Canadian judge: No warrant needed to see ISP logs

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...no-expectation-of-privacy-in-online-tasks.ars

 

This is just crazy.

"A Superior Court in Ontario, Canada has ruled that IP addresses are akin to your home address, and therefore people have no expectation of privacy when it comes to their online activities being accessed by law enforcement. This means that, in Canada, police can potentially request information from your ISP about online activities, and can do so without a warrant."

The judge got it right about the IP being akin to your home address, but her analogy is all wrong. How do people with such dull intellect end up with such powerful positions? She is equating the IP address to the home address in the real-world aspect, the physical location of the house being available in public records. However, The real analogy is the IP being akin to the home address and postal mail going back and forth from that home address. A warrant is needed to open my postal mail and read it! Also, what does it take to get through certain minds the simple concept that an IP address being involved in anything illegal means ZIP! If you can't prove who was using that IP address how can you jump to any conclusions? With wardriving, hackers, trojans and other things, the comical simplicity of IP address belongs to John Doe so John Doe must be guilty of whatever activity on that IP address is just crazy.

Thanks for posting this and alerting us to more outrageous rulings from courts and judges who are so ignorant of technology, and they put people away with simple minded thinking like this!

 

I am glad I don't I don't live in the UK, They have it worse. They can't even keep their sensitive files in a encrypted container...well they can, but the police can storm into their flat and plant Keyloggers without a warrant. If the police suspect you have a encryted container you have to turnover the password(s) to the police or get sent to jail.
for a very long time.

 

The U.S, U.K, Australia, Italy, and now we have Canada. Still think "Big Brother" isn't being created before your very eyes? Law enforcement are very well aware of hackers, trojans and that sort though, so HOPEFULLY they would attempt some homework first before tossing you in the pokey (U.S term for jail, for those of you outside the states ). Regardless, it's just more warnings from us "nutjobs" that things are coming which "the masses" aren't going to be comfortable with at first, but will have to "grow into".

Those of us in modern countries still have more freedom than we sometimes realize compared to some other not so nice places, but don't take anything for granted. Because you see, as thread after thread in this forum lately has proved, those freedoms are at the mercy of the stroke of someones pen.

 

What worries me is that "masses" are very happy without any privacy even at this moment... Think Facebook, Latitude and other similar services which asks you to reveal something about your person which you might not normally want to reveal to anyone. There are many people which do that for no other reason than to be "cool" - they are not doing it because someone forces them, but because it's their free will.

 

The Facebook phenomenon is happening not because they are happy with the risks, it's because they don't know the full risk. You can't just look at the severe "stalker" risk that gets shown on newscasts, you have to factor in all the behind the scenes issues like "What does Facebook REALLY do with my information?", "WHO do they share it with?". Nobody wonders about that, they just think if no one shows up at their door to kill them, they're safe.

There's another reason you don't see the "media frenzy" of privacy issues in the faces of the masses, it's happened slowly, little by little over time. We're going way way off topic for a second, but consider this: What's the easiest way to control a person, to change literally overnight and enslave them, or to, over months/years , encourage them to see your side of things "for their own good", until they are at a point where they are doing things your way without even thinking about it?

It works the same with world matters, gasoline goes up high, people complain, it drops. Over time, it goes up a few cents at a time. Then, it goes even higher than the price it was when people complained. You once again get complaints, the price drops to where it was the FIRST time they complained, and, like magic, they are pleased. It's called conditioning, and it's almost completely fail-proof.

You're not going to see anything change, because people are slowly becoming accustomed to the "interest of national security". They are 100 times more afraid of a repeat of Sept 11 than they are of Big Brother. And, that is just the way many governments and businesses would like it to be. Fear is money.

 

If it's any indication of things to come, USA will no doubt (if their not already, secretly as usual) will be following suit. So i would keep my internet online activities on the level or you just may find yourself in a heap of legal hot water. It's definitely coming to that, and when privacy is proven to become compromised completely, that's when i'm going to pull the internet plug for good and just operate the PC independently with my research samples and just reverse engineer my malware samples to automate these machines to do basic home, business security monitoring.

Theres still always cable/satellite TV and the telephone to communicate on, and wireless cell phones.

EASTER

 

We got close enough in the U.S with the no-warrant wiretapping that was a federal order. We're usually right behind the U.K with such things, however, imho, we do things more "subtly". Where the U.K and some others come right out and start moving within the government to bring these things to pass, the U.S generally goes about it by "testing the waters" in the business world first, THEN go about doing it in the courts/legislation. They test us first to gauge public opinion/reaction, then move forward.

Edit: P.s, the federal no warrant wiretap program was a perfect example of how NOT to bring in the so-called "Big Brother".

 

It's not just about doing anything illegal. It's about privacy, period. It's about writing against the current government in power, writing opinions that aren't popular and that kind of thing. It all should be protected. It's important that people understand it's not about doing things illegally on the Internet.