New laws would let police eavesdrop on Internet users

Under the proposed bill, police would first have to get court approval before they could listen in.

Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan told the House of Commons Public Safety and National Security Committee Wednesday that the legislation is needed because current laws are out-of-date.

"We have legislation covering wiretap and surveillance that was designed for the era of the rotary phone," Van Loan said.

The current legislation was written in a time before text messages, Facebook and voice-over-Internet phone lines. Van Loan says there have been recent situations in which police wanted to act quickly to stop a crime, but couldn't because they were constrained by current laws.

"In some of these cases, time is of the essence," he said.

"If you find a situation where a child is being exploited live online at that time - and that situation has arisen before - police services have had good co-operation with a lot of Internet service providers, but there are some that aren't so co-operative."

Police agencies have been calling for new laws since at least the mid-1990s. They say the situation at present provides a digital "safe haven" for criminals, pedophiles and terrorists.

But some privacy advocates are worried about what the proposed bill would allow. In some countries, lawful-access legislation has forced Internet providers to routinely gather and store all electronic traffic of their clients. The stored data can then be obtained by police via search warrant, and effectively places users under constant police surveillance.

But RCMP Commissioner William Elliott said with recent Internet technology developments, it's often difficult or impossible for police to wiretap communication between suspected criminals.

He said the RCMP is supportive of any changes of legislation that would allow them to better intercept criminal communications.

Elections Canada may be exposing voters to ID theft: privacy commissioner

Canadian voters are at risk of identity theft because of voters lists that go missing and are circulated widely among political parties, says Canada's privacy commissioner.

"The personal information of Canadian voters is not adequately protected," commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said Thursday in a statement after presenting a report to Parliament highlighting the issue. "We're concerned that voters' personal information could fall into the wrong hands and be used for illegal activities."

Stoddart looked into the practices of four federal agencies that collect personal information such as birthdates and addresses:

- Canada Revenue Agency.

- Elections Canada.

- Passport Canada.

- Service Canada.

The report found that in the case of Elections Canada:

- Some voters lists went missing during elections and byelections.

- Elections Canada collects too much personal information on voters, including some teenagers too young to vote.

- Paper and electronic copies of voter lists are widely circulated to political parties and candidates, who aren't required by law to protect privacy.

- Such parties don't have a formal way to report privacy breaches to Elections Canada. Canadians aren't fully informed about how their personal information will be used.

The report was prepared in collaboration with Auditor General Sheila Fraser, who presented her own report on whether the departments examined by Stoddart work together to manage the information efficiently in accordance with the law and collect only the information that is relevant to delivering their programs.

A browser exclusively for black people?

A new version of Mozilla has appeared, being dubbed "Blackbird". It's a browser that offers features and content meant to appeal to members of the African-American (and possibly the African-Canadian) community.

The company that developed BlackBird - a group called 40A Inc, says that the browser is designed to make it easier to find African American related content on the Internet and to interact with other members of the African American community online by sharing stories, news, comments and videos.

Through the use of embedded tools such as "Black Search", Blackbird attempts to provide users with "the best black content available on the web".

It's a controversial idea, which has already stirred up a growing number of comments and a growing number of discussions all over the web.

My initial reaction was fairly negative. Though I'm not black, I do belong to another ethnically distinct minority group. I shuddered at the idea of someone creating and then distributing a South Asian, or a Muslim browser, so that people like me like me can access the best of "South Asian/Muslim" content on the web.

On the other hand, there are already plenty of web sites out there that do just that, but they typically focus on a specific activity like dating for example. Is an ethnically-targeted browser really any different?

I think so.

Blackbird makes the assumption that the web itself can be filtered according to the tastes and interests of a specific ethnic audience. That's a difficult and possibly dangerous assumption to make. I'm not sure how it's even possible to determine a common set of interests, political views, humor, artistic preferences based on someone's skin color or other ethnically-defining characteristic.

Moreover, users who choose to browse the web using Blackbird are essentially identifying themselves as black to every website they visit. An unintentional but significant lapse of privacy.

Ars Technica has a more in-depth look at the new software and spoke with its creator Ed Young, who addressed criticism that Blackbird is exclusionary:

"We call it an 'identity browser,'" Young explained. "I could make a browser for the lovers of Warcraft. Would that be exclusionary of other people? No, I would just be bringing those people closer to the sites and resources that they are probably interested in."

Young makes a good point - there is a long history in the tech world of hardware and software being customized to reflect its users interests. As Ars points out, Blackbird isn't even the first browser that's been purpose-built to serve the needs of a specific group. A version of the social browser Flock called Gloss is designed just for women.

Now, I haven't personally tried Blackbird, and clearly doing so would not give me a greater appreciation for how well the program achieves its goal - I'm just not part of its intended user base.

But if you are, and have tried Blackbird, please let us know what you think of the experience.

From what i've read online and heard, In terms of pure web-browsing functionality, Blackbird is indistinguishable from the other flavours of Mozilla, specifically Firefox. The most notable differences are:


The inclusion of dedicated set of buttons:


- These first two buttons provide quick access to email accounts and social networks like Facebook or MySpace. The "Share" button lets users who have signed up with Blackbird Networks share web pages with other members, which are then organized by category such as "National News" or "Politics". Think of it like a Digg or StumbleUpon but with a specific demographic of voters. Results can be seen in a tab that appears on the left side of the browser window. The "Video" button opens up a similar tab and gives users access to 15 "channels" of which only 5 are currently populated with content. Videos then play in the main browser window. Finally the "Give Back" button is a shortcut to the site "http://dogood.blackbirdhome.com/" which Blackbird calls the "Do Good Channel". It's home to a collection of community service and causes and provides information on how users can get involved and participate. 40A says that "Blackbird will donate 10% of its 2009 revenue to charitable and educational organizations that are serving the African American community."

- The inclusion of a default "Black Search" option in the search bar. Searches conducted with this option simply take you to a custom Google search, which presumably has been tuned to include only sites that are considered in keeping with the African-American audience it caters to. Trying one of the suggested searches by a commenter on "firsts" yielded results from sites such as bet.com, blackplanet.com, ebonyjet.com and blackvoices.com.

- A pre-populated set of bookmarks called "Highly Recommended"

- A news ticker function which apparently isn't all that customizable - the available only options are "on" and "off"

It turns out there is little difference between Blackbird and any other browser in which someone who has taken the time to bookmark sites that have a specific theme or editorial approach.

Something that does set Blackbird apart from other browsers, is the inclusion of advertising in the bottom of the tabbed areas for video and sharing. Presumably this is what the creators are referring to when they note on the download site:

"Blackbird is free for you because it is supported by advertising and sponsorships. You don't pay to use Blackbird."

Whether the notion of an ethno-centric browser is appealing to you or not, Blackbird is at best a mildly interesting approach to building a community. Savvy web users will be unimpressed by its limited feature set. The most compelling feature - the black search - doesn't require Blackbird at all - you can access it here: http://www.blackbirdhome.com/search5.html using any browser you choose to use.

Until next time....