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Canadian ISPs Could Take On Big Brother Role 284

Posted by timothy from the getting-hosed-eh dept.
QGambit writes: "C|Net is reporting that the Canadian Government is considering a proposal that would force ISPs to keep logs of web browsing for up to 6 months, allow police to get search warrants allowing them to find 'hidden electronic and digital devices' and ban the possession of computer viruses. Canada and the U.S. have both endorsed this proposal, contained in a cybercrime treaty of the Council of Europe. Both countries are non-voting members of the Council. George Radwanski, Canada's privacy commissioner has not yet commented on the proposal."
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Canadian ISPs Could Take On Big Brother Role More

Canadian ISPs Could Take On Big Brother Role

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  • I'm pretty sure the majority of people who are "in possession" of computer virii would rather not be, if only windows would stop executing them.

    In all seriousness, though, how can you ban the possession of something that can be pretty much invisibly placed in your property?

  • why?! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by klparrot ( 549422 )
    Okay, I think it's scary that I'm becoming so used to these new crackdowns on my online rights that I don't even think about why they're doing it; I just accept that they're trying yet again to control things they have no business in.

    So, here's the question. Why do they need to keep logs of web page accesses?

    • Re:why?! (Score:2, Informative)

      by KillerCow ( 213458 )
      So, here's the question. Why do they need to keep logs of web page accesses?

      From the article:
      "Canadian officials say such laws are necessary to fight terrorism and combat even run-of-the-mill crimes. They also claim that by enacting these proposals, Canada will be following its obligations under the Council of Europe's cybercrime treaty, which the country is in the process of considering."

      As a side note:
      "[would] authorize police to order Internet providers to retain logs of all Web browsing for up to six months. . . . In most circumstances, a court order would be required for government agents to conduct Internet monitoring."

    • 'Cus. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You never know what might be useful. If nothing else, than in the propaganda battle that is so much a part of the US system of "justice".

      The boilerplate goes something like this...

      was arrested today for doing "bad things". Records indicate his computer was used to visit site's containing Kiddie Porn, depictions of violence, and raceism.

      Guilty, or not, is fired from his job and will find it most difficult to get another, his house is burned, he is beaten, his car is trashed, he will fail background checks, etc., etc.

      It doesn't matter if they guy was doing research, or his kids were doing a term paper and happened on death camps photos that showed images of naked children. The above statement remains true enough to be printed and broadcast on CNN as if it were God's own word.

      My sense from CNN is the tactic is employed at least 3-4 times a month. But, CNN is only the tip of the iceburg, local news is more than enough to utterly destroy most people's lives.

      Any more "why" type questions I can help you with?

    • Re:why?! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by plierhead ( 570797 )

      Whine, whine...oooh, they're spying on me again !!

      So whats the big difference between this and the logs of your phone calls that get tracked right now ? They even get used for good - crimes get solved, missing people's last movements can be determined, terrorists located, etc, by appropriate use of phone call records. This seems pretty much the same to me, albeit on a more detailed scale.

      For frig's sake, you live in a democracy, not a perfect system but the best known to man after many centuries of trying. Don't assume that everyone in power is corrupt and that all such record keeping is evil. It might actually be useful to track down terrorist fucktards for example. You don't hear people bleating about Telcos keeping call records.

      And before trotting out the lame old slashdot mantra about how people can just surf anonymously or whatever - YES ! Thats the beauty of it ! If you're clever enough to surf anonymously then do it and this needn't bother you. Its there to help catch the stupid or technically challenged criminal, not the slashdotter and certainly not Dr. Evil either.

      • "crimes get solved, missing people's last movements can be determined, terrorists located," ...

        ISP employees get paid off, battered women get located by abusive husbands, children kidnapped by non-custodial parents, victims tracked by their stalkers, ...

        All sorts of "good things"... yeah, right.

        "Don't assume that everyone in power is corrupt" ...

        Don't assume that everyone in power now will always remain in power (even if they do), or that there will never be a corrupt person in power, ever. The Clinton presidency "borrowed" a huge number of confidential FBI files. Adolph Hitler was democratically elected, and one of the first things he did was confiscate privately owned firearms using registration information that was not collected for the purposes of government confiscation.

        "If you're clever enough to surf anonymously" ...

        It's not the stupid bad guys we need to worry about.

        -- Terry

  • This is probably illegal (Score:5, Informative)

    by Retief65 ( 539644 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @10:56PM (#4154150)
    Such an initiative would likely be subject to a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so much so that it would likely not be introduced in the first place. Endorsing a foreign initiative is not the same as legislating a domestic one, and I think Canadians believe that sufficient personal freedom has been traded for security. Besides, like this would stop evildoers who know how to surf untraceably.

