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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
No, everything is not in English, even here in the US. Go into any good Italian restaurant, and the menu will be filled with Italian terms and writing. Any intelligent diner is educated and smart enough to be able to pronounce these terms; it's not like you need to learn the whole language. Same for any Greek restaurant: all the food names are in Greek, like galactoboureko. At some restaurants, you'll even see stuff in Greek letters, though of course they also print the Latinized versions. Again, same for French restaurants: all the dishes have French names. Americans probably have more trouble pronouncing those than the Italian or Greek dishes, but that's ok, we still muddle our way through, and don't demand that the menus be made in all-English. Again, Mexican restaurants: the menus are in Spanish. Not even the Trump supporters complain about this; they know perfectly well what a taco or a burrito is, and don't need the name translated into some made-up English name.
Part of the experience of dining in a good ethnic restaurant is (hopefully) getting a relatively "authentic" dining experience, which includes the food as well as the names on the menu. If the Quebec government actually expects Greek, Russian, Ethiopian, or Italian restaurants to make up French names for foods that are native to those place, that just defies all reason.
It's you _duty_ to evade taxes by all means possible, legal or illegal.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.'
Québec wants to maintain its own identity and not become just another place on the globe that's just like every place else. I don't see anything particularly wrong with that. It's different than the melting pot style policies that the province is surrounded by, but it doesn't "defy all reason". You could argue whether or not that's a noble goal, but the reasoning seems pretty clear to me.
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'
WTF - You've got a weird sense of duty, pal.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
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
It's also legal for ISPs to (voluntarily) block access to online gambling sites which ARE authorized by the government, yes?
That would be a net neutrality issue. I don't think an ISP should have the right to block any legal web site.
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.
Québec wants to maintain its own identity and not become just another place on the globe that's just like every place else. I don't see anything particularly wrong with that. It's different than the melting pot style policies that the province is surrounded by, but it doesn't "defy all reason". You could argue whether or not that's a noble goal, but the reasoning seems pretty clear to me.
I remember when touring through Canada, where the identity seeking Quebecois mandated that bilingual was the law. Okay, I guess that is alright. Seems a little clumsy. Certrainly if I was living in a country where a language was spoken, I'd learn what was spoken rather than demand everyone placate me. But, whatever
Touring through Ottawa was pretty nice. Loved the architecture. Liked the very casual atmosphere, considering it was the capital of a country. Enjoyed the cathouse outside of Parliament. The bilingual signs were everyhere, just like they were everywhere through Ontario.
Well - Hull looked like an interesting place, so we hopped in the car, and crossed the river. Suddenly, no English. That's odd. Why would everything in Ottawa have to be Bilingual, but once we got into Quebec, no English? I speak a little French, so I could get along there. But apparently there's a double standard somewhere.
In the end, we just figured that Quebecois just didn't want English speakers in their province at all, merci beaucoup. So we and our money just avoid the place.
Whatever.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
There is a historical reason for that though. A portion of the population believes that the province should be its own country, separate from Canada. They don't consider themselves Canadian and they don't want to deal with Canadians. Canada gives Québec more liberties than the other provinces as a way of sidestepping the issue. My thought on that is that Canada is a weak negotiator.
I've spent a lot of time in Québec as an American and I never felt like anyone treated me as an outsider, even when I chose to speak English. I'd be willing to bet that if I had a Canadian accent, it might have been different.
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.
As English speaker you don't see any problem with this because everything else is in English. What harm could do a little menu in Italian when it is the Italian peoples that are forced to learn English for work.
If they emigrate to the US or UK, then of course they need to learn English for work. Why should it be any different?
If they're living in Italy, then no, they don't need to learn English to work. I'm quite sure Italians still generally speak Italian in Italy, just like French generally speak French in France.
None of these foreign culture threaten your English one. You opinion about Italian restaurant will change if you were forced to learn Italian for work or go on you dailies tasks. Do you see how stupid your position is?
No, I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.
If I move to Italy, then I would expect to need to learn Italian to get along. "When in Rome..."
A sovereign state can decide what is the language of the land. If you want to do business there, you respect the law. Or you can go elsewhere.
Sure, and the rest of us have the right to laugh at your sovereign state's idiotic laws.
I'm sure that Italian restaurants in Germany have menus with the names of their dishes in Italian too. Only a really idiotic place would require ethnic restaurants to translate the very names of their dishes into the local language.
Also the experience of dinning in a ethnic restaurant is clean and good food, not having no idea of what you eating because you only pretending to understand what you ordered.
Are you so sheltered you've never been to an ethnic restaurant? They pretty much all have English descriptions of the dishes (in the US).
And WTF is "dinning"?
So the Quebecoi is worried about the culture being ruined by the Italians??? Or the Ethiopians (I'm sure their restaurants have the names of their dishes in Ethiopian)?
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'
It's Richmond, not Vancouver, that's trying to encourage english in the business sphere. The reason is because there are so many chinese only signs that many non-chinese aren't even going into the city and it's hurting the city. I know that I only go into Richmond when I absolutely have to, and there's no reason for me to go. I haven't been there since I quit my last job that was in Richmond over a year ago.
As for the Quebec referendum, the only problem I had with it is no one asked the rest of the country if they could stay. That would've been a VERY different referendum if that happened.
some karma... and kinda lukewarm about it.
It's easier than fighting over who gets exceptions to the law and who doesn't.
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'
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.
The obvious conclusion here is that the law is *stupid*. Repeal the law and let people use whatever language they want. We don't have that problem here in the US; there's plenty of areas where all the shops have their signage in, and do business in, Spanish, because that's what their customers want.
That's all fine and well, but why exactly do you need a *law* to force this on everyone? If you don't want to try to learn any Greek food names, then don't eat at a Greek restaurant; it's pretty simple. It's not like you even need to learn the Greek language; the server probably doesn't speak it either. At the last Greek restaurant I went to, the server couldn't even pronounce "gyro" correctly. But at least they weren't required to make up some stupid English name for a Greek dish that's had a Greek name for centuries, so it was easy for me to walk in and get what I wanted.