peephal.com

Do like Deutschland?

Admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:39:57 +0000

From The Source, Feb. 21, 2012: What happens when we allow free market health care? In Germany, the system flourished. Should Canada adopt that model?

Ezra Levant

New York Times: Campaigns Use ‘Microtargeting’ to Attract Sponsors

Admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:58:20 +0000

We’ve discussed before the issue of companies gathering vast amounts of data on individuals in order to create targeted behavioral advertising. Now, the New York Times reports that the same types of data collection and profile creation are being used by political campaigns: Political campaigns, which have borrowed tricks from Madison Avenue for decades, are [...]
Privacy Lives

CBC wants censorship

Admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:15:50 +0000

My Feb. 20, 2012 Sun column;

CBC wants censorship

The CBC is throwing a tantrum — using your tax dollars.

They had a lawyer send a letter to us here at the Sun, complaining because we criticize their wasteful spending, their lack of accountability, and their bizarre broadcasting decisions, like their big foray into Internet porn.

The CBC lawyer was really mad because on the Sun News Network, we showed a video of one of their senior executives, Kirstine Stewart, alongside a video of a France-produced porn show on CBC’s new online channel.

Here’s a quote from their letter: “Placing Ms. Stewart on the same screen as graphic sex scenes is indefensible morally and legally.”

Just to be clear, the graphic sex scene their lawyer referred to was from a program on a CBC website. But to show that program, associated with a CBC executive, is apparently illegal and immoral in their eyes.

Uh, nope. It’s called accountability. If the government broadcaster is going to get into the online porn business, they have to answer for it to taxpayers. Are they embarrassed?

The CBC’s president, Hubert Lacroix, lost his temper and wrote to the entire board of directors of Quebecor, the company that owns the Sun.

Lacroix singled me out and said my show was “simply unacceptable, disgraceful, and intended only to tarnish the image and reputation of one of CBC/Radio-Canada’s senior executives.” He was also really mad that I called him a “wastrel” and “a money-burning, high-living, party-hard elitist.”

Well, gentle reader, you tell me. Is a man who expenses 0 breakfasts to the taxpayer a wastrel? Is a man who throws a lavish five-star party during the Toronto Film Festival — even though the CBC had no film showing there — a “money-burning, high-living, party-hard elitist”?

I’d say he is. I wouldn’t care if it was Lacroix’s own money. But it’s not.

It’s taxpayers’ money. Any cabinet minister who partied that way would be sacked.

But then Lacroix showed his real character. He told our corporate board that my show was “an act so low and so unworthy that it must be drawn to your attention” — and he clearly wanted them to rein me in.

So the president of the government broadcaster was writing to a private broadcaster and demanding that they censor one of their journalists.

Stop for a moment and think about that. Hubert Lacroix wants to censor the Sun. He expects the Sun’s bosses to silence a particular journalist (me). He has his lawyer make threats implying a lawsuit. He sends a tear-stained letter to the board of directors.

What a bully. What a censor. What a man unfit to run a media company.

Could you imagine what it’s like to work for him at the CBC?

Let me close by quoting the response to the CBC from Quebecor’s v-p of legal affairs, Marc Tremblay:

“We do not know how things are done at CBC, but at (Quebecor) respect for journalistic independence is a sacred principle, one that is applied absolutely, and we cannot imagine by what right the Board of Directors could dictate how the news professionals at our media outlets should act with respect to either the form or the substance of their journalistic expression.”

Bloody brilliant.

I work for a company that loves free speech, even if that free speech irritates a government bureaucrat.

The CBC is run by a thin-skinned censor.

Reason #462 they should be privatized.
EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY

Ezra Levant

French rugby: Once the whipping boys, now the rulers of the game

Admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:32:42 +0000

AN IRISH perspective on this month’s cancelled Paris match on a frozen Stade de France, barely three months after the French Bleus almost won the World Cup against the All Blacks. Pictured: Dimitri Yashvili and the tricolore:COWARD HAD IT RIGHT – FRENCH HOLD US IN CONTEMPTBy Sean DiffleyEighty years ago the French were thrown out of the Five Nations and were blackballed for what the other four
Café Pacific – David Robie | Media freedom and transparency

Media in a lather! #TellVicEverything

Admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 08:50:39 +0000

My Feb. 18, 2012 Sun column;

Media in a lather! #TellVicEverything

What a pleasure to see Canada’s consensus media so concerned about the erosion of privacy and civil liberties under a proposed new crime law called Bill C-30, introduced by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

Government snooping didn’t bother the media pack when it came in the form of the long-form census and its invasive personal questions — to be forcibly answered on pain of fines and even prison.

