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Quebec Introduces Bill To Mandate ISP Website Blocking (michaelgeist.ca)
An anonymous reader writes: The Government of Quebec has introduced new legislation that requires Internet service providers to block access to unlicensed online gambling sites. The provisions are contained in an omnibus bill implementing elements of the government's spring budget, which included a promise to establish website blocking requirements. The bill provides that "an Internet service provider may not give access to an online gambling site whose operation is not authorized under Québec law." The government's lottery commission will establish the list of banned websites.
government gambling system will decide which other competitors' gambling systems are to be allowed.
I'm sure there's no opportunity for misuse or graft here either....
what's the old bit of bumper-sticker or bathroom stall wisdom?: "Don't steal, the government hates competition!"?
VPN much? Tor much?
Gambling is a government monopoly by law in the province. So either repeal this law and allow competition, or be consequent and enforce the law whether online or in brick and mortar casinos.
Quebec should block all LUDDITE software and only allow apps, especially apps written in AppScript or AppApp!
Apps!
Any site that accepts user input can facilitate gambling. I'd bet heavily on legal challenges.
I'm in Quebec, they could do with more practical things like trying to make solar powered generators than smoking and getting drunk on overpriced drinks at the casino for an ideal self image that doesn't exist. I wish this place had more robotics than titty bars, but voila, c'est la vie
No, but you can organize a referendum on the separation of the rest of Canada from Quebec.
Gambling is a government monopoly by law in the province.
That's not an adequate justification for forcing ISPs to expend substantial resources defending that monopoly. The ISPs are a neutral party here and dragging them into the issue is unfair.
The future of the Internet is a network of VPN endpoints in third world countries, with encrypted connections between them so that you can reach anyone else without going through the unencrypted internet. Users will have their own local IP addresses, but those will only be used for the encrypted connections to the VPNs: A constant flow of evenly sized encrypted packets. Inside those VPNs will be the endpoints to reach web sites and peers, and over these endpoints will flow another layer of end-to-end encryption. Internet exchanges in the industrialized countries will no longer see traffic going from one local ISP to another local ISP. It will all leave the country to a VPN far away and come back from there. There will be no IP geofencing: We're all international VPN users talking to other international VPN users.
that's why good sports with good spirits tend to finish well? (another question for ed snowden here on /.?) .... above... just in case... see you there...
It's also legal for ISPs to (voluntarily) block access to online gambling sites which ARE authorized by the government, yes?
In addition, that blacklist should be a lot shorter and easier to maintain.
Just send all gambling sites to /dev/null and they can be sorted out in the afterlife.
.. the dictionary definition of corruption. Like, literally.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
The problem for the quebecies is that half of Quebec would secede and join the rest of English speaking Canada.
They will have a French sign burning party that will last a week. They will ban the speaking of both French and whatever they speak in Quebec (which I have on good authority is a Creole, not true Frogish.)
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Every jurisdiction has the rights to create laws within its mandate. In Canada, gambling seems to fall partially or entirely into the mandate of the provinces. Now you have a technology that makes it both possible and convenient to circumvent the laws by placing the activity in a jurisdiction where it's legal while allowing participants to remain in jurisdictions where it is illegal (may that be due to outright prohibition or it needing to fulfill certain legal requirements). Now you have law enforcement in one jurisdiction trying to figure out how to uphold the law, while law enforcement in the other jurisdiction doesn't have anything to act on since the activity is legal. And that is assuming that law enforcement in that second jurisdiction even cares. In most cases they won't.
Now there are a variety of ways to deal with that. One is to change the laws in either jurisdiction, which is likely a non-starter since the laws are what they are for a reason (even if you don't agree with the reason). It is also possible to criminalize the activity of the participant, which may involve very undesirable consequences such as surveillance. A third option is to try to block the activity at the border (so to speak). While there are issues with that, including the ability to circumvent such blocks, it is likely the least of all evils. Well, I suppose there are other options. You could try to freeze the offending company's assets within the jurisdiction where it is illegal or prevent the transfer of funds between the company and the participant, but that may not be in the jurisdictions mandate. You could try to arrest employees of the company if they ever enter the jurisdiction where it's illegal, but that assumes that they even have an interest in crossing borders. Every possible solution has issues.
