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That's great, as long as you stay out of Canada.

From that page:

Every one who possesses, sells or purchases any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device or any component thereof knowing that the design thereof renders it primarily useful for surreptitious interception of private communications is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

First of all, you're not doing surreptitious interception if you're intercepting your own call. The device is also not designed for it since it's quite obviously connected between your handset and your phone.

Secondly:

[2] Subsection [1] does not apply to
[...]
[b] a person in possession of such a device or component for the purpose of using it in an interception made or to be made in accordance with an authorization;

Presumably if you've informed the other party that you're recording the call and they've agreed to it, then the interception is being made in accordance with an authorization.

Having said that, IANAL, much less a Canadian one, so don't quote me when you end up in prison.

That's great, as long as you stay out of Canada.

IANAL
Canada indeed has a couple laws that would be relevant

Most relevant, The Criminal Code section 342 "Unauthorized use of Computer" http://www.efc.ca/pages/law/cc/cc.342.1.html.
This criminal code section is subject to colour of right, meaning if you have permission from the system owner to perform testing, this section and owning the tools to perform this section become OK. If however you do not have permission, the investigation into this breach could expose other CCofC violations probably section 430 "Mischief", Section 351 "Possession of Break-in instruments",. as well as something from sections 354-360 which are the possessions of proceeds of crime sections.

Side note, don't break-in using any technique that involves intercepting someones communications (eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle) as that falls under privacy laws (CCofC 183-196) which are much more strict and can't be waived by the system owner, only by the sender or recipient of the communication.

IANAL, but for this case I would say the first time he found the vulnerability, there was no intent to commit the crime, he stumbled across it. The second time he was checking the other system to see if the flaw was there which seems like an unauthorized use of computer system. If he had asked the system owner (or manufacturer I suppose) if he could perform tests to ensure the flaw in the system would not be made worse by his code or his system would not be affected by the flaw, he would have been on better legal footing.

and once more IANAL

Cheers
Kenny
CCofC = Criminal Code of Canada
IANAL = I Am Not A Lawyer

Thanks, I am not sure who wrote the first paper/used the term first re "World Wide Wiretap"? Google could be good in finding it or not.
http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/fraser-forum.01may98.html ?

I wanted NIST to be able to say, at the end of the final bake-off "hey, criterion X is vitally important in a substantial portion of cases where cryptographic hashes are used and criterion Y is really not that critical in most of those cases; SHA-3 is ok at everything, but algorithm xyzzy is massively better at X - it wasn't picked because it's massively worse at Y, but that just doesn't matter".

Since NIST is in a better position to know if X and Y are even real cases and what the hell those cases would be, I didn't want to suggest things that wouldn't actually be that useful.

However, since that route isn't getting taken, here's what inspired me:

• Cryptographic hashes on Mondex-style snart cards would want to be very fast in hardware, to hell with software. Great for not just money but secure handling of data in a portable medium.
• Hashes for files (as per Tripwire or AIDE) would want to be very fast in software, but this just isn't done in hardware so who cares what speed it is there?
• Network security has to consider ATM (48-bit packets); passwords, likewise, have to consider very short strings. Ethernet's largest jumbo packet is about 9K. A hash that can guarantee no pre-images or other even minor weaknesses for extremely low levels of input would be perfect in these cases. Doesn't matter if it's slow for data of greater size.

Three specialist cases that the Federal Government could realistically use on a large-scale basis but won't be able to.

Why i this marked +5 informative? It's not even remotely close to being true.
I refer you to Section 34-37 of the Canadian Criminal Code.
Specifically Section 34 2 (b)
 

(2) Every one who is unlawfully assaulted and who causes death or grievous bodily harm in repelling the assault is justified if

        (a) he causes it under reasonable apprehension of death or grievous bodily harm from the violence with which the assault was originally made or with which the assailant pursues his purposes; and
        (b) he believes, on reasonable grounds, that he cannot otherwise preserve himself from death or grievous bodily harm.

