government services lacking, and Big Brother watching you" Yes, that's right, government services lacking, we need like 30 different police forces to do the same thing, what do you guys have, FBI, ATF, State Police, County Police, City Police, etc. Yes we should get rid of our nice RCMP (One of the best police forces in the world), and replace it with three different services, that's how we could save money.
Yes that's right, we should have been made the 52nd state, then we could all be sued for saying the wrong thing, not having some of the best educated work force, and k-12 students, not teaching evolution in the public school system, and all the other great things that the US has to offer. Oh but wait a minute, we wouldn't be charged 40% tax, we wouldn't get that health care system, we wouldn't have welfare, we wouldn't have an economy that is doing better than the US's, yes that's what we want!
Canada has been rated the best country to live in for seven years up to 2000, now we are 3rd or something. And guess who beat us, other more socialist countries.
But lastly, yes Canada has some problems, but what country doesn't, the US has a lot more than Canada. I think Canada could use some reform, but if anything I would want it to be towards the left, I think we could streamline the government, redistribute the money more evenly, fix up the health care, etc. I think if we took ideas from Norway and Sweden we could come up with the best country in the world.
Re:It's all your fault (Score:2)
You'd think with the amount of shootings in the US, free health care would come with every box of ammo.
I might just renounce my citizenship tomorrow... or maybe not.
Both (Score:2, Insightful)
This could be the start of something good, or it could be the start of a Big Brother-esque rule. It all depends on where the government takes it. If they only allow people to update their informationk, and do not track it beyond where they have to as required by law, then I would say it is a good thing. However, if they track it, and use the information to spy/whatever you want to call it on their citizens, then it could be considered as going the way of the Big Brother.
Online voting? Never going to happen anytime soon until they can create a good system which is almost impossible to hack. Not, extremely difficulty to hack, but almost difficult, and any bugs which are found are patched immediately, not when they get around to it.
They already have the information (Score:4, Insightful)
The government already has the information, or will have recieved it anyway. They are using the certificates to give you access to your information, and not leave it available to other people. Even the information you will give or update would have been given to the government sooner or later.
I don't see a way for the government to abuse your privacy with this anymore than if a data entry clerk had entered your request for a change of address at the local post office.
Re:They already have the information (Score:2)
Not quite. Government agencies, departments and state-owned companies do, but generally speaking they can't share your data with other branches of government. So while these may be seen as orthogonal issues, the digital certificates may be seen as a PR spin to convince citizens to allow the government to centralize all this data.
Now centralising all data *is* dangerous, prone to abuse and data security issues. But no one can protect citizens from their own stupidity if we allow government the leeway it naturally wants, because it is a human organization and all big enough human organizations usually almost have a mind of their own bent on ever growing and extending their power and influence.
Re:Both (Score:2)
As simple and non high-tech as it is, it's extremely accurate (there are rarely any recounts, and when there are, the results don't change much), and results are usually ready within 4 hours of the close of the polls.
Remember folks, counting by hand is an operation that scales very well.
this is unnecessary (Score:5, Funny)
why reinvent the wheel?
if the US goes with this... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:if the US goes with this... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:if the US goes with this... (Score:2)
though people might start registring votes by tugging on the lcd
Well (Score:1, Flamebait)
They better not run IIS!
And the winner is..... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
You could actually have this and online voting as well - online voting doesn't have to mean from any internet-connected computer at all.
If you voted 'online' at a polling booth terminal, you could gain enormous efficiencies over today's system involving so many bits of paper.
And a digital certificate might be something you take on disk, card or some other medium to a public terminal, but again not use from just anywhere on the internet.
Re:Well (Score:2)
(1) Secure. The elections commisions can keep physical control over the ballot boxes, cutting down on election fraud. Also, there's no proprietary voting machines that could have some cute little "count a vote for party alpha as two votes, count a vote for party beta as half a vote" tricks. Widespread voting fraud would require the observers from every party to collaborate, and anyone who follows Canadian politics knows that'll never happen in this eon.
(2) Private. No-one can see who you voted for, short of installing some microscopic cameras in each voting booth. Also likely to be caught out by the above observer system, considering voting booths are usually just wood frames with cloth draped over them. Cables or antennas would be probably noticed. Also, I've heard rumours of Elections Canada (the federal voting commision) looking into the legality of using RF-jamming equipment.
(3) Reliable. Pencils and paper don't crash. And it's not like Canada's going to run out of wood and graphite.
Electronics voting is interesting for countries with huge populations, or for strictly online events, but pretty much useless up here.
Voting Online (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Online Voting (Score:2)
What are they thinking? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What are they thinking? (Score:2)
Of course the government tellers will be ethical and secure, but what about the client side? They can't guarantee that Joe Canadian's motivation won't be to avoid the guy with a gun outside, so it is very naive to suggest that he uses his mind to keep his information safe, at least at this early stage in mental security.
Official Language (Score:3, Funny)
Does this mean I can choose between Perl and Java?
For VI users only. (Score:1, Funny)
Re:For VI users only. (Score:3, Funny)
No, Canada is, federally, a bilingual nation.
Re:Official Language (Score:3, Funny)
Interesting, considering the PM speaks neither
I don't know how the (Score:1, Insightful)
It's Canada, not the US! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I don't know how the (Score:2)
I am Canadian so I'll tell you how we feel. We know our governement is going to #uck this up. I mean come on our Prime Minister is half senile, our Minister of human resources misplaced a billion dollars last year, the half of cabinet that isn't being investigated by the the Ethics Counsellor doesn't know what the heck they're doing, I mean the duputy Prime Minister decided that the during the Queens Jubille at the start of her visit to Canada it was a good time to discuss possibly getting rid of the monarchy!! Frankley I'll be surprised if the page when it finally does get up will consist of one link to some cabinet ministers p0rn collection, another link to extremely sensitive classified documents and have an administrator password set to "password" or "PaulMartinSux"!
Welll (Score:5, Interesting)
Big brother is someone who is always hovering there, waiting to come out. Whenever people permit government, you permit big brother in to some degree or another.
Tha said, as a Canadian, this is cool.
You see, all these records are obtainable now.. but it's a pain in the ass to authenticate yourself to the proper agencies (go there in person, etc). It would be nice to have a lot of stuff online.. and I'd rather the issued me a private digital certificate for access than some dumb authentication mechanism like just my SIN number & birthdate.
As long as they aren't changing the rules reagarding the information they need to know... I'm okay with it.
ie: CCRA doesn't need to know my address if I don't live in the country. In fact, they don't need to know my address at all; all they need to know is where to send the tax forms/refunds/whatever, which does not have to be where I live.
Security? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure - (Score:2)
Without a password - better a pass*phrase*, it's going to be nearly useless.
But then again, people see passwords as being hard to remember, so they make them weak or non-existant. Bad password management is the weakest link in almost any security scheme. At the very least, it will be an interesting exercise to see how they try it and how well or badly it all works.
Of course, there's always boimetrics, which is a vile concept.
(Maybe canada could buy up surplus Cue::Cats and issue citizens a tattoo with a barcode?)
Cheers,
Jim
Re:Security? (Score:2, Informative)
That being said, X.509 certs can be used to identify a specific computer (ie: a site cert), or a user identity certificate. The User ID cert *should* have a passphrase protecting the magic key, so theoritically a user logging into a government service would identify themselves with the cert, and authenticate themselves using the passphrase.
This still isn't ideal. In a world of Message Pump driven Windowing systems that allow an attacker to intercept various things at a very low level, I can see a rash of passphrase and identity theft PtP virii coming out.
Put another way, when you're entering your PIN number for a direct debit transaction, do you enter your PIN when you see someone watching over your shoulder? Now what if you don't notice it?
As for voting, forget it. Voting is an intimate activity. If you can't make it to the poll, the standard "away" procedures are in place and work quite well.
As for Big Brother, let's hope Harper's Reform Party doesn't get in. Those guys are better for business than they are for society and will undoubtedly fuck Canadian's up the ass with a new regime of information sharing in our "Information Economy".
Re:Security? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Security? (Score:3, Funny)
As long as you can revoke your cert (Score:5, Insightful)
I've *never* felt that having a digital ID was a threat to my privacy - if I control the keys, I can use the ID when I feel like proving who I am.
