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, 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

[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: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.

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