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Bell Canada Wants Pirate Websites Blocked For Canadians (www.cbc.ca)
New submitter wierzpio writes: According to Rob Malcolmson, Bell Canada's VP of regulatory affairs, Canada is a safe haven to internet pirates and the only solution is to create a federally mandated blacklist of pirate websites. Unlike the existing blacklist in the U.K., Bell's plan appears to involve no judicial oversight. "Engaging in extrajudicial attempts to block access to sites, I think, raises all kinds of Charter of Rights and Freedoms issues," argues Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa professor and internet law expert. Quebec also wants to block sites. The province recently introduced a provincial law that would force internet providers to block users' access to online gambling sites not approved by the government. It argues the legislation is necessary to ensure internet gambling companies maintain responsible gaming rules.
Hmm, the government and private companies putting together a list of sites they consider "prates" and blocking them from your view.
Certainly no potential for abuse here.
Don't sound as convincing as "Think of the children", but probably will be enforced anyway.
They just can't help themselves in controlling your lives.
They should just ask DICE to run them for them. That'll take them down rather quickly.
Sourceforge and Slashdot have been doing the old "front-page-only" trick for a few days in a row now.
You made TheRegister too: https://www.theregister.co.uk/...
But not a mention on here?
Poutine eating pushovers. Go fuck a maple tree.
Wait, the UK blocklist has judicial oversight? I though judicial oversight was only used in places like China.
Over here in Denmark, there is no judicial oversight, the block list is controlled by private interest groups, and getting off the list is nearly impossible. Last time the list was leaked, it had several legitimate companies.
And conversly, given the current age,
where technologies such as VPNs and Tor exist,
what do they expect to actually work ?
Basically people will just browse to http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion/ instead of https://thepiratebay.org and completely ignore whatever restriction the local government is trying to put.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Bell Canada doesn't want to lose its monopoly teat on IPTV services. So of course they don't want any competition. Legal or otherwise. It's easier to claim they're going against the 'pirates' first.
In Canada there are many statutes in law keeping the internet open and not liable for the content it distributes. Bell is both a content owner/host, distributor and internet provider. The CRTC provides protection for the consumer so that one company does not have a negative impact for the user and keeps these areas separate.
It is the copyright laws in Canada that are outdated. It is too costly to go through the courts for every case. A ticket and fine out of court system would be a better setup.
but there appears to be no information at all as to why Slashdot was completely borked this week...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
They'll mark sites like netflix, hulu, CBS All access and Amazon, because someone told them to block them.
It's not like their citizens actually have rights or freedom. Just ask the guy from TVAddons for Kodi:
http://cordcuttersnews.com/now...
Even if they manage to stop downloading, why would anyone buy Bell TV when Netflix is so much cheaper? Are they going to ban Netflix too?
Their next step will be to confiscate and ban all reading material. Obviously, anyone who reads is stealing money from Bell Canada.
I thought Canadians just got free access after that, after all it's a levy not a tax.
Canadians are a pretty tech-literate lot when it comes to entertainment. If Bell gets what they want, I would expect to see significant push-back in the form of increased VPN use. Then Bell will be back trying to get VPN's outlawed.
Bell might want to watch out. In some respects, it could almost be considered a monopoly. Certainly it is a scumbag of a company, and it is heartily detested by a huge number of Canadians. If I were in government, I would be very careful indeed about what I gave them, and what the consequences might be.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Malcolmson's head on a silver platter.
Simple, effective, and far less illegal.
I think we should all get behind this initiative from Bell and block all the bad websites.
Can they propose a method that does not involve becoming an isolated, non-democratic and dictatorial regime?
You see so far, even countries like North Korea cannot block access to anything it likes...so how will an interconnected, development and democratic country like Canada mange that?
Having considered the above and weighed the possibilities I suggest we just ignore Bell and carry on with our lives. This seems to be the easiest and cheapest to implement. In fact if the Canadian government paid not heed to it either that would be best for tax payers as there are more serious matters to attend to.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
In Belgium, they enforce that on ISP level by sending DNS response redirecting to a site from the ministry of justice telling you that piracy is bad mmkay.
Thanks to Google Public DNS it's only an issue for unrooted phones, which are not the best device for piracy anyway...
We've had this debate, at least in my country, I think four or five times now. Canada is probably no different. It's always about blocking content someone or other wants blocked opening the door for censorship. Sometimes the approaches are a little different, be it some kinds of illegal content, terrorism etc.