Nothing stops me from generating a new ket for some other purpose either - I usually create one for each job/work-email that I use. I've had my private one since '96 or so - you can go grab it from my slashdot profile.
Cheers,
Jim
The real question (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The real question (Score:2)
"ah yah i am aware on this initiative. this initiative was started by peoples in my cabnit, and I said that this is a good thing, because when the Canadian peoples get thier own certificates they can hang them on thier walls in frames and be proud to be canadian just like when they recived thier high school graduation certificates."
Re:The real question (Score:2)
No, he's too busy dealing with the Saskatchewan seal crisis and the melting of the Parliament buildings.
Sound and Fury (Score:2)
New Catchphrase for Government Online: (Score:3, Funny)
"You've got bribes!"
Netcraft (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows 2000 Microsoft-IIS/5.0 12-Oct-2002 198.103.32.172 Finance Canada and Treasury Board Secretariat
NT4/Windows 98 Microsoft-IIS/4.0 5-Apr-2002 198.103.32.172 Finance Canada and Treasury Board Secretariat
NT4/Windows 98 Microsoft-IIS/4.0 23-Jan-2001 198.103.32.142 Finance Canada and Treasury Board Secretariat
It does not look too good to me
Re:Netcraft (Score:2, Insightful)
Because procurement isn't done on a uniform government wide basis. And that's a good thing, because different depts, and different agencies, have different requirements. My dept is MS-based for office work, but runs various Unices and Linux for science and web applications.
Let us not forget (Score:3, Informative)
Here's [hackcanada.com] a little more info.
Let's not forget... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you think that a database carrying 1500 pieces of information per Canadian can be closed just like that? Or destroyed? Anyway that base was not made in two days. And, besides, it will take a few years to become obsolete. Meanwhile, I don't believe in Big Brothers. I do believe that we have lots of jerks who dream to become Big Brothers, big corps and state bureaucrates mainly. But we have too many smarties trying to reach that peak. So, it is frequent to see, not Big Brother coming Fat, but full Chaos, where your neighbor is capable to know more than you about how your children are going on school. These Mega-Databases are not a danger of totalitarism as no state is capable of digerate that huge amount of information. Frankly these things are so big and yummy that they just fly out from the secrecy of the offices in every first chance. A few CDs and Big Brother goes on diet. However, in more common and less controlled hands, they are the basis for blackmail, extortion and several other privacy violations...
As a canadian. (Score:2, Informative)
Who dont i trust when it comes to this kind of data? The police system. The RCMP is notoriously corrupt and just a crappy system of law enforcement. (traffic ticket quotas for officers for example).
Hopefully with this initiative we will see things like track your tax dollars and ways to choose where your tax money goes. Like the census does today but much much more powerful.
I think with this initiative if they just setup good law to cover the use of collected data that we will be mostly safe from unnecissary data mining.
Basically keep this data away from the judicial branches of government. Tax evasion is still a crime etc and you can proove if someone has or hasnt paid their taxes pretty simple today.
Personally i like the idea of web-polling and referendums through the web.
Some people will bitch and complain "i dont have a computer so im not entitled to participate in government" and all that jazz but the reality is that we have an excellent public-access library system with no user-fees for residents. These systems are able to access any and all of this data.
The only thing that scares me about this is the possibility of "bot-nets". If you could as a polotical party or other nefarious group spyware like kazaa that could control how people vote it would be completely depremental to the process.
However to have any kind of widespread meaning this would have to be something that wasnt "illegal" eg through the use of screwedup eulas. Like kazaa uses.
Thus it really must be made a crime to hack a computer in canada if this initiative is to be meaningful. And that means using a computers function in any way contrary to the users intentions. No more spyware no more bullshit.
This should be an un-waiveable right and something to be prosecuted on-sight.
As for overseas applications doing screwy things like kazaa is to the us im really not sure of the solution. Obviously banning access to forign files is impossible and extradition treaties dont cover this kind of thing so whats a government to do?
One possible method would be through government paid hackers. People with unlimited amounts of bandwidth and resources that could make it very hostile for a forign company to do business.