It didn’t bother the media pack when personal data was collected from farmers and duck hunters for the firearms registry (including information about their romantic lives and medical history).

And the media pack didn’t sympathize when consenting adults tried to sell wheat to each other in the privacy of their own homes. The Wheat Board’s Soviet-style monopoly was more important.

But the fight against child pornography has Canada’s press in high dudgeon.

To be sure, there are problems with the bill. It’s called the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. But in fact the law allows police to snoop on anyone, for any reason — not just for suspected child abuse. Literally any cop in Canada — and civilian staff working at police stations — can use the law. Not just the vice squad. Traffic cops, too. Even, bizarrely, the Competition Bureau. They have nothing to do with child pornography. They’re business deal cops.

That’s about 100,000 new snoops.

Under the bill, they can compel any Internet and cell phone company to turn over six different pieces of information about you, without a warrant.

Those cops and pretend cops can get things like your name, e-mail address and IP address (your unique Internet ID, like a phone number), just by making a written request of your Internet company. No need to go before a court to prove that there’s any reason for such invasiveness.

To be clear, these cops will only be able to get basic info about you, not about what you’re saying or doing or watching. So they can learn your e-mail address, but not what you write from it. They can learn your Internet IP address, but not what websites you’re looking at.

For that extra information, they have to go to court and persuade a judge to get a search warrant.

So the grassroots mockery of the bill — thousands of people publishing trivial personal comments on Twitter, accompanied by the phrase “TellVicEverything” — isn’t accurate. The truth would be TellVicYourE-mailAddress. Which isn’t too much more invasive than what a phone book does, or a driver’s licence.

Still, we ought to be able to have private e-mail addresses that government snoops can’t find out for any reason or no reason. And that’s another thing that the consensus media has missed. Today police call up Internet companies all the time, without a warrant, and simply ask for this information. There are no guidelines in play — it’s however tough or persuasive or abusive the cop is, and however stubborn or co-operative or privacy-oriented the Internet company is.

It’s unregulated today — whereas C-30 would limit those requests to six kinds of information, and require a report of them to the privacy commissioner. Those controls don’t exist now.

This isn’t a civil liberties meltdown like the left says it is. But it’s refreshing to see the media and opposition care.

This week there was another Internet vote in Parliament, the repeal of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. That’s a censorship provision that prosecuted dozens of Canadians for what they write on blogs, using private names, that others deem offensive. Real fines have been meted out. Even jail.

It’s not TellVicEverything. It was SayNothingOffensive. For 35 years the consensus media accepted that law because it was used to prosecute conservatives and Christians, and liberals don’t mind that. Only a single opposition MP, the great Scott Simms from Newfoundland, joined the government in voting for the repeal of that Orwellian law.

I’m a skeptic of C-30 because I believe in freedom. If only freedom — and not partisan potshots — motivated the consensus media too.
EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY

Ezra Levant

Google tricks iOS Safari into tracking you

Admin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 07:25:53 +0000

Google and other online advertising companies like Vibrant Media, Media Innovation Group, and PointRoll, are using a flaw in Safari on iOS to track you despite your privacy settings.

iOS Safari is set by default to reject tracking cookies from 3rd party websites. That means that unless you are directly and intentionally interacting with a site it should not be able to cookie and track you. Specifically that is intended to prevent tracking by advertisers displaying banner ads on websites.

The hack is that these advertisers use a script within the website to cause submit an invisible web form to the advertising website, which looks to Safari like you directly interacted with that site and so allows the site to send a cookie. Another flaw in Safari causes those cookies to be returned to the 3rd party sites once they have been set.

Apple is saying that they will address the issue. Google is blaming Apple for breaking with web standards (even though almost all browsers support blocking 3rd party cookies iOS Safari is unusual in making this the default).

My suggestion:

On your iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) go to “Settings”, select “Safari”, scroll down and “Clear Cookies and Data”. Do this frequently.
Don’t log into Google or other social media sites through the browser, only use the dedicated apps.
Use those social media apps to “like” or “+1″ content, rather than doing so in the browser.
Protect your IP address with a tool like Anonymizer Universal so these sites can’t just use your IP address in place of cookies to track you when you are at home or work on a WiFi connection with a long term IP address.

