https://archive.is/1Vvqr

I tought that the National Post was exaggerating the severity in their crusade against the Liberal like they frequently do. So I when to read the law and it's as bad as they say: https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-8/first-re...

  ...
    Factor 
    Before making the order, the Governor in Council must consider

    (a) its operational impact on the affected telecommunications service providers;

    (b) its financial impact on the affected telecommunications service providers;

    (c) its effect on the provision of telecommunications services in Canada; and

    (d) any other factor that the Governor in Council considers relevant.

  ...
    No compensation
  
  (8) No one is entitled to any compensation from His Majesty in right of Canada       for any financial losses resulting from the making of an order under subsection  (1).

The argument made here seems to be that the power to prevent unlawful access or threats is somehow required to keep us all safe. But if someone was an actual threat, do we really think they’d be using the internet with their own identity? Like if someone is willing to hack into a power station or some other critical infrastructure, they’ll be simultaneously stupid enough to use their own credit card?

Illegal things are already illegal. Safety and security mechanisms already exist. We dont need additional, punitive, and opaque laws that can be abused.

We live in very confusing times. Democratic countries start acting more and more like big brother.

Its also concerning to read the quote: “necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation.”

Where Canadian telecommunication is almost a duopoly and had major outage a few years ago without any claims of bad actors.

That's an absurd overreach. I can't figure out what the real motivation for this is.

> hostile state actors are stealing information and gaining access to systems that are critical to our national security and public safety

If they're hostile state actors, they've got internet access from elsewhere. It's a global network.

I am not dismissing cyber-threats, but perhaps I would weigh them differently. To me, the largest issue is the cultural influence and political meddling affected by the increasingly hostile state - Canada's southern neighbour.

A much better defence would be to quarantine or outright block access to the large social media platforms, and make space for homegrown alternatives. On balance, these players do more harm than good, and they're massive vectors for foreign political interference.

I think countries with division and low social trust and cohesion necessarily require increasingly authoritarian measures from the government to hold them together. Increasing dependence on government for their own security will reduce peoples' ability to question and change the government.

One might think it's all part of the plan. Real freedom and self determination has been a fleeting blink of an eye in the history of humanity, and only achieved by a few peoples. Those at the top have always considered it a violation of their right to rule, and they've never stopped working to take back what they believe was stolen from them. Sadly I think they're going to eventually win, and the light will go out.

I support prohibiting people from accessing the internet IF they're proven to be dangerous to others if they access the internet. But this applies to any public space or commons, internet or otherwise, and we already have the means of accomplishing this... With a due process.

Why would it makes sense to remove that process, while introducing an incredible opaque decision-making process in its place, which totally bars anyone from knowing why they were excluded from accessing the internet? It even prevents wrongfully excluded individuals from receiving compensation.

For example, I could be cut off from the internet which I need to do my job. Say I'm unable to work for a week or two and then it's determined that I can access the internet because an error was made... Well, as far as I can tell, I'd be SOL. That doesn't seem right...

Worse still is that this seems about as technically competent as using an IP address to determine a person's location. Any serious threat vector, human or otherwise, will find other ways to access the internet or perpetuate their threat if they care to. If they're a serious threat, why wouldn't prison be a better solution than... Calling their ISP and banning them from the internet?

All of this seems very short-sighted, undemocratic, and naive.

And while the 'human or otherwise' phrase I used might seem odd (I know someone's dog isn't shit-posting on X), what I mean to say is something like... What if an LLM is posting from an unsuspecting person's computer and was placed there as a virus? Once it's cut off from that poor person's computer, it's very likely it will eventually or already be functioning from some other unsuspecting person's computer, server, or whatever other device. Their toaster. My point is that we live in an age where there are non-human agents causing harm online. The machine they operate from will not always be OpenAI's or Anthropics, and indeed, will probably rarely be so.

This was already the case with human actors, but it made much worse with the advent of AI-based agents.

Applying for jobs has almost entirely moved online these days. And this is just one of many such things. Does whoever wrote that bill understands that? Or do they just naively think that "it's just time out for people who break the rules".

Compared to the 90s, all the systems that existed to live without the internet have disappeared or been degraded. There are no more paper phone books or phone booths for example. If I want to apply for various government services I have to do so online, in the 90s there were paper forms.

I don't know how digitised the Canadian government is, but banning people from accessing the government is cruel.

> If the Governor in Council believes on reasonable grounds that it is necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation [...]

https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-8/first-re...

Anyone familiar enough with Canadian law to know how much bearing this condition might have in practice?

The justification is, of course, “national security,” but as always, the scope is vague enough to be stretched into whatever shape the government finds convenient... Sorry... yet this kind of legislation should send a chill down anyone’s spine, regardless of where you fall politically

As a middle-aged person voluntarily NOT using email/phone, I cannot even imagine being banned from the internet. How would you function?

There is no such thing as rights or a constitution in Canada. The government can waive them away with a “notwithstanding” clause and then they can do what they like.

How would you keep them away from free Wi-Fi all over the place?

Or, from giving fifty bucks a month to their neighbor?

Or from a phone plan that has next to no background check: buy a cheap SIM from a convenience store, activate with credit card and you have data.

I genuinely don’t understand why a realistic actor in Canadian politics, intelligence, or private sector would be incentivized to advocate for this.

give a man a fish and feed him for a day

give a man a fishing boat and you can threaten to take it away if he starts doing things you don't like.

Does Canadian law require identification for using public WiFi? If not, then "specified person" can simply hop on the bus or subway, connect to WiFi and do illegal things all day long. Just trying to help.

Consider this scenario.