Unfortunately it's total nonsense. Read the Criminal Code of Canada sections 34-37 to see what the situation really is.
Here is a link for section 34 with following sections available from there.

Stories I think are clear.

Not in Canada.

161.1(b) any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act.

What about the Google level filtering? I mean typing "kiddy porn" in the search engine wont get a link to uncle-toms-basement.com. If anything its just got companies selling filtering software.

The filter wouldn't of changed the kiddy porn distribution one bit because I'd imagine that stuff would be done mostly peer-to-peer.

Regardless of Govt, I think Google's done a fine job stopping what it can and that adding a filter on ISP's is quite redundant.

I always thought this filter campaign was simply a legal thawte at privacy allowing the Govt later to scrutinize peoples access better.

This is an excellent point. Here's my top 3 result of my google for kiddie porn:

http://www.detritus.org/agency/kid_porn.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography
http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/spectator.24may97c.html

(possibly) malware, wiki, and a 13 year-old scaremongering article.

Off to clean my cookies

Yes we do:

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Since hate crimes legislation invariably spells out exactly which groups are protected

Sorry buddy, that's just flat out wrong. For example, sections 318-320 of the criminal code of Canada use the term "identifiable group", which is defined by "any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion or ethnic origin." And that includes white people.

Individuals are perfectly capable of hatred and there is no shortage of individuals who hate white people because white people are "privileged" or because they believe that white nations deprived them of the prosperity to which they feel entitled.

And if they were attempting to incite violence against all white people, then they would be subject to the same laws. So what's the problem?

The only protections that I want, or need for that matter, are the same protections that everyone else gets.

Well, that's pretty easy to say when you aren't being targeted by a hate group such that there's a very real chance your safety is in jeopardy, isn't it?

Indeed, straight from the Chief Justice Herself, Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/aboutcourt/judges/speeche s/ComparativeView_e.asp That said, the debate isn't new in fact, http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/libel3.html decribes how lawsuit can be used to shout down criticism through intimidation. Jeffrey Shallit http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/ is vice-president of Electronic Frontier Canada http://www.efc.ca/. One of us!

Our "amendments" are called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (I'd have used the official link but it seems the laws page of Justice Canada is down..)

Our freedom of expression (freedom of speech) is listed in section 2. As far as the second amendment, we don't really have a need to carry guns.

Good points. I also thought I would add that laws protecting culture are different in Quebec than in the rest of Canada. French-language, home-grown entertainment is vigorously protected. Every year or so the province's "language police" make headlines for some stupid thing, like forcing a computer store to take down its website because it didn't conform to being bilingual enough, or forcing cities to change street signs to French. http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/calgary-herald.16jun 97.html http://newquebec.blogspot.com/2006/07/beaconsfield -to-language-police-get.html

Quebec probably just doesn't care enough about protecting "outsider" entertainment which competes directly with its own culture, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the enforcement agencies were turning a blind eye to piracy in Quebec movie theatres for that reason.

But I think the idea that Canada is responsible for 50 per cent of movie piracy is a total load and a FUD attack by the movie companies on our copyright laws, which they hate because they still allow us to make legit copies and downloads of THINGS WE ALREADY OWN (better make that clear).

I hate having to pay a levy on every pack of blank DVDs and CDs I buy, but that's the law and I just look for the deals (discs are always on sale somewhere.)

And I find it freeing that if I buy a CD, and it's invested with rootkits and proprietary players and crap, well, I am within my rights to fire up Limewire or uTorrent and download the cracked version of the album I just bought so I can put it on my MP3 player without having to go through some nightmarish DRM scenario with Windows Media Player.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms
http://www.efc.ca/pages/law/charter/charter.sect.h tml

There are virtually no restrictions on the use of cryptography or encryption technology in Canada. Famously, this is the reason that the OpenBSD project is based in Canada and not the US - the extensive use of encryption in OpenSBD would mean that, amongst other things, if it were US-based its development and distribution would be severely curtailed. People distributing the software may technically even be arrested, depending on how stringently their laws were interpreted.