The WSJ had the first article I saw on this, but it is paywalled.

9 to 5 Mac has a nice article on it.

John Battelle’s searchblog tries to look at this issue from both sides.

The Privacy Blog

1963 – 2012…

Admin — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 18:43:33 +0000

The bible teaches us; “A good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death, than the day of birth.” (Ecclesiastes 7:1)

On this day, as the world mourns and says goodbye to Whitney Houston, this wisdom reminds us that we grieve death, we grieve our own loss.

Ms. Houston has passed from time into eternity, from this veil of tears to a place where there is no more pain, and no more tears, where the only relevent judgement is the judgement of God Almighty.

Gone To Soon….

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

US BUDGET 2013….

Admin — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:01:56 +0000

The White House’s Budget for fiscal 2013 begins with a broken promise, add some phony policy assumptions, throw in a few rosy forecasts and omits all kind of painful decisions.

Even then, the proposal would add trillion more to the national debt that Obama contemplated a few months ago-and it is a non-starter on Capitol Hill, where even Democrats have no plans to take it up.

It is, in other words, exactly what it was supposed to be: a campaign document…

This budget is the same stupid budget he tried to push through Congress last year which was vetoed. It is just another spending spree that will never get through Congress, he simply doesn’t know how to make the necessary cuts to try to rein in our huge deficit which he caused.

Obama is totally incompetent and needs to step aside to give SOMEONE else a chance to save our country before it’s too late. Even the USA Today Editorial folks know this one smells funny: “Editorial : Obama’s budget plan leaves debt bomb ticking.”

And if you don’t believe us just ask Greece how they are doing today, Burn baby burn!

So how’s that hope and change working out for you?

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Google Accused of Circumventing Privacy Settings on Apple’s Safari Browser

Admin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:18:40 +0000

We’ve discussed before how some Internet browsers have Do Not Track features to give consumers more control over the personal data that is gathered by Web sites or advertisers. The Do Not Track and other privacy tools in browsers seek to avoid “cookies,” which collect data about and can track users’ Internet searches and sites visited. Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox and [...]
Privacy Lives

On Data Privacy Day, think less is more.

Admin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:35:28 +0000

Entry written by Heather Ormerod, Senior Communications Advisor, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Once a year, privacy advocates and enthusiasts around the world get the chance to collectively shine a spotlight on the issue of online privacy.

Data Privacy Day, which is celebrated annually on January 28, is an annual international celebration designed to promote awareness about privacy and education about best privacy practices. Granted, it doesn’t rank up there with Canada Day or Thanksgiving in terms of food, fun or festivity, nevertheless it is a date worth circling on the calendar.

In this digital age, where our online activities can so easily be tracked, stored, shared and analyzed, and we are under constant pressure to share more and more personal information, we are all feeling a bit uneasy about all that personal data floating around in cyberspace.

It’s not that we want to turn our backs on the limitless potential of the Internet. We just need to figure out how we can all limit the potential for online personal information to be misused and abused.

The answer? When it comes to sharing personal information, think less is more.

Once our personal information is on the Internet, we have very little control over who sees it, how it is used, or how long it will be available. By sharing less personal information, we can help limit our exposure and the risks of our personal information being misused, abused or disclosed without consent.

So, whether we are social networking, using an app on a mobile device, or signing up for discounts and deals, we need to think carefully about the personal information we are putting into cyberspace.

Less is more is also good advice for businesses and organizations that collect personal information. Collecting and holding excess data raises the risks for customers, but it is also costly for businesses because it increases the risk of data breaches, which can be damaging to businesses’ reputations and expensive to clean up.

This week, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is pleased to join governments, privacy professionals, corporations, academics and students from around the world, in marking Data Privacy Day.

Our Office will be engaging in a number of activities in the week to leading up to January 28, such as the launch of some new youth privacy tools, and presentations to youth, public servants, businesses and staff. The Office has also produced some new resources, such as posters and graphics which can be used to raise awareness of privacy in any organization.

For more information on the Office’s Data Privacy Day activities and resources, go to our Data Privacy Day web page or http://www.priv.gc.ca/.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner