Tuesday, June 30, 2009

No Expectation of Privacy

Once upon a time there was a make believe character whose name was made Doris by popular referendum. Denying the voice of the people, he insisted on calling himself Stockwell. I know, I know... that's as likely as a sober parent naming their child Raphael. Anyway... in September of 2007 a controversy erupted about lawful access to your personal data and communications online, then Minister of Public Safety Day (paging Mr. Orwell to the white courtesy phone) put on his denial goggles in an interview with Jesse Brown on Search Engine.

Jesse Brown: I asked Stockwell Day to assure Canadians, once and for all, that his government would never try to remove court oversight from lawful access and here's what he said...

Stockwell Day: We are not, in any way shape or form, wanting extra powers to... for police to pursue items without warrants. That is not what our purported legislation is going to be doing. That is previous Liberal legislation. That is not the path we're walking down.


Now along comes Peter Van Loan to inform Canadians that either his predecessor was a cowardly liar or, in an authoritarian swing away from privacy and freedom, Canada's new government has decided to do away with the quaint notion of warrants and probable cause and all that bother. If the new Lawful Access legislation passes, it will strip court oversight from a number of police information access demands where Minister Van Loan assures us we have "No expectation of privacy".

It is worth the time to listen to Van Loan squirm and dodge as he tries to deploy the kiddie porn and terror excuses to broaden his government's ability to plumb the net for identity information. The complete podcast is available at
TVO and it is well worth a listen. There's more on this issue at Boing Boing and from the invaluable Michael Geist. This is an issue that will be of considerable interest going forward as digital communications proliferate. This legislation may represent the thin edge of the wedge that opens access to such novelty features as GPS tracking. The proposed legislation allows a three year exemption for smaller ISPs to allow them to factor in the cost of installing surveillance and storage capabilities. That, of course, indicates that a canny criminal will simply use the smaller points of access to operate from without even going to the bother of such things as anonymizers, encryption or even swiped wifi. This incursion into our online rights to privacy offers nearly no efficacy in the fight against actual criminals, so who does that leave...

9 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

Same old, same old. Slap on a new layer of technology and it's just incentive for people to figure out how to defeat it.

I've never been overly concerned with my expectation of privacy being violated, but the ability of people to mischaracterise, overblow, decontextualise or willfully and maliciously misinterpret what people have said has been one of the most surprising things I've discovered about my "fellow" human being since I first started following online discussions. No amount of transparency and accountability will ever stop that. All we're getting in fact, is non-anonymous people, especially public figures, becoming less candid, more oblique and downright mystifying whenever they say anything.

Specifically on this issue of greater police powers and certain types of crime, I really don't know I where I stand, but given how police have behaved in the last few years, I'm not in a conciliatory mood.

Renee said...

All we're getting in fact, is non-anonymous people, especially public figures, becoming less candid, more oblique and downright mystifying whenever they say anything.

There are no rhinoceroses in my greenhouse. I fully expect llamas this winter for tea.

(We need strong crypto and we need everybody to start using it for even inconsequential communications. Heaven forbid we end up like Nokia in Iran, granting cell intercepts "under Iraian law". Sure, that makes the forthcoming executions just fine!)

Ti-Guy said...

We need strong crypto and we need everybody to start using it for even inconsequential communications.

Aagh! Too clear, too clear! You've revealed everything.

Actually, I think our post-literate, post-verbal culture is taking care of that already. Hardly anyone my age or younger makes any sense anymore. Especially the ones who've been edumacated, like Raphael Alexander or Mike Brock.

Anyway, I won't be surprised if a lot of people resort to gumming up the works with pretend suspicious communication, which will make law enforcement even more difficult. And then they'll slap on some more legislation to control that. No more joking about terrorism!

Gawd, won't somebody think of the poor Revised Statutes?

liberal supporter said...

Steganography is your friend. Best of all, the fright wingers will think you are just being a hateful lefty calling them dinosaurs when you mention it.

Renee said...

(stifling pun about dropping Bombes)

Dharma Satya said...

In reality, all the crypto in the world isn't going to help you if the government, with all it's available resources and manpower, wants to see what joke e-mail you've sent to your Aunt Agnes.

The only solution, should this abortion of a piece of legislation pass, is to not send incriminating, personal, important, secret or embarrassing information over the internet, just like the folks who have been using discretion to protect their privacy from all the other asswipes out there.

Renee said...

In reality, all the crypto in the world isn't going to help you if the government, with all it's available resources and manpower, wants to see what joke e-mail you've sent to your Aunt Agnes.

No, that's not entirely true. Close-to-unbreakable (or at least, very-very-expensive-and-time-consumingly-unfeasible-to-break) commercial crypto has existed for more than ten years. Given a decently large key, even quantum computers can choke.

The NSA keeps trying to force security experts to build backdoors into their crypto, of course, and they hate hate hate things like PGP, but lots of annoyed freethinkers have refused to help cripple their own products. Huzzah!

I'm not discounting the role of discretion, but I do think that "incriminating" information is in the eye of the beholder much of the time. And, come on, I should be able to send whatever the hell kind of shit I want to another person and not be worried about other people - even people I like - clandestinely listening in.

liberal supporter said...

I think Dharma Satya was referring to human engineering attacks. For specific targets, just break in their house and put a keylogger with a root kit.

Or convince them to put it on themselves. Did you uncritically install the latest Windows updates? Even the recent one that added new root key certification authorities?

You did? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Dharma Satya said...

LS, that's EXACTLY what I meant.

Renee, the two problems with any crypto system are:

1. There are always two points in it's "life" where an encrypted piece of information exists in it's unencrypted form.

2. Effective encryption used to pass information privately must also be able to be decrypted.

Most systems for encryption are difficult to break, yes. Monumentally difficult, even. However, if someone really wants to break your encryption and has an amazing pool of both brain and computing power at it's disposal, your Hyper-Super-Duper-Amazing-Crypto-60,000 program is going to mean fuck all. ...and believe me, the RCMP have some eerily intelligent, amazingly good people working for them who get paid a LOT.

Which is not to say that I think the government ought to do away with judiciary oversight when it comes to poking around in people's private business.

But I don't believe that you should be able to communicate whatever you like. I don't think you ought to be trading child porn pictures, selling fake medical cures, or engaging in behavior that is harmful to the person or property of others.

...but if that's the case, let the police or RCMP get a search warrant for that information.

I hope that's clarified my position for you.