This proposed "warrantless" internet surveillance bill will encounter a great deal of resistance in Canada, and with a minority government it's passage is by no means guaranteed. In the event that it does become law, at least people can encrypt anything & everything they send over the internet. A law such as this, however, would be challenged in the courts almost immediately here.

This is a Canadian story, but I promise you the same law is in effect in the United States (but I don't want to spend a lot of time Googling for it at work.) Source.

Didn't go down well at all.

http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/e-telegraph.04jul95. html

"If I remember right, that was part of the reason encryption on OpenBSD was done in Canada."

Read about it here: http://www.openbsd.org/crypto.html

From the link:

"The cryptographic software components which we use currently were written in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Norway, and Sweden."

"When we create OpenBSD releases or snapshots we build our release binaries in free countries to assure that the sources and binaries we provide to users are free of tainting."

And a summary of Canada's export controls on cryptographic software here: http://www.efc.ca/pages/doc/crypto-export.html

It seems to me that Canada's has more room for interpretation. It might mean that the Canadian government can't take away those freedoms, much like the US first ammendment.

If you'd like to read the Charter of Rights a bit further :-) you'd see the section further down that allows the federal or provincial governments, at any time, to revoke those rights during their term as they see fit, under the "notwithstanding" clause.

This was already used to force all business in Quebec to operate in the French language. Seriously. Quebec has a language police to enforce this law, especially banning companies from operating english websites.

That's just where it begins. As it stands the wording is flimsy enough that the Canadian government is allowed to prevent Canadians from legitimately purchasing US satellite service. Several Canadians have spent time in jail for this activity. Again, I'm 100% serious.

Free speech in Canada is limited to what CBC/SRC plays on TV.

You think it's OK for someone to be fired just because of their personal views?

No, but it happens all the time anyway. Since 1886 when corporations were de facto granted virtual personhood, corporations have become the most powerful citizens. So what can you do?

--Rob

>I assume the purportedly non-sexist English language allows for this?

Unfortunately, you've used it incorrectly in that case.

If you'd like to take a look at the dictionary one more time, you'll find no sexless definitions for the word "woman". In fact, the word "woman" could be considered sexist, as some definitions mean it to be a female servant.

>Actually, I would have said "person" rather than "man" or "woman", but I don't think it's safe to debate pronoun usage with a woman such as yourself, as you seem to have taken my joke very seriously.

I take "jokes" like that seriously because I do tire of seeing certain groups corrupt not only our language (I consider it a corruption when a simple shortening of the word "human" can somehow become an insult), but worse yet, corrupt our legal system. IMHO, a man without a hate crime law is like a fish without a bicycle. Interestingly enough, that law is now used to eject certain non-mainstream media from Canada.

Yeah. I'll just go in a corner and chill out now. That's ok. Don't worry about anything.

>I assume the purportedly non-sexist English language allows for this?

Unfortunately, you've used it incorrectly in that case.

If you'd like to take a look at the dictionary one more time, you'll find no sexless definitions for the word "woman". In fact, the word "woman" could be considered sexist, as some definitions mean it to be a female servant.

>Actually, I would have said "person" rather than "man" or "woman", but I don't think it's safe to debate pronoun usage with a woman such as yourself, as you seem to have taken my joke very seriously.

I take "jokes" like that seriously because I do tire of seeing certain groups corrupt not only our language (I consider it a corruption when a simple shortening of the word "human" can somehow become an insult), but worse yet, corrupt our legal system. IMHO, a man without a hate crime law is like a fish without a bicycle. Interestingly enough, that law is now used to eject certain non-mainstream media from Canada.

Yeah. I'll just go in a corner and chill out now. That's ok. Don't worry about anything.