    • Re:This is probably illegal (Score:4, Interesting)

      by KillerCow ( 213458 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:15PM (#4154261)
      Charter of Rights and Freedoms [canlaw.net]. Which section does it violate? Section 8: "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure." is the only thing that comes close. I don't know if data retention counts as unreasonable search and seizure. And you will note that Section 33 (a/k/a "the notwithstanding clause") can exclude section 8, but I doubt that they would try to use it for this garbage proposal.
      • 2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
        ...
        (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other means of communication.

        Well, on the point about viruses, I certainly think it would be illegal to restrict people from collecting or creating them. The logic contained within in a virus definitely falls under expression / communication points in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Should the possesion of information without the intent to use it illegally (by current standards, that is) be illegal? I say no! This isn't the same thing as preaching "hate speech" (afaik, is illegal in Canada). There is no "balancing of rights" involved. All programs are a form of discrete mathematics, and mathematics is in my books an artform. The freedom and creativity involved in writing a program is infinite and the people who right viruses can be very crafty.

        A tool that can be used for evil but at the same time expressing protected speech is drastically two sided and most people don't understand the "other" side. It shoud be illegal to distribute viruses with the intent to cause harm. Making it illegal to knowingly store a virus is fucking nutz.

        I sure hope that there is a court challenge soon in Canada (even in the US or the EU would have a great effect here) that finally sets the record straight and establishes programming as a protected form of speech. Too bad politicians are more concerned with enroaching on our rights for the sake of fighting terrorism to actually keep up with the times (instead of fighting things they don't understand).
        • Based on your arguments:

          All programs are a form of discrete mathematics, and mathematics is in my books an artform. The freedom and creativity involved in writing a program is infinite and the people who right viruses can be very crafty.

          I will say:

          All biological agents are a form of DNA/RNA sequences, and all the possible DNA/RNA sequences is in my books an artform. The freedom and creativity involved in manipulating a DNA sequence is infiniute and the people who create biological agents can be creafy.

          • Taken to the extreme, someone who kills in an "artistic" fashion, a form of self-expression, would not be guilty of murder. Of course, despite the seemingly absolute language of the law, our rights have relative value. If your method of free expression infringes on the more important rights of others (not being killed), it is no longer protected. Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins and all that.

            The question then is which is more important: the free expression of virus programmers or the undisturbed use of computer services. Everyone's likely to have their own opinion on the matter, and the issue is better left to the courts than Slashdot.
    • Do you truely think so? Ever wonder why books are still seized at the border for some sex shop in quebec? Wonder why the CRTC told cable and satillite providers that they must block out american TV and commericals and replace them with canadian content? Does that not also go against the charter of rights and freedoms?

      The wool has ever so nicely been pulled over the eyes of canadians. If the goverment disagrees with what your doing your nailed, the newspapers and TV channels are owned by what two? three people? There is no freedom in having all the same things on all the channels.

      Now they support the idea to log every place you visit? Sounds like china to me, how long before we get our own "Great Firewall of Canada" that changes the content? Or blocks it because it goes against what the goverment is telling the people.

      Think...and you'll see that were already waist deep in shit, and slowly drowning. And unless we find a branch, were all screwed.

  • 1984 all over again... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Teknogeek ( 542311 ) <technogeekNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @10:58PM (#4154158) Journal
    We are keeping Internet logs.
    (We are at war with Eurasia.)

    We have always kept Internet logs.
    (We have always been at war with Eurasia.)

    Ignorance Is Strength? Maybe.

    But who is made the stronger through ignorance?
  • Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police recommends "the establishment of a national database" with personal information about all Canadian Internet users. "The implementation of such a database would presuppose that service providers are compelled to provide accurate and current information," the draft says.

    Well, dammit, if they want to violate my privacy on the Turnpike [slashdot.org] and at the airport [slashdot.org], they may as well do something to eliminate spam, too.

  • THe storage for these worthless privacy invading logs they wish to keep for every single user? Surly not the gov't because of course they just tax people more in lieu of the costs. Whats the deal. If you are enforcing a requirement, you should reimburse those for expenses incurred in brining every ISP into compliance with this. Certainly weren't any laws like this reqiring 1,000,000 monkeys with 1,000,000 typewriters to record all data before computers. Oh the ease with which technology allows us to do everyday tasks.

  • Harsh. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Dunhausen ( 455277 )

    and ban the possession of computer viruses.



