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Bill C-32: Copyright Modernization Act

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 11:40 — KentM

Bill C-32, the Copyright Modernization Act, was introduced into Parliament on June 3, 2010. The bill contains some important changes to fair dealing in Canada. For example, it legalizes parody and satire, and broadens fair dealing for educational purposes. On the downside, the bill mirrors the highly criticized U.S. DMCA provisions on digital locks, reflecting an acquiescence to American industry demands. The proposed provisions make it an infringement to circumvent any digitally-locked content, even for purposes of fair dealing.

Your help is needed to fix Bill C-32 before it becomes law. Find out how you can:

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The Cookie Crumb Trail: Website to Website Tracking

Sun, 08/15/2010 - 03:16 — KentM

Most internet users are probably aware that the websites they visit may collect information on them. It is common practice for a website to record details such as how often a user visits the website, and even how a user spends time on the site -- tracking, for example, what articles a user reads or what books a user buys.

However, many users may not be aware that major advertising companies are aggregating this information together from many different websites. If you use your browser's default privacy and security settings, you are being tracked from site to site. With each additional site you visit, you give away another piece of information on who you are.

This is all made possible by "third-party cookies". While "first-party cookies" are are a fundamental part of many internet services -- it the primary technology used for maintaining login information on websites -- third-party cookies have fewer practical uses.

A third-party cookie comes from a different domain than the site you are visiting. As an example, I just opened up the Hotmail website (Windows Live), logged in, and logged out. Before the test, I had 0 cookies. After, I had 16! Four of these were first-party cookies, from "live.com" or its sub-domains (mail.live.com, login.live.com, etc). Most of the others were from advertising companies that place ads on the hotmail website. My one 5-second visit yielded cookies from advertising.com, adgear.com, adbureau.net, as well as Microsoft's own advertising company, atdmt.com.

To continue the example, I cleared my cookies and headed over to dictionary.com. I looked up "biscuit". The result? 24 new cookies, including at least one duplicate, from advertising.com. If I had not cleared my cookies after visiting Hotmail, adversting.com would now know that I have a hotmail account and am, at times, compelled to check the spelling of my words at dictionary.com. They would continue to compile information on me as I visit others of the many sites that display their advertisements throughout the internet.

There are a few uses of third party cookies that are beneficial to users. They can be used to help display embedded content, or to allow a user to login to multiple internet services at the same time (although even this can also be problematic, as a user may want to login to GMail but not Picasa at the same time).

However, most websites will continue to function perfectly if you disable the proposed privacy features were severely crippled (this is perhaps unsurprising considirng the 16 cookies installed by a 5-second visit to Hotmail, including one by Microsoft's own advertising company). Although some features of InPrivate filtering are available in Intenet Explorer 8, the features turn themselves off everytime the browser restarts!

There is still hope for Firefox to remedy the situation by providing reasonable and intelligent defaults for third-party cookies. Daniel White, responsible for development of the cookie module in Firefox, is well aware of the privacy concerns with third-party cookies and the Mozilla team is certainly not under the same pressure from advertising executives as the Internet Explorer team.

Broader initiatives also show promise for curtailing the tracking of your web habits and your identity. A call for some form of a "Do Not Track" flag, akin to "Do Not Call" list, is growing. One possibility is a browser setting that causes a "x-notrack" header to be sent with all requests. As long as servers abide by the request, this would make it simple for users to stop identity tracking. This not only work for cookies, but also for more subversive methods of tracking your identity such as flash cookies that circumvent user consent and browser fingerprinting.

The Wall Street Journal found that the top fifty most visited websites (in the U.S.) installed over 3000 cookies. Unless you've gone to the trouble to disable third-party cookies, you are being tracked and profiled from site to site. Tell your browser that it's not okay to let websites track you by bumping up that little privacy dial. Then tell your browser developers that it's not okay to so easily let adverting companies inspect your cookie identity crumbs.

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Bill C-32: New copyright bill is in need of repair!

