Canadian ISP Shoulder Surfing

1nfamous writes "Canada's Largest ISP, Bell Sympatico, has informed its customers that it intends to 'monitor or investigate content or your use of your service provider's networks and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy any laws, regulations or other governmental request.' The new customer service agreement is effective June 15, 2006."

Comments

Welcome to America Junior.

[TripMaster Monkey]

The chief difference between Canada and America? At least the Canadians get fair warning.

Clearly, the Canadian government is going to have to work on that...after all, we can't tip our hand to the terrorists, right? These things must be kept secret, because unless they're explicitly informed, the terrorists will have no reason to believe their internet access is being tracked, just as they had no reason to believe that their phone calls may have been bugged and their financial records traced, that is, until the meddling fourth estate decided to educate them, much to the peril of all freedom-lovers.

(Sorry....my sarcasm button was stuck there for a while...)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it's time to start encrypting everything. Just one question...anyone out there familiar with the current legality of crypto in Canada?

Re:Welcome to America Junior.

[AKAImBatman]

Prove that you no longer have the keys

Simple. Generate a new set every session. As long as they're cached in memory only, you'll never know the keys or be able to provide them to law enforcement.

Re:Welcome to America Junior.

[CreatureComfort]

You sir, seem to be under the mistaken assumption that this, or any other, "War on Terror" program is actually aimed at terrorists. As you point out, any real terrorists/hackers/bad guys can find a multitude of ways around all of these systems. In fact, if you are actually doing anything deliberately illegal, you must assume that you are being evesdropped on at all times, and so make all of your contacts as innocuous as possible. That's basic subversion 101.

All of these "programs" are to make sure that those in power have something on everybody. That way when you actually do something that interferes with their agenda or makes someone with power mad at you, they can nail you on several unrelated charges and keep their actual agenda somewhat obscured.

As to your point, this very post could, at some point, come back to haunt me. But everytime I state these very obvious facts in a public forum, it would be terribly inconvenient for me to have to "format my shit" to avoid prosecution. The problem with the GP's idea of rotating encryption, is that only works where both ends of the conversation are trusted entities. If I were in Canada, and searching the web for information on something of dubious legality, like growing strains of South American botanicals north of the 48th parallel (hey, I like orchids), this would raise a flag somewhere in a database with my name on it. If later I searched for and made posts in support of opposition candidates and positions (whoever the "opposition" of the day was), that would also go into the file. If I was later surfing "fine art" sites and a link farm popped a window with underage models up, bang. You guessed it, a note into the file. When I did something annoying enough to the monitors, they would select the most convictable of possible offenses, get a warrant for a "secret search" and "discover" illegal content on my PC. Evidence clearly substantiated by the logs provided by my ISP.

See how easy it is. If I were actually doing anything deliberately illegal, I would go to great lengths to protect myself. It's the poor buggers that think they are within the law that will get hammered unsuspectingly.

/paging Harry Tuttle

Re:Welcome to America Junior.

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree with parent on the fact that programs like this have a different aggenda, not everyone wants the `powers that be` to have somthing on them, look at the people working on anonet, they have got so fed up of the current internet and started to form their own over the top using VPN's. not only that, they also offer a somthing that projects like tor cant do, true ip access! you no longer need to find a way to proxy applications, just download a vpn client like OpenVPN and play.

i am so stoked that there are people out there that still care about their anonymity like me, even if i have nothing to hide, i dont want to be tracked and profiled by the type of browsing i do, and not have everything coming back to huant me. if you are a real geek theres plenty of space for you on anonet, plenty of networking stuff going on.

i hate to say it now but there is a thin line between repressed countrys such as china and iran compared to 'land of the free' america and now canada, england, france, germany and probably more, take back what belongs to you, have the choice to view what you want at your discresction without being profiled.

Welcome, Big Brother

[cp.tar]

I wonder how long before people start being bothered by this kind of behaviour?

And I don't mean us, but the majority of sheeple...

Will it be too late then?

