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Samsung and Android: Out-of-box failure

Mar 28th, 2014
by Craig.
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I learnt a new term recently while doing research related to configuring my Samsung/Android tablet: Out-of-box failure. The current definition (as of this writing) on Wikipedia that applies in this case is as follows: “Out of box failure … is a negative experience a user has when installing and/or performing initial configuration on a piece of hardware ….”

In a nutshell, I am mightily disappointed in my Samsung/Android tablet.

While I have damn nearly two decades of experience being the go-to guy for computer problems among some of my friends (not to mention providing technical support to paying clients for almost that long), managing a tablet (or smart phone) is a new experience for me. I expected to run into challenges, but I didn’t expect to be let down so severely.

I remember learning about Android years ago — long before it was even released — and at the time I was excited. (Well, as excited as I get anyway.) Here was a new operating system (albeit based on an old [and good] OS, UNIX, with which I have almost as much experience as I do with Windows) that was going to allow people to turn their “dumb phones” (akin to the one-trick pony sitting on your kitchen counter: the toaster) into handheld, portable computers, just like their bigger cousins sitting on laps or desks. Not only that, it was going to create competition for the monopoly at that time — Apple and iOS — giving its users the freedom to manage their devices as they saw fit rather than as the dictatorial manufacturer saw fit. Besides the fact that I am a fan of competition, I have no love for Apple or their products. I specifically dislike the control they exert over the consumers of their products, the people who put ridiculous amounts of money into Apple’s coffers. Either you do it Steve Jobs’ way, or you can suck wind:

And yet, here I am — definitely not an “early adopter”! — with a new Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, running Android of course, and I find that I’m being railroaded into having to do things according to the Gospel of Google:

  • First, if you want to do anything useful with your tablet (other than read reams and reams of dire legal agreements as you run each app for the first time), you have to sign up for a Google/NSA account. If you don’t want to do that, you might as well return your tablet or use it for a paperweight, frisbee, coaster, or for skipping on a lake like you would with a stone.
  • Then, if you want to dump crap like Dropbox … well, you can’t! It’s a “system app”, so you can’t uninstall it. You can disable it, but only after you roll back the updates that were installed after you finally broke down and gave your name and email address to Google and the NSA.
  • The other thing I have found my Samsung/Android tablet is useful for is spam. Not sending spam or stopping it, but reading it. The fucking thing is always whistling at me or interrupting what I’m doing to ask me if I want to sign up for one Google service or another, or to remind me that I haven’t yet set up yet another “system app” (Peel Smart Remote in this case) that I also have no intention of ever using. Plus I’m now getting spammed by YouTube (“Happy dances around the world” for fuck’s sake), even though I keep clicking the “unsubscribe” link and even though the link takes me to a YouTube page that tells me that my “current setting” is “off”. Let me give you arseholes a tip: If you want me to use your software or service, hijacking my email account and the device for which I paid a couple of hundred dollars and generally pissing me off is a guaranteed losing strategy. This kind of shit is why, in the desktop world, the first thing I do with a new computer is “format c:” and install a fresh and unadulterated copy of the operating system to get rid of all the “crapware” cluttering the desktop and hard drive that companies have paid to have added to the system, but which is generally of little or no use to any thinking user. I suspect that once I get the hang of this, I will similarly root any future new Android device I buy (or work on) immediately.

OK, so as I think I understand it (I’m just guessing at this point in my learning experience, actually), it’s the decision of the device manufacturer to decide what apps are “system apps”, so I need to blame Samsung for that … and they (and Google) are starting to look more and more like Apple to me. This isn’t even a cell phone attached to one of the evil members of the cell phone cartel, who speciously claim that they must control what software runs on my phone — it’s just a tablet, which to me should be no different than a desktop computer when it comes to installing what I want on it — so I fail to understand why I am forced to keep apps that I have no intention of ever using, such as Dropbox and Peel Smart Remote. (Hasn’t Google learnt from Microsoft’s experience about bad behaviour like this in the latter’s various anti-trust lawsuits launched by the American and European governments?) To me this is like being forced to live with a slovenly neighbour from down the street, because the Communist Party Housing Authority said so. No thanks.