Wed, 06/02/2010 - 18:55 — KentM

A new copyright bill was introduced in Parliament yesterday as Bill C-32, the Copyright Modernization Act. This bill includes some important new provisions that recognize the right of the public to use works fairly. Canadians will be given wider scope to use copyrighted works for parody, satire, and education. It will become legal to place legally-purchased music on an iPod, as well as to record television shows for later viewing.

Unfortunately, most of these gains for the Canadian public will be for naught if another significant provision of the bill passes into law: U.S.-style anti-circumvention measures. By simply placing a digital lock on content, any commercial copyright owner will be able to ensure that no fair dealing provisions apply. "Copyright" may be infringed even where content is used after the fifty-year copyright protection in a work has expired!

This bill has not yet been passed into law and is still open to amendment. The time to act is now! If you'd like to see this bill reflect Canadian interests rather than accede to U.S. pressure on introducing these digital-lock provisions, please take action! Click here to find out how you can help!

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Fri, 05/21/2010 - 10:54 — TI

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Government: Update Investigative Techniques, Not Privacy

Sat, 10/17/2009 - 16:03 — Anonymous

The Government is willing and eager to update police surveillance laws in order to meet challenges posed by new technological changes, but when asked by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the House Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics to update the Privacy Act so that existing privacy protections will apply to new forms and uses of information, the answer was no.

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Quebec 'educates' students on evils of CD piracy, ignores private copy levy

Wed, 09/09/2009 - 11:03 — TI

In annually released and updated 'eduactional materials', Revenu Quebec has been educating Quebec youths as to tragic impact of CD Piracy, ignoring not only the fact that such copying has been legal in Canada for almost a decade, but also that copyright holders are compensated for blank CD sales.

CRTC Allows Bell to Apply Per Usage Pricing to Wholesale Customers

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 09:28 — TI

The CRTC released a decision allowing Bell to impose user based pricing on its wholesale customers. This is problematic for a number of reasons.

First, it exacerbates the lack of competition already present in the wireline Internet industry by effectively making usage based pricing a non-competitive issue. Second, it is unfair as much of the bandwidth in question will be in off-peak hours and so would cost Bell nothing in provisioning. Third, it allows incumbents such as Bell to further abuse their gatekeeper position, leading to a diminshed internet experience for Canadians.

Harms of Malware to Consumers Measured in Billions of Dollars

Wed, 08/12/2009 - 15:44 — TI

The OECD has issued a comprehensive report quantifying the harms resulting from malware. The report estimates that consumers spend billions of dollars every year on information system repairs or replacement to fix damage caused by malware. The report further states on average businesses spend between 6 and 10% of their total operating capital costs on addressing issues arising from malware.

This highlights the need for anti-malware legislation in Canada! Learn more, then Act

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UK Example: Lawful Access Legislation is a Dangerous and Slippery Slope

Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:15 — TI

Reports from the UK show that authorities have made more than 500,000 requests for confidential communications data over the past year alone - roughly 1 for every 78 adults in the UK. These requests come under an Act that allows authorities to gain access to information on who individuals have been phoning, emailing, which websites individuals visit, etc.

Originally enacted for the purpose of combating terrorism, the UK example shows how easy it is for lawful access legislation to lead to abuse - in some cases, the access powers were used to snoop on suspected litterers.

Defenders of the UK Act, like those who tout the Canadian version, say the Act does not allow access to the content of communications, but only the 'traffic' (who you are speaking to, etc.).

While the Canadian version of lawful access is not as broad as the UK version, this demonstrates that it is indeed a slippery slope and care should be taken to ensure the proper safeguards are in place before any expansion of police powers is allowed.

See the UK Information Commissioner's full report as well as a breakdown of some of the numbers.

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US Introduces NetNeutrality Legislation

Mon, 08/03/2009 - 18:03 — TI

While the CRTC grapples with issues of ISP discrimination against applications, services and users, the US has introduced legislation intended to guarantee Americans will not face such discrimination unless it is justified. Specifically, the proposed Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 will prevent ISPs from degrading bandwidth based on application unless such degradation is justified.

The CRTC has the power now to institute similar protections for Canadians and the Internet. Hopefully it will take some guidance from this new Bill.

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