Your isp emails you that they are terminating your account.

You phone gets disconnected.

You call them and helpdesk doesnt have a clue why.

You try to sign up for new services and they refuse and wont say why.

All because a politician has decided it 'reasonable' to disconnect you from the internet; and he can order complete secrecy and there's no judicial oversight.

Perhaps you showed up at the wrong protest? Note how they seized the bank accounts of protestors and even an entire small bank only a few years ago.

I wonder if this bill allows accidentally by honest mistake to disconnect members of opposing party from the Internet before elections?

Some days I wish someone would take away internet access from me.

> public safety minister defended Bill C-8 as a means to crack down on hackers and ransomware fraudsters

That kind of threat mostly comes from overseas anyway, so this doesn’t actually solve any real problems.

Case in point: the recent Salt Typhoon incident (spoiler: it was China) https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/salt-typhoon-canada-cyber-s...

Just another authoritarian attempt by the Liberal government.

If you don't think they're going to use this to go after VPN users, that's just naive

C11 and this bill makes me think about what situations does the government need this sort of "weaponry"? I think the plausible answer is war.

It is concerning how internet censorship seems to be increasing, even in socially liberal developed countries (UK, Australia, US and now Canada)...

I really don't get how this is supposed to be effective at all. Apart from the obvious examples of free wifi at Starbucks, the library, etc., I can walk down to 7-eleven and buy a prepaid SIM with a data plan with cash, today, no ID required. Not to mention, if I'm a master hacker who is a "threat", surely I can spend a few hours cracking my neighbour's WPA2 key.

I suspect they want this purely as a punitive measure for people they don't like, kinda like the time they froze the bank accounts of vaccine passport protestors (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60383385).

What's a good organization to donate to which would oppose this?

This is worse than the EU's ChatControl, or the UK's Online Safety Act. This will pave the way for total online censorship and surveillance in Canada. The Canadian government will be able to target any user or service provider it doesn't like, silently.

They don't even have to pass laws to ban VPNs or read private chat messages or enforce identity verification, or whatever other unambitious attempts other governments are making. This will do it all:

Knock knock, it's the Chinadian government. You host a web service that uses encryption? Great. Now provide a backdoor for us or we'll ban you. Oh and don't tell your users. We'll ban you for that too.

---

Hello user, we noticed that you've shared some concerning information online, and you're also using this E2EE chat service that we can't monitor. A friendly reminder from the government: continuing to use such services and spreading such harmful information online may cause your Internet connection to malfunction.

If this was to become an actual law, that could ruin a persons life. what if they depended on the internet infrastructure for their work or profession. They'd literally have to leave Canada.

This Bill has been withdrawn and is being reintroduced without the controversial provisions.

Given that governments want to move to 100% digital government and economy, denying someone access to the internet will strip them of ability to take part in society, use government services (accessible via digital id), or pay (living expenses, travel, repay debt, etc.)

> In the House of Commons last week, Anandasangaree, the public safety minister defended Bill C-8 as a means to crack down on hackers and ransomware fraudsters.

> “Malicious cyber-actors are breaching our country’s IT systems, accessing sensitive information and putting lives in danger,” he said.

> Anandasangaree added that “hostile state actors are stealing information and gaining access to systems that are critical to our national security and public safety.”

... and these hostile state actors are doing this from their checks notes home in Ottawa, using a Rogers internet connection they're paying for?

Out with a whimper

Here is a picture of ten dropped calls I had yesterday:

https://ibb.co/bj7CYt3t

My wife has been trying to reach me for a while as well.

And Canada wants companies to stay in Canada duh

Do you criticize the government too much? You're now a "specified person". Sure, the court may overturn the decision eventually, but for the next 3 years your life is ruined. This is the COVID trucker protest response playbook, now applied to the internet.

If you think but I don't like the COVID truckers, well that's fine for now. Wait until there is something you vehemently disagree with the government about. Freedom of speech must be protected, regardless of how much you like the content or the speaker.

ETA: What might be the justification for censorship in this bill? The telecom network is critical infrastructure. You're spreading mis/dis/mal-information, according to the government. Therefore you are harming the integrity of the telecom network.

Sounds very much like a social credit scoring system

Americans like to say the first amendment relies on the second amendment, or as Mao Zedong put it, political power grows from the barrel of a gun. When I was younger I thought it was exaggerated, but now it seems like there really are fewer and fewer countries where you can criticise your government online without facing legal repercussions. If things continue at the current rate, in 5-10 years America might be the only English-speaking country with freedom of speech (as long as you don't criticise Israel).

> crack down on hackers and ransomware fraudsters.

What kind of justification is this?! Seriously, do they think people are 6-year-old toddlers that all you have to say is "Oooo bad guys out there!!" and they will just magically believe everything you say after?! This is mockery, an insult to people's intelligence at best, and a fucking dystopian one mixed with digital ID at worst.

Also, are they gonna ban satellite based internet after? Clowns.

I support banning people from accessing the internet for safety AFTER the government completes banning people who are a physical danger from accessing the public physically. After all the dangerous criminals are in jails or asylums (those who cannot stand trial by definition cannot be free as they cannot answer for harm they do), we can talk about this nonsense.

I thought the US was bad but Canada is speed running a fully fascist government even faster.

Canada, Australia, Great Britain: all disgusting Marxist, totalitarian, censoring hell holes that nobody should ever visit

Can someone please characterize the likely political and cultural atmosphere of Canada for the next decade?

If the US continues its current trajectory for a couple more years, will Canada be a welcoming beacon of goodness?

(Obligatory great scene in Handmaid's Tale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJEjrNB2iTA&t=40s )