There is always strong lobbying by the content industry that wants the mechanisms in place and some law that eventually can be extended to cover what they really want. Standing on the sidelines are religious communities that want blasphemy banned or other content they consider to be "dirty".
The first few times these attacks on civil rights met a strong reaction, there was a big discussion and the attack failed. Nevertheless the lobbyists simply start a new attack a few years later and the public just grows tired of having the same discussion over and over again.
Also the politicians either stay completely clueless regarding the subject or the bribes are just raising. Otherwise it's unexplainable why the lobbyists aren't simply ignored when they start the same debate after they've lost it previously. In my opinion politicians supporting such crap should be constantly hammered with accusations of corruptness until they leave politics.
Web blocking isn't the only debate where this happens, wire tapping, IP-logging, the cryptowar, it's all like:
"Not again, we had this debate already."
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
yeah dumb admins, aslhdot is crapo now.
Cant even change to dark backgrounds, white is so CORPORATE you dooshes.
Don't you guys have a tax on media that effectively paid the rights holders for your now perfectly legitimate practice of copying things? I thought pirates couldn't exist in Canada... without boarding ships, raping, pillaging and making the crew walk the plank.
Someone just paid Rob Malcolmson.
Most likely they will use DNS blocking, like they do in other places. Easy to just use an open DNS server. Plenty around, even if you do not want to give Google even more data.
One of the lists
Or just use your own DNS server, like bind. The latter would be not a real solution for many.
Why is there no 'single PC' DNS server available? Only listen to localhost and does the resolving for everything that is not in the hosts file.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Freedom of Internet at its best!!!
When did Censorship become accepted practice? Not that anyone should support these illegal businesses...
The Bell Canada VP has friends in the Canadian edition of MPAA and RIAA.
visit : jasa maket
I really really despise the idea of Canadian companies censoring the web on me -- yes to a free Internet -- free as in freedom and an open Internet. And no, I do not pirate: I rent my movies and I pay for my software et al.
Canadians have few options for TV. It's basically Bell, or one cable company (the 3 big cable companies have carved up each city, so they don't compete against the other)
With high prices, limited selection of channels, and ongoing high rental fees for boxes (required for each TV in the house) it's not surprising that Canadians are pirate-friendly.
Netflix has proven that customers are willing to pay for content when the price is right.
Pirating and cord-cutting should be the canary/coalmine to Bell that they need to adapt, but instead, they continue to ignore the silent protests of their customers.
And how far will Bell go? Last year, the Bell president snitched on his own daughter for using a VPN
Loto-Québec also wants to block sites. The provincial crown corporation recently introduced a provincial law that would force internet providers to block users' access to online gambling sites not approved by the government. It argues the legislation is necessary to ensure internet gambling companies pay their fees.
FTFY.
I can't even remember the number of times I read "Offer not valid in Québec" in the rules of contests I wanted to enter. They have crazy high requirements so most companies don't even bother and just say we can't participate.
#DeleteFacebook
I pay joe shmoe cable company a monthly fee to watch tv and that's ok.
I pay same joe shmoe cable company a monthly fee to watch tv on internet, and that's not ok?
Is this a cake and eating it too problem?
Can't you just block facebook?
The reason why they're saying this is because Bell is a content provider and they refuse to lease rights to places like Netflix.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Our copyright laws are not out of date. Actually a large portion of them are relatively new. The reason why there are so many restrictions on companies in Canada is due to constant abuse of the system. Sometimes the US refuses to do. It is the US copyright that is massively out of date. Bell is one of the reasons for the restrictions on companies. Also, what Bell calls piracy, and what the law calls piracy is very different.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
The FLQ will separate Quebecs part of the internet, and the provincial gouvernement will enforce french language laws on it. Make Bell Canader Eh Great Again.
Bell, has always been aggressive on it's pricing and it's reputation in the government is not exactly spotless. They had a "internet security service" scam when by default they would give you a disk they told you to install (which I told people there is never a good reason to do with a legit ISP), that would install a remote access service and symantic antivirus, for which you would be billed an extra fee per month be default, whether you installed it or not (I can't remember the amount but I think it was ~$10 CAD). Analysis revealed this "solution" made people's computers LESS security as Bell in essence planed a back door for their technicians to use (their own, not MS's remote assistance). I remember advising people to remove the service, get their own antivirus (which was certainly less than $120/year) and cancel the "plan" that was by default tagged to their account. Several clients had taken my advice but 3 months later was still being charged. Each month out of the 3 when asked why the charge was still there,the support person said it was an "oversight". For a few of these I called Bell myself and told them if they didn't stop these charges and refund from the first cancellation immediately, there would be a class action lawsuit on their hands. As it turned out, the federal government took them to task for that.