    So no more Windows?

  • Here's a conversation bound to happen... (Score:4, Funny)

    by GoatPigSheep ( 525460 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:01PM (#4154175) Homepage Journal
    Canadian police agent: Sir, I found something very disturbing in this person's web history!

    Canadian detective: Alright let me see it...

    Canadian police agent: One second, here it is...

    Canadian detective: My god what is that! is that man tearing open his own a.....

    Canadian police agent: he followed this link from a site known as Slashdot.org sir!

    • Re:Here's a conversation bound to happen... (Score:4, Funny)

      by RebelTycoon ( 584591 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:07PM (#4154211) Homepage
      Americans.. Please don't immitate us... This is what it should have said...

      Canadian police agent: Sir, I found something very disturbing in this person's web history!

      Canadian detective: Alright let me see it...

      Canadian police agent: One second eh, here it is...

      Canadian detective: My god what is that! eh is that man tearing open his own a.....

      Canadian police agent: eh he followed this link from a site known as Slashdot.org sir!

      You also left out references to beer, sex with moose and beavers, hockey, and beer!
      • You can't be Canadian, your eh's are in the wrong places.

        Canadian police agent: Sir, I found something very disturbing in this person's web history.Eh?

        Canadian detective: Hokay eh? let me see it...

        Canadian police agent: One second hoser, here it is.

        Canadian detective: My god what is that eh?! is that man tearing open his own a.....

        Canadian police agent: He followed this link from a site known as Slashdot.org eh?

        The rest of the conversation would have to do with how much we are taxed, and how different we are then the Americans.

  • it's all about the pr0n (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sploreg ( 595722 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:01PM (#4154176)
    It could be a good idea for tracking down all those little script kiddies and real hackers that are out there to do harm, intentional or unintentional. But I know most of us don't want the RCMP being able to look and see what we have been doing on the web, especially if it relates to porn. Cause that is the only thing that is embarrassing. If they had a filter, of some magical sort, that would filter out all the porn transfers and keep everything else in the log, most of us would be ok with them keeping records of our internet use. Porn consumption is something everyone does and doesn't want anyone else to find out about. I know I have nothing else to hide but porn.
    • Well, the RCMP will only be looking at the logs if they can get a court order, which they'll only be able to get if they can convince a JP to give them one, which will require that they already have some evidence that you've done something, so I don't really care about that.

      What I *do* care about is that the very requirement of maintaining the logs vastly increases the risk that private industry, insiders at the ISP or hackers will be able to misuse these logs.

    • go pr0n (Score:3, Interesting)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 )
      If they had a filter, of some magical sort, that would filter out all the porn transfers and keep everything else in the log, most of us would be ok with them keeping records of our internet use.

      Well then thank God for pr0n. It's a sad comment on North American society that it's only the makers of commercial sleaze who are willing to stand up for our rights. You're right about it, most people wouldn't give a shit about restrictions on privacy or free speech if it wasn't for dirty little secrets. And the porn industry knows it, and laughs all the way to the bank. The sex industries have been at the forefront of free expression and privacy battles mostly because they directly concern their profits. But at least somebody's trying to draw a line in the sand. It's just too bad so few are willing to draw such lines on the principles involved, which are far more important than your (admittedly important) right to look at goatse man in the privacy of your own home, or to buy a lap dance....

  • My path is clear (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Zone5 ( 179243 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:02PM (#4154182)
    I guess it's pretty obvious, I need to set up as many old crufty computers as I can on my home network, and set them to relentlessly spider across the whole damn web. A few automated processes on a 3 megabit pipe ought to generate some pretty nifty monthly logs.

    If the goverment is gonna search through my web-surfing logs, they're gonna at least have a hell of a hard time finding anything incriminating among all that pr0n! Nosy bastards, that'll teach them. If I feel particularly vicious I'll set one or two to recursively spider through Celine Dion's website. They'll go blind before they hit any good stuff.
  • This was the same government that thought it would be a good idea for the CRTC to regulate all Canadian websites, enforcing "Canadian" content and to be bi-lingual.

    Now our lame duck PM / Dictator thinks that data retention is a good thing? When will Canadians wake up and realize that this PM needs to go now... To retire, before he truly becomes cynial.

    NAPMFQ Not Another PM from Quebec.
    • Ahh this isn't all. Other things have happened since since and before. But you must remember the canadian mentality right?

      "If it doesn't bother me, or it doesn't change the way I live, then I don't need to worry, the goverment will look after me."

