ACTA remix: What is the Trans Pacific Partnership ?

I’ve fought against ACTA for a long time in this very blog.

Often it seemed futile, as much as anything because no one outside a very small group of people even knew it was happening.

The secrecy was such that Canada’s elected representatives — our Members of Parliament — were not allowed to know anything about what was being negotiated. It was most certainly a very secret treaty. An indication of how abysmal ACTA was is that even under the threat of draconian penalties, the various drafts were too scary not to leak — all the way through the process.

With source material in hand, legal scholars like Michael Geist were able to study various ACTA drafts, and explain the legal language online so that people could understand the ramifications of this treaty that would change our lives. Concerned citizens formed organizations like the excellent La Quadrature du Net which served as a European clearing house for ACTA news. There was an Identica group where I learned about the latest ACTA news and I posted whatever I found there. Like many other ordinary people, I talked to people in my real life as well as sharing ACTA drafts and information on websites and blogs.

And so, over time, many of the worst bits were cut out of ACTA in the face of the negative opinion and outcry. Even so, after the last negotiation, there remained a few irreconcilable differences, and so it went unsigned.

Reasonable people might expect that to have been the end of it, but some months later, after what had to be a good deal of truly secret negotiations, some countries — including Canada — quietly signed the ACTA agreement. But it wasn’t over yet, it still required Europe.

Fortunately for the rest of the world, the European Union did not follow suit. Unlike North America — where most politicians had been kept entirely in the dark with the secrecy provisions in the heavy duty non-disclosure agreement — some EU politicans had been paying attention to ACTA, and enough awareness had been raised to generate an amazing outcry led by Poland.

“A demonstration was to be held there against a secret attempt to sign the ‘ACTA treaty’ by the Polish government, ostensibly to prevent piracy on the web, but in reality, to enable the introduction of the kind of censorship we had in the communist era, and now have in China, (the reading of private e-mails, the tracking of correspondence, the registration of visited web pages visited and network surveillance). Whilst these earlier forms of censorship were designed to perpetuate Communist ideology, those that ACTA would impose have been designed in the U.S. to allow the gradual takeover of states and governments by global corporations.”

— Paweł Łyszczyk, Szczecinian: Opinion: ‘Szczecin says ‘No’ to ACTA’

And amazingly, all the information sharing and Anti-Acta hullabaloo ultimately led the European Union to decline ACTA. Again, this should have been the end of the story, except that the special interests behind these oppressive laws are not about to give up so easily.

What makes the onslaught even worse is that many people are complacent, believing that ACTA—like the US SOPA— has been defeated.

But SOPA was remixed into CISPA and speedily passed into American law. And now, much of the ACTA language is coming back into the shape of other trade agreements, like CETA and the TPP.

The Ghost of ACTA?

When I said that on Identi.ca the other day I was surprised to be challenged by a Twitter user called @ACTAwebcare:

Although I knew it was true, @ACTAwebcare may well have gone to Twitter with a complaint against me to get the Tweet removed. Since I always feel the best way to counter misinformation is with the truth, I responded with some back-up links, quoting reputable sources like:

TechDirt: Son Of ACTA (But Worse): Meet TPP, The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Michael Geist: U.S. Intellectual Property Demands for TPP Leak: Everything it Wanted in ACTA But Didn’t Get

But the best was this line by line comparison of ACTA and TPP language done by infojustice.org TPP vs. ACTA – Line by Line

Setting up a Twitter account in an attempt to rehabilitate ACTA (and spread misinformation about it) is quite telling. Although ACTA may be officially gone, it is anything but forgotten. And we need to understand and fight  the dangers of its new incarnations.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has created the following Infographic to explain just what is wrong with the TPP.  It’s from an American perspective, but the consequences will be just as dire for the rest of the world.   Canada is clamoring to jump on this bandwagon, so we Canadians can write letters to our MPs too.

In conclusion, I’d like to leave you with Member of European Parliament Marietje Schaake’s final words on ACTA

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What is the Trans Pacific Partnership Infographic by Electronic Frontier Foundation and Lumin Consulting released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States (CC BY 3.0) license

Bye Bye UBB

 

Yesterday the CRTC did an about face and reversed the terrible decision to allow Bell Canada to charge Usage Based Billing to the Independent ISP’s customers, effectively pronouncing UBB dead.

Yay.

On the specific decision, the CRTC rejected the UBB model it approved less than a year ago, acknowledging that it was too inflexible and could block independent ISPs from differentiating their services. The issue then boiled down to Bell’s preferred model based on volume and the independent ISPs’ approach who preferred capacity based models. The Commission ruled that capacity-based models are a better approach since they are more consistent with how network providers plan their networks and less susceptible to billing disputes.

With Bell’s preferred approach out of the way, the Commission was left to choose between two capacity models – the independent providers’ “95th percentile” solution and MTS Allstream’s capacity model. The Commission chose a variant on the MTS Allstream model that involves both a monthly access fee and a monthly capacity charge that can increase in increments of 100 Mbps. That model is even more flexible than what MTS proposed, suggesting that the Commission was primarily focused on building in as much flexibility for independent providers as possible. In addition to this model (which the Commission calls an approved capacity model), the large ISPs can continue to use flat rate models which provide for unlimited usage.

Michael Geist, The CRTC’s UBB Decision: Bell Loses But Do Consumers Win?

Although I agree that further changes should be made, I’m not so sure I go along with all of Professor Geist’s suggestions. The CRTC  clearly does not function the way that it should.

The CRTC’s mandate is supposedly to protect consumers.  Looking at the history of UBB it is clear that the CRTC does not.  In practice, consumers don’t even make it onto the their radar at all; the only CRTC concern is the ISPs.