Although I have had this tablet for almost three months now, it has taken me this long to get over my feelings of loathing and dread (for all of the above reasons) and find the time to get this far in the experience, where I have finally installed my choice of web browser (Firefox, which crashes daily for no apparent reason) and anti-virus (Avast), and a crashing (because it wants to use the now disabled Dropbox) KeePassDroid so that I can actually access useful services that I use for which I need to log in. (Two out of three apps crashing; not what I would call “out-of-box happiness”.) I don’t have all the time in the world to screw around with this crap, as educating as it is, so time will tell whether or not this tablet turns out to be a productive and useful tool, or another listing on Craigslist.

It will also determine what new cell phone I buy shortly, ending my one-man, seven-year boycott of the anti-competitive cell phone industry, and a “dumb phone” (also known as a “feature phone”, although I can’t figure out why when it has only one feature!) or continuing with no phone is starting to look like a mighty attractive option right now.

Stay tuned!

Cell phone carriers coincidentally raise prices at the same time

Mar 21st, 2014
by Craig.
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Within the last few days, two of the “big three” cell phone companies in the uncompetitive Canadian cartel/oligopoly (Bell and Rogers) “coincidentally” raised their prices at exactly the same time by exactly the same amount! Telus jumped the gun by doing the same in January, apparently. Wow, what are the chances?! What an incredible coincidence — and I mean “incredible” 100% literally. Should Canadian consumers rush out and buy lottery tickets, or (more likely) look skyward and prepare to dodge lightning bolts?

Probably neither, actually. The proper response is to adopt the position — i.e., bend over. As Michael Geist writes, Why Are Canadian Wireless Carriers Increasing Prices? Because They Can. And because they have nothing but contempt for their customers.

Can anybody say “collusion”? I knew you could.

Thieving bastards.

Alison Redford’s Resignation

Mar 20th, 2014
by Craig.
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Alison Redford, 2012.

Alison Redford. Source: Dave Cournoyer

I shouldn’t have anything to say about the resignation of a politician in a jurisdiction where I do not live. But, I do.

First of all, I do wonder what the hell a provincial politician is doing spending tax-payer money (and a considerable sum of it, at that) on a trip to the funeral of the former leader of another country. If she felt so strongly about going to Mandela’s funeral, she should have spent her own money to do so. (I don’t know how wealthy she is, but I’d bet she would have worked to get a better deal to do so than the $45 000 of tax-payers’ money she supposedly spent, which will no doubt be paid for by passing the hat around among her supporters now that she has said she will repay it.) If the prime minister wants to waste money going to the funeral of a (former) terrorist who happened to become the leader of a country … well, I suppose that’s one of the perks of the job. What can we tax-paying peons do? But even a provincial leader has no business dealing with other national governments on a direct level, not officially anyway.

But I am drawn to the comments of Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, as quoted in the CBC article Alison Redford resigning as Alberta premier:

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi says Redford’s resignation as premier is a sign of what is wrong with the political process.

Nenshi says while he disagrees with some of the things she did, Redford was trying to do good things for the province as leader.

“I want to remind people that this is also a human story,” he said.

“It’s about a real person. A good person. A person who loves this province and has worked hard and made incredible sacrifices for this place. And it’s the story of a system that takes somebody like that, chews them up and spits them out.”

Forget the sentimentality of his comments and those of the NDP leader, Brian Mason. It just seems shocking to me that, after not even two and a half years at the helm, she’s run out of town because, to paraphrase one of the thin-skinned members of her revolting caucus, she’s a “mean bitch”. If even people who philosophically oppose her (such as Mason) can say positive things (remember, Redford has resigned, not died) like, “I have to say I thought she was a very intelligent premier with her own vision …”, then I do have to wonder about the short-sightedness of what has happened there — short-sightedness on the part of both the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta and Redford herself. Even if you’re a cynical, poll-watching politician who thinks only in terms of getting re-elected at the next election, the next election isn’t even for a couple of years yet!