Enforcing the law when it takes place in multiple jurisdictions is a tricky problem. It was prior to the Internet. It was prior to the telephone, when people actually had to move across borders for laws to become entangled. We never really had a good solution to that problem, but now the problem is orders of magnitude larger.
They will have a French sign burning party that will last a week. They will ban the speaking of both French and whatever they speak in Quebec (which I have on good authority is a Creole, not true Frogish.)
The dialect name you are looking for is Joual.
This lack of free speech is quite normal for Quebec. For example, they exempt themselves out of the free speech portion of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms every 5 years for the explicit purpose of forcing Italian restaurants to stop writing non-French terms like "Spaghetti" on their menus.
Quebec is the laughing stock of Canada and I wish they would just separate so we can stop being embarrassed by them. I always find it disappointing I can't vote BQ outside of Quebec to help them with this.
I don't think you understand what a government is. The primary function of government is to an entity that can provide Utilities and grant monopolies. Seriously, that is the primary function. Utilities are for cases where it's in each (or collectively most) persons advantage for the service to exist as deemed by the government but that no one would individually pay for given a choice. e.g. the armed forces or the highway system. The other is to monopolize certain powers such as the power to imprison. Monopolies are useful when many prviders would create chaos but there is no market force that would correct that. In the early days the buildout of rural phone and electric services and train service was aided by monopoly grants to bussinesses.
When governments do something other than offer utilities or monopolies this should be questioned. But those two things are it's purpose.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I wonder how the gov't proposes that ISPs deal with proxy sites. Can't just ban the proxy site... or maybe they will? Proxy sites may be out of their jursidiction.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Our Gov just LOVES controlling any sort of "gambling". This is also why everyone in Quebec is excluded from nearly ALL online giveaways, because "protection of the consumer". If they can't control it, then it's "not safe" for us. Is what our gov is thinking. This has been going on for years and years now and nobody is rising up against it. Because nobody cares enough about it. Heck, other than online giveaways, I don't care about it either.
They can just use a VPN service to connect, same as all the Quebec gamblers will be doing.
I used to work in the online gambling industry for a company based out of Quebec. Their online casinos (about 40+) were all legally licensed - in Antigua - but that was just a ruse.
The actual casino servers were illegally hosted in downtown Montreal. They were owned and operated by a couple of convicted Jewish fraudsters. Their 'customer service' team were almost exclusively family members, and were the only ones who actually dealt with the customers. Nearly everyone else was 'technical support' - web developers; DBA's; third party marketing agencies and software developers.
There were also a large number of 'real' (money) gamblers who worked for the Canadian government and who all used their *.gc.ca email accounts to register at the casinos. The opportunities for blackmail here are quite obvious. Then the casino operators built Mohawk Internet Technologies on the Kahnawakee reserve to 'legalize' their business - by operating on native soil. The natives are given pittance in return - a little cash and employment as gun-toting security guards. From the outside, the whole operation looks likes a Columbian drug cartel's compound.
According to the article, ISP's are supposed to block 'non-licensed' casinos. Considering that most online casinos are 'technically' licensed, it seems to be a moot point. The article doesn't mention what the Quebec government considers a legitimate license. One would assume that a legitimate license is one issued in the province of Quebec.
FTA: "...the best solution for the government is to establish clear rules and open up the online gambling market to private operators."
Interestingly, that was always the wet dream of these casino operators. I suspect that this whole licensing issue is the brainchild of the casino operators themselves.
I'm guessing that the Kahnawakee Gaming Commission will be the official gaming license standard for Quebec. That way, only casinos that these shady crooks own or are profiting from will be the only ones that get past the filters.