The CRTC continues to allow Bell Canada to deploy:

• Deep Packet Inspection. This essentially allows Bell Canada total access to all unencrypted Internet traffic. Which means the technology gives Bell the means to read our email, and the CRTC allows this. With zero oversight. The CRTC trusts Bell with their privacy, but I don’t. And although I’m not even a Bell customer, my email is not safe from Bell, because my ISP goes through Bell. This is no more reasonable than giving blanket permission to Canada Post to open postal mail.
• Gouging Customers. I was aghast that the CRTC didn’t understand that most Canadians pay a lot for mediocre Internet access, and worse, didn’t seem to believe the issue was relevant to their deliberations. Have to move to a different geographical location in order to get an another choice of ISP is not “choice.”
• Throttling the Internet. This one still boggles my mind today just as much as when I first heard about it. When customers pay for a level of service, and the service provider deliberately impedes that service, providing inferior service than has been contracted for is wrong. And again, Bell is not only does this to their own customers, but to the customers of the Independent ISPs as well. Worse still, Bell decide singles out specific Internet traffic to discriminate against it. The CRTC gave Bell permission to do this, the implication being that is that all encrypted traffic is “Downloaders” It seems to me, even if someone is using the Internet for nefarious means, to illicitly download copyrighted content, say, it should not give an ISP the right to provide less bandwidth than the customer paid for. This argument is flawed; one crime doesn’t justify another.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I grew up in a world where deliberately short changing consumers was considered to be fraud, and when even the government law enforcement officials were required to get a warrant before they read my mail.

These are some of the reasons why I don’t think the CRTC is doing its job of protecting consumers. This could be fixed by making sure that the CRTC reflected its real constituency better. [hint: the CRTC should not be limited to past or present Telecom employees, but should also include consumers.] There shouldn’t have to be a major outcry before the CRTC hears consumer; if the CRTC is going to continue to exist, it needs to be responsive to the public.

If the CRTC isn’t reformed, it should be dissolved and replaced with something that does look out for citizens.

Both Bell and Rogers have far too much control over too many facets of the industries they inhabit. This sure looks like what our American friends might define as “anti-trust.” Where was the CRTC … how did things get this messed up if the CRTC was doing its job?

Rogers is apparently an even worse throttler than Bell, and in fact, “Rogers: The World’s Worst Throttler (Officially)”.

These corporations are not going to behave any better unless compelled to do so. Maybe its time they were broken up; the Internet is an essential service, perhaps it should be administered like any other utility, for the public good rather than the corporate greed.

[Thanks to both Robert & Joan!]

STOP Usage Based Billing

Rethink “lawful access” Omnibus, Letter

A great many news articles, blogs and websites have referred to this letter, signed by a group of Canadian academics and digital rights advocates and sent to Prime Minister Harper, asking that that the Omnibus Bill be unbundled so that there can be appropriate hearings for the legislation, particularly the contentious lawful access provisions, (formerly draft legislation known as “Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act . Bill C-52 was previously touched on in this blog by The Hidden Rationale for Usage Based Billing, the excellent guest post written by Sharon Polsky, one of this letter’s signatories.

This letter only seems to be available in its entirety in PDF form, which both prevents the text from being searchable, and PDFs can force Internet users exposure to security breaches and DRM.   Since I’ve already transcribed this letter for my own personal study, I thought I’d share it with you here, so you won’t have to:

August 9, 2011

VIA EMAIL

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON, KIA 0A6
stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

RE:   Omnibus Crime bill

We are writing to you regarding your promise to introduce and pass within 100 days an omnibus bill incorporating a number of very different pieces of legislation.

We are particularly concerned that three of those bills will have serious negative implications for the privacy rights of Canadians, and that these aspects will not receive the scrutiny they deserve if rolled into an omnibus bill.

These pieces of legislation were former Bills C‐50, C‐51 and C‐52 from the last session of the previous Parliament, the ‘lawful access’ technical surveillance bills. We join Canada’s federal and provincial Privacy Commissioners in voicing our grave concerns regarding this invasive legislative mandate, as they collectively did in a letter to Deputy Minister of Public Safety dated March 9, 2011. Our specific concerns, which we highlight in greater detail in an appendix to this letter, include:

• The ease by which Canadians’ Internet service providers, social networks, and even their handsets and cars will be turned into tools to spy on their activities further to production and preservation orders in former Bill C‐51 – a form of spying that is bound to have serious chilling effects on online activity and communications, implicating fundamental rights and freedoms;
• The minimal and inadequate amount of external oversight in place to ensure that the powers allotted in these bills are not abused;
• Clause 16 of former Bill C‐52, which will allow law enforcement to force identification of anonymous online Internet users, even where there is no reason to suspect the information will be useful to any investigation and without adequate court oversight; and
• The manner in which former Bill C‐52 paves the way to categorical secrecy orders that will further obscure how the sweeping powers granted in it are used and that are reminiscent of elements of the USA PATRIOT Act that were found unconstitutional.

On a final note, we object that Canadians will be asked to foot the bill for all this, in what essentially amounts to a hidden e‐surveillance tax, and are concerned that compliance will further impede the ability of smaller telecommunications service providers to compete in Canada by saddling them with disproportionate costs.

The implications of all of this demand careful scrutiny and study. Yet none of these bills has had the benefit of hearings before any Parliamentary committee, nor have any of their numerous predecessor bills, introduced by both your government and the previous Liberal government.

Your government has already recognized the divisibility of this proposed omnibus bill by passing Bill C‐2, dealing with large criminal trials, which was once proposed to be part of the omnibus bill.

Given the profound concerns raised by Canada’s Privacy Commissioners which have yet to be answered, we ask you to at least give these pieces of legislation an appropriate hearing. That cannot happen if they are rolled into an omnibus crime bill with a large number of unrelated
and also contentious pieces of legislation.

We look forward to your response, and are more than willing to provide you with any additional information you or your government may require in this regard.

cc:     Hon. Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, vic.toews@parl.gc.ca
Hon. Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice, rob.nicholson@parl.gc.ca

Signed by the following individuals and organizations:

Andrea Slane, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Faculty of Social Science & Humanities
Andrew Clement, University of Toronto, Faculty of Information
British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (BCFIPA)
Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT)
Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA)
Canadian Federation of Students (CFS)
Christopher Parsons, University of Victoria, Department of Political Science
Civil Liberties Association – National Capitol Region (CLA–NCR)
Colin Bennett, University of Victoria, Department of Political Science
David Lyon, FRSC, Queen’s University, Surveillance Studies Centre
Ian Kerr, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law
International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG)
Kate Milberry, University of Toronto, Faculty of Information
Leslie Shade, Concordia University, Department of Communications Studies
Lisa Austin, University of Toronto, Faculty of Law
Michael Geist, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law
Michael Markwick, Simon Fraser University, School of Communications
OpenMedia.ca
Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
Samuelson‐Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)
Sharon Polsky, President, AMINACorp.ca; National Chair, Canadian Association of Professional
Access & Privacy Administrators (CAPAPA)
Teresa Scassa, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law
Valerie Steeves, University of Ottawa, Department of Criminology

APPENDIX A

For convenience, we include here a more detailed elaboration of our concerns and the basis thereof.

Turning Canadians’ Networked Services Against Them:
First, we are concerned that a broad range of preservation and production orders put in place in former Bill C‐51 are calculated to turn Canadians’ Internet service providers and other Internet intermediaries, their social networking sites, and even their very handsets and cars, into tools to better spy on their activities. Highly contentious are orders aimed at discovering
the location of objects such as cellular phones or GPS devices or of transactions such as geo-tagged comments or photos from private sector service providers contained in former Bill C‐51.¹ This information of Canadians who have not done anything wrong will be available to law enforcement as long as there is a reason to suspect it will be generally ‘useful’ to an investigation. Equally troubling are preservation demands that can force online organizations to store vast amounts of customer information upon request, without any prior judicial approval
or oversight, wherever a police officer suspects the data might be helpful to an investigation. Given the ever‐increasing amount of information on Canadians that is electronically accessible, stronger standards of protection are required, not weaker ones.

Finally, we are concerned with the legitimizing effect these orders will have on voluntary public‐ private cooperation, generally. Such cooperation turns private organizations against their customers and can undermine civil liberties as it occurs outside of safeguards existing within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which does not apply to private action. The legitimate role of Canada’s private sector is to provide services to customers, not to act as state agents with a mandate to spy on online activity. This legitimizing effect is complicated by murky liability immunization provisions for voluntary cooperation such as that found in former Bill C‐51.²

Inadequate External Oversight:
Second, external oversight mechanisms to track the extent to which searches and seizures of sensitive personal information under these sweeping new powers are conducted in an abusive manner are, at best, illusory. Former Bill C‐52, for example, places obligations on Canada’s
Privacy Commissioners to ensure the new powers it grants are not abused, but it fails to provide the Commissioners with any of the tools and resources that are a pre‐requisite to effective oversight. For example, Clause 20(4) mandates Canada’s Privacy Commissioners to use existing audit powers in order to monitor RCMP compliance. No new powers and no new resources are granted. Further, with respect to Provincial and municipal police, no auditing mandate is put in place at all. Indeed, many provincial Privacy Commissioners lack the statutory authority necessary to perform even the rudimentary audits envisioned federally by Clause 20(4). This appears to be a serious lapse, as municipal and Provincial police are expected to make most heavy use of new powers awarded in former Bill C‐52.

The intrusive powers proposed by former Bills C‐51 and C‐52 require far stronger external oversight to track abuse. Comparisons with oversight regimes overseen by data protection authorities in other jurisdictions demonstrate with clarity the woeful inadequacy of oversight as envisioned in the lawful access legislation. These international examples also demonstrate that it is not difficult to put in place workable oversight regimes that do nothing to impede the ability of law enforcement to conduct their legitimate duties. Yet the latest iteration of the lawful access legislation makes no attempt to enact such a regime. Indeed, former Bill C‐52 puts in place far more expansive and rigorous oversight to ensure private sector compliance with its intrusive requirements than it does to ensure lack of police abuse.

Identifying Canadians Online:
Third, we turn to the warrantless powers included in Clause 16 of former Bill C‐52 that will permit law enforcement to seize ‘subscriber data’ from telecommunications service providers. Access to subscriber data, as defined in the proposed legislation, raises serious privacy implications. It includes data that will allow state agents to identify anonymous online individuals at their sole discretion. Anonymous activity is integral to online speech and expression and is a key mechanism for ensuring privacy in a world where the list of individual activities that occur (and are recorded) online expands almost daily.

We believe that the surveillance capacities enabled by the many identifiers included in Clause 16 have been underestimated. IP addresses and email accounts, for example, can be used to track anonymous user activity across numerous websites and services and, with Clause 16 powers, to connect this information to a real‐life identity. The tracking enabled by persistent
device identifiers such as those included in Clause 16 is not well understood, as the Information & Privacy Commissioner of Ontario recently pointed out with respect to WiFi device identifiers.

Clause 16 will give state agents the power to access all of this highly sensitive personal information, even where there is no reason to suspect it will assist in the investigation of any offence. Indeed, former Bill C‐51³ will already grant state agents access to such data in any scenario where there is reason to suspect the information could assist in an investigation – a bar that is quite low to begin with. Yet Clause 16 goes further. What Clause 16 facilitates, simply put, are unjustified and seemingly limitless fishing expeditions for private information of innocent and non‐suspicious Canadians.

Paving the Way to Sweeping Secrecy Orders:
Further compounding the transparency and oversight problems already inherent in former Bill C‐52 are two provisions that pave the way to sweeping gag orders that will prevent individuals from effectively challenging abuses of the powers granted therein. Clause 6(2) permits the government to impose, in regulations, sweeping and categorical confidentiality obligations on service providers that will apply across all interception warrants. Second, under Clause 71, any telecommunications service provider obligated to comply with a warrantless seizure request will be subject to the secrecy provisions in proposed section 7.4 of PIPEDA. Proposed section 7.4 of PIPEDA prevents organizations from disclosing the fact of their cooperation with state efforts to spy on their customers. The sweeping nature of the secrecy measures envisioned by these provisions is in stark contrast to existing practice, where gag orders must be requested from a judge and justified on a case by case basis. The problem with such measures is that they will prevent individuals from challenging abuses of the powers granted in this Bill. Indeed, with categorical secrecy orders in place, surveillance that overreaches is least likely to ever be challenged in court, as the results of such surveillance are less likely to later appear in Court proceedings.

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Footnotes
¹ Clause 13 of former Bill C‐51, which would have amended the Criminal Code by adding section 487.017.
² Clause 13 of former Bill C‐51, which would have replaced existing section 487.014(2) of the Criminal Code with proposed section 487.0195(2).
³ Clause 13 of former Bill C‐51, which would have amended the Criminal Code by adding sections 487.013 and 487.015

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[Note: the only amendments I have made was to add links to the signatories, and then reformat it as a single page to allow better rendering on a fluid webpage. Any typographical mistakes are my own.]

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UBB Choice? Smoke and Mirrors

Now that various politicians of every stripe seem to have weighed in on UBB, and the announcement that it will be overturned has been made, the UBB front is quieting.

There has been shock and surprise that Bell requested a delay in UBB implementation. Of course it makes perfect sense… it will have died down in a couple of months. Will the same level of consumer outrage be there? We’ll have to see. Bell has been playing politics in Canada since it was formed by an Act of Parliament.

The lack of care for consumers as a crucial Internet stakeholder was apparent in that the CRTC allows the regulated Industry a three month appeal process, yet Implementation of UBB (including notification) to consumers was a single month.

And the CRTC is planning a “review.”

In von Finckenstein’s effort to defend UBB, he failed to recognize that there is a world of difference between supporting the choice of an ISP to implement UBB and a regulatory model that leaves an ISP with no other alternative. The CRTC’s UBB decisions are wrong not because UBB is wrong, but because they undermine the potential for competitors to make alternative choices.

—Michael Geist, The CRTC’s Faulty UBB Foundation: Why There is Reason to Doubt the Review

Michael Geist is right.

The biggest tragedy is that Consumers are deprived of choice.

It doesn’t matter that Industry has choice if consumers have none.

The biggest failing of the CRTC is that the ONLY thing they take into account is the needs of the industry. Throughout the whole UBB issue, they have totally and utterly ignored the public. I first heard about UBB when the CRTC had closed the comments after the first proposal by Bell. At that time 4,000 consumers had filed complaints about UBB using the proper CRTC process. Yet when the CRTC approved UBB, it dismissed this incredible level of citizen input with a single line that consumers had commented. That’s THOUSANDS of responses made about something that had NO press coverage.

Throughout the entire UBB process, the CRTC has completely ignored citizen needs and issues. Incredible since their mandate is to look out for consumers.

If you don’t think that is a mammoth number, look at the number of participants in last year’s Digital Economy Consultation – which *did* have press coverage:

“Between May 10 and July 13, more than 2000 Canadian individuals and organizations registered to share their ideas and submissions. ”

— Minister Clement Updates Canadians on Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy

The CRTC has consistently ignored consumers, while ruling in the Interests of the large telcos. What UBB seeks to do to Independent ISPs is terrible.

But I believe it is most terrible because of what it will do to consumers.

CRTC #FAIL

Right now, today, in 2011:

• many Canadians only Internet option is dial-up.
• many Canadians have but ONE Internet ISP “choice”.
• some Canadians have two Internet ISP “choices” – legacy telephone or cable ISP
• some Canadians have the choice between the legacy telcos (aka the carrier-ISPs) and Independent ISPs.

The only “choice” many Canadians have, the only way to choose a different ISP, is to move to a different geographic location. You know, sell your house, get a new job. etc.

Which is no choice at all.

The past two years has consisted of a great deal of time and money spent by all the ISPs. Lawyers fees alone would have been staggering.

If all of that money had been spent on expanding service areas, think of where Canada would be now.

No matter what happens, this has been an incredible #FAIL on the part of the CRTC.

In SPITE of the CRTC, there actually are a few UBB free choices, regardless. According to Reddit: UBB-Free ISPs yak.ca and eyesurf.net don’t get their Gateway Access through Bell. There probably are more like them scattered across the country.

It’s not over yet.

Regulating Canada into the last century will not help our digital economy survive in this one.
We need to Stop Usage Based Billing before it starts.

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If you haven’t already, sign the petition. There are only 14099 signatures.

If you have already signed, who else should you be asking to sign?

That’s easy: anyone who uses the Internet.
Because Usage Based Billing will harm not only Canadians, but our Economy.

http://dissolvethecrtc.ca/

You can also call or write your MP, MP postal code look-up

Heritage Minister James Moore – email: Moore.J@parl.gc.ca

Industry Minister Tony Clement – email: Clemet1@parl.gc.ca

Prime Minister Stephen Harper – email: Harper.S@parl.gc.ca

After all, they work for us, don’t they?

STOP Usage Based Billing

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Has Bell Upgraded Internet Infrastructure?

Paul asked in a comment:

The statement that Bell has not upgraded their infrastructure is a powerful argument against the need for UBB. Could you please advise where you found this information so I can reference it in my own discussions? Thanks.

Paul’s Comment on “There are no bandwidth hogs”

My only connection with any Canadian ISP is as a customer. I don’t have access to data, financial reports etc.

So I am looking at this issue clearly from the outside. And this is what I see.

When the Internet was first made available to the public, Canada quickly became a world leader. When Bell and Rogers entered the High Speed Internet market, they offered Canadians top speeds, and low prices for unlimited access. (They did such a good job that they killed off all the competition.)

Cheap and fast access is why Canadians so whole heartedly became early Internet adopters.   And that’s why Canadians are currently some of the most Internet savvy and Internet connected people in the world.