Again, I don’t live in Alberta, and so I’m not on top of the spending issues (in addition to the one above) that people seem to be laying at her feet, and the charges of entitlement (I thought all politicians felt entitled?) and being “out of touch”. Maybe if I was an Albertan I’d be cheering right now; I really don’t know. But it was Nenshi’s comments that grabbed my attention. On the one hand I can’t help but feel that a huge percentage of politicians — from the lowliest town councillor to the top dog in the land — are on the take somehow and bilking the taxpayer with every breath they take. On the other hand, I also can’t help but feel that you can’t ever hope to attract decent people to politics if they get treated this way the minute they’re not the flavour of the moment.

Can Redford be nearly as bad as the dickhead we have running the country — his utter contempt for the electorate at large on display Wednesday by the manner in which the swearing in of the new finance minister was carried out? Although I wonder if perhaps she gave up and rolled over too easily, I also can’t help but compare her apparent willingness to step aside for the greater good to the exact opposite behaviour of that buffoon and national embarrassment in Toronto, Rob Ford.

No fun BC

Feb 24th, 2014
by Craig.
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Car burns during Vancouver Stanley Cup riot, 15 June 2011. © Copyright 2011 Craig Hartnett.

Car burns during Vancouver Stanley Cup riot, 15 June 2011

So just about everyone in Canada east of the Rockies got to imbibe at some inhumane hour of the morning during the Olympic gold medal ice hockey game between Canada and Sweden on Sunday. West of the Rockies though, the no-fun police were demonstrating their true colours: Public establishments in British Columbia were not allowed to serve alcohol, even though in other provinces rules had been relaxed for this special occasion.

A few years ago I’d have been critical of this “no-fun” policy. But in 1994 and 2011, Vancouverites proved that they can’t hold their liquor when they trashed the city in riots following the losses of their hockey team in the Stanley Cup finals. Of course, this time “we” won, but winners rioting is not an unheard of phenomenon either, and the infantile population of Vancouver had already proven twice they were quite happy to riot at the drop of a puck and therefore can’t be trusted.

Of course, not every resident of Vancouver and its environs is infantile, but as is always the case it’s the minority that spoils it for the majority. (In fact, Vancouverites spoil it for the whole province.) Most of us wouldn’t turn into raving criminal maniacs if we had a beer or two with breakfast at four in the morning, even if our team lost. Unfortunately, it seems we’ll probably have to wait a generation before those in charge will trust us enough to test that hypothesis.

“Comply or Die”

Aug 3rd, 2013
by Craig.
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Yet again we have Canadian police killing civilians, acting as judge, jury and — most importantly — executioner. While we wait for a thorough and impartial investigation — in our dreams — of the shooting of Sammy Yatim in Toronto, as with the killing of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport in 2007 it’s certainly telling to note that the cops had apparently killed him within 39 seconds of arriving on the scene, even as he stood alone inside a tram car! Do the cops not learn anything from their past behaviour?!

Unlike the Dziekanski case though, this cop clearly shot to kill. You don’t fire nine shots into someone expecting that they’ll be providing fingerprints and a mug shot down at the cop shop later. Oh, and just for good measure (kind of a “fuck you, punk”), one of the 23 cops on the scene (because apparently all the thugs in town wanted a piece of the action) then tasered Yatim’s lifeless body, before ironic first aid was performed on him. (Actually, one can’t help but wonder if the taser was deployed only so that the cops could say that they tried to subdue Yatim with it. A little fudging of the time line in the cops’ notes would have been required of course, but that’s OK, as long as the bad guy dies.)

Part of the report on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s The National on 28 July 2013 included an interview with a former Toronto cop who, while being critical of the speed with which Yatim was executed, used the term “Comply or die.” I’d never heard the term before, but it so poetically and succinctly seems to sum up what appears to be the motto of most police forces these days.

