Slashdot Mirror
Canada To Mandate ISP Deep Packet Inspection
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian government has proposed new legislation that would require ISPs to install deep-packet inspection capabilities. The proposal includes a laundry list of
surveillance requirements, police review of ISP employees and technologies, and the mandated disclosure of a broad range of
subscriber information without any court oversight."
And use ssh or equivalent for everything else. The criminals/terrorist will already be doing this , its only ordinary Joe Public who the authorities will be snooping on. As usual.
Oh, I think this is actually kind of a good thing...
Next up: Canada leads in public adaptation of strong encryption while engaging in all online activities.
news: its not expensive. networks TAPS are commodity these days. dpi is something 'every box' does (or plans to do). no longer really a differentiator.
I work in the networking field and over the last 10 yrs I've seen a burst of boxes that offer 'security' and other things but mostly they are there for LI and DPI. its the new fad in datacomm and all the governments are into spying on their people. its profitable to supply boxes to such governments and corporations.
since everyone (vendors) are offering port monitoring, tapping and DPI triggering, it won't be too expensive.
cost is not what we should care about, here. its the widespread use and 'well, everyone else is doing it' acceptance of DPI in our lives. that's what annoys and scares me the most; the fact that its so 'everywhere' now. and it seems only us techies really know this.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Nope. I cant access youtube at the moment, but there's a video of Canadian Ezra Levant being interrogated by his own government. His crime: He published a cartoon with a Muslim.
So much for free speech. Looks like Canada is becoming even more tyrannical than Australia.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Power corrupts. Absolute power...
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
It's very easy to look at the short story and go "The government wants to read my packets?!?!? Oh Noes this must be bad!" Usually that can get a +5 insightful.
I opened the Article to find it was another one from Michael Geist. Now, normally he puts me off, it seems like there was a week or two there where he kept flooding the world with news about ACTA, and I was getting tired of hearing about it because it was the same old thing, bad bad bad. So I started reading the article and the bills that were being proposed - and he actually seems to be on the mark with this one. Basically what the whole thing boils down to is this:
The Law Enforcement Agencies want to be able to read internet traffic, real time, and have access to the information the ISP has on whoever is in that conversation. While some of these details are already within the ISP's ability to give out voluntarily should the Police ask for it, basically they want it set in stone that they MUST. Makes me wonder if there was an issue where an ISP refused to hand over data recently, or if they simple said "We can't sniff their traffic".
Now - I have a strong feeling that this will fail. Why? It seems that they want ISP's to foot the bill. An ISP isn't going to want to pay any more money than they have to. They won't be getting any kind of a kickback from the government - law enforcement isn't exactly a money making industry. So I see Telus and Shaw and Bell and whoever probably starting to grease some palms to make sure this thing doesn't pass.
Unless there is some odd reason that ISP's would willingly want to comply with this (which would mean they're likely getting refunded somehow) then I would be a little more worried. If Geist can find evidence of that, well, that'd be quite a story!
The problem is, that when governments get an ability to do something, they have a bad habit of misusing that power.
So basically, you are sending them a red flag that you got something to hide? SMART!
PGP-nerd: "Gosh, I got a 4096 key, nobody is ever going to break this, I am safe"
Agent A to Agent B: "We can't break his key, break his knees."
Freedom is NOT won by finding loopholes around laws but by fighting bad laws.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Because assholes are attracted to the levers of power, almost by definition.
... is awesome.
Canada just needs to start up a War on Drugs. Law enforcement is quite a profitable industry in the US.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Please be aware that we don't have 'Free Speech' laws in Canada like those protected by the First Amendment in the USA.
What we have instead is a freedom of expression (Section 2b of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms). The Freedom of Expression is very similar, but not quite as wide reaching as those rights protected by the 1st Amendment in the US Constitution.
One of the subtle differences is that you are free to express anything you like, as long as neither the message, nor the means of conveying that message, is considered illegal under another law. There aren't many cases where another law infringes on the freedom of expression, but one notable example is the Canadian Hate Crimes laws, which prohibit the proliferation of hate material based on ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, etc.
The War on Some Drugs is a big money loser. We spend billions on it and on incarcerating non-violent offenders.
Yes, but his point is that for the agencies and private-sector corporations who are maintaining and supporting that "War" ... it is extremely profitable. Those billions are going somewhere, and those groups have a vested interest in lobbying Congress to keep the "War" on for as long as possible. Corruption of the highest order, when you get right down to it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Oh, I think this is actually kind of a good thing...
Next up: Canada leads in public adaptation of strong encryption while engaging in all online activities.
Everybody thinks that, until the use of encryption for other than officially-approved activities is outlawed, or until keeping your passwords private becomes a serious crime. See how the UK has been handling that for an idea of how bad it can get (and it's not as bad as it's going to get, yet.)
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You make it sound so innocent but here's the facts:
- 3 years of Mr. Levant's life wasted trying to defend himself
- $50,000 of " " money wasted " "
- $600,000 of taxpayer dollars wasted on the investigation, interrogation, and later backpedaling by the government
- hours of video of interrogations on youtube - priceless
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
What don't you like about Geist? He's done great work at slowing down bad copyright legislation (though I'm a bit out of the loop recently).
Surveillance is 99% traffic analysis (constructing the social network, and colouring certain nodes red) and only 1% about the particulars of the conversation. SSH won't raise any red flags, unless you SSH into a well known onion router. Suppose one person in a thousand does this. These people take a moderate hit on their spook agency credit rating, and a smaller stain spreads outward to their primary affiliates.