Even though the costs consumers pay have gone up and up and up.
It is not cheap anymore. In fact, we are paying some of the highest rates in the world before implementation of UBB.

What happened? Why does Canada lag behind on every study?
(I discount so-called “studies” paid for by the Internet carriers; those are advertising.)

If you like graphs, this website Website Optimization: November 2007 Bandwidth Report shows where we were in 2007.  (If you dig farther into the archives of this site you’ll likely find indications of the time when Canada was a leader), the figures here were not only borne out, but noticeably worse for Harvard’s 2009 study.

Or Oxford.

And here’s an article explaining the numbers, 10 Gigabytes Per Month! (one of the things I have trouble with)

The absolute best speed available to Bell Internet consumers are — for a premium — Upload speed: up to 7 Mbps.

No speed is guaranteed, everything is: “Up to.”

One of my main reasons for putting my oar in on this subject is because I’m a parent. That’s why one of the saddest things I’ve read on this subject is this highly personal account of Canadian access woes dating back to 2009.

If I do a Google Search for:

bell canada upgrade infrastructure -site:bell.ca

or

and a Google News search: bell canada upgrade infrastructure -site:bell.ca

The only things that come close are upgrades to their cell phone systems (HSPA). But for the Internet the single Bell upgrade is their DSLAMs, which provide only a tiny boost in service. As I understand it, this is not considered “part of the back-haul infrastructure.” These DSLAMs were deployed in limited locations, and Bell fought to be able to deny Independent ISPs any access to the increased speeds. Ultimately the CRTC forced Bell to share the speeds with the Independent ISPs.

Of course, that CRTC ruling won’t matter to Bell anymore if the Independent ISPs are forced out of the market by UBB.

Beyond the fact Bell is offering essentially the same bandwidth speeds as they were when they rolled out broadband service, it certainly doesn’t look like there has been any infrastructure improvement.    If there had been can’t imagine why Bell would not be trumpeting it.

Bell’s best (per Bell website): up to 7 mbps
Japan’s best (per New York Times 2009): 160 mbps

Bell’s dual strategies have been to technically throttle customers, and now to introduce “economic traffic management.”

Both of these policies are designed to force consumers into less Internet access while still keeping Bell highly profitable.

If Bell actually improved the service they offered, they wouldn’t need to apply for permission to charge UBB. The traditional way for a corporation to justify increased rates has long been to provide added value. It seems that is no longer necessary in Canada.

Obviously Bell has made out very well indeed thanks to CRTC rulings.   Recession or no, they seem to  have  enough disposable income to now buy the entire CTV Television Network.

So I’m not aware of any large-scale back-haul infrastructure upgrades performed by Bell. And you can’t prove a negative.

We need to Stop Usage Based Billing before it starts.

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If you haven’t already, sign the petition. There are only 11684 signatures.

If you have already signed, who else should you be asking to sign?

That’s easy: anyone who uses the Internet.
Because Usage Based Billing will harm not only Canadians, but our Economy.

http://dissolvethecrtc.ca/

You can also call or write your MP, MP postal code look-up

Heritage Minister James Moore – email: Moore.J@parl.gc.ca

Industry Minister Tony Clement – email: Clemet1@parl.gc.ca

Prime Minister Stephen Harper – email: Harper.S@parl.gc.ca

After all, they work for us, don’t they?

STOP Usage Based Billing

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Celebrate Software Freedom Day

Saturday September 18th is

All around the world people will be celebrating Software Freedom Day on Saturday. The idea is of course to both celebrate and raise awareness of Free Open Source Software issues.

I believe the first software freeing license was the GNU General Public License

Free Software Foundation is probably the heart of the Free Software movement which is defined by Richard Stallman’s Four Freedoms.

Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program’s users have the four essential freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission to do so.

— GNU: Richard Stallman’s The Free Software Definition

These revolutionary concepts, like any good idea, have crossed over into other areas, such as copyright. As corporations work to lock creative works under increasingly restrictive copyright law, creators of art and music, like creators of software before them, have been offered the chance to achieve freedom from the chilling effects of the repressive copyright through Creative Commons licensing.

Creative Commons licensing is growing. There are branches around the world, like our Creative Commons Canada, which allow creators to license their creations in the way that they want in conjunction with their own country’s copyright law.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to attend the Software Freedom Celebration being put on by KWLUG and Kitchener-Waterloo Chapter of Ubuntu Canada and the the Working Centre being held in Kitchener’s Kwartzlab hackerspace.

Visit the Software Freedom Day website to find out what cool Software Freedom Celebration is happening in your neck of the woods.

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Other Important free software links:

operating systems

We’ve all joked about how evil Windows is for years. And now Apple seems to be striving to be the Big Brother their ads used to decry. Is it any wonder that more and more people are switching to GNU-Linux operating systems?

I’m in the process of switching to Ubuntu, which is currently the most popular distribution. But there are scads of them out there. The ones I can name off the top of my head are Debian, KDE, Fedora, Linux Mint, Red Hat and Arch. Naturally Wikipedia can give you a more comprehensive list of GNU-Linux distributions. The safest bet is to select the distro that whoever gives you computer support knows best.

microblogging

Identi.ca is a free software microblogging service, based on the StatusNet software. It is possible to connect Identi.ca with the proprietary Twitter service and the data flows into Twitter, but, being proprietary, Twitter does not share well. (For this reason people like me who use both services tend to post from Identi.ca, simply broadcasting to Twitter. The problem for me has been that replies from Twitter don’t reach me, although switching from Windows into the Ubuntu free software operating system allows me to use Gwibber to connect the two services. Because the software is open, people can set up their own StatusNet servers to precisely serve their needs.

In a world of 140 character limites, URL shortening is important too. You can’t go wrong with ur1 generator. The cool thing is that even when your URL is shortened, hovering over it in Identi.ca allows you to see where the shortened URL will take you.

preservation, advocacy & reporting

TechRights is an excellent resource on breaking free software issues. Following Dr. Roy Schestowitz on Identi.ca or on Twitter keeps me up with the latest.