Rather than engage the population they’re supposed to protect in order to use “minimum force” and avoid violence — yes, even apparent bad guys with knives need to be engaged unless loss of life is imminent — cops these days seem to be on a rampage, killing, tasering or pepper-spraying anybody that even dares to look at them sideways. It doesn’t even matter that you’ve managed to live for a half century or more without so much as stealing a penny candy as a kid or getting a parking ticket, you too can find yourself on the wrong end of a weapon held by a mentally unstable cop who is miffed at you for not immediately getting down and kissing his jackboots the moment he (or she in the case of “Constable 728”, aka Stefanie Trudeau) barks a command in your direction, even when you hadn’t heretofore even had a reason to note the cop’s presence.

And that last point is important to note. All sorts of people come to the defence of the cops in cases like this for all sorts of reasons, many of whom probably fit into my penny candy / parking ticket description. Based on their life experiences, it’s obvious to them that anyone who incurs the wrath — or even just the attention — of the police is obviously guilty of something. It doesn’t really matter what that “something” is; for these people you’re guilty until proven innocent, and “you must have done something to deserve being shot, tasered or pepper-sprayed.” Or, in the case of completely blameless Buddy Tavares and his assailant RCMP Constable Geoff Mantler, you must have done something to deserve having said jackboot forcibly applied to your lips to assist you in planting the kiss.

That old adage about walking a mile in someone’s shoes comes to mind.

Related to this story but with reference to my previous post about the Canadian media, I found it odd how CBC television news showed pictures of Yatim looking like something of a gangster but had a former Toronto cop on who questioned the speed of the use of force, while Global television news showed pictures of a clean-cut young kid, but had on their own “expert” who said that cops had no choice but to shoot to kill.

Possible arrival of Verizon in Canada

Jul 29th, 2013
by Craig.
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I’m not a big fan of multinationals, and quite frankly I’m dubious about the possible entry of Verizon into the Canadian cell phone market — the market with the highest prices and least competition in the world. (Third World countries like Somalia and Zambia have better service and lower prices than Canada.) I’m also not happy about the way the scheme to encourage new entrants and more competition in the market has been co-opted by the Big Three (Bell, Telus and Rogers).

But if companies like Bell are willing to take many of their customers’ hard-earned dollars out of their overflowing coffers to buy full-page advertising in major newspapers to convince the same customers they’re already screwing that Verizon’s entry into Canada is a bad thing, then on that basis alone I say we should roll out the red carpet for Verizon.

Think about it. Things can’t get much worse for the consumer, and one can only hope that things get a little tougher for the incumbents, even if only temporarily.

Update, 30 July 2013: And now Telus is spending your money suing you via the federal government!

Criticisms of the Press: Canadian Edition

Jul 26th, 2013
by Craig.
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We, the public, need a free and professional press. Fortunately, in Canada, the “free” part is not usually an issue. But recently the “professional” part certainly took a beating, in my opinion, certainly on the television.

First up is the rail tragedy in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. I never thought I’d say this about the Milquetoast Peter Mansbridge, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s chief correspondent and anchor of The National news programme, but where is the guy? In his place we’ve had Mark Kelley anchoring the “show” (as he himself called it) nightly from the dark streets of Lac-Mégantic, giving us hand-wringing man-on-the-street interview after hand-wringing man-on-the-street interview with grieving survivors and residents, done by him and his team of reporters, some seemingly reeled in from other parts of the country in an attempt to leave no grieving resident unturned.

Then the hue and cry started to arise about the conspicuous absence of the chairman of The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, Inc. (owners of the runaway train), Edward Burkhardt. Mark Kelley set the tone the night before Burkhardt was scheduled to show up in Lac-Mégantic, four days after the derailment, by seeming to discount anything Burkhardt might say on his arrival. And so it was that Burkhardt arrived in Lac-Mégantic and promptly made a fool of himself. However, he was aided and abetted in that endeavour by so-called journalists, whose weighty questions included, “How much are you worth?” and “Did you sleep last night?” What the hell?! What the fuck does that have to do with anything?! If we’re going to hang everyone in Lac-Mégantic who has slept since the disaster on 6 July, we’re going to run out of lamp posts! The press displayed a pack mentality, savaging Burkhardt in a most tawdry and unprofessional manner like sharks in a blood-fuelled frenzy.

