Author: Christopher Parsons

Policy wonk. Torontonian. Photographer. Not necessarily in that order.

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The Canadian Government Wants to Pay More People to Creep Your Facebook

The Canadian Government Wants to Pay More People to Creep Your Facebook:

But government social media monitoring could very easily cross over into a legal gray area. Christopher Parsons, a cybersurveillance researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, said the collection of personal data from online sources needs to be rigorously justified, and even when it is, the data needs to be handled and stored safely.

“The government can’t just collect information about Canadians—even from public sourced data repositories such as social media—just because it wants to,” said Parsons in an email to me. “There have to be terms set on the collection, handling, disclosure, and disposal of personal information that the government wants to gather. As a result, even when data is collected for legitimate reasons that doesn’t mean the data can then be used in any way that the government (subsequently) decides.”

Strict oversights into how the government gleans and uses this intelligence—even in the service of testing policy reactions, as Parsons thinks this service will likely do—is required.

According to Parsons, that comes in the form of internal “privacy impact assessments” related to the specific social media surveillance program.

“Government agencies are supposed to conduct such assessments before collecting Canadians’ personal information and explain the specifics of how and why they will collect Canadians’ personal data,” said Parsons.

…

In the medium term, it appears Canadians can count on more of their tweets to be sucked up into a government social media surveillance system—then potentially shared across government departments.

Parsons told me that the sharing of the personal data of Canadian, in general, is only becoming more pervasive across government agencies.

“There has been a marked increase in the sharing of personal data between and across different departments because information is initially being collected for vague or far-sweeping reasons. Were social media information collected for similarly vague reasons then the government could then try to expansively share collected information across government,” he said.

 

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Aside

German spy agency seeks millions to monitor social networks outside Germany

The BND also wants to spend €4.5 million to crack and monitor HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) encrypted Internet traffic. By 2020 some of that money may be spent the black market to buy zero day exploits, unpublicized vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers. That program, called “Nitidezza”, should also provide better protection for government networks, German weekly Der Spiegel said in a separate report on BND’s budget requests.

Moreover, a plan to monitor Internet exchanges outside Germany is also in the works. Next year, the agency wants to spend €4.5 million on a program called “Swop” to provide additional hidden access to a non-German exchange, the newspaper report said.

Because the solution to the ‘cybersecurity problem’ is to undermine the capacity for secure communications rather than working to strengthen what we have…

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Homeownership in America Has Collapsed—Don’t Blame Millennials – The Atlantic

The economy has a Gen-X problem. It’s a small cohort with a much-smaller-than-usual homeownership rate. And people wonder why the housing market is sluggish.

To quote a friend… “ah, it feels good to be blamed for something once again.” :p Damn us GenXers for ruining the economy.

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Quotations

2014.10.28

Elizabeth May, then the sole Member of Parliament representing the Green Party, tells the story of MPs of various party affiliations inquiring of her as to how she decides how she is going to vote on any particular bill or motion. She replies that she reads the bill, studies it, consults with her constituents, sometimes asks questions of the sponser, and then comes to her position. Incredulous, MPs from other parties exlaim about how labour intensive that must be and how much easier it is to simply follow the voting instructions provided by the party whips! Undoubtably that is true. However, I believe most constituents would be shocked to discover that their elected representatives are voting automatons, often too disengaged to even follow what item they are voting on.

Brent Rathgeber, Irresponsible Government: The Decline of Parliamentary Democracy in Canada
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Never let the facts get in the way of a good Cronkite moment

Never let the facts get in the way of a good Cronkite moment:

Lost in all the boosterism and talk of 9/11, solidarity and resolve was another inconvenient fact: A lot of the so-called ‘iron-clad’ reporting about what allegedly took place last Wednesday has turned out to be crap.

We were told that there were two or more shooters. Wrong. We were told that Wednesday’s shooting was likely “linked” to the hit and run death of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in St. St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec and hence that some sort of wider conspiracy was afoot. Wrong. We were told that shooter Michael Zahef-Bibeau was on a high-risk travel list. Wrong. We were told that Zahef-Bibeau wanted to travel to Syria. Wrong. (He hoped to go to Saudi Arabia – one of Canada’s best buddies in the Middle East.) We were told that the 90-odd individuals supposedly on a CSIS “watch” list were being “rounded up” by authorities. Wrong.

Even the “hero” Sergeant-at-Arms “story” is collapsing. Reportedly, Zahef-Bibeau was shot at least a dozen times and possibly dead before Kevin Vickers fired his gun.

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Conservatives mulling legislation making it illegal to condone terrorist acts online

Conservatives mulling legislation making it illegal to condone terrorist acts online:

Sources suggest the government is likely to bring in new hate speech legislation that would make it illegal to claim terrorist acts are justified online.

The Prime Minister told the House of Commons on Thursday that Canada’s law and policing powers need to be strengthened in the areas of surveillance, detention and arrest. He said work is already under way to provide law enforcement agencies with “additional tools” and that work will now be expedited.

…

The Conservative MP said the new legislation was crafted before this week’s events and is not “trauma tainted.”

Never waste a crisis: one way of using them is to to pass legislation that’s crafted ‘well in advance’ of any given crisis, but that could likely only pass with the support of the House and/or the citizenry in the face of the crisis.

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Actual Buzzfeed headline, or Onion parody of a Buzzfeed headline? – The Washington Post

The article: meh.

The humour: our purebred Himalayan cat looking dazed and confused on the Washington Post’s website.

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Writing

Sadness and Fury Call for Enhanced Democracy, Not Enhanced Security

Today was deeply disturbing for me: what should have been a routine day of presenting at a conference panel turned into a day where I (and other conference members) were placed into lockdown (along with thousands of others in downtown Ottawa and government offices) in the wake of a serious crimes event.

The panel was for the IIC-Canada, and we were to discuss the topic of telecommunications transparency reporting. Immediately prior to the panel, however, a gunman shot and killed a reserve soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. The gunman then proceeded to Parliament where he was ultimately shot dead. He was killed inside the central block.

Shortly after the panel, and just as lunch began, the second floor of the convention centre was cleared and we were moved to the third floor. It was a bit strange, truth be told: we moved using cargo elevators so as to keep people away from the building’s exterior windows. Then, after several hours under lockdown we were all freed to leave.

We were never in any particular danger. The lockdown was just a precaution for safety’s sake.

Nevertheless I’m sad. And furious. Absolutely furious that a reservist was killed at a war memorial. Enraged that someone had the audacity to enter the Parliament with the intent to cause serious harm and death to those within. Sickened that bad legislation may follow from the attack, an attack which targeted people who have committed themselves to protecting and advocating for Canadians. Public service is an honourable calling and the criminal targeted exactly those who had heard the call.

Thus far the Canadian media has generally been balanced. And I think my reaction – sadness and anger – is in common with many Canadians. We’re not terrified. We’re righteously pissed off at the individual or individuals who choose to attack the symbolic heart of our democracy.

No matter how problematic the laws passed, however dysfunctional the party politics, and regardless of the bad-behaviours in Parliament, our MPs are there to peacefully and verbally resolve and address the issues of the day. Words are the way that problems are addressed and dealt with; they are not solved using violence involving martial weaponry.

The solution to the attack today is not more weapons and less public access to Parliament or more constrained or secured debate but the opposite: equivalent parliamentary security and access to Parliament, and even more robust and transparent parliamentary debate. We can choose to seek vengeance or simply carry on in the face of this attack. I, like many or most Canadian, pray that the latter approach is adopted over the former.

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When I knew I had no place left to hide

The effects of Snowden’s revelations are more than just political or technical. For many they are personal; lives have been remade as we become aware of the legal and political and familial ramifications of our work. And what is left unsaid is often more extensive than what is uttered aloud.

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Obama signs “BuySecure” initiative to speed EMV adoption in the US | Ars Technica

It’s always nice to see the US racing to catch up to where the rest of the world’s been at for many, many years. And all it’s taken have been a serious of catastrophic data breaches!