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.

[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

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.

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.

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.