On a side note, Edward Burkhardt really does need to fire himself as the public face of his company until he gets some professional help in handling the press. That, some help with showing a little more empathy (he has the words figured out; he needs help with the delivery) and a kick in the arse for hanging his employee and a volunteer fire department out to dry before a full investigation, will help him and his companies immensely after future accidents. But he doesn’t deserve death threats.

And another side note is this use of the term “show” to describe a news programme. As I’ve pointed out, Mark Kelley of the CBC used this term, and I’ve heard Dawna Friesen of Global News refer to her news programme as a “show” too. My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a “show” as, among other things:

· n.
1 a spectacle or display.
2 a play or other stage performance, especially a musical. > a light entertainment programme on television or radio.

Sadly, the use of the term “show” is actually accurate these days, especially with respect to the “light entertainment” part, as I’ll demonstrate in a moment. However, it shouldn’t be. I don’t watch, listen to or read the news to be entertained. (It’s mostly about death and destruction anyway. How is that entertaining?!) I’m not interested in the weather reporter with a joke a minute, or the (not so) witty repartee between the news reader and the sports guy. Sadly, I think I’m in the minority.

The other news item that sickens me is the treatment of the death of some Hollywood actor. Umm, what’s his name again? (Do web search for “dead actor”.) Oh yeah, some guy named Cory Monteith. I guess he was on some popular TV show or another, actually, so maybe he’s not actually a “Hollywood actor”.

Any death is a tragedy for someone, usually that person’s family and friends, not to mention the deceased him- or herself. Sorry, but Cory and I didn’t know each other, therefore I am not a friend of his and I’m pretty sure he’s also not a member of my extended family. (If either were true, I wouldn’t be getting my news about him off the TV.) So, as a human being, I extend my condolences to the Monteith family and Cory’s friends. However, I’m not going to grieve for him, and the “news shows” should not expect that I will. Nor should they pander to and perpetuate the cult of celebrity worship.

But what is truly sickening to me is that Monteith’s death was the lead item, getting a full five or six minutes of coverage on the six o’ clock news on Global News on 14 July (and a similar amount of time on CBC’s national news, although at least a predicted federal cabinet shuffle got top billing), while the deaths of two nameless “nobodies” on the following two news stories were accorded thirty seconds each. Where is the sense of proportion?!

Again, I’m probably in the minority with respect to the “light entertainment” that news has become; these days, it seems, if it’s not entertaining and keeping our short attention spans occupied, it’s apparently not worth paying attention to. After all, there’s probably a competitor with a shinier, more entertaining “show” on another channel. However, I don’t think it’s too much to expect a modicum of professionalism and at least an attempt at a veneer of impartiality from journalists when it comes to thinking of questions to ask stunned officials on the scene of a deadly disaster.

Attention Susan Ormiston!

Jun 6th, 2012
by Craig.
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Maybe nobody at the CBC knows any better, or maybe they’re too afraid to correct you. However, I do and I’m not.

The Queen does not PRO-sess canned fish at a packing plant. She does, however, pro-SESS down The Mall in a pro-SESS-shun.

Look it up. You’re welcome.

There was another odd pronunciation (in addition to at least two instances of the above for which I was within earshot of the TV), but I forget what it was. Additionally, I heard someone else remark on your rather odd pronunciation of “Edinburgh” (and by “odd” I mean odd to someone who lives there, not odd to a North American who might assume it’s pronounced as a German might do so), but I didn’t hear that one myself.

Again, you’re welcome.

Oh, the irony

May 3rd, 2012
by Craig.
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So there I was, surfing the Web looking for information related to ambulances in British Columbia, when I came across the BC Ambulance Service’s page on treatment guidelines. Being the curious type, I downloaded a PDF copy of said treatment guidelines to have a quick look.

But instead of a document about treatment guidelines, this is all that the 2.2 MB file displayed to me in my current PDF reader of choice:

For the best experience, open this PDF portfolio in Acrobat 9 or Adobe Reader 9, or later.

For the best experience, open this PDF portfolio in Acrobat 9 or Adobe Reader 9, or later.