Imaging blasting kazaa servers with the kind of bandwidth available to the military.
At the very least if you cant take these sites offline you'll run up their bandwidth costs so high that they'll become unaffordable and or the host country will get mad about its main lines getting clogged and deal with the problem theirselves.
Who knows. This is a dangerous technology currently but maybe they'll come out with some non-software-tamperable device to connect to your router/hub/cat5 interface etc.
Re:As a canadian. (Score:2)
I can see it now:
puts("Would you like to separate: y/n");
yorn=getch();
if (yorn=='n')
yorn = 'y';
MIT (Score:2, Informative)
If canada is able to implement a similar system with the security that MIT has, it sounds like a great idea.
voting (Score:5, Insightful)
What is there this mad rush to figure out how to make voting to work on the internet? I mean...you vote very close to where you live...you either care to vote, or you don't, online voting isn't going to change that. The technical hurdles are so big that I can't see how they are justifiable.
Furthermore, Canada already has its own little system of voting (piece of paper, put x in your preferred candidates box) and it's cheap, easy to count, difficult to mess up, et cetera. It's we Americans, obsessed with technology, who have varying levels of expensive technology most of which more or less works the majority of the time. (Unlike the Canadian system which works all the time for pennies per election.)
Re:voting (Score:3, Informative)
For anyone who doesn't own a car, or live on a bus route that takes you right to the polling station, voting is a huge inconvenience. You have to arrange with friends/family/whoever, and I don't remember our constitution saying that you needed to own a car to be able to vote.
And for those of you who cry "take a taxi"... paying $20 just to get to every election is a bit silly. *I* make do, but there are others who I know simply can't make it to the voting booth without a great deal of frustration. There's nothing in our laws saying you must have X number of dollars to be able to vote, and there shouldn't be.
Remember, just because *you* find voting convenient in its current form, doesn't mean *everyone* does. This is why, for example, they allow troops serving overseas to vote where THEY are. Using a bit more technology to extend the ease of voting to more people is never a bad thing - unless you think some people shouldn't be allowed to vote at all, and that's a whole other ball of wax
Re:voting (Score:2)
Re:voting (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that was amazes me is that, every single election, you catch watch many people of an advanced age, with walkers and wheelchairs, come in time and time again to vote. I can attest this personally as a pollworker. Where there is a will there is a way--and many of these people did not consider themselves worth an absentee ballot. They showed up and voted.
I don't remember our constitution saying that you needed to own a car to be able to vote
I don't remember the Constitution saying that you were entitled to transportation to vote. But it is available.
Re:voting (Score:2)
The biggest problem with online voting is it allows the following fraud: On election day the bad guy sends someone to your house with a gun, and forces you to vote their way, answering yes to all forms where you say you are not influenced by others. At the polls there are independant observers watching to make sure that you are alone in the booth.
Granted we have absentiee (sp?) ballots, but the process of requesting one takes long enough that you have time to sneak away from the bad guy and get some help to take care fo the situation.
Re:voting (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, given that I read Slashdot daily, but only vote once every few years or so, that's a pretty crappy analogy you've got going on there.
People leave their houses to go shopping, visit the dentist, go to work, rent movies, walk their dog, blah blah blah. Most people leave their house at least once every day. Is it that difficult to go down the street to mark an X on a piece of paper every few years?
It's apathy, not laziness, that prevents people from voting. Convenience doesn't change apathy.
Good or evil (Score:4, Interesting)
What about digital certificates?
Good effects:
A faster and probably more effective way to reach the state institutions.
A more straightforward guarantee that you are treaten as a person and not as one more element of the crowd.
A cheaper and relatively safer way of access.
A possibility for bigger anonymity in certain conditions.
Bad effects:
Big Brother is possible. Someone may try to track your doings by the trace of your digital certificate. Worst, its is also possible complete Chaos as people mess with databases, loose data, steal your information.
In certain cases you may get in a bigger and worser line because someone forgot to upgrade the networks in time and Canada population is not so small as it looks.
State institutions may become more bureaucratic and claim "we don't know you because you don't have your digital certificate with you" or "go to the network and we will talk with you". Besides, certain companies may try to explore this advance and start charging traffic higher and higher.
