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End of Online Anonymity in Canada?
boochy writes "Are we close to losing our anonymity online in Canada? As Angela Pacienza writes in a National Post article; "The record industry's attempts to sue people who share music online threaten to change the widely held expectation that everyone's anonymous when surfing the Internet, lawyers representing the public interest argued Monday."
This is a very interesting article that shows how much the lawyers representing the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic are trying their best to protect our privacy online."
The canadian privacy laws have been passed to protect the citizens who, actually, vote for the government, so the government better listen to the people.
But again, the National Post is just a wet-dream from those rich people who are trying to eliminate the State so they can profit off the unrich people unhindered.
Rule by corporate law(yer) is quite a scary concept. The reward for a successful prosecution becomes to easy to attain.
Over 90% of blocked activity at my firewall is probes from kazaa, gnutella etc looking for the last computer with that IP, who was filesharing. Last thing I want is to get hassled for running software I dont have installed because I got some other guy's IP. (the other 10% was mostly nimda and code red - yay microsuck)
The Toronto Star reports: Howard Knopf, an intellectual property lawyer speaking as an intervener said providers should not be ordered to disclose the names because there is no evidence to suggest they are breaking any Canadian laws..
Sigs are bad for your health.
Since when does it have my email address on my identification? Since when is my IP address branded into my head? This is bullshit, pure and simple. If you want to be anonymous, follow these simple steps:
1. Steal laptop (or buy used if your rich).
2. Walk downtown to the corner of anywhere and anywhere in Toronto.
3. Use wireless network card.
4. Jump on first available network.
5. Can you say "Anonymous" cuz that's what you are.
Or follow these steps:
1. Go to airport, library, public internet cafe.
2. Buy a card from a machine, with _cash_
3. Use anonymous internet.
Or these steps:
1. Direct your computer to access a proxy in China
2. Surf the web in a re-directed state.
Or these:
1. Use your friends computer.
Or these:
1. Use your computer's wireless network card to access your neighbours internet...
Or these:
1. Go to work
2. Walk to cubicle behind you
3. Swap the cables with your cubicle and his.
4. Change the computer names.
5. If using static IP's, change the Ip's.
Wow, how difficult.
Mod +5 Drunk
Short of the cafe owner being called in. Recall, if you will, the recent legal wranglings in California that made 'net cafes install surveilance cameras.
Now, go back to your previous statement and tell me if you're really anonymous. Sure, the cafe might be on an unlogged NAT so they only know that it was *someone* in the cafe (only one external IP after all) but that's a serious step away from anonymity.
I would say the same about public libraries. Noone is looking over your shoulder, per se, but that doesn't make you anonymous.
- AC. Wishing for *real* anonymity, because posting from work == trouble
Lawyers and government types just don't get it. The technological Pandora's Box has been opened, and legislation isn't going to help. Anonymity on the Internet? Try looking into the FreeNet project. It's so anonymous that lawmakers practically don't know it exists. And if they did, they still couldn't do anything about it.
I don't even get why the Recording Industry is trying to sue us Canucks.
Did everyone just forget about the Hub-Bub where all blank media got a special tax added on to the price because naughty people were using it to pirate music?
I've been paying this god-damn "pirate" tax for YEARS now. Doesn't *PAYING*FOR*IT* make these claims of IP Theft kind of moot?
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
This is where I like the fact that IANAL, for just being cynical gives me a nice idea...
I seem to remember that Canada (just like France and quite some other countries) have people pay a special TAX on Hard Drives/CDR*s/DVDR*s to "compensate" for the piracy that occurs anyway...
Well...You see it ? no ?
I pay a tax on my recording media because it is implied I WILL use it for piracy, even if I don't.... Having paid that tax, I think I can swear to god that I didn't pirate this music, I even paid the tax to have the right to do it...
Would be a shame to see all this tax money I pay go unreclaimed by not accessing all this music I actually paid a tax for....
and so on... Now mod me up and down till I puke, but somewhere in what I said there is a truth, a cynical one, but a truth nonetheless.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
In America you may or may not have surveillance in cyber cafes.
In Korea where I live and which has the highest broadband perhaps in the world they have "PC bangs" or pro-gaming cafes on almost every street.
Anonymous terminals are also present in some coffee shops.
There are no security cameras in them and
the chances of being detected are close to none(unless you do something dumb like call attention to yourself).
Korea is a security nightmare
As an example, I believe, based on a short search, there's a good chance that you're a Canadian, living and working in Toronto. You also work with a hotel company, probably in management or accounting. You have visited the US more than twice, but you don't like us very much (and, really, based on what you post about, I can't disagree). I could find out more, but I have no reason to violate your privacy, and anyway, I'm lazy. :)
I have also done a rough psychological profile on you, but the results indicate that posting such a profile might cause you to react defensively, so I won't (Don't worry, most people react that way, it's hard not to). But it's interesting how much detail people give about themselves when the post a lot on public boards (myself included).
For a (fake) example, suppose someone said on a board, "Treated differently? Your telling me! When I was in Washington State, my stuipd older sister has AGIAN fooled my parents into giving her more money." I could tell from that sentence that the person's relationship with their parents is strained, probably has authority distrust issues, probably has a negative opinion of women (especially in authority), and is insecure about money (most likely not having enough). I can also guess that they are a "hunt-n-peck"-typer, and while very well educated, probably did better in math/science than they did in English.
Of course, none of that is certain, and I'd have to collect various posts over a year or so to get a better picture. I have also found people online are VERY different in real life. Usually the biggest jerks online are quiet and shy in person. Arrogant people are usually ignorant, and so on.
Why collect this info? It's very easy to trace "double logins" this way, like users on a board who have two logins, and use them to start trouble, like "drumming up support" among their aliases. It's also easy to compare people across boards or various interactions, like, "That guy posting in your comments section of your journal sounds a LOT like the jerk we have been getting in IRC lately. What's his IP? Yeah. It's him." Moderators in various venues compare notes a lot.
However, the other three (Bell, Rogers, Videotron) have hardly fought.
Interestingly enough, I had a marketing call from Synco Patico last week, and one of the big selling points was the protection of customers online privacy by dynamically changing your IP every 4 hours during your time online (without disconnection). The logs are going to get mighty large if the marketing droid was correct.
I agree with most of your points, but not on the wifi. You can get a good connection with a directional yagi (read pringles can) over a mile or two away from the open network. For instance, I can set at a wide open park and see about 150 open networks in a business district about a mile away. Now to stay legal, you should use one that is meant to be open, but still pretty annonymous.
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