Now, given the size of the file and the fact that the size matches what is stated on the BCAS website, the content of the PDF is obviously there on my computer, but the BCAS (presumably) have (in their infinite wisdom) deemed that I can only “best experience” (excuse me while I throw up) their document in Acrobat Reader! This is indeed ironic, given that “PDF” stands for “portable document format” and, according to page 33 of Adobe’s own specification, “PDF is a file format for representing documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system used to create them and of the output device on which they are to be displayed or printed.” (It also reads, on page 25, “The goal of these products [Adobe Acrobat] is to enable users to exchange and view electronic documents easily and reliably, independently of the environment in which they were created.”)

So, apparently, the portable document format isn’t actually very portable.

I refuse to install Adobe Acrobat Reader on my primary machine. It is the poster child for “bloatware“; when all you want to do is have a quick look at a PDF document, or all you want to do is open a one-page document (like the invoices I prepare in my business), you have to load this behemoth of a program, wait and wait and wait some more while your hard disk grinds on forever, only to use one per cent of the program’s features (when it finally opens) and take less time to look at the document than it took to open it. And let’s not forget about the constant updates to the ninety-nine per cent of the application you don’t use, and Adobe’s habit of getting their sticky fingers into the very heart of your operating system. No thanks.

If Adobe produced a “light” version of Acrobat Reader (which is itself a light version of Acrobat, a program used to create PDFs) I’d consider using it. Until then I should at least acknowledge Adobe for making the portable document format an open standard, allowing me the choice to use other software to view PDFs.

And you, BC Ambulance Service? How about making your portable-document-format document portable? I don’t want to “experience” your document singing and dancing; I just want to read it. At least let me have a second class “experience” in my chosen PDF reader. Thank-you.

Update, 3 May 2012: Wouldn’t you know it. The day after I wrote this, Foxit Reader prompted me to install a security update. After the update I thought I’d see what happens when I open the same file. Lo and behold! Turns out that it appears that a “PDF portfolio” is (as the name might suggest) a portfolio or collection of PDF documents in one container (file), and one needs to view the “attachments” to see and open the individual PDF documents. The original display (see above) certainly didn’t suggest that, and the inclusion of the Adobe logo made me believe that here I had a document created in Adobe Acrobat that refused to be displayed in non-Adobe PDF readers.

Turns out I was wrong. Not sure if I should blame Foxit Reader for not being more helpful, or if I should blame Adobe because a document created using their software (the document’s properties show that it was created by Adobe Acrobat) led me to the conclusions I made. I lean towards the former — if only because of the different behaviour of Foxit Reader after the update and the fact that the update appears to address this very issue — but I do presume that the wording displayed previously (the so-called “best experience”) comes from Adobe and their software, and so could be worded to be more helpful and less biased. Clearly though, Foxit Reader is now identifying the nature of the file and displaying its own message, something it should have done before.

Below are screen captures showing what I see now on opening the file, on viewing the attachment list, and on opening the attachments.

I am a supporter of terrorists and other nasty people

Mar 14th, 2012
by Craig.
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I’m a little behind the eight ball, as this is now “old news”, but this week I donated money to Greenpeace Canada for the first time in my life. Why? Well, I’ll explain it this way: When you donate to Greenpeace online they have a field on the donation form that asks why you’re motivated to donate to them. This is what I filled in: “Stephen Harper says you’re terrorists” (archived) (not to mention funded by foreign money [archived]).

Way to go Stevie. Nothing like using hyperbole to convince people to support those not on your side of what should be a reasoned debate. Maybe you should take a lesson from … uh, yourself (archived).

In other vilify-your-opponent news, there’s your friendly neighbourhood defender against the bogeyman, Vic Toews, Canadian Minister of Public Safety. Didn’t he learn anything from George Bush’s “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” gaffe? (Read or watch George; read or watch Vic.) Really, any thinking person on either side of any argument rejects this kind of useless rhetoric, and some courageous people (like Margaret Wente [archived]) have the guts to come right out and say it.

