Conservtaive MP want ISP's licensed and offensive material blocked.

[DurkaDurka]

Sigh... Good luck with cleaning up the "internet" Joy.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1884/125/

Conservative MP Introduces 'Clean Internet Act'

PDF | Print | E-mail Thursday April 19, 2007
Conservative MP Joy Smith yesterday introduced the Clean Internet Act (Bill C-427). The private member's bill would establish an Internet service provider licensing system to be administered by the CRTC along with "know your subscriber" requirements and content blocking powers. Just about everything associated with this bill is (to be charitable) rather odd. Smith introduced it by warning against the use of the Internet to support human trafficking and added that "the bill would address the fact that child pornography is not okay to put on the Internet throughout our nation," though the Criminal Code already does that.

The bill itself includes (and I am not making this up):

• an ISP licensing system to be administered by the CRTC that is defined so broadly that it would seemingly capture anyone offering a wifi connection
• a "know your subscriber" requirement where ISPs would be required to deny service to past offenders (though the ISP would escape liability if upon learning of an offending customer, it terminated service and notified the Minister of Industry)
• a new power that would allow the Minister of Industry to order an ISP to block access to content that promotes violence against women, promotes hatred, or contains child pornography. ISPs that fail to block face possible jail time for the company's directors and officers.
• the Minister of Industry can prescribe special powers to facilitate searches of electronic data systems (ie. lawful access)

Given that this is a private member's bill, it is very unlikely to become law. That said, this bill would not look out-of-place in countries that aggressively censor the Internet and it makes the dangerous Jennings lawful access bill look positively harmless by comparison.

 

[BitWhys]

Judy?

 

[darkbeaver]

Durka, as per the conversation the other night about this subject, they (the suits) want the control maybe they can't do it but I think they're going to try. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday who said much the same as you did, he dosn't think they can exert control, as a matter of fact he maintains that it's the independents (hackers) who make the rules.

 

[Niflmir]

I think its plain unreasonable to expect the ISP's to continuously patrol the internet. They aren't an enforcement agency. I wonder what the responses in the house will look like.

 

[DurkaDurka]

oops, Joy I meant. my bad.

 

[DurkaDurka]

What amazes me is that these MP's, who haven't a clue how the internet works, think they can just enact rules and expect the private sector to enforce them.

These sort of Bills are wrong in so many ways... privacy invasion, censorship, technically unfeasible, having ISP's enforce the gov agenda, the list goes on.

 

[darkbeaver]

delete

 

[Tonington]

Bring out the Draino to clean up them tubes...

 

[BitWhys]

oops, Joy I meant. my bad.

that's ok. Judy's spearheading the ATM thing out of the NDP camp. Her heart's in the right place, too.

silly, silly, silly

 

[DurkaDurka]

that's ok. Judy's spearheading the ATM thing out of the NDP camp. Her heart's in the right place, too.

I hope she gets somewhere with that.

 

[darkbeaver]

Porn's big money, they ain't going to touch it.

 

[BitWhys]

I hope she gets somewhere with that.

Its doomed, impractical, misses the point and would only create the need to enforce minimum distribution standards.

 

[Niflmir]

What amazes me is that these MP's, who haven't a clue how the internet works, think they can just enact rules and expect the private sector to enforce them.

These sort of Bills are wrong in so many ways... privacy invasion, censorship, technically unfeasible, having ISP's enforce the gov agenda, the list goes on.

I just read the act at first reading. So the way it is supposed to work is, someone informs the minister of industry of a child pornography or hate propaganda website, then instead of, you know, arresting the criminal or deregistering the domain, the minister of industry then has to individually order internet sevice providers to use reasonable means available to them to block access to the offending webpage. So effectively, even if the bill was passed it could be circumvented simply by connecting to a proxy outside of Canada and reaccessing the offending website from there. Good job, Joy.

 

[DurkaDurka]

So effectively, even if the bill was passed it could be circumvented simply by connecting to a proxy outside of Canada and reaccessing the offending website from there. Good job, Joy.

Exactly, there are also pay services now that allow you to create an encrypted IP tunnel to a provider in another country... effectively bypassing any sort of censorship or logging of their IP. So many holes in these plans, these MP's really should consult people in the "know" before forwarding these moronic schemes to the house.

 

[BitWhys]

...these MP's really should consult people in the "know" before forwarding these moronic schemes to the house.

Which only goes to show you they never really learned anything from the whole gun registry cost thing.

 

[hermanntrude]

a new power that would allow the Minister of Industry to order an ISP to block access to content that promotes violence against women, promotes hatred, or contains child pornography. ISPs that fail to block face possible jail time for the company's directors and officers

Violence against women? you know there are lots of sites which promote violence against men. this woman is obviously a sexist.

 

[snowles]

It's too bad a little bit of foresight and control wasn't exercised as the Internet rose in popularity. Blocking engines to prevent children from viewing questionable materials would have been infinitely easier had domain names simply been doled out based on the actual content (which was the actual intent, but never followed through) instead of allowing everyone .com addresses.

Say, had all porn sites been given .xxx domains, all a blocking program would have to do is be set to block all *.xxx sites. Too little, too late though.

That aside, C-427 needs to die a quick death on the floor. Even if it passes though, I envision the very minimalist of enforcement on the part of ISPs; there's simply no way for them to enforce an unsecured wireless connection. The hassle of encrypting these connections (and having to give out individual usernames, passwords and network settings to each who wanted to access the network) at places like airports, hotels, schools and universities would be mayhem.

Seriously, Michael Geist should be anointed Minister of Technology for life. He seems to be the only one with both a knowledge of technology, and a respect for rights and the law. On this issue, politicians of all stripes seem to be lacking largely on both counts.

 

[Pangloss]

It's too bad a little bit of foresight and control wasn't exercised as the Internet rose in popularity. Blocking engines to prevent children from viewing questionable materials would have been infinitely easier had domain names simply been doled out based on the actual content (which was the actual intent, but never followed through) instead of allowing everyone .com addresses.

Say, had all porn sites been given .xxx domains, all a blocking program would have to do is be set to block all *.xxx sites.

Snowles, you funny guy.

Porn producer wants to maximize her market: does she use a .xxx domain name, where she can easily be blocked, or does she do the smart thing and get a .com address and call it art, not porn? The 'net isn't anarchy, unless you try to tell people they cannot do something with it.

Pangloss

 

[snowles]

Oh, I agree fully, I don't think I said anything contradictory to your statement Pangloss.

My idea simply implies that with a little caution to the wind, and a small amount of decency on those who produce the content, could have produced a solution that is far less taxing and far more effective than having to constantly police the Internet for sites to block.

Irregardless, I highly doubt that children (and even more importantly, children without credit cards) are in the pornography market's demographic, which was my entire point to having the domain names doled out in the first place, for blocking programs like Netnanny.

I would disagree also disagree with your statement on the Internet as anarchy. Upon its formation as a military tool, and even into its infancy as a university networker and communicator, the Internet was extremely well policed, kept in good order and was without incident. It wasn't until its popularity boomed and it became an information, advertisement and entertainment tool, and the guidelines were removed, that it became a chaotic mess. Au contraire, I believe the Internet relies on anarchy to survive in its current form; it's when we try to tell people what they can do that resentment is born. Thus, little has ever been tried in terms of telling people what they can and cannot do, international laws notwithstanding.

 

[Pangloss]

Oh, I agree fully, I don't think I said anything contradictory to your statement Pangloss.

My idea simply implies that with a little caution to the wind, and a small amount of decency on those who produce the content, could have produced a solution that is far less taxing and far more effective than having to constantly police the Internet for sites to block.

Irregardless, I highly doubt that children (and even more importantly, children without credit cards) are in the pornography market's demographic, which was my entire point to having the domain names doled out in the first place, for blocking programs like Netnanny.

I would disagree also disagree with your statement on the Internet as anarchy. Upon its formation as a military tool, and even into its infancy as a university networker and communicator, the Internet was extremely well policed, kept in good order and was without incident. It wasn't until its popularity boomed and it became an information, advertisement and entertainment tool, and the guidelines were removed, that it became a chaotic mess. Au contraire, I believe the Internet relies on anarchy to survive in its current form; it's when we try to tell people what they can do that resentment is born. Thus, little has ever been tried in terms of telling people what they can and cannot do, international laws notwithstanding.

The 'net ain't anarchy? Silly boy, tell me, who is the King of the net? Where are the laws enforceable? When a country as big a China tries to censor the contents of the 'net for its citizens people all over the world work (successfully) to thwart that censorship. That isn't resentment - it is freedom.

Who says the 'net is a chaotic mess? And even if it is, is that such a bad thing?

"Little has been done in terms of telling people what they can and cannot do. . ." What are you smoking? This world is filled to the brim with people all too eager to tell us what to do. The 'net is no exception.

As a BTW: throwing "caution to the wind" means to act recklessly, not with caution. There is also no such word as "irregardless" - the word you are looking for is "regardless."

Pangloss