I think you have to do a bunch of stuff to have your credit rating fall low enough to devote human resources to sussing you out. Too many sheep, not enough shepherds, who cost real money. Purchasing a holiday condo in Peshawar would really rack up the points if you're desperate to justify wearing a tinfoil hat.
The big Canadian ISPs won't complain because this creates a barrier to entry for small ISPs who can't afford to staff an office of conformance.
What sucks in this plan is the lack of judicial oversight. That's just plain wrong. Oversight is foundational to democracy. This is the same PM who is trying to gut Statistics Canada (on the bogus pretext there has ever been a privacy issue) because the data they produce is too credible, and can be used to justify social spending.
I would like to think it would be practical to have all (judicially supervised) surveillance requests opened to the public 50 to 75 years after the fact, so that we can look back and form an accurate opinion about the past scope of abuse. Every democracy needs the occasional dental checkup.
Another problem in Canada is that there are 2-3 majors that control the last mile of communications, and regulated by the CRTC that generally hands them rulings that sustain their oligopolies. This would be a great way to kill off the little guys already forced to wholesale their last mile from the big ones. Rogers, Bell, and Telus might just be willing to bear the costs if it kills of the small guys.
C50: Modifies existing wiretap laws so that instead of having to rely only on mechanical interception it allows the use of actual monitoring tools on internet connections. But you still have to have a warrant for it. And extends the existing tap law to cover internet related crime such as: "if there's mention of another crime, or purpose of trying to commit another offence, or planning to commit another offence, or is working as part of a conspiracy, or commissioning an offence", and the AG must be a party to the understanding of the warrant, and extentions to the warrant my only be extended by a SC judge, or AG, and my not exceed 3 years.(useful to know that the average long-term investigation in canada is ~4yrs), blahblabhblah, 1yr major criminal issue(terorrism, criminal enterprises aka organized crime) warrants may be allowed, exigent circumstances and so on. Usual stuff, if you need the warrant modified you must go back and have a judge authorize it.
C51: I'm not seeing anything earth shattering. Except that if someone commits a criminal offence to which has been modified, the ISP isn't to delete the offending content which wasn't admissible before, but rather they must preserve all information to ensure that there's a continuity of evidence. And it modifies existing mischief, and impersonation of a person(aka written/published/print/etc) to cover electronic communications.
C52: Again nothing earth shattering, but rather it requires ISP's to be able to allow CSIS, the RCMP and other police services the ability to monitor communications with a warrant, and as such be able to it within a reasonable period of time. This includes that the ISP must have up to date information on their subscribers, including their home address and IP address, but this can only be disclosed by warrant. However if exigent circumstances exist and an officer has reasonable and probable grounds to believe a person is in immediate harm, they must be able to disclose this information. Even then the officer must still within 24hrs, submit a request and a full explanation of why they used exigent circumstances for the information. And like all 3 of these bills, the officer must maintain a chain of evidence, and have it submitted on a regular basis. It can not be done without permission, all requests will be audited on a regular basis, and will be tracked. And police services that request any of this will pay a fee for such information. Oh and earlier on it covered that any form of interception must not impede the networks in any shape or form, or violate the telecommunications act.
To me it looks like Giest is going off on a tangent, I don't see anything covering deep packet inspection or to mandate it. Rather that ISP's must be able to have the tools, and allow police to use the tools with a warrant provided by a superior court judge, or via the AG of the province--who will have to explain to the court why he gave permission for the warrant, the ability to track, copy, and find information. Again with a warrant.
Now the interesting thing in Canada is, warrants are very hard to get. When I say very hard, I mean very hard. They're not that common place.
Om, nomnomnom...
But it keeps our officers in a never ending supply of free pot and cocaine.
Which would be okay, but the fuckers won't share.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Glock, Remington, Colt, Beretta, H&K, and S&W have all been doing quite well of late. Remember - in any war, the real winners are the ones making the weapons.
Absolutely. All those cars and guns and kevlar vests and tasers don't spring up out of thin air. Nor do prisons. Criminal justice is big business, especially in the USA.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
we define "hate" pretty specifically.
It's too long to write out in full but basically you need to publicly call for or advocate violence against a minority group with intent of people listening to you and going through with it.
It implies that any government with any power will misuse it.
There are checks and balances in our system for a reason. They are based on a model of human nature that brought us democracy in the first place. It is a thoroughly conservative model of human nature by modern standards.
So... my question to you is, why should the government be circumventing judicial oversight? Why is the government all of a sudden so trustworthy, as do deny what we know about human nature? Is it because it is Harper, and you are a conservative yourself? That would be ironic.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Corruption of the highest order, when you get right down to it.
Agreed. But don't forget that conservative do-gooders really believe that they are doing the right thing, and cannot see the ironic nature of what is going on. After-all, the unwashed masses need to be controlled for their own good. Moral authoritarianism is as much an ideology as it a business proposition for the private-sector profiting from the "war".
For anybody conservative or liberal who smugly thinks that they are the one who has thought it through, consider this: when identical twins are separated at birth, and tested in adulthood, their political attitudes turn out to be similar with a correlation co-efficient of 0.62 (Bouchard et al. 1990; Eaves, Eysenck, & Martin, 1989; Holden, 1987; Martin et al. 1986; Plomin et al., 1997, p. 206; Scarr & Weinberg, 1981)
So, the next time it seems a political argument is entrench -- consider that it may be far more entrenched then anyone realizes.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right