Canadian Center for Technology and Public Accountability
Several media outlets have reported in the recent weeks (see CBC report) that the Conservative federal government has contracted a Toronto-based company called the Social Media Group to perform ongoing monitoring of activity on various social media sites and to inform the government of postings, articles, comments, etc that they consider to be inaccurate, false or even perhaps merely politically damaging.
The program started as a pilot project where the government contracted Social Media Group to monitor online postings related to the controversial commercial seal hunt on the East Coast (see here and here for two perspectives on the issue) and inform them of any postings the Conservative government deemed to be "misrepresentation" of facts. Government employees in the Foreign Affairs Department and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans specially trained in online posting would then post replies to the "questionable" material.
This new program seems to represent a dawning realization in Ottawa of the power of social media to effect political and social change (see here, here, here) in the ranks of the Conservative government and a desire to effect an increasing measure of control over the various messages conveyed through this media. Given the Conservative governments' perceived propensity for "garrison"-style governance and political gamesmanship many Canadians are concerned about the potential ramification of this government foray into the world of social media. Even more worrisome is when one considers the possibility that rebuttals posted by government employees working in an official capacity may be done in a surreptitious fashion with the poster leaving no indication that they are in fact functioning essentially as a government-sanctioned mouthpiece tasked with controlling the message in online media.
There have been reports from bloggers all over the country (see this blog for an example) that comments and posts mirroring Conservative party policy positions to various blogs, forums and social media pages seem originating to originate from IP address ranges associated with the Canadian federal government.
Here are some IP address ranges currently known to belong to various departments of the Canadian federal government:
You can convert determine the individual ip addresses contained in these ranges using te tool found here
There are a number of easy-to-use web-based tools members of the general public can use to determine the ownership and geographic location of ip addresses. Below you will find links to some of these services:
Here are some links related to the topic of blocking spam and specific IP addresses for a number of popular blogging platforms to give you an idea of some of the techniques that may be employed to counter these tactics:
- Combatting SPAM and blacklisting in Wordpress
- Anti-spam strategies for phpBB
- Blocking IP addresses in VBulletin
Of course one would naturally assume that we can expect a certain level of technical sophistication (if not from individual government employees and/or departments) then from the firms they contract. If the government is truly interested in conducting clandestine propaganda operations in online media, they will either not post rebuttals, etc from government offices and would likely utilize some form of anonymization technology (e.g. Tor) to hide their origins. Blocking this type of traffic is a bit more complex on a technical level, but definitely achievable. Whether or not this is actually occurring is anyones guess. If it is, it would probably be relatively uncontroversial to say that this would be a wildly inappropriate use of taxpayer money and resources at the very least. Would it in fact be illegal?
We would very much like to here from anyone (the general public, security experts, government employees) who has thoughts to share on this matter. Feel free to contact us!
GoDaddy is an Arizona based company that we happen to use for a number of services (namely: domain name registration and ssl certificates). Given the recent furor over immigration law in Arizona, we thought it might be a good idea to reach out to the folks at GoDaddy and see what their position is on this important issue...
Greetings,
My organization is a long time customer of Godaddy. For the most part have always been pleased with the products and services provided by GoDaddy. However, recent developments in the State of Arizona, namely: the adoption of legislation related to immigration enforcement which we (along with many of our colleagues, clients, business associates and others in the wider community) find to be odious and possibly unconstitutional have lead me to wonder what position GoDaddy as an organization takes on this particular issue (please see http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15954262 for an international perspective on this issue).
We very hesitant to continue doing business with an organization that is not willing to take a strong and public stand against the more outrageous provisions of this legislation. We fully recognize the right of the citizens of the state of Arizona to pass whatever legislation they see fit. We will not however continue to spend our money with organizations based in Arizona until this law is drastically modified to prevent potential abuses of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and universal human rights, or repealed altogether.
We anxiously await clarification as to your organizations position on this law.