Re:Welcome, Big Brother

[alshithead]

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people will look at this as the ISP participating in a neighborhood watch type program to protect everyone from the "bad" people on the internet. That's how I would certainly try to market it if I worked for an ISP that was instituting this kind of invasion of privacy. "Will it be too late then?" My cynical side says it's too late now. My hopeful side says...nothing.

Re:Welcome, Big Brother

[cp.tar]

I think it's safe to say if you've been reading Slashdot for any fair period, plenty of people are bothered by it, however that's not as important as what those of us bothered by it intend to do about it. I vote for sending in ninjas... or maybe pirates... but seriously, if people in the tech community are worried about this, then a few of us need to get elected. The Slashdot Party anyone?

If I were American, I for one, would welcome our new Slashdot Party Overlords.

At least the memes used here would be refreshing after the centuries-old slogans.

On the more serious side, I think you're wrong in saying that plenty of people are bothered by it - just because we're the majority on Slashdot, it doesn't mean we have a significant mindshare in general population.
We are few.
And even though lots of us would like to do something, I know that no-one normal would trust me if I went into politics.
They'd just think of me as everyone else who goes into politics.

I have a life to live.

Re:Welcome, Big Brother

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>it's hard to argue that a vague notion of "privacy" is more important then staying alive and safe.

There are two ways to explain this to people.

One is that mass eavesdropping hurts real security. If the FBI is checking out Domino's Pizza then they're not checking flight schools or infiltrating violent groups. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9000515

The reason privacy is important is that government agencies with impossible missions tend to start hassling easy targets to make up for not being able to reach the important ones. How many of those average people have uploaded or downloaded music? How many of them realize that copyright infringers have been accused of funding terrorism?

Without privacy and due process protections, the guy in the high rise will be in more danger of becoming a terrorist suspect than of beomcing a terrorist victim.

Re:Welcome, Big Brother

[Have Blue]

Of course, if you do that on the Internet, you automatic lose all credibility. Completely different mindset, indeed.

Universal Encryption

[Doc Ruby]

In a sane world, the Internet's HTTPS:HTTP ratio would be skyrocketing. Does anyone have trend graphs?

Re:So...

[tomhudson]

Well, it can't be Canadian, because of Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) (in force for all businesses since January 1st of this year):
http://www.privcom.gc.ca/legislation/02_06_01_01_e .asp

"record" includes any correspondence, memorandum, book, plan, map, drawing, diagram, pictorial or graphic work, photograph, film, microform, sound recording, videotape, machine-readable record and any other documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, and any copy of any of those things.

They're simply NOT allowed to do this without a warrant if you refuse to consent to it. Simply send them an email stating that you do not consent to their unlawful search, and cc the privacy commissioner.

If they say "these are our TOS, don't like it, leave" - that's not good enough. Their contract is a contract of adhesion, and as such, unconscionable and onerous clauses can be struck from it. Certainly claiming a right to violate PIPEDA is one such clause.

Not such a huge concern?

[plasmacutter]

doesn't canada have very strict internet privacy laws.

if they snoop and give it away to anyone in violation of those laws class action suits will follow.

Someone correct me...

[thebdj]

if I screw this up...but I remember something from a few years back where a court ruled that logging IMs was equal to recording a phone conversation and could be help under the same notification laws. This is typically not a problem in the states since most, all but 12, require single party notification, so since I know I am recording the conversation it is legal.

Now, if courts did uphold that monitoring and logging IMs, and presumably other means of electronic communication, is covered under the call recording notification laws, would this not create a dilemma for the ISP that is monitoring (and presumably logging) network traffic of users, which would include IMs and e-mai, when their users begin to communicate with individuals from the states who live in one of those 12 states that require both parties to consent?

I am fairly certain on the court ruling I mentioned, I even jokingly added a warning to people in my status message, but I am not sure if this ruling was ever contested or of my full interpretation of the law that follows.

Re:Free Market

[Chabil Ha']

That's easy to say when you live in an area where ISPs compete for subscribers, but I live in the 9th largest city in the US, but I still only get one choice. If I decided that my ISP didn't live up to the info disclosure standard set by me, I just can't cut ties with them and go with someone else. You either live with the fact that you're being tracked, or life without access.