UK Tech Journalist Glyn Moody is one of my best resources for open tech issues. His blog Open … clarifies important issues like ACTA and the UK legislative fiasco known as the Digital Economy Act. I’ve learned about a few Canadian issues first from Glyn Moody, who I follow on Identi.ca and on Twitter

A few other groups advocating for Internet Freedom worth mentioning are:

• Internet Archive (home of the Wayback Machine)
• Canadiana
• datalibre.ca
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Freedom Now
• Knowledge Ecology International
• Public Knowledge
• Against Monopoly
• FLORA.org Community WEB
• CLUE Canada (The Canadian Association for Open Source)
• The Software Freedom Law Center
• Through the Looking Glass
• Jesse Brown’s Search Engine
• Open Attitude
• I almost forgot Techdirt, which mosr certainly means I’ll have missed some other great sources. If anyone has any I’ve missed that I should have added, let me know!

And since special interest groups are trying to use copyright law to suppress Internet freedom, these are some excellent Canadian copyright resources as well:

• Digital Copyright Canada
• Michael Geist
• Excess Copyright
• Question Copyright
• Project Gutenberg News
• Gutenberg Canada
• Both my personal blog and my Oh! Canada blogs seem to have an increasing number of copyright themed posts creeping in as well.

Anyway, that should do for starters. 😀

Happy Software Freedom Day!

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ACTA Conspiracy Theory

The latest round in the ACTA talks has finished and KEI (Knowledge Ecology International) has released the leaked version of the text, which seems somewhat toned down. Still, it isn’t over yet. Nor is this an official version.

Obviously the USTR (United States Trade Representative) is aware that there have been many ACTA leaks. It is reasonable to assume that the people who have leaked the ACTA documents have been as concerned about ACTA’s attempt to make an end run around democracy as I am. Leaking the ACTA documents has been a very risky undertaking with serious consequences if caught. Yet there have been many such leaks.

There was in fact been one official release. In the midst of the process. But the American Government blocked a second official release.

The August 25th version isn’t an official ACTA release, this is another leak.

It has long been clear that major media corporations have been the biggest force behind ACTA. And the most major of these special interest groups are the MPAA movie corporations.

I’ve always loved spy thrillers and multi-layered mystery stories. If I were a major movie company trying to pass a secret trade treaty that would ensure my corporation’s economic health by forcing global adoption of laws beneficial to my interests, I would do what any good thriller writer would do: employ misdirection. It shouldn’t be very difficult at all particularly with the talented writers at their disposal.

Think about it. Releasing an official version would show the reasonableness of the treaty participants. It would demonstrate that ACTA is not as bad as it has been portrayed. Doing it in the middle of the process would be a wonderful way to lull opposition into a false sense of security. You can always reintroduce controversial elements once it is again clothed in secrecy.

In the same way the Allies used misdirection to keept the Nazis confused as to where an Allied invasion force would land, I would release a fake leak. One that would make it look as though the worst bits of ACTA have been watered down. Declawed even. It is not like draft legislation; it is a document without provenance. No one stands behind it.

a leak is not official… it can say anything

Are movie companies that sneaky? Several years back I remember reading that three movie companies decided to make a movie based on The Three Musketeers in the same year. Why not? It’s a great story and its in the public domain. The story was that the richest and most powerful of the three movie companies scoured Europe and bought or rented every possible period costume that could be had. The end result being that only one Three Musketeers film was made that year. So yes, I rather think that movie companies could be that sneaky.

If ACTA appears to be getting weaker the forces arrayed against it may weaken as well. I don’t know about anyone else, but I would rather be working on any number of things than blogging about this. This is just a wild eyed conspiracy theory. Pure speculation.

I learned a long time ago not to believe in the check that’s in the mail until it has been cleared by my bank. The thing is, we can’t afford complacency.

cliched but true: it ain’t over ’til it’s over

Some recent ACTA articles from around the web:

Starting with KEI’s James Love in The Huffington Post: White House Blocks Disclosure of Secret Intellectual Property Trade Text

and one of the premier sources of ACTA information and explanations is Canada’s own Michael Geist, whose latest at time of posting is ACTA’s Enforcement Practices Chapter: Countries Reach Deal as U.S. Caves Again

Another important ACTA Source has long been La Quadrature Du Net

TECHDIRT: And, Of Course, ACTA Leaks: Some Good, Plenty Of Bad

TECHEYE.NET: ACTA turns on Movie Studios

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Piracy setback for movie giants

OPEN ENTERPRISE Glyn Moody: ACTA: Please Do What Simon Says…

NationalJournal Tech Daily Dose: Scope Of ACTA Worries Critics

Zero Paid: ACTA Leaks Again – Our Review of the August 2010 Copy

P2PNET: Latest ACTA draft leaked online

ZDNET Australia: ACTA warms to ISPs?

Wild Webmink: URGENT: Has Your MEP Signed The ACTA Written Declaration?

WIRED INN: ACTA Letter to MEPs

POGO WAS RIGHT: Of Note: Text of ACTA leaked (updated)

PNT: ISP Liability For Infringement Nuked, ACTA Leak Reveals

STAND UP DIGGERS ALL: ACTA: Treaty without a cause?

TORRENT FREAK: ISP Liability For Infringement Nuked, ACTA Leak Reveals

Oh! Canada: ACTA keeps chugging along post

and ending with the inimitable Cory Doctorow’s boingboing: Latest leaked draft of secret copyright treaty: US trying to cram DRM rules down the world’s throats

Any way you slice it, ACTA continues to be bad.

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Image Credit:

“A COPYRIGHT will protect you from pirates” under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License (cc by-sa) by Ioan Sameli

Copyright Modernization Act: Bill C-32

Bill C-32 has been “tabled”, or introduced into the legislature. Now it will go through the process of becoming law.

Or Not. Hopefully not.