Thanks,
Peter Taylor
Canadian Center for Technology and Public Responsibility
Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:21 AM:
Dear Mr. Taylor,
Thank you for contacting GoDaddy.com. Your correspondence has been directed to the Office of the President.
We appreciate you taking the time to contact our office to share your opinion about the recent State of Arizona legislature. Although we wish your opinion in this matter did not affect your relationship with Go Daddy, please know your feedback is highly valued. At GoDaddy.com, we strongly believe that the freedom to express one's opinions is one of the defining factors that makes the United States a great nation.
Please also know that Go Daddy has multiple locations in several states and countries abroad. Furthermore, understand that Go Daddy did not create nor influence the state legislature in question. As such, we hope you will re-evaluate your final determination about your relationship with GoDaddy.com.
Should there be any other matters requiring the attention of our office, please do not hesitate to bring them to our attention.
Kindest Regards,
The Office of the President
Wed, May 12, 2010 at 12:25 AM:
Greetings,
While we appreciate your prompt response, we find it to be somewhat lacking in substance. We were hoping you would clearly state your position on the issue in question so that we can assess whether or not Go Daddy is a company we will continue to do business with.
The argument that Go Daddy has offices in many locations (and is therefore somehow completely disconnected from Arizona politics?) is somewhat disingenuous considering that Go Daddy is clearly a very influential private business in the context of the state of Arizona and indeed in on a global scale.
- Go Daddy is currently the largest ICANN-accredited registrar in the world.
- Bob Parsons was presented the Ed Denison Business Leader of the Year award at the Arizona Governor's 2005 Innovation Celebration. This award is presented by the Governor and honors distinction in entrepreneurship, community involvement and management expertise.
- Go Daddy's is one of the fastest growing privately held technology concerns in the United States. Furthermore, Go Daddy is one of the fastest growing privately held company in Arizona.
- GoDaddy.com was named the 2004 Arizona Hot Growth Company, in a statewide competition sponsored by bizAZ magazine.
- Go Daddy also received the Percent Growth Award as part of the Arizona Corporate Excellence Private 100 as an Arizona-based privately held business with the largest percentage of revenue growth from 2001 to 2002.
Go Daddy clearly occupies a strong leadership position in the Arizona business community.
A cursory read of online material related to Go Daddy seems to indicate that Go Daddy is actively engaged in various philanthropic initiatives throughout the state and an active participant in the community life of Arizona. Major recipients of Go Daddy philanthropic largesse over the past several years include: Phoenix Children's Hospital, the Arizona Humane Society, the Phoenix Zoo, HomeBase Youth Services, and the Salvation Army.
There are also certain issues raised in Wired.com's accounts of Go Daddy's handling of the ratemycop.com and seclists.org accounts that might leave the reader with the impression that Go Daddy is sometimes inclined to react to concerns raised by law enforcement officials and large e-commerce concerns in a somewhat arbitrary fashion that gives short shrift to paying customers.
All of these factors together lead us to the conclusion that while Go Daddy may not have created the legislation in question, your organization does wield enough political and economic clout in the state of Arizona for your position on the matter at hand to be of consequence. We would appreciate further clarification on your part.
Kindest Regards,
Peter Taylor
(Chairman)
Canadian Center for Technology and Public Responsibility
Thurs, May 27, 2010 at 11:27 PM:
Unfortunately we have not heard anything further from the folks at Go Daddy so we have started the process of moving all of our domains to another registrar.
The preponderance of evidence seems to support the idea that microfinance is an efficient means of alleviating poverty and providing much-needed opportunities for entrepreneurs in developing economies. Over the last year or so we have been participating in these types of endeavours by lending through kiva.org. We feel that this is a very nice example of technology being used to support the common person and simply wanted to point out the existence of this entity. Please see below for some facts and figures taken directly from Kiva's information pages:
Kiva Fact Sheet
- Kiva is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, incorporated in November 2005.
- "Kiva" is a Swahili word which means "unity" or "agreement".
- Kiva is the world's first online micro-lending platform.