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible to force my DHCP to churn addresses? I figure that if they ("they" being the MAFIAA and the US govt...even in Canada thanks to the fine work of Beverly Oda and Stephen Harper) want data, let's give them plenty.

Re:No, no, you got the fascism all wrong!

[glindsey]

Well, I was exaggerating to make a joke -- heck, that's the basis of most humor. Do I honestly think the United States is a fascist nation? Of course not. I wouldn't be able to write this if it was. But some of what has been happening recently is worrisome to me, because it isn't just the government, but corporations invading our privacy in the name of "making sure we comply with laws". It is very reminiscent of Minority Report's "Precrime", except here we don't use telepaths, we use speculation and innuendo.

I'm a little confused by your question, though; I'd say quite a few people I know would say they're aware their ISP and phone records can be obtained, because it was just all over the news. Is it happening to everyone? No. But the fact that it can, and the government thinks this is okay, is what frightens me. If your parents lived in Cuba for 40 years, they probably understand that the mentality of "we're going to spy on everyone, and if you're innocent, you have nothing to worry about" is one aspect of how fascism looks in its infancy.

Re:Ladies and gentlemen...

[Tripster]

Done! I'm in Canada and almost all my traffic coming in/out of my DSL line is encrypted. SSH tunnels are your friend :)

I started doing this since my ISP's wholesaler was using transparent proxy caches that would actually strip ads from websites and then insert their own in their place. I bitched loudly over that one and they removed me from the proxy list but it was enough to make me take control of my surfing via a SSH tunnel to the servers I operate. The bonus is I can also access content supposed to be only available in the US (like www.sho.com or the ABC online Lost episodes).

My ISP has since switched wholesalers to a more sane variety but I still keep the tunnels going.

I just cancelled...

[Locarius]

I just called to cancel my Sympatico account. It will be disconnected tomorrow morning before 8:00. The alternative, Rogers, used a heavy advertising campaign bragging "No cap, now or ever" to lure customers to their new 5Mb service, then proceeded to implement a 60GB cap a few months later. We cancelled that too. There is apparently no non-evil ISP in my area.

Re:So...

[tomhudson]

And the reason they're doing it is rather obvious - the parent company (Bell Globealmedia) want to try to "enhance" their other properties:

1. They're the #1 porn distributor in North America via their pay-per-view services - they're hoping that if people get scared about surfing the net for pr0n (OMG THEY'RE WATCHING ME !!!), people will turn to their ppv service;
2. They are losing market share in the ppv movie downloads, not just to bittorrent, but to the cable companies, who now let you "rent" a movie for a day through the net; if they can put a chill on torrent distribution, that's possibly more ppv (though more likely not - the selection through ppv is still crap - 500 channels and nothing on);

No wonder Bell has replaces the cable co as the utility everyone loves to hate.

Damn Straight

[Greyfox]

9/11 was nothing but a "Welcome to MY world." I grew up on military bases that were among the first targets that were going to be hit in the case of a nuclear war. I grew up at what was going to be ground 0 if politics took a turn for the worse. While I was being incinerated at ground 0, dad would have been helping the US government destroy humanity. My world was a world of security fences and guards carrying AK47s. They weren't just for show either. Every so often some crazy would try to crash the gates and get himself shot.

The way you look at the world changes when you grow up like that. I could see the truth that most Americans never think of. I knew who the next likely enemy was after the cold war ended. I knew our intelligence agencies were ill equipped to fight the new threat (And still aren't.) I knew that just about the entire world likes to hate America. I knew it was only a matter of time before there was a major terrorist attack in the USA. I know that it's only a matter of time before there'll be another one.

Most Americans seem to have become complacent again. They'd rather live in ignorance, and they like to think that the government is proetecting them. They keep telling themselves that. "Oh it'll be all right, the government is protecting us." Ask someone who knows what the government's been up to, though, and you'll find that it's more by luck than by skill than we haven't had a big successful attack since 9/11. I don't care what your politics are, the level of incompetence displayed at all levels and on all sides should disgust you.