What will prevail? It does not depend on the digital certificate itself but on the way the infrastructure will be created. Unfortunately, there is a big gap between technics and knowledge among the people. So there is a risk that the negative effects will prevail. As an example I could point a company that decided to fight certain problems with security flaws. Data was being stolen and no one could control it. So they installed a system of magnetic cards. But, instead of stopping the problem, things got worse. First, the system was mainly used to know if everyone comes at 8:00 and leaves at 17:00. It also controlled all moves inside the building. So everyone who came at 8:15 or went to take a coffee in the middle of work, had his salary cut. Meanwhile, data burglary became higher than usual as people became more worried about discipline and not security. Other organisations, with similar systems, didn't suffer such problems, as they were not so attained to such a gulag approach.
As a Canadian (Score:3, Funny)
Who will generate the private half? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who will generate the private half (CSR) of the certificate? Will the end user do that and then take it (Certificate Signing Request) to their local government office to be signed once they prove who they are? Or is the government planning to generate all the certificates and just hand them out, while keeping copies that allow them to pretend to be you once you start arranging to authenticate other services with this certificate?
Crackers will have a field day (Score:3, Insightful)
Some problems I have with it (epass) (Score:4, Informative)
I am not sure how Debian users feel about "you should regularly apply commercially available patches to your browser and operating system and protect your computer with up-to-date anti-virus and firewall software, which is also commercially available. [egs-seg.gc.ca]"
Currently signing up [ccra-adrc.gc.ca] requires details from your Tax Returns from 2001 or 2000, your Social Insurance Number (similarly misused as SSN in the US), Date of Birth, and an Access code used supplied with previous tax returns for electronically filing income tax.
Because only CCRA [ccra-adrc.gc.ca] offers services it is unclear if the registration information for access to the CCRA services will be linked to future epass Canada uses from other federal government departments and agencies, such as Employment Insurance [hrdc-drhc.gc.ca] claims, gun registration via Department of Justice and/or the RCMP, or checking that I am on the local voting lists via Elections Canada [elections.ca].
Frankly I don't care to have my democratic responsiblity linked to my federal tax statement. This part concerns me, and in my opinion, whether this practise is/will happen is not clear from the Privacy Policy statements.
Finally, I cannot accept their disclaimer. Users assume the risk associated with any transfer of information to the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) and with any other use of this site.
Tinfoil helmet alert (Score:2, Insightful)
And the gov can't do that without digital certificates? Hate to break it you, but they already have all the information.
It is quite clear - the Privacy Act [justice.gc.ca] covers this, which may not be perfect but at least addresses the fundamental concerns. It certainly compares favourably with US privacy legislation.
The real concern about a widening role for digital certificates is the potential for abuse by NON-government. I may not like my government very much, but I actually trust them way more than most mega-corps.
Re:Tinfoil helmet alert (Score:2)
Various agencies and departments already have the information but they do not have the information linked across departments. That's is part of my concern.
It is quite clear - the Privacy Act covers this, which may not be perfect but at least addresses thef undamental concerns.
The Privacy Act regulates such actions by the government, but I am concerned that they will not follow the basic restrictions of "personal information can only be used for the purposes it was collected for, and disclosed to the individual". I believe government agencies will justify their law-breaking actions to themselves that they are acting in "the best interests of society" or some such claim to attempt it seem that their actions are noble and therefore justified. Similar tactics were used to justify the sharing of Customs information with Revenue Canada before the two joined into their current joint agency, for the purposes of not paying EI to people who left the country, and to monitor travel of low and high income tax payers.
I certainly hope that these digital certificates will not be available to non-government corporations and agencies to use.
Take it easy..it's not as bad as it sounds (Score:5, Interesting)
1) GOL, while it is a great idea (offering Online government services in addition to "paper" based serveics) it is currently not much more than an idea. It has some official "GOL" apps, but they ar usually nothing more than internal government web apps redone in the Common Look and Feel. So far, only CCRA has a "real" GOL service and all it is is the Change of Address. GOL has not recieved mush hype or funding in over a year, because of September 11.