- Kiva was co-founded by Matt and Jessica Flannery, when they were 28 and 27 respectively.
- Previously, Kiva CEO and Co-Founder Matt Flannery was an engineer at Tivo. Premal Shah, Kiva President, was a product manager at PayPal.
- PayPal provides Kiva with free payment processing. Kiva's is the first account at PayPal with a free payment processing agreement.
- The minimum amount that can be loaned to an entrepreneur on Kiva is $25.
- Kiva partners with microfinance institutions around the world, referred to on the Kiva website as Field Partners.
- Recipients of a Kiva Loan are referred to as "entrepreneurs", contributors to a Kiva Loan are referred to as "Kiva Lenders".
- Anyone with an email address can create a Kiva Account. Anyone who can make payments using a credit card or PayPal account can be a Kiva Lender.
- Currently, Kiva Lenders can only receive 0% interest on their loan. Kiva hopes to allow Field Partners to offer non-zero interest rates to Kiva Lenders.
- Kiva is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
- Kiva currently employs 34 full-time staff members.
Latest Statistics
The following statistics are updated nightly (between 1 - 3am US Pacific time).- Total value of all loans made through Kiva: $133,846,285
- Number of Kiva Users: 704,986
- Number of Kiva Users who have funded a loan: 448,720
- Number of countries represented by Kiva Lenders: 196
- Number of entrepreneurs that have received a loan through Kiva: 340,615
- Number of loans that have been funded through Kiva: 186,558
- Percentage of Kiva loans which have been made to women entrepreneurs: 82.23%
- Number of Kiva Field Partners (microfinance institutions Kiva partners with): 112
- Number of countries Kiva Field Partners are located in: 52
- Current repayment rate (all partners): 98.57%
- Average loan size (This is the average amount loaned to an individual Kiva Entrepreneur. Some loans - group loans - are divided between a group of borrowers.): $393.54
- Average total amount loaned per Kiva Lender (includes reloaned funds): $190.21
- Average number of loans per Kiva Lender: 5.55
Does anybody out there remember the brief (very brief) furor over the millions of missing emails in the Bush White House? We do. (See here, here and here for some background). Well David Gewirtz has taken the time to write a book called "Where have all the emails gone" which examines the whole saga in a fair amount of detail and outlines some of the implications of the entire fiasco. The way they see it comes down to this: poor email security may have serious political implications, but the crux of the issue is the potentially horrifying national security implications of such a lackadaisical and/or deliberately obtuse approach to data retention. The book is available as a free electronic download from the US Strategic Perspective Institute .
The issues raised in this tome are important issue not only in the context of the United States but also for governments and citizens around the world as national governments move towards increasing adoption of e-government and electronic data retention. This issue is of great interest to the CCTPA and we will be taking a closer look at Canadian provincial and federal government data retention and security policies in the coming months.
In the mean time we highly recommend this book as they say:
"If you think this is just a rant on the George W. Bush administration, you’re mistaken [...] If you take anything at all away from this book, let it be this: email in the White House needs to be fixed. It’s not just about politics. It’s about security."
Available as free e-book download from the US Strategic Perspective Institute
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It is with great pleasure that we share the following video entitled "Patent Absurdity". An independent documentary effort by Luca Lucarini, Patent Absurdity is a fascinating examination of the vagaries and lunacy of modern intellectual property law in the United States. Patent Absurdity was produced with financial support from the Free Software Foundation and examines some of the issues associated with the hotly debated topic software patents.
Of interest to film and tech geeks alike is the fact that this movie was shot and edited using only free, open source software:
- Cinelerra for video editing
- Audacity for audio editing
- Inkscape, Python and Blender for animation
- Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis codecs
- Edited on GNU/Linux machines
We had a chuckle over of the fact that we had to convert the copy of the film we obtained from patentabsurdity.com from Ogg Theora to the proprietary flv in order to upload it successfully to youtube. Given that Google is a booster of the Theora codec (see here) we found that... amusing.
You can support the important and pioneering work of the Free Software Foundation by making a donation here