      Or

      "What can we do, it the goverment."

      I remember seeing this spot on TV, where cretien was talking about how he loved freedom and other crap, if you had put the Imperial March, while he was talking, he would have been a strikeing shot on the Emperor.

      People all in all, do not stand up for themselfs up here what-so-ever.

    • Re:CRTC (Score:4, Funny)

      by Malc ( 1751 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @12:23AM (#4154523)
      CRTC = Commission for Restrictions and Thought Control

    • Not having lived in Canada for the past seven years, I was a little surprised to read that they even considered such a plan (but only a little, since I remember the Federal and Provincial governments just loving to be intrusive into people's personal lives).

      I looked up information on this issue, and found "CRTC WONT REGULATE THE INTERNET [crtc.gc.ca]" at the CRTC website.

      Seems someone, somewhere, had a flash of insight about the magnitude of even attemping such regulation (thank goodness).

    • Yeah. And he should take Sheila "Long Live The Cable And Satellite Monopolies" Copps with him. I can wait to see her out of public office for good.

  • Link to proposal (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    link to proposal [justice.gc.ca]

  • oh no! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by cavegrub ( 558060 )
    If the discussion draft were to become law, it would outlaw the possession of computer viruses, authorize police to order Internet providers to retain logs of all Web browsing for up to six months, and permit police to obtain a search warrant allowing them to find "hidden electronic and digital devices" that a suspect might be concealing.

    Oh no! My BE-300 might become illgeal (and not for the valid reason of Casio shipping it with Windows CE 3.0.)

    Seriously though, I doubt that any action will come of this in Canadian government. Speaking as a Canadian, hardly anything gets done nationally - if anything, the provincial government takes on a liberal or extremist form and enforces/creates what they want to.

    Arguing that more and more communications take place in electronic form, Canadian officials say such laws are necessary to fight terrorism and combat even run-of-the-mill crimes.

    I can say that monitoring gas stations for criminals is necessary, as the majority of criminals use cars. Besides, other things are necessary to fight terrorism and crimes, including proper funding for education and other non-invasive things.

    The article does point out some truth; Canadian use of wireless and mobile electronics is significant and any database or cyberpolice created would kill anonimity. However, I feel that the average user (here, at least) is aware of the fragility of their situation, both with issues such as this (to 'prevent terrorism') and others, such as the DMCA and RIAA.
  • do politicians think that this wont take all kinds of resouces, computer storage isn't infinite, i dont even want to venture a guess how much data passes over my 3mb cable line every day, to log all ym traffic for six months would probably take storage measured in terabytes, how can they force companies to spend proabbly upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars, unless they plan on using cd-rs w/ lots of rebates or something...
  • 1) What does having sex in a canoe and drinking American beer have in common?

    They are both fucking close to water

    2) How do you describe Canadian history in one sentence?
    We spent 200 years chasing beavers and tail!

    NAPMFQ

  • "CNN is reporting that the Canadian Government is considering a proposal that would force all convenience stores, transportation departments, department stores, ATM vendors, banks, owners of parking lots, institutions of public education, government offices, operators of sporting events, mass transit operators, and others to keep video tapes of the activities of others for up to 6 months, allow police to get search warrants allowing them to find 'bad things' and ban the possession of 'bad things.' Canada and the U.S. have both endorsed this proposal."

  • Wouldn't the law require the government to reimburse companies for the storage and equipment costs associated with such a mandate? I remember reading something once that the government could borrow or utilize property under certain circumstances and, in doing so, the government is required to provide compensation. I don't see how the same rule wouldn't apply to a circumstance merely because it involves technology.

  • This doesn't seem right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zakabog ( 603757 ) <.john. .at. .jmaug.com.> on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:15PM (#4154258)
    Arguing that more and more communications take place in electronic form, Canadian officials say such laws are necessary to fight terrorism and combat even run-of-the-mill crimes.

    Isn't it great how taking away basic rights can be justified by "We're doing it to stop terrorism." I don't see how taking away the rights of millions of people (and pissing alot of them off) will STOP terrorism. I do see how it could lead to more terrorism, by people from within the country.

    If the discussion draft were to become law, it would outlaw the possession of computer viruses, authorize police to order Internet providers to retain logs of all Web browsing for up to six months, and permit police to obtain a search warrant allowing them to find "hidden electronic and digital devices" that a suspect might be concealing.