Another incident involved their new Fiber internet service. They got a slap on the wrist again by government regulators for false advertising, claiming their fiber internet deal was less than it was. (I never signed up as I never trusted them, obviously).
My first and last experience with Bell as an ISP was when I got my own DSL modem, returned theirs (which they accepted) and they kept billing me an extra $5/month even when they acknowledged they had received their modem back. They said they couldn't cancel it as it was a required part of the deal (although they gave me an address to return the modem as I told them I now had my own). I cancelled their service. 3 days before the cancellation was finalized, I got a call telling me they would drop the fee if I stopped the cancellation. No go there.
So Bell has a bad business for consumer all round and government divisions coming down on their so their credibility is questionable there.
In addition, people are fed up with Bell's exorbitant fees for satellite tv fees.In Canada, Bell is the exclusive content distributor for HBO. They've had a deal for years. (Bell owns several phone company and at least one IPTV service). If you want to get say, "Game of Thrones" in Canada without using a "grey market" (it's not illegal to download restricted intellectual property, only to distribute), you have to pay them $60 basic fee, plus an extra fee to get a channel for extended HBO content including "Game of Thrones". HBO has a very nice Internet only service for $20 USD a month which I tried to sign up for. But it's not allowed in Canada because of Bell's deal. People are pissed and using streams. So bell wants to block that.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Bell can do what it wants with their network, block the entire internet if they wish, and consumers can do what they want... like switch to a different provider.
Have a tax that goes directly into the pockets of film studios and music labels. It would be cheaper for everyone than some kind of hair brained scheme to block servers based on some nebulous definition of "pirate".
My guess is Bell wants to buy new routers and have the government pay for it.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It is interesting as Canadians already pay a tax on media and content that is supposed to subsidize content owners and producers allowing Canadians to make as many copies of content and distribute as they please.
So for Quebec,
"maintain responsible gaming rules" means "gimme some of that money"...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
to any of my clients. Anyone else offering IT advice should do the same. Why would anyone want a crippled internet service?
if freeloaders didn't suck and try to get paid content for nothing. You don't deserve shit for nothing dickheads!
I would like to thank Rob Malcolmson, Bell Canada's VP of regulatory affairs, for once again reinforcing my desire to never ever give that evil mini-AT&T company another cent that I don't absolutely have to. For years I had no choice but to use Bell and started out not having much of an opinion on them one way or the other. Over the years, however, I came to despise them with the fiery heat of a thousand suns because of their prices, offerings, and especially their attitude and customer service. When I moved to Toronto a few years ago the first thing I did was drop Bell like a rock and went from extremely disappointed, sad and angry to very happy with my current TechSavvy service. Anyone still using Bell should immediately look into their alternatives because there are FINALLY some alternatives showing up out there now.
I don't think I can ever see a news release about Bell Canada that doesn't make me roll my eyes, and wonder how they get any customers at all. Everything they do, or say, screams their status as a pile of anti-consumer twats. They want to be a shitty ISP, a shitty telco, and a shitty content provider. Ever use the CTV streaming app? Dodgy, glitchy, and slower than hunting down a torrent of whatever show you could already legally watch. They're succeeding at suckage in spades, yet people still give them money. You can see why they want this, because of Bell Media.
MTS in Manitoba was pretty good, but I'll watch vicariously as the wall of suck moves in.
bell Canada service is garbage , they're not even able to provide you correct billing , i've dumped them a decade ago and they are still crappy , me with my cisco debug screen in front of me : " radius authent not getting replies in my "show atm debug " , answer from bell employee " well sir this is ADSL not ATM " , me: could you please transfer me to client billing please " " bell canada client support how can i help you " me : i'd like to cancel my subscription
Restricting and blocking access to certain information is pure censorship.
Why has it suddenly become both okay and the thing to do?
This is wrong on so many levels.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
We'd like to keep charging customers, but reduce the services they can use to reduce their data usage. That way we don't have to invest in infrastructure and we can suck them like vampires.
I refuse to sign