"I'd like to note my complete support for the CBDTPA.

I understand that virtually nobody else has said anything positive about this Act. That's because virtually everybody who has contacted you to discuss the Act so far is American. I'm not American, and I'd like to congratulate you on this most excellent piece of legislation, which will do more for the European computer, software, and music industries than any amount of pork our own legislators could have given us.

This Act is wonderful. At a stroke, you're crippling your software industry, destroying your nascent open source infrastructure, putting all your unsigned bands and hopeful novelists back behind the counter at McDonald's, and giving your computer and electronics vendors a huge ball and chain to lug around.

You'll also have given a big hand to Hollywood and the music industry -- a $35Bn turnover sector -- and successfully trashed the electronics, software and hardware industries -- upstarts whose $600Bn turnover is of no account. In so doing, you will have helped advance the USA to the status Imperial Britain aspired to in 1902 -- that of has-been former superpower.

If you pass this act, I will be sure to express my gratitude for the resulting pay rises and improved employment opportunities -- in Scotland and the rest of the EU, and indeed the developed world -- in writing. Thank you, and good luck."

On the yes, donate side... The US government's policies on copyrights / DRM / protecting Hollywood do affect the rest of the world. Our congress is the elephant in the electronics shop. The EFF is trying to keep the elephant tranquilized-- i.e. minimize the damage it can cause. The EFF is often a first responder-- it tries to catch weird new tech policies before they grow out of control and become laws in the US (and then the rest of the world). So donate 97% of your 'Rights x Technologies' monies to your local groups. But then also donate 3% to the EFF to prevent the bad US policies from being yet another worry for your local group. Insurance.

>Also, there are no Language Police or anything like that.

Oh? Who are they? Perhaps you'd like to explain why the EFF call them language police?

The official name is "Inspector". Inspector is a term for a police officer that inspects crimes. Therefore, an inspector working for the French Language Office (the translation) would be a "Police Inspector for the French Language Office", or, in short "Language Police Officer".

Here's a little article on what I'm talking about.

"...in their zeal to defend French, the old guard's language police punish violators of Quebec's stringent language laws--for example, English on business signs is permitted but only if the lettering is one-third the size of the French letters--with fines and other threats against business activity."

"A Greek immigrant had a van on which he advertised his business--'Bill's Plumbing and Heating.' The language law forbids English on any vehicle whose owner pursues his trade exclusively in Quebec. His truck and tools were seized and auctioned off by the language police because he would not pay the fine imposed for putting "Bill's Plumbing" on the side of his truck. A mason making gravestones was also attacked because the epitaphs were not bilingual."

Emphasis mine.

>Like I said, there is no 'language police', but people can complain to the govt about a company advertising/having a sign only in english, and the company can be fined.

Then, exactly _who_ confiscated that man's gravestones, and the other man's truck? Do you expect they were willingly handed over?

Clearly, there are police enforcing this law. Making them... (drumroll)... language police. This is in the same line as a police officer checking meters is a "meter maid", and a police officer metering your speed on a road is a "road pirate".

>I do not personally agree with the law(and I'm french, but I find it stupid, especially the "the font must be X% bigger in french" part) but I reckon that it's at least a somewhat good attempt to try to protect our language and culture in a sea of english speaking people, I wasn't able to find another one.

Perhaps we should just hole up english speakers in internment camps until they learn to speak the "right" language.

And you would wonder why people hate the French.

>And, BTW, like anything(religion, race, language, etc.), some people always act badly and are filled with hate, but don't let them fool you, the french speaking people are usually friendly toward other canadians and americans, and if you come downtown or in the west part of Montreal(which is the english speaking community), 90%+ of the people will speak english anyway so you won't have a problem. Heck, the whole west island is english only, not many speaks french there.