    How do you even enforce that? How will they know if I poses a virus or not? How do you tell the difference between posessing a virus and being infected by one? If they have logs of all web browsing for up to six months what does that include? I'm pretty sure that the police need to ask the ISP for the logging to start on a particular user (they can't keep 6 months logs for everyone's web usage), but what would count as web usage? Will they be able to log my FTP usage and see all the unencrypted passwords?
  • I'd call this uneconomical. I've seen the records for one user for one year, and they take up megabytes of space for just that user. I can imagine a business with hundreds of customers, or even thousands. Furthermore, the ease of avoiding detection definitely makes this useless. Who cares if the feds have millions of packets labelled with the destination proxy.dude-on-a-t3.ca I'd also say that "possession of a computer virus" is a terrible thing to make a crime. Guess what? I possessed a computer virus on an old unpatched server until Norton caught it this morning! I didn't even put it there.

    On that note, does anybody know if there's a canadian version of slashdot? Not necessarily the same thing, but some tech site which chronicles tech rights and such in Canada? Reading about the states is truly depressing, but I can do something in Canada.

    • Re:My thoughts: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dexx ( 34621 )
      I've studied computer security in Canada and that involved discussing with the police what's involved with their investigations into IT crimes. In most of the cases, they can't really do much due to lack of resources and manpower. Logs would really help them out a lot in terms of tracking things down and trying to build cases. Our class was told that if we're working for a coproration and we're attacked, they can't really do much for us - the best thing we can do is use our logs to track down the attacker's ISP and deal with them directly.

      I also now work for a Canadian ISP, so I've got a general idea as to how likely this is and how soon it'll be implemented...
  • ...well, at least I'm glad I don't live in Canada. It would be a nightmare as a sysadmin to have to maintain the system that would log all that. A few SANs would be easily filled up in a week of browing in any major metropolitan area. Are they going to require the ISPs do blind logging, as in.. will ISPs that host ISPs have to log what that ISP goes through?

    The man at the top will hate life.
  • This sounds like a cheap Canadian remake of 1984. Now all we need are some talking barnyard animals, and we would have Animal Farm too.

    Some Canadians are more Equal than others.

  • Write! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Earthling ( 146872 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:26PM (#4154295)
    As surprising as it can be for our friendly southern neighbours, this consultation isn't simply a formality for an already decided soon-to-become law. They put out this document as a point of departure for discussion on modernising Canada's laws with regard to the recent advances in telecommunications. This isn't the official stance of the government, it's a "well, we'd like to achieve such-and-such, and here's a possible way we could do it, waddayathink?" And here comes the really shocking part, they *really* do care about what we think.

    Admittedly, I've never participated in a Department of Justice consultation before, but I've been quite active in the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) public proceedings regarding the telecommunication industry (phone companies) and boy, did that restore my faith in the democratic institutions of Canada. What struck me as the most insane (in a good way) was that our voice as simple citizens was treated with the same importance as was BCE's (Bell Canada Enterprises) President! Several of my comments were even highlighted by the commission in it's final regulation proposal documents.

    So don't panic, don't wine on /. that everything is going to hell in a hand basket, open your favourite mail reader and write to la-al@justice.gc.ca telling them why this proposal is a bad idea *and* what we should be doing instead.

    That's what I'm gonna do. Will you?

    • Re:Write! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bishop ( 4500 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @01:06AM (#4154640)
      Before you write, read. Read the whole discuss paper [justice.gc.ca]. The paper covers many different areas not covered in the news article. Some parts, such as the intercept proposals, aren't acceptable. Other parts of the paper make a lot of sense.

      For example read the section on Interception of Email [justice.gc.ca]. The gist of this section is that email interception can and has fallen under two conflicting sections of the Criminal Code. In some cases a judge ruled that the email was a private communication and subject to those laws. In another case a judge ruled that email was subject to the less onerous search and seizure laws. The criminal code is not clear on the matter. So the discussion paper simply asks 3 questions:

      * should there be a specific provision in the Criminal Code in relation to how an e-mail should be acquired?

      * if such a provision should be included, what kind of procedural safeguards should be imposed?

      * should the type of order to be obtained in order to acquire an e-mail vary depending on the stage of the communication or delivery process?

      These are three important questions! How do you want your email protected under the Criminal Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? The Dept of Justice is asking for your inpupt on these and other important questions regarding your privacy.

      Read the whole paper [justice.gc.ca] and send [justice.gc.ca] send in your opinions. You do not need to comment on all sections. Specify which section your comments reference. Be clear. Check your spelling (unlike me). Check your grammar. Reread what your wrote. Wait a day after writeing before sending (from some sober second thought).

