Slashdot Mirror
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?
The wonderfully liberal, left-wing, and "tolerant" Quebec should just separate already. A lot of our political idiocy will go away with it.
If you have another referendum, can I drive over and vote Yes even if I don't live there? I'd be happy to do it.
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
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
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.
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.
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.'
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?
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?
Quebecois are wanna be frogs, screw them. Why would anybody care what the do?