As expected, Bill C-32 appears to grant Canadians the ability to make personal use copies of their own property. And surprisingly fair dealing has been expanded.

The irony of course is that the law is not about modernizing copyright at all, it is about turning back the hands of time to protect the outdated but oh so profitable business models beloved of the large American Media corporations. I have to ask myself why our government would pander to them when this course of action is clearly in opposition to what Canadians want.

The problem is that the law does the worst possible thing: it allows digital locks explicit supremacy. Which means DRM over rides everything else. Because if passed, this law will make it illegal to circumvent DRM. Even though the law gives you the right to make a personal use back up of a movie or a game that you have legally purchased, you won’t legally be able to do so if there is DRM. If your digital media is something that is in the public domain (meaning IP that pre-dates Mickey Mouse, or alternatively IP that has been licensed directly into the public domain) you still will not be able to legally make copies if either the device or the media have DRM on it.

Here are some links to articles that are covering this issue. If an politicians are reading, I’d encourage them to read the comments on the articles more than the articles themselves to get an idea of how Canadians feel about this.

This negates the “gift” of being allowed to copy or format shift our own legally purchased property.

Personally I think Professor Geist is rather too optimistic, but as always he makes available a good translation of the legalese that will be used to choke Canada. The Canadian Copyright Bill: Flawed But Fixable

Michael Geist: An Unofficial User Guide to This Afternoon’s Copyright Bill

cbc online: Conservatives seek support on copyright

boingboing: Canada’s DMCA was designed to “satisfy US demand”

Search Engine with Jesse Brown: Audio Podcast #43: So Bored of Copyright

Michael Geist: “We Don’t Care What You Do, As Long as the U.S. Is Satisfied”

Michael Geist: DMCA-Style Reforms: “Not a Reasonable Policy To Foster Innovation or Respect for Copyright”

Canadians need to complain. Not to the Conservatives; their agenda is clear.
(And in fact Mr. Moore’s admonition to wait for the copyright bill before mobilizing against it has in fact proved to be disingenuous.)

Canadians need to start talking to the other political parties. A list of likelt letter recipients and addresses can be found at the bottom of Canada don’t need no stinkin’ DMCA (or DCMA)

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[P.S.: One of the byproducts of laws like this one that have been playing out in the UK (Digital Economy Act) and the USA (DMCA) has been the rampant often specious lawsuits which often have no merit, but can be very profitable when used to extort people into settling them from fear. We can assume that this is one of the things Canadian will have to look forward to as well.

Which is why I wanted to include this link The RIAA? Amateurs. Here’s how you sue 14,000+ P2P users just in from my friend Haris
Thanks Haris!]

Fun. Wow.

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If you haven’t already, sign the petition. There are only 10836 signatures.

If you have already signed, who else should you be asking to sign?

That’s easy: anyone who uses the Internet.

Because Usage Based Billing will harm both Canadians and our Economy.

http://dissolvethecrtc.ca/

STOP Usage Based Billing

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Cat Joke: Making Light of A.C.T.A.

The following cautionary cat tale was found in one of the Pirate Party of Canada’s forums.

Hindgrinder
Re: ACTA Task Force

3 Canadians and 1 American were sitting together watching the Mens Gold Medal Game in Vancouver bragging about how smart their cats were.

The first man was an Internet Service Provider,
the second man was a Copyright Law Professor,
the third man was a New Democrat Member of Parliment, and
the fourth man was a US Corporate Lobbyist.

To show off, the Internet Service Provider called his cat, “Broadband”, do your stuff.”

Broadband pranced over to the computer, logged in as admin and started downloading the entire internet.

Everyone agreed that was pretty smart.

But the Copyright Law Professor said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said, “Public Domain, do your stuff.”

Public Domain went over to the computer, instantly sorted all of what Broadband was downloading and printed off a fair copyright royalties due spreadsheet.

Everyone agreed that was good.

But the New Democrat M.P. said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said, “Parlimentarian, do your stuff.”

“Parlimentarian got up slowly to the computer, created a Facebook page, linked it to Broadband and Public Domain, drafted a dozen emails and bill 398, made a YouTube video meowing for transparency from ACTA cat and meowed an indian war dance song.
Everyone agreed that was pretty good.

Then the three men turned to the US Corporate Lobbyist and said, “What can your cat do?”

The US Corporate Lobbyist called his cat and said, “ACTA, do your stuff.”

ACTA jumped to his feet…….

Throttled Broadband’s torrents to a crawl and initiated a lawsuit for copyright infringement against both Broadband and Internet Service Provider……..
Scrambled Public Domains online excel sorting rules and shit on the fair royalties due spreadsheet……..
filed an inflated grievance lawsuit for RIAA lost revenue…….
bypassed due process to convict 90% of humans under 40 years old of copyright infringement……
screwed the other three cats and claimed he hurt his back while doing so…….
put in for Corporate Compensation for injury on the job in a foreign country……………and
went home for the rest of the day on paid sick leave…………

Internet Service Provider, Copyright Law Professor and N.D.P. M.P. where last seen pooling their money to buy a dog.

Geist

Angus

Of course, I’m wondering who everyone is…

Copyright Law Professor would have to be Michael Geist.

And it’s more than reasonable to assume that the N.D.P. M.P. would be the most vocal Canadian MP opponent of A.C.T.A. Charlie Angus, but who could the Internet Service Provider be?

If this was the U.K., it would be talktalk, the brave ISP waging war with the dread Digital Economy Bill (the U.K.’s opening act for A.C.T.A.)

Within the joke, “ISP” couldn’t possibly be Bell Canada or Rogers, since their use of consumer monitoring tools like DPI to help run their empires clearly place them in the pro-A.C.T.A. camp.

So if we’re going to extrapolate the casting for this joke, for Canada the ISP would have to be one of our endangered Independent ISP’s like MTS Allstream or Tek Savvy (you can find a comprehensive listing of Independent Canadian ISPs here).