  • User tracking is more than an annoyance for ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tajarix ( 604495 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:26PM (#4154297)
    As an admin (like so many of you) for a small to medium sized regional ISP, I'd like to throw out some numbers here to give some people the idea of why ISPs monitoring users for very long is generally massively irritating to try to manage. For e-mail tracking (as merely my humble example), let's look in our example at an SMTP (not even counting POP, here) server which processes about 60k messages per day. We don't use unusually verbose logging, and we generally keep 24 hours of logs on rotation. Each 24 hours varies from about 120-200 MB. Okay, the math is easy enough to do. Let's monitor all e-mail transactions for 6 months (using the more conservative 120 MB figure): 120 x 7 x 4 x 6 = about 20.2 GB. That's not too bad in terms of our MP3 and DivX collections, but text logs? Yuck! I don't want to keep 20 gigs of logs on my server! If anyone comes to me (from an authority of some sort) and asks for logs that old, I have no problems givng them the explanation, "Sorry, we rotated them out. Buy me a new SCSI hard disk and pay us for the time to install it on our box, then we'll talk about old logs."
    • You back up that server regularly, right? As long as you include the logs in those backups, you're fine. You can just restore the backup somewhere else, and let the authorities look at them there. This is probably a better idea than letting them log onto your mail server (w/the rights to mess w/the logs) anyway.
  • I am seriously concerned about the state of affairs everywhere. Noone would have ever even thought about doing this before 9/11. Every time something like this pops up, they say it's for my own safety? To protect me from terrorists that may use the internet as a tool to send messages to each other? That is utter bullshit. EVERYONE IS NOT A TERRORIST OR A CRIMINAL!! Whatever happened to "considered innocent until proven guilty"? Is everyone in Canada a suspect for a crime now? Everyone who has an internet connection should be worried about what type of precedent this sets. Even though I recognize that the events of 9/11 and other terrorism acts are truly atrocious, I cannot help but think that simple civil liberties are being abandoned for the sake of "safety".

    What good is safety if I have no freedom to enjoy it?
    • Actually they wanna make you believe that it's because of the whole 9/11 thing. But the truth is that our Canadian government is making immigration laws and student visas a lot easier now that it's harder in the US. In short, the government will do anything that gives it more money and/or more power.
  • I'm sorry for saying "wow, I'm so glad I am living in Canada when I see all the stupidity that Bush and his corporate cartel is pulling...." Seems like I should have kept my mouth shut.

    Still, I'm surprised at this... I never thought I'd see this coming HERE in canada. Our prime minister is a Wanna-be, acts like one, and about everyone with common sense in Canada is often ashamed of him when he's doing public display. He wanted Canada to follow the war on afghanistan with united states to be in Bush's good will, just like that little guy trying to hang with the school's bully, while I understand this behaviour (and it was funny because our military here is such a joke. Not the soldiers themselves, but the vehicles are such a mess and almost a shame to drive/fly), ANYWAYS, that type of following is understandable (and for those who opposed, it's stille excusable in some perspective)

    but if that kind of blattantly syping CRAP goes through, we might as well adopt the US dollar, adopt US legislation, give them 1/2 of our land in return to clear our debt and let them dump their waste here, and while at it, let them clear-cut our forrests so that there are no more Wood disputes with crazy duty taxes at the borders. I won't feel like I am in Canada anymore, sheesh... I can't beleive that only European countries are not dumb enough to be dictated by a few people and especially from other countries... Not that I hate the US, but I sure wouldn't want to live there as long as Bush is running the Country, I'd rather have a monkey with a water pistol as a president, than a monkey with a uzi.

    • What does Chretien have to do with this? Sure he's got a little part to play, but that means that most other politicians in here are okay with this.

      You just learned that all governments suck?
    • > Still, I'm surprised at this... I never thought
      > I'd see this coming HERE in canada.

      If you go back and look at how many foreign and domestic policies/laws/regulations in Canada follow closely on the heels of the same in the United States, it'll cease being such a surprise.

      Doing so is an eye-opening experience. Note, I don't guarantee that it'll be a pleasant one.

  • While I agree that this is definitely double-plus ungood, this has to make the front of national newspapers (in US and Canada) and be an issue that makes the evening news before anyone can even think of putting up a fight.

    Big brother help us if this eavesdropping prevents a terrorist act or, more topical (and I don't mean to sound callous), another little girl from being abducted and murdered. There will be no going back there, since it WILL make the news with the wrong spin.

