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Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

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Re: Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

#51

Post by ordu »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #7
AlanYx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a confluence of two things: (i) Canada's government policy community tends to be heavily influenced by legislative trends in the UK/Aus/NZ; this particular one is almost a direct import from the UK's ill-advised Online Safety Act, though worse in some ways, and (ii) a series of Canadian Supreme Court decisions, most notably 2024's Bykovets, which the security intelligence apparatus in Canada feels has totally ha…

> Both (i) and (ii) have led the government to this dark place, thinking they're doing good. You can summarize a lot of government actions of any spectrum with: "The road to hell is full of good intentions"

When I was young I believed this was the explanation. I though I was smart and everyone else (with politicians at the top of the list) are stupid. But then I learned humility, and I don't believe in good intentions anymore. They can claim good intentions, and mostly they do, but their motives are far from anything that can be called "good intentions". They are not stupid, you know. They just try hard to look stupid. The more stupid politician looks like, the more chances he is just pretending to avoid responsibility. The purpose of their actions is exactly what they get as the result. If they succeed of course.

Re: Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

#52

Post by bdamm »

qball wrote: post #38
EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #30

Both the mandatory data retention and encryption backdoor requirements will cause encrypted messaging services like Signal, WhatsApp, iMessage, Matrix, and others to block both Canadians and Canadian businesses from their services. If you live in Canada or are impacted by this legislation, then you need to tell both your MP and the Minister of Public Safety of Canada to reject this legislation. --- The Canadian Civil…

[flagged]

You need to branch out a bit, and take a look at how countries on the brink actually operate. Go check out Hungary for a country that almost lost their democracy, or check out Russia for a country that never had it but tries to pretend like it does.

Canada is measurably not even close to countries like Russia, where voting truly does not matter (and could actually be hazardous to your health.)

Re: Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

#54

Post by bdamm »

EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #32
AlanYx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a confluence of two things: (i) Canada's government policy community tends to be heavily influenced by legislative trends in the UK/Aus/NZ; this particular one is almost a direct import from the UK's ill-advised Online Safety Act, though worse in some ways, and (ii) a series of Canadian Supreme Court decisions, most notably 2024's Bykovets, which the security intelligence apparatus in Canada feels has totally ha…

I think there could also be some lobbying from Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P). C3P's site is filled with anti-encryption and anti-privacy disinformation, and they are a major Chat Control lobbyist in the EU. They are also currently trying to kill the Tor Project by attacking anyone who funds it.

That's hardly surprising. I assume C3P is staffed by parents who have lost their kids. One can hardly blame them for trying to subvert privacy. Frankly their presence is a good thing; the more people who lose their kids to creeps, the stronger the social reaction to preventing that should be.

But factually I suspect we're almost as safe as we've ever been, so thankfully, their voices aren't too loud.

Re: Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

#55

Post by HerbManic »

nomel wrote: post #49
Bender wrote: post #47

I know this will be an unpopular comment but I actually somewhat like it when governments show their totalitarian side. It's both a wake-up call for some in denial and also drives my favorite type of innovation. That is, anything that subverts censorship. It won't be a lot of people but there will be splinter groups that break away from the big centralized platforms. It's not usually a big deal but it's also not noth…

But, is it possible to undo any of the policies put into place? Seems like once the machinery gets implemented, everyone in government embraces it (my assumption being due to all the spending/enrichment of friends/family gov contractors).

It has been said that the worst government is the one in power, regardless of time or location. That is because they rarely teardown the bad ideas of the past.

Look to the US, regardless of the two parties, most of the time they just keep building on the pervious groups work no matter what the messaging to the people was.

"They look after number one, you ain't even number two" - Frank Zappa

Re: Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

#56

Post by HerbManic »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #21

Just keep bringing legislation back eventually it gets through.

Yep, if it fails this year it will be back next year under a new name.

Only need to get it through once. We have to defend against it repeatedly.

Re: Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

#57

Post by HerbManic »

tw85 wrote: post #35

There would of course be much more of a public uproar about C-22 and the steady diet of online censorship and surveillance bills served up over the last 6 years if they were being pushed by a Conservative government. But it's the Liberals, and they get a free pass from mainstream media who are subsidized handsomely for their complicity. If anyone believes the real intent behind this authoritarian legislation is to pr…

The major parties are usually just two sides of the same coin. This is a good example of it.

Re: Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

#58

Post by Bender »

nomel wrote: post #49
Bender wrote: post #47

I know this will be an unpopular comment but I actually somewhat like it when governments show their totalitarian side. It's both a wake-up call for some in denial and also drives my favorite type of innovation. That is, anything that subverts censorship. It won't be a lot of people but there will be splinter groups that break away from the big centralized platforms. It's not usually a big deal but it's also not noth…

But, is it possible to undo any of the policies put into place? Seems like once the machinery gets implemented, everyone in government embraces it (my assumption being due to all the spending/enrichment of friends/family gov contractors).

I honestly don't know how things will (d)evolve from here. Official back-doors a.k.a. lawful intercept to encryption is an interesting twist, not a new proposal by any means but in the past this always ended up being hush-hush with small trusted inner circles of people at tech and telephony companies as they could never get such laws passed.

If this passes I suspect it will be much harder to monitor terrorist activities as terrorists will just move to self hosted or non technical solutions. That leaves us plebs to monitor and find excuses to make arrest quotas. People will need to be careful how they speak as anything that can be taken out of context will be taken out of context.

And you are right, such frameworks never go away even if they officially go away. There have been projects that have changed names so many times I can't even keep up with them. Total Information Awareness was renamed a few times. The lawful intercept code that was embedded in the firmware of all smart phones Carrier-IQ changed names a few times and last I checked it didn't even have a name any more which means people can't really talk about it.

Re: Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

#59

Post by cgh »

boothby wrote: post #41
subarctic wrote: post #10

I've noticed a lot of bad digital rights stuff on HN over the last couple weeks - more pushes on age verification, attacks on end-to-end encryption, and now this. Is there something about the time of year? Maybe because the world cup is coming and people will be distracted?

In my hometown, we're quashing human rights to make room for the world cup! It's not a smokescreen, it's the justification. https://www.pivotlegal.org/city_of_vancouver_s_new_fifa_byla...

From your link: “Further, the enforcement of this Bylaw, like all laws enacted in our current colonial and racist legal system…”

Practically no Vancouverite would read this page and take it seriously.

Re: Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

#60

Post by qball »

bdamm wrote: post #54
EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there could also be some lobbying from Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P). C3P's site is filled with anti-encryption and anti-privacy disinformation, and they are a major Chat Control lobbyist in the EU. They are also currently trying to kill the Tor Project by attacking anyone who funds it.

That's hardly surprising. I assume C3P is staffed by parents who have lost their kids. One can hardly blame them for trying to subvert privacy. Frankly their presence is a good thing; the more people who lose their kids to creeps, the stronger the social reaction to preventing that should be. But factually I suspect we're almost as safe as we've ever been, so thankfully, their voices aren't too loud.

It's LPC policy to listen to these kinds of lobby groups, no matter how unhinged they might be.

A significant participant in a lobby group with similar aims, Nathalie Provost, is actually a sitting MP in Quebec.

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