And the U.S. Corporate Lobbyist, well, lobbyists are faceless representatives of the business, or in this case group of businesses in back of a piece of legislation, or in this case a whole body of international legislation.

These businesses have been trying to convince the citizens of the world that we don’t own what we’ve purchased for years. They started by placing supposed FBI warnings on videotapes threatening huge fines for non-commercial infringement. Then the earliest attempts at copy protection (DRM/TPM). Followed by aggressive marketing campaigns directed at the media customer base, in attempts to demonize personal use copying.

Now, in the face of these failed attempts to change global attitudes about copyright and ownership through advertising/propaganda, the copyright lobby seeks to change the laws to force the world to follow their rules.

They’ve been pursuing this war actively on two fronts. First, by lobbying individual countries to criminalize copyright infringement. But lately, this group (dubbed by Michael Geist “The Copyright Lobby”) has gone much further, by convincing the U.S. Government to push the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” which seeks to force the world to change copyright law through this secret treaty on a global scale.

The “Copyright Lobby” is made up of the American led Movie and Music Corporations along with their Interested Associations and Copyright Collectives. Of course this lobby group is attempting to remain faceless. because the real victim in their nefarious activities is their customer base. This is why they are attempting to get governments to do their dirty work, particularly through secret treaties like ACTA. They have the vain belief that they won’t alienate their customers.

The copyright lobby doesn’t have a logo, precisely because the companies they represent are attempting to stay out of the public eye. It’s a thinly veiled secret that the corporation unofficially leading the fight for terrible copyright “reforms” is the same company that once had to be legally compelled to give credit to the animators, actors, writers, musicians, technicians etc. who actually created their movies. Though he hadn’t actually picked up a pencil himself in years, the corporate founder felt that the only name attached to movies made by his corporation should be his own. In those days the law disagreed.

Nearly a century later this same corporation seeks to change the laws of all the world so they can maintain control of a mouse cartoon. Which is why interested parties have created this logo (right) for A.C.T.A.

Much Ado About A.C.T.A.

This past Thursday I scrambled to put together a personal submission to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.   Although the USTR made it clear that all submissions would be welcome, the Canadian Government chose to stand mute.   I’m only a private individual, but I thought it was an important thing to speak out about particularly since Canada, like many other sovereign states around the world, is under a great deal of pressure to participate in the secret A.C.T.A. (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) negotiations.

Should the USTR again unfairly place Canada on their “watch list” politically this could be used to leverage Canada into follow the American A.C.T.A. game plan.

There is a growing awareness of the potential danger from this negotiation among ordinary citizens.

The first warning sign about A.C.T.A. is the level of secrecy demanded by those negotiating it.   Although these negotiations have already been underway for a couple of years, anyone privy to the negotiation is required to sign a rigorous non-disclosure agreement that prevents all of the participants from divulging any of the details.   This means that there are many elected government representatives in the countries involved who are not privy to the details.   Logically, it is also a compelling indication that the terms are not going to meet with the approval of the citizenry.   After all, if any of this was in our best interests why would it need to be so secret?

If it was simply an anti-counterfeiting treaty, there probably wouldn’t be any controversy at all.   The problem is, although it sounds like counterfeiting is the A.C.T.A. raison d’être, it appears that the driving force is to force the rest of the world to follow the American lead and rewriting our copyright law according to the specifications of the American Corporate Copyright Lobby.   The ultimate goal seems to be to force all the countries involved in the negotiation to fall in line.

The Internet has some wonderful things going for it.

Not least of which is the ability to connect with people all over the world and communicate regardless of language.

Although I’m unfortunately a mono-lingual English speaker, I was able to read this inspirational online petition offered by the Mexican internet freedom fighting group OPENACTA.

“Sharing knowledge and information without profit is never smuggling, countefeiting or piracy. ” — OpenActa petition

With the assistance of Google Translation and a dash of common sense, I offer my amateur translation here:

Petición de Transparencia re: #ACTA para el Senado de la República

From 25 to 29 January 2010, the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property was the host of the 7th Round of Negotiations of ACTA (Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement by its initials in English) at the Fiesta Americans in the city of Guadalajara.

Despite repeated demands by the international community and specifically of Mexican citizens to make public the negotiations and reveal the text of the treaty, so far, the agencies involved in these negotiations have ignored our demands for transparency, information, and openness of debate regarding the ACTA, intellectual property and the right to information of all Mexicans.

Through this petition we demand that the Mexican Senate ask the administrative entities responsible for negotiating the ACTA in our country to publish a detailed report of that meeting as soon as possible.

We also require a public hearing by the administrative representatives of ACTA negotiations with the competent authorities of the Senate, to meet the urgent demand of the public to remove the unfortunate opacity over two years of negotiations of this treaty being negotiated secretly on behalf of all Mexicans.

Finally, on receipt of this request we kindly request that the Senate make its position on the matter and communicate the steps to start a public debate about absolutely the entire contents of the ACTA text proposed, and which is an essential component of citizenship.

Sharing knowledge and information without profit is never smuggling, countefeiting or piracy.

Thanks for your attention.
OPEN RECORD

Sincerely,
Citizens of Mexico

—OPEN ACTA online petition

Bravo to the Citizens of Mexico and OpenActa.

Possibly because the details of A.C.T.A. are so heinous, but even the rigorous non-disclosure agreement has been unable to prevent leaks.

Cory Doctorow reported the latest on boingboing as well as offering this handy concise breakdown of the A.C.T.A. problem in Internet Evolution: Copyright Undercover: ACTA & the Web

Michael Geist breaks the latest leaked document into understandable bits in ACTA Internet Chapter Leaks: Renegotiates WIPO, Sets 3 Strikes as Model

Finally, word from yet another part of the world New Zealand’s Coffee Geek: Recent ACTA content leaks   It seems that the folks in New Zealand are also unhappy at the very thought of A.C.T.A.

Previously, laws in democratic nations were drafted according to the societal norms and ethics of the countries, not handed down from above like tablets from heaven… not in democratic nations anyway.