2) While the "pie in the sky" view of GOL (which is a LONG way from being reality) MIGHT have the POTENTIAL to be used as a "Big Brother" type of tool, the reality is that this is not likely to ever happen. Why? Most Canadian Federal Government departments don't share data between branches within the same ministry, let alone across departments or across ministries. Changing this attitude is required if "Big Brother" is to become a reality, and if you've ever dealt with the Feds (or the provinces or the city for that matter) you know its not going to change soon. Case in point: the department in our Ministry of Health that deals with First Nations (indians to the Americans) health delivery and funding often can't get information from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, a separate ministry. The end up collecting the same data, doubling costs.
And lets give our "Silly servants" some credit. A particular project I am currently working on had it's scope changed because the civil servants in the group refused to create and application that would collect identifying data! We must now create a version of our app that collects no identifying data and still be able to track individual cases for analysis.
3) GOL could in the long term cut government costs, impove efficiency and allow our governmentto govern better - they would have an up-to-date, accurate picture of some aspect of goverment business.
My concern isn't with GOL. I think it's a wonderful idea and will not likely even be designed to allow a "Big Brother" kind of use. My concern is with the calibre of the people who will be in charge of administering the system. In my experience, most sys admins, dba's, and developes in the Feds are old, behind the times, and unaware of the very technology they are to be in charge of (most have had their jobs at various ministries since the old Mainframe days).
Another Case in Point: the other day I saw a live "demo" of CCRA's "Change of Address" application. while it does require a great deal of information to sign up for the program to prove your identity (Name SIN, stuff from your Tax returns etc) once up and running it is only protected by username and password! No certs. No PKI. No "Smart Card". Just username and password (and no self admionistration that I saw).
So don't worry about GOL. It's pretty far off and not likey to be "Big Brother"-ish because of the culture of our civil service. But that same culture means that when it is in place, it will be administered by old-school, 2nd place techies who can't get a job anywhere else (most of the "technical" people I deal with when creating apps for the governement would never be hired by my company - their incompetent. Why? Because that's all the feds can get - they don't pay enough to get the really good people in the private sector.
And I haven't mentioned the Provinces yet. To becme a REAL Big Brother, the Feds would need a great deal of cooperation from the provinces...and any Canadian can tell you that's not gonna ever happen!
Re:Take it easy..it's not as bad as it sounds (Score:2)
In todays tech climate, a steady decent paycheck, and benifits would be nice
Why does everybody want to vote on-line? (Score:3, Interesting)
And that's even before we get into how much easier you'd be making it for vote fraud. First rule of network security: If you want to keep your information secure, don't put it on the @#$% network!
A few decades back, Louisiana standardized on voting machines. You go in, pull the lever, flick some switches, pull the lever again, and you're done. And it works. No hanging chads, no unstable operating systems, no Slashdotting. It may be nineteenth century technology, but it works! Why can't you just use those instead? Why does everybody insist on adding more complexity?
Of course, I'm willing to bet officials who are looking for computerized voting are some of the same people who put in the broken punch card system to begin with.
voting online (Score:3, Insightful)
Go to the polling station.
Mark an X in the circle.
Votes are counted while the scrutineers watch.
Time-honoured, simple, distributed computing system. Works great.
There's no sense in technology for technology's sake. Paper, pen, and people are the appropriate technology for voting in Canada.
Belgium has this already in place (Score:4, Interesting)
I am from Belgium and there the eGovernment project is well under way. Every citizen will get a digital passport starting from 2003 on. This passport (kinda smart card) contains basic information like name, address, social security,
Basicly, this card is your entry point to the online government.
The system is highly secured, see Federal ICT Belgium [fedict.be] for more information.
Hoodwinked... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm really embarrased by canucks such as this. They say, we're great because we have no guns. We also have no property rights, a constitution that guarantees nothing and everything that canucks deem good about it is based on the fact that they aren't America.
We brag about about our free health care, even though it's going to the toilet, fast. We don't have access to breakthroughs in medicine, because in order to offer these services our government has to go through years of procedure just to make these breakthroughs available.