Also, if you are thinking about gambling online - don't. It is a scam. Big time. And if you absolutely MUST throw your hard-earned money away then throw it into the fireplace. At least it will keep you warm.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
"...whatever they speak in Quebec..which I have on good authority is a Creole..."
"The dialect name you are looking for is Joual."
LMAO! Nice catch.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Multiple web sites respond by blocking access from anybody in Canada.
Of course nobody would use a VPN? Note that the ad that came with this story read: "Slashdot Deals: Get The Fastest VPN For Your Internet Security..." (Their capitalization.)
Is not to disgruntle gamblers, nor to piss-off ISP. This is more about trying to implements ways to prevent TAX EVASION. Basically, unlicensed gambling sites litterally harvest money then never declare it to any authority. Therefore never pay taxes. No wonder why the mob and other shady characters are the usual owner. Living in Québec, I do approve of this law: we already pay enough taxes here to make it worthwhile catching whoever / whatever corporation doing business outside the rules. And no, I'm not a socialist: I hate paying 40% income and 15% sales taxes... But, damn it, making sure everybody is pulling his weight is the least the government can do about it.
Substantial resources? Seriously?
Yes, substantial resources. But frankly even if it were just a penny I would have a problem with it just on principle.
That's a basic shell script to run a bunch of DNS resolutions and then add the addresses into an existing Firewall drop policy.
It won't be anywhere near that simple. I'm an accountant (among other things) so let me fill you in on where the costs will land. There will be administrative costs to this. There will be documentation and reports. There will be management reviews. It takes time for the network administrators to deal with. The lists will have to be updated and maintained. There will likely be legal costs to help insure compliance. Individually each of these things aren't a huge deal but they add up to a non-trivial amount of money. You are probably looking at many hundreds of man-hours when all is said and done. While we are probably not talking millions of dollars here, I could easily see the cost of compliance getting into the tens of thousands for a large ISP. That's money the ISP has to spend that brings no benefit to them at all.
If you are expending "significant" resources on such a task, you are doing it wrong. Seriously wrong.
You're ignoring all sorts of costs to the business that are very real and substantially larger than zero. There is a lot more to this than simply updating a few shell scripts. If you think it's really that simple then you are doing it wrong.
The stock market is also gambling. Every advert for the stock trader industry includes something along the lines of 'past performance is no guarantee of future results.'
And that's not even considering that most people in Quebec don't actually want to secede in the first place.... and even so-called separatists in Quebec usually start backing down on the idea when they consider all of the additional obligations and responsibilities that would accompany it, the most prominent and obvious being that they would rightfully have to take Quebec's share of the federal debt, which a separated Quebec (which is not all of what is geographically Quebec right now, even) is unlikely to have a sufficient population to actually manage, causing the otherwise newly established nation to spiral rapidly into bankruptcy.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Since accessing a website uses resources (and isn't that really what it all boils down to as we read in Marx?) to save precious government resources the ISPs should be required by law to block access to government sites.
Same thing with the IRS. Just imagine all the work we can liberate them from if we just block interaction with them.
I would assume that to comply with this law most ISPs would choose to just block by IP using a DNSBL.
That wouldn't require much, if any, extra hardware and would work with HTTPS.
But what if IPs are shared or change often?
From TFA it sounds like this is not a real time BL so I am sure there are going to be lots of cracks.
Seems like a lot of effort for no real gain since all a user has to do is to run a VPN or TOR...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
By the time the governments are done blocking sites, plus people in general just wanting to torrent and browse anonymously, VPN providers must be making bank.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
Would the same rationale allow the government to forbid Quebecers from importing goods from Israel?
Even if Quebec actually got a majority provincial government in favour of secession, it will take much more than just a single provincial referendum for them to separate. It's a foregone conclusion that if the secession is to be legal, then *EVERY* province in Canada will have to unanimously agree to it, and even then it would probably require a 75 or 80% majority to be considered for each province. The odds of this happening of are so staggeringly unlikely, that I'd wager it is more probable we will achieve faster-than-light interstellar travel in our lifetime.