  • Just Won't Happen (Score:5, Informative)

    by Inexile2002 ( 540368 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:40PM (#4154353) Homepage Journal
    This seems to happen around once or twice a year in Canada. Some beaurocrat or treaty negotiator gets excited, puts something up for review and once the government figures out that it would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (this clearly would) or just generally piss people off, it gets dropped.

    Look at the knee jerk terrorism laws that were suggested after 9/11. Once the MPs looked at them seriously, cooler heads prevailed nothing happened. Same shit all over again.

    As for the Charter of Rights,this law would easily be shot down in court on a number of counts including:
    1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.


    2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
    a) freedom of conscience and religion;
    b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
    c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
    d) freedom of association.

    7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

    8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

    24. (1) Anyone whose rights or freedoms, as guaranteed by this Charter, have been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances.
    (2) Where, in proceedings under subsection (1), a court concludes that evidence was obtained in a manner that infringed or denied any rights or freedoms guaranteed by this Charter, the evidence shall be excluded if it is established that, having regard to all the circumstances, the admission of it in the proceedings would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
    Any law that infringes on this even a little will get thrown out by the courts the first time the police come hunting for a search warrant. The fact that the ISPs are not stupid means they will not be willing to shell out the cash for an infrastructute of a law that would collapse on the first court challenge.

    Just won't happen.
    • This draft is not in conflict with section 8 of the Charter. Read the actual "discussion draft" and you will see that the proposal states:
      The central tenet of the proposal is that service providers would be required to have the technical capability to provide access to the entirety of a specific telecommunication transmitted over their facilities,
      subject to a lawful authority to intercept. This would include the content and the telecommunications-associated specific data associated with that telecommunication.
      draft [justice.gc.ca]

      Note "subject to a lawful authority to intercept." This indicates that a court order would be required prior to the interception and collection of any data as per The Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

      I believe that your arguement under para 2.b is probably valid.

      At any rate this draft will not become law. It won't even make it to a draft bill. Canadians won't stomach it. Ask anyone who does tech support and they will tell you that they often recieve calls from older men (and teenaged boys) asking how to clear the Netscape URL drop down menu before the wife (or parents) get home. These same people would rather believe that it is harder to intercept their surfing habits, and that there isn't infrastucture in place to be used at a moments notice.
    • the evidence shall be excluded if it is established that, having regard to all the circumstances, the admission of it in the proceedings would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

      Whereas in America, they exclude the evidence regardless of how many rapists/killers/executives it lets back onto the street.
    • Well spoken. I'll add one comment too...

      Even if the MPs all vote it forward, it still has to be approved by the Senate, and Senators don't have to follow party line - or do anything else, really.

      Our first prime minister created the senate because he had a tendancy to hit the bottle, and wanted some 'sober second thought' - perhaps the reference isn't related to alcohol, but hey, it may as well be.

      Even if this crap DOES get past the MPs (if you don't like it, write yours), the senate will take their time tearing it up. No worries here.

      --Dan

  • Exaggeration alert (Score:3, Informative)

    by ozonator ( 178851 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @11:43PM (#4154365)
    Having looked at the document on the Department of Justice's web site, it seems to me that the C|Net report exaggerates more than a little bit.

    The document isn't itself a proposal, it's a "Consultation Document," and has as its purpose to guide the modernization of Canada's Criminal Code, with respect to "lawful access" to electronic information. There are laws that are explicit about what the authorities have to do to be allowed to search my home and seize documents, for example; this document is directed towards coming up with similar laws for dealing with electronic property, which currently isn't so explicitly covered in the Criminal Code. The document lists many of the issues involved, and raises the questions that result, such as how long should an ISP be expected to preserve data when ordered to do so (i.e., not by default), and such as how the Criminal Code should cover interception of e-mail.

    The only thing really proposed is this: "that all service providers (wireless, wireline and Internet) be required to ensure that their systems have the technical capability to provide lawful access to law enforcement and national security agencies." That's it; the rest of the document deals with how this should be implemented.

    There. That should keep CSIS (Canada's version of the CIA) from putting me at the top of their "must eavesdrop" list. At least for a while. :)
  • Assuming that most coders who would be asked to do sucha despicable thing such as this, here are a few options:
    1) Write it badly and/or ineffectually. Who'd know? They're all suits!
    2) Backdoor it all to hell.. ala Ken Thompson's C compiler follies. Pass r00t access about globally via IRC. Render it all useless.
    3) Share it with all your hacker buddies, via snail-mail.. (no radar)

    I think it utterly impossible that these boobs can find enough skillful lackeys to carry these mandates out without creating a situation far more dire than the one they're fearful of.

    Rebel! Don't collaborate!