That's exciting. This person from Quebec actually explained how most of the Anglophones in the west island moved out because they couldn't work with the new laws (which, BTW, consistently violate Canada's Charter of Rights -- Quebec has to, every 5 years, pass themselves an exemption to the rights the rest of Canada enjoys), and that now, when he vists where his business and home was, he feels like an unwanted stranger.

If the Canadian French are so welcoming towards visitors, why do they consistently choose to almost uniformly elect the Bloc Quebecois, a party dedicated to the hatred of all that is Canadian and English? A party that has, on numerous occasions, attempted to separate Quebec from Canada? A party that managed to convince 49.97% of Quebecers that the English and Canadians were ruining their lives?

Fuck Quebec and their decision to continue to implement language police.

>Why do you care what language someone else speaks?

I don't know. Why?

BTW: I got the opportunity to speak to an ex-Quebec business operator who was an anglophone. He explained his employees wanted to learn proper English, and when the language police (!) came to *force* them to speak French (it's the law) they refused. In the end he had to boot the guy out and enjoy a hefty fine to protect his worker's human right to speak the language of their choice. He quit doing business there shortly after, along with plenty of other people who wanted to do business in a language other than French.

And you wonder why the French are so hated in Canada...

>There are tons of people here who speak Korean, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Hindi, Punjabi, Arabic, Russian...

Not in Quebec unless they enjoy doing it from the inside of a jail cell. Well, that is, if they plan to speak that inside a business.

Recently (May 12) the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage issued a report on proposed changes to the Copyright Act, whose relevant recommendation is as follows:

RECOMMENDATION 3

The Committee recommends that the Copyright Act be amended to provide that Internet service providers (ISPs) can be subject to liability for copyrighted material on their facilities. The Committee notes, however, that ISPs should be exempt from liability if they act as true "intermediaries," without actual or constructive knowledge of the transmitted content, and where they meet certain prescribed conditions. ISPs should be required to comply with a "notice and takedown" scheme that is compliant with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with additional prescribed procedures to address other infringements.

The Act would force ISPs to cut off access for uploaders after they have been identified by the CIRA. But the report does not specifically address the disclosure of customers' information (to the CIRA), nor does it address the download v.s. upload meme.

The EFC has not, AFAIK, commented on the report and the Toronto member of Parliament who chaired the committee, hasn't yet responded to my inquiries (will P2P or anti-circumvention be left legal?).

Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen has already installed that a month ago, and before them another park in Jutland - so they are a bit late :)

... the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states at Paragraph 11 that and person charged with an offense has a right to:

c) not to be compelled to be a witness in proceedings against that person in respect of the offence; and

(g) not to be found guilty on account of any act or omission unless, at the time of the act or omission, it constituted an offence under Canadian or international law or was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations.

I'd be hard pressed to believe that turning over encryption keys wouldn't make me a witness to my own criminal proceeding.

>Err, how can you be paying for it when it's not sold in Canada?

USA PO Box + address fudging or via friends in the US. It's not hard. There are even companies in Canada that actually specialize in it (underground, of course).

More info

Old, but since paying for it has been illegal for much longer than pirating it [odd, huh?] it's a much more underground activity, and therefore under-reported. Which is even more odd -- I can go to a flea market and pick up lots of hacked cards [which are about to be dead, but hey, whatever] today, but I can't even think of where I could find someone to pay for it properly -- although I did know one at one time.

How long can Canada do this before they get pressured to follow in their oppressive neighbors' lead?

I'm sorry ... who's oppressive now?

Canadian broadcasting law includes Canadian content restrictions. Fully 35% of all music broadcast on Canadian radio must be CanCon, meaning at least two of the composer, performer, recording venue, and lyric writer must be Canadian. For television the fraction is 50%.

Sounds pretty benign, until you realize that it is therefore illegal for US stations to broacast in Canada, which includes satellite broadcasts. It is illegal to receive US-based satellite signals in Canada, and doing so could result in a visit from the RCMP and confiscation of your satellite equipment. All this for simply watching HBO, MTV, or even the Superbowl commercials (local stations rebroadcasting the Superbowl in Canada substitute their own ads).