Mr. Toews also took to the pages of the Asian Pacific Post in a full-page editorial that may have been preaching to a choir that probably thinks Canada is too soft on crime anyway, given the regimes in place where many of the readers of that publication originate. (Incidentally, the online version appears to be a slightly reduced version of the printed one.) He also makes the disingenuous comparison of private data (what he calls “basic subscription data”) to “the modern equivalent of phonebook [sic] information”. Mr. Toews, I can’t help but wonder if your personal home phone number is listed in your local telephone directory. Is it? Oh, it’s unlisted? You mean, you want it to be private?! What a radical concept!

A much more reasoned response to Toews’ rhetoric comes in the form of an editorial by John Ibbitson (‘With us or with the child pornographers’ doesn’t cut it, Mr. Toews [archived]). He writes:

Privacy commissioners in Ottawa and the provinces will not like being called such vile names. … There are powerful arguments on both sides. None of us want to handicap police in their efforts to track those who would defraud us, harm children or plot acts of terror. But we must also be wary of granting the state new powers that could restrict the sovereignty of citizens. … should the state be allowed to have new powers to know who we are on the web — in effect, to register our online identities — without a judicial warrant or even our knowledge or consent?

But Yoni Goldstein also makes half a point in his editorial (or is it a satire piece?) Stop Pretending to Care About Privacy (archived). He contends that the general public is hypocritical and has already given up any notion of privacy in”tweeting” and “facebooking” the minutiae of their lives, and using Gmail. (Actually, I’ll give him two-thirds of a point, as he also validly points out the hypocrisy of people who wail about their privacy being violated, all while keeping rags like the National Enquirer and websites like TMZ in business so that they can see the nipples and dead bodies of celebrities.) However, he conveniently doesn’t mention things like monitoring private communications like email, instant messaging, voice and video.

Sometimes it takes a cartoon to really get the point across, and so I present these two. The first refers to Bill C-51 (the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act, also here), a predecessor to the current Bill C-30 (previously known by its short title Lawful Access Act, tendentiously renamed to Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act to make sure that opponents of the bill are aware that they are supporters of child pornographers), and plays on the well-worn (but completely bogus) argument that if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. The second is clever and speaks for itself.

The innocent have nothing to fear.

The innocent have nothing to fear.

Toews must be an online predator.

Toews must be an online predator.

Update, 15 March 2012: This post was getting long enough, so I had to cut it off somewhere. However, if your impression of “Anonymous” is that they are a bunch of rogue geeks/nerds that are kinda mostly harmless, but they could get out of hand and bring down civilisation as we know it at any moment, you need to read How I learned to stop worrying and love Anonymous (archived).

And probably the most succinct summary I’ve read about why Bill C-30 is bad comes from Ivor Tossell, who writes (in Toews’s ‘child pornographers’ gaffe aside, Bill C-30 has real dangers [archived]):

Contrary to what you might have heard, the new bill, C-30, doesn’t invite police to monitor your every online move without a warrant. It does, however, require Internet companies — loosely defined — to cough up your name, Internet protocol address and a few other identifiers if the police ask for them, even without a warrant. This means that the police could conceivably collect a pseudonym you’ve been using to comment on websites, present it to the relevant company, and say, “Who is this person?”

By trading pseudonyms for IP addresses, then IP addresses for real names and addresses, and repeating the process, police could get a pretty clear picture of what you’ve been up to online.

So yeah, without a warrant the cops can “only” get “the modern equivalent of phonebook information”, but to extend that analogy, they can then follow you from your home to see where you work and with whom you socialise, they can peek in your windows to see your taste in the art hanging on your walls (and which one your safe is hiding behind), they can rifle through your garbage and the mail in your mail box, and on the list goes, and all without a warrant just because they managed to obtain your “phonebook information”. In the online world — again, all without a warrant — they can now see that you gripe about (or are blowing the whistle on) your employer, they can see that you have a personal advert on that dating site that caters to cheating spouses, they can see that you regularly bid on and buy old Barbie dolls on eBay (you big tough biker guy you), and so on. This is all personal information that is ripe for abuse in the wrong hands, and that includes the hands of the police.

Now maybe you and I “have nothing to fear” (see cartoon above) or even be just a little bit embarrassed about, but these things violate your privacy, plain and simple, and we should all fear that.

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