Our doctors ARE leaving for the US, so we get our pick of the litter when it comes to third world doctors with sub par certification. Canadians just call these docs and nurses greedy, but it doesn't change the fact that the best talent our country had to offer, is gone, gone, gone.
I think you're rather clueless, you should step outside the Great White Aquarium and see our country for what it really is. Full O' Shit.
Yes, you can bet that if our government is involved
Asinine rhetoric, voting...and will *you* vote? (Score:2, Insightful)
Canada, Communist(tm)? Them braying this wouldn't know anybody to the left of Teddy Kennedy if we bit 'em in the ass. They claim there's no difference between, say, Jimmy Carter, Teddy Kennedy, and Stalin...and then claim that there's a *huge* gap between Reagan/Bush/Bush and Fallwel and Mussollini.
They're simply ignorant, and militant about their ignorance, so, y'all from Canada, just ignore 'em, unless you like "debates" with folks who have no idea what a real argument is (the Argument FAQ is at ).
Voting online - the worry that someone brought up, about the company setting up polling places, and checking keystrokes (hell, they can put something to read the signals from meters away!), I *do* worry. Union bosses? Uh, sorry, turkeys, you have *no* clue what the reality of most unions are like. Now bosses...when I worked at a Baby Bell in the mid-nineties, and all the telecoms were pushing for deregulation (the Telecom Act of 1996), our managers were told to "encourage" us to write or email our Senators and Congressmen...and that the CEO wanted a copy of the letter.
Fascism? Yes, it's here. Look at Ashcroft. How did they get in? All you little geeks "oh, the Democrats" are all special interests (um, unions represent 13 million people - who do the telecoms, or the financial industry represent...and they give a *lot* more money to the Republicans . All the little geeks, who make in the range of what 80% or 85% of what all US workers do ($100k/yr), but are all Billionaire Gates wannabees, who won't even vote their *own* "enlightened self-interest", which is anybody *but* Republican.
But that's ok...so, now, if y'all want to flame me that's ok, too...as long as you can tell me, without lieing, that y'all voted in the primaries the last couple of years, and then in the elections. I have my little stubs that say that I do, around here. I could find them and scan 'em (and get the jpeg down to a reasonable size in the Gimp) to prove it.
If you ain't got 'em, sit down and shut up. They're my license to criticize. Remember, y'all got the government you deserve.
mark
Courts reconsidering posting records online (Score:2)
"He's even turned away a few because of what he found."
"But someone used the site to pull Moehring's Social Security number and other details from a 1996 traffic ticket, opening seven credit cards in his name and charging $11,000."
"People don't have good intentions, and the county is laying a road map for them," Bloch said. "It goes beyond stolen identity. It speaks to personal safety."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Midwest/10/12/online.c
Re:Canada: a police state (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Canada: a police state (Score:5, Funny)
arrested for owning a gun, charged for saying something 'racist', and imprisoned for WRITING DOWN child porn
Oh my gosh - the Gun Nuts, the Klan, and Child Abusers aren't welcome in Canada? Terrible, who's next? Necrophiles? What about the poor, poor People Who Torture Animals?
Who would want to live in a country where you couldn't do things like that?
Re:What a waste (Score:2)
Re:What a waste (Score:2)
Yep, we see CEOs and other executives chanting "One, Two, Three, Four, tax our profits even more!" every day!
> waste untold sums of money on espionage,
Holy fsck! Who privatized the NSA, and on what exchange can I buy shares? (And can I simultaneously short the f3i and INS?)
> tearing down foreign regimes,
Call my broker! Long 10,000 shares of USMC at the market! Confirmed, uh, I mean, Semper Fi!
> dumbing school students down
Oh yeah! I almost forgot the last bastions of capitalist productivity and wellsprings of innovation... the NEA and the teachers' unions!
> and relying on the Military Industrial Complex to pull the company out of a recession that will soon lead to an all-out Depression?
Free clue: Not one of the things you mentioned in your rant has anything to do with capitalism or bears any resemblance to free-market economics.
> Socialism costs money.
It sure do. But hey, it's what you asked for, voted for, and achieved. So what are you complaining about?
Re:What a waste (Score:2)
You know what's cool? (Score:5, Funny)