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."
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!
The problem is, that when governments get an ability to do something, they have a bad habit of misusing that power.
... is awesome.
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.
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...