In spite of this, Canadian television has yet to produce a domestic hit television series, and virtually all our recording artists flee to the states.

I assume that you know about technology since you're on /., but would you really trust your money to a chip? This was tested by Mondex in Guelph Ontario. And I guess it just wasn't ready, not for here anyways. Even though things like this and Speedpass are trying to become mainstream (with Speedpass having more luck), I personal am still a little reluctent to give up my cold hard cash.

As a side note, I just learned that the Electronic Frontier Canada is located about 3 blocks away from me...

I assume that you know about technology since you're on /., but would you really trust your money to a chip? This was tested by Mondex in Guelph Ontario. And I guess it just wasn't ready, not for here anyways. Even though things like this and Speedpass are trying to become mainstream (with Speedpass having more luck), I personal am still a little reluctent to give up my cold hard cash.

As a side note, I just learned that the Electronic Frontier Canada is located about 3 blocks away from me...

So old we pulled the plug on it a half-decade ago.

>Pennslyvania needs to provide ISPs a list of websites it says contains child porn.

More than that, they need to provide that list to everyone.

Just like banned books in my country, there is a list that Canadians can read to see what it is my government doesn't want them to learn.

And so should there be a list of links to websites that are banned from this state. That way people have the right to contest their validity. This is the only way to avoid the 1984 scenario.

Recently I've become increasingly interested in digital rights issues. These include things like copyright law, online censorship, file-sharing networks, consumer rights and so on. The biggest NGO for these issues in the US is the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Is there an analogous organization in Canada? After a Google search, I turned up the Electronic Frontier Canada. The Web site looked pretty, uh, "old school", so I sent an email to the EFF to enquire. They said that EF-Canada was not associated with them, and just a like-minded organization that was "moribund." If there isn't any such organization, myself and like-minded Canucks may try to ressurrect EF-Canada. Cheers. DB.

Electronic Frontier Finland
Electronic Frontier Canada
Electronic Frontiers Australia
Electronic Frontier Ireland
Electronic Frontier Sverige
Electronisk Forpost Norge
Electronic Frontiers Italy

Okay, so anybody care to list some equivalents? I think Electronic Frontier Canada is about the closest we have up here in the frosty north. There's also Electronic Frontiers Australia, and the Global Internet Liberty Coalition. Anyone know any others?

- This sig for sale or rent...cheap

Of course there is: Electronic Frontier Canada / La Frontière Électronique du Canada (http://www.efc.ca/)! And following great Canadian traditions, the site is bilingual.

Australia has one, too: Electronic Frontiers Australia (http://www.efa.org.au/).

I don't know if either is tax-deductible, but they do have interesting info on legislation in both countries. Cheers.

I found the link!
Electronic fronteir Canada[www.efc.ca]
The legislation states:
Jan 2001: Government agencies must follow the rules
Jan 2002:Health related info (Medical records, etc)
Jan 2004: All businesses must follow
Sorry about the confusion.

Angry White Guy

People at EFC have been seeking help for countries with restrictions on what they can and can't see so this would be a plus to them. (view their email on this)

What will be nice to see is how governments and corporations will respond to this, concerning piracy, patent violations, the typical bullshit we've seen for the past few weeks.

Funny I posted this on my site days ago ;P

Privacy links

Yet, this same study was not taken seriously in the freedom of speech context, that is if Customs says high concentration of this material doesn't damage the mental health and well being of their employees, yet the average citizen should still not be allowed to look at the material in question. A classic double standard.

Some speculation that the study was to be used as potential evidence if there were lawsuits by Customs employee that smut and filth that ruined their lives.

Are AOL censors lives ruined by the subjection to porn and illegal material in the workplace as part of their job?

