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Govt Docs Reveal Canadian Telcos Promise Surveillance Ready Networks

Posted by samzenpus on from the we'll-do-it-for-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist reports that Canadian telecom and Internet providers have tried to convince the government that they will voluntarily build surveillance capabilities into their networks. Hoping to avoid legislative requirements, the providers argue that "the telecommunications market will soon shift to a point where interception capability will simply become a standard component of available equipment, and that technical changes in the way communications actually travel on communications networks will make it even easier to intercept communications."

6 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. High costs to customers, check.
    2. Slow speeds, check.
    3. No expenses spared upgrading intercept capabilities for the government, priceless!

  2. Re:Not that surprising thanks to CALEA by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Implementing it isn't a problem really, just so long as it's not abused

    The problem is it will be abused. It will be used for things beyond the scope they claimed it will be. It will essentially suffer from the same kind of scope creep all of this surveillance shit does.

    What they say now as "oh, we'll only use this for national security stuff" becomes tomorrow's "well, we had to invent parallel construction to conceal what we do with that stuff we promised was only for national security".

    This stuff is designed to give law enforcement unfettered access to anything, while keeping that access secret from the rest of us. And in the case of Canada, this pretty much bypasses privacy legislation

    I'm pretty much convinced that all elected officials voting in favor of this crap have forfeited all right to claim any of their information is private while saying they have access to all of our information.

    These clowns have been undermining some of the basic premises of Western societies.

    Worthless bastards.

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    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  3. In related news ... by PPH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... a grateful Chinese intelligence service thanks Canadian telcos for their assistance.

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    Have gnu, will travel.
  4. I call BS by TallahassZ · · Score: 5, Informative

    As an engineer who worked with Eastlink a few years back, I can say with 100% certainty that the RCMP monitor every fucking packet that traverses Eastlink's network. I know because I assisted in the installation of the RCMP's "blackbox" that sits on the inside perimeter of Eastlink's boarder routers. Big Brother HAS ALWAYS been watching, folks.

  5. Re:I don't see what the Telcos have to do... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You store your phone calls and text messages in the cloud?

    Sure. NSA's cloud. Epsilon's cloud. CSEC's cloud if you're in Canada.

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    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  6. Another angle by Gliscameria · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if you don't believe that the government will use these backdoors for evil, what's to stop anyone else? The more backdoors and surveillance they build into the system the more likely it is that someone one will find and exploit them. Plus, there's a lot of money in information. I don't think it would take too much convincing to get someone with access to go rogue and start feeding corporate/tech info to the highest bidder.

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