This is just plain wrong for so many different reasons.
Imagine country A invade and annex country B. Country A then write into the new constitution that any separation requires the agreement of every citizen of the whole country. Then country B makes a referendum on independence. 100% of them vote yes. A single person in country A oppose. Country B can't secede? Wait? According to what? Not international law. According to a constitution which was never democratic or agreed with the same standards that it is trying to put in place.
There is no chance of such a fraud constitution to be even considered a problem in Quebec getting its independence, whether we agree or not with it.
Of course, they'll also block access to www.codoh.com, because their 'Holocaust' lie can't stand up to basic scientific investigation. Which is why many people are actually in prison, right now, for several years, for merely proving that the 'Holocaust' didn't happen.
You'd think that it would be a GOOD thing if somebody proved that 6,000,000 Jews WEREN'T killed, wouldn't you?
Perhaps you failed to notice my caveat...
I'm not saying Quebec could not even try to secede without unanimous agreement from other provinces. only that it cannot do so legally without such agreement, and actually attempting to do so would land the leaders of such a movement in prison, unless the separatists were literally wiling to wage war on Canada. A war they could not possibly win.
Which, by the way, still would not be legal.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If by "legally" you mean in accordance with the canadian constitution, then I agree.
But the whole point is to get out of the canadian constitution, therefore it would no longer apply. Just like Canada chose that the UK constitution stopped to apply in 1982. According to UK law, the UK parliament could still change the constitution of Canada. But Canada doesn't care. That's what is called independence.
By the way, agreement from all provinces is required to amend some parts of the constitution of Canada. But not all provinces agreed to it, making this constitution a joke.
Uh... no. The Canadian Constitution act of 1982 was signed into law by Queen Elizabeth herself, and as such was legally recognized by the UK.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Yup. But as any other law of the UK parliament, it can be repealed.
Well yes, of course.... my point was that it was legal. You appeared to be suggesting that the whole point of secession was to get out of the constitution, and likened that to what Canada did with the UK in 1982.
Now, if Quebec goes and does something illegal and attempts to declare independent sovereignty without the other provinces approval, then for all intents and purposes, we would be talking about civil war. However, it's foregone conclusion that the separatists would lose any war they try to wage against the rest of Canada because there are simply not enough of them. There aren't even enough people in all of Quebec that actually want separation for it to succeed, how many people do you seriously think would be willing to go to war over it and possibly die, or at the very least face a mandatory life sentence in prison (the current Canadian penalty for high treason), where they would be entirely unable to enjoy the benefits of living in a free country, let alone their ideal of a separated Quebec. If anything is less likely than Quebec legally separating from Canada, that's probably a contender.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
if the secession is to be legal
They don't care about that. They just need federal politicians who are weak.
It was "legal" (in accordance with UK law) but what wasn't is the conception that Canada is now fully independant from the UK. There is no such provision in UK law. Even if the UK sign a law saying that Canada is now independent, it isn't, since the UK can repeal that law "legally".
But all that is BS. Quebec can get its independence under both Quebec and international law and this is what counts in the end, not Canadian law. Canadian law can only affect Canada's recognition of an independent Quebec.
And no, there wouldn't be a civil war. Canada wouldn't like it, but they would, in the end, negotiate with Quebec because it's in their best interest.
You are right.... ringleaders would just go to prison. This nearly happened in the 90's, when separatism reached a peak.
It is bizarre that you should think there is a greater likelihood of success that Quebec could secede from Canada illegally than through legal channels (which itself is so staggeringly unlikely to happen that I have no words at the moment to describe it).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Quebecois are wanna be frogs, screw them. Why would anybody care what the do?
If they do it illegally, they will go to prison, unless other nations are willing to help Quebec separate. Such separation would be of no benefit to anyone else, so there is no reason to suppose such assistance may be forthcoming.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It would happen legally. Under both Quebec and international law. The only law that would be broken would be the constitution of Canada, and it wouldn't matter since it would no longer apply.