And honestly, from what I remember, the ones I read were relatively tame. Certainly nothing as blatant as what one can find online at places such as the Nifty Erotic Stories Archive (whom I note have a disclaimer on the front page saying Note: All of the characters in these stories are portrayed by adults 18 years of age or older. So there. - that doesn't make much sense to me seeing as there are no real people involved, but okay).

I'd have to say my favorite story there would be Double Trouble (feel free not to follow that link if the obvious implications disturb you, but it's a tasteful story... depending on your tastes I suppose), and I fail to see how reading it should get me tossed in jail. As far as I'm able to tell, my reading it isn't harming any children (and fear not; I ain't ever planning to).

Nor is there any proof that reading such a story would cause a person to go out and act on it - which is precisely what a Canadian judge ruled before the case in question went up to the Supreme Court.

Just adding my two cents, if I don't get moderated out of existence anyway ;-).

Ozzy Man
--
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." -George Bernard Shaw

I am embarrassed too by this and another Canadian law.

Possession of child pornography is not a crime, a British Columbia judge has ruled.
CANADA COURT QUASHES CHILD-PORN LAW - Says Measure Violates Freedom of Expression

As far as the age of consent, in Canada its 14, as long as you don't have authority over the youngster, and don't have any kind of anal relations. It's 18 for all kinds of sexual relations. (source = ageofconsent.com)

EFF's blue ribbon T-Shirt

Join EFC (Canada) and get a T-Shirt

RedHat Wear

...the duplication of information has a negligable cost. The creation of *new* and *valuable* information has an associated scarcity: the skill and talent of the individuals that do so (write music, write software, orginize data, etc.)

This implies that it makes sense for the market to regulate this industry as it has others. It should allocate funds and resources to those who the public appreciates the most. Whether this should be done in a productized form or as a service remains to be seen, but some notion of intellectual property will be required to protect these artists from blatant profiteers that have no skill or talent of their own.

The above is not a nitpick, it's a correction to what seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of economics and scarcity. Fluid things like skill and talent *do* count as scarcity... they're just harder to measure (productivity don't really say much).

Also, speaking as a Canadian that's living south of the border, one partialy reason Canada is "with it" with the net is because of the diligent efforts of Electronic Frontier Canada, and AOL Canada, both of whom provided solid testimony during the CRTC "regulate the net" hearings. I would also venture that since the U.S. is 10x bigger, it's more prone to tackle these issues before Canada gets to them... So the battle in Canada will get bloodier within time.

Also keep in mind that Canada doesn't protect speech to the extent the U.S. does. (See the Ernst Zundel case)

I can't answer the rest of your questions, but this one is easy. Yes, there is - Electronic Frontier Canada.

Glancing at the issues in their archive page, I'd say Canadians don't have too much to worry about now. But unfortunately, American governmental stupidity always seems to be contagious where the Canadian government is concerned.

I can't answer the rest of your questions, but this one is easy. Yes, there is - Electronic Frontier Canada.

Glancing at the issues in their archive page, I'd say Canadians don't have too much to worry about now. But unfortunately, American governmental stupidity always seems to be contagious where the Canadian government is concerned.

Of course, in Canada, we've been down this road before. The equivalent section of the Criminal Code, however, was ruled unconstitutional in October of 1994. (It hasn't been challenged further, presumably because the federal justice department fears a furthering this precident. Keep in mind that all criminal and drug law is federal in Canada.

Also, thanks to pecuilarities of how Canadian companies got connected to the net in the first place, quite a few (perhaps most) sites here have a TLD other than .ca ... which would make it a royal pain in the ass (and likely impossible) for ISPs to filter...compare with some situations in Australia.

So it looks like not only will we be the best dope producers in the world, we might very well end up having to be the best drug librarians too!

US courts may have been able to shut IcraveTV down, but this is another matter entirely...

Yes, there has been at least one case where someone left the US to work on encryption. Vince Cate renounced his US citizenship and moved to Anguilla.

(I think this was a Slashdot story a while back, but it's much faster if I don't have to search the /. archives....)