    They can't do this without US!

    Don't be a Traitor!

    Be a PATRIOT!
  • I'd like to have the contract to sell them all the storage to hold 6 months of logs for every ISP.
  • Canadian officials say such laws are necessary to fight terrorism and combat even run-of-the-mill crimes.

    Okay, so why exactly is it now easier to get a student visa or an immigration? Oh I guess that doesn't count, because they'll be bringing in some money.

    If they're so concerned about our security, why have they yet to sign the Kyoto protocol?

    Apparently, ripping us off from our money is not enough, they also need to control us.

    • Re:Welcome to Canada (Score:2, Interesting)

      by saskboy ( 600063 )
      Actually, it is harder to get Student Visas now. I know someone who was screwed around by us [Canada] when trying to get a re-entry visa last year. In Hong Kong, she was able to have the staff there provide the visa on the normal schedule without problems.
      I'm with you on that Kyoto thing, and this proposed law will not take effect since it is not domestically brewed. We'd prove the voting populace is a snivling bunch indeed if we allowed that sort of loss to our constitutional rights. I don't mind the ISPs keeping logs, just as long as no one looks at 'em. The RCMP now, and always should have iron clad reasons to obtain a proper search warrant before invading a citizen's privacy.

  • Macro Virus T-Shirt - can I buy one already? (Score:3, Funny)

    by finnatic ( 105191 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @12:14AM (#4154481)
    Would this make the wearing of a T-Shirt, with say the source code for the "concept" Macro Virus printed on it illegal in Canada?
  • Can someone point out how this would be different than requiring the phone companies to keep 6 months of recordings of your home phone?

    I think if it were looked at that way, people would realize how stupid and wrong this is. Why don't we start wearing embedded tracking devices and keep logs on that too?

  • This is Worse than Phone Taps (Score:3, Insightful)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug AT geekazon DOT com> on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @01:30AM (#4154708) Homepage
    As has been asked here already, how is this different from the phone company keeping recordings of private phone calls? I'll tell you, it's an order of magnitude worse. Web browsing isn't even a conversation. It's like recording which magazine articles one reads and which ads one looks at. The because-we-can philosophy is no excuse to treat web browsing any differently from any other form of reading. The practice of recording surfing habits at the ISP level may very well provide crime-fighting information, but the inhibiting effects of this level of surveillance could harm society far more than any bomb could.

    Western governments may turn out to be Osama bin Laden's most effective weapon.
  • If you caught spreading a computer virus, the candian government would cram you in a jail with 11 other annoying "big house"-mates, put you on canadian televion for 24 hours a day, and the last person to get anally violated would get $500,000.
  • If you browse using your ISP's proxy servers, there are log files generated that can be retained. But I never do that. If you're going direct to the web, I don't think there are any logs generated, unless your ISP logs every packet. So I don't see how they can retain them.
  • Sure, you can probably arrest a paedophile or two by monitoring his emails, but drug dealers and organised crime in general will be the first people to move to encrypting *all* their emails. Which is something even techies cannot do all the time. Why, you may ask. Well, it's simple: most e-mail users out there has no clue whatsoever about using encryption. When would Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail and Eudora have standard built-in OpenPGP encryption... (yes, I know plugins are available) Encrypt [gnupg.org] your mail today!
  • I'm going to skip over the most obvious privacy issues, and mention the two major problems I see.

    First, if this is something else they're trying to use 9/11 as an example for... It won't do a bit of good. "Oh, there's one of the terrorists getting out of his car..." Six months after the fact, you can't stop the crime, and they've had six months to flee the country. Yes, maybe it'll catch a criminal or two, but I think actively trying to stop crime is more important than watching it happen six months in the past.

    Another issue is the sheer amount of space ~180 days of logs could take up. Let's take the example of a camera... A really good time-lapse camera might be able to squeeze 24 hours onto a single tape. But now rather than having a couple tapes and rotating them, you now need 180 tapes, and somewhere to store them. Storing the URL of every file I access could grow really quickly. And if they're investigating truly illegal use, the URLs might not even work six months later. So are they now going to save local copies of all the pages I visit? I have 3 Mbps. In 8 seconds, I could get 3 MB of space. My entire neighborhood could fill up a few terabytes real quick. This is going to add massive costs to ISPs, and a lot of them seem to be in financial trouble anyway.

    On a side note, if I advocated that the US Postal Service photocopy every envelope you send/receive (I won't even say that they open it), I don't think even the most conservative people would consider this a good idea. But why is it different if it's on the Internet?

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