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Proposed Canadian Anti-Spam Rules Restrict Secret ISP Monitoring

Posted by timothy on from the shouldn't-they-call-spam-moose? dept.

New submitter Fnordulicious writes "Although Canada's anti-spam legislation is already in place, the rules to implement it have been under development for more than a year. This weekend the proposed rules from the Department of Industry were published in the Canada Gazette. Kady O'Malley reports on the CBC Inside Politics Blog that Canadian ISPs will not be allowed to secretly monitor activity except in the case that the activity is illegal and represents an 'imminent risk to the security of its network.' In addition, consent would be required for monitoring of legal activities 'that are merely unauthorized or suspicious.'"

4 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. Yay by Kinthelt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Happy news, for a change!

    Now, if we could only do something about the Copyright Modernization Act...

    --

    "Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)

  2. Some scary stuff therw by Lieutenant_Dan · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Limited exemptions for protecting, upgrading and updating computer networks
    The proposed Regulations include an exemption for telecommunications service providers (TSPs) from the requirement to have consent to install a computer program for the limited purposes of preventing illegal activities that present an imminent risk to the security of its network.

    The proposed Regulations also include an exemption for TSPs from the requirement to have consent to install software on devices across an entire network for update and upgrade purposes.

    Does this mean that Rogers/Bell can start pushing agents/SW on their subscribers computers which in turn allow them to control your access?

    This is pretty messed up.

    They should be within their rights to cut off access to the node. I suppose the TSPs need to have a higher level of assurance that the node is no longer compromised.

    --
    Wearing pants should always be optional.
    1. Re:Some scary stuff therw by dskoll · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Does this mean that Rogers/Bell can start pushing agents/SW on their subscribers computers which in turn allow them to control your access?

      It may read that way, but I don't think that's the intent. I think it's meant to allow Bell and Rogers to remotely update the firmware on their modems and routers. My mother uses Bell, but she runs Linux so Bell would have a fairly difficult time installing anything on her computer anyway. (To monitor her, they wouldn't need to... they could just install something on the router they provided.)

  3. Re:This sounds good, but what is consent here? by Meneth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even if the ISP looks, they can't determine if something is illegal or not. A court of law is required for that.