Wardriving and the Real Issues
My pal Dawg suggests that in a post last Spring noting the CHRC’s public relations push I was slavering at the thought of the Privacy Commissioner investigating the CHRC. Apparently Dawg has a pretty low bar for “slavering”, here’s what I wrote:
And now the CHRC is, itself under investigation by the Privacy Commissioner for alledgedly wardriving a member of the public’s internet connection during a Jadeware “investigation”.
The Commissioner has reported back and we are informed “There is no evidence that the CHRC ever collected or improperly used, disclosed or retained the complainant’s personal information.”
Which makes sense to me. Some of my fellow speechies want to nail the CHRC and its staff with illegal acts and are willing to find evidence of illegality in unlikely places. In fact, the best evidence of the corruption, incompetence and quite possibly illegal conduct of the CHRC and its staff is far more likely to be found in the transcripts of the Tribunal’s hearings.
The Lying Jackal, fresh from a kitty dinner, has a push back letter aimed at Ezra which he claims is “circulating in the Jewish community” suggesting that Ezra is not a decent Jew for daring to champion free speech regardless of who is exercising that right.
It’s tawdry stuff but pretty standard fare from a guy prone to making gratuitous racist and sexist remarks. (The Jackal can’t be enjoying having his slur all over the front page of the Chinese language press in key Liberal ridings.)
Update: While the Lying Jackal enjoys his knew role as the face of white bigotry in the Chinese Press, Blazing Catfur points out that the Investigation of the Privacy Commissioner did not, in fact, investigate how CHRC staffers who have admitted on oath to being Jadewar and accessing Stormfront on the date in question happened to be using the IP assigned to Nelly Hechme’s computer. Reading carefully, BCF concludes that what the Privacy Commissioner has concluded is that Stacey and friends did not have private information about Nelly Hechme. Which is, no doubt true. And entirely beside the point. Wardriving involves looking for an open wifi connection.
It appears the Privacy Commissioner has answered a question which was not asked. It also appears the Privacy Commissioner was unwilling to look at material Lemire was prepared to submit. BCF says whitewash, I have to agree.
January 31st, 2009 at 11:11 am
“The Jackal can’t be enjoying having his slur all over the front page of the Chinese language press in key Liberal ridings.”
Dunno Jay, I kind of like the looks of a jackal being nailed to a cross of his own design…seems symbolic of celestial justice.
January 31st, 2009 at 12:01 pm
A jackal is a kind of dog, who’s being punished because of a joke about cats. I’ve suddently got an urge to watch Collateral again.
January 31st, 2009 at 12:01 pm
A jackal is a kind of dog, who’s being punished because of a joke about cats. I’ve suddenly got an urge to watch Collateral again.
January 31st, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Jay:
You’re missing the meaning of the Privacy Commission remit.
These extracts from the judgement might help:
Section 7(a) of the Act states that personal information shall not, without the consent of the individual to whom it relates, be used by the institution except for the purpose for which the information was obtained or compiled by the institution or for a use consistent with that purpose.
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The information that is relevant to this investigation consists of the complainant’s Internet Protocol (IP) address. This Office has previously ruled that an IP address can be considered personal information if it can be associated with an identifiable individual.
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There is no evidence that the CHRC ever collected or improperly used, disclosed or retained the complainant’s personal information.
Here, have a straw. Don’t forget to share it with BCF.
January 31st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Dawg, if, as may well be the case given the evidence, the junior G-men at the CHRC used a standard sniffer program to find an open WiFi connection (and nothing sinister about that, it is the way you find the WiFi at Starbucks), they would not know a thing about Ms. Hechme. They would, however, have improperly used her internet services. Hardly a hanging offence but you have to wonder why they could have just logged on to the CHRC’s servers if what they were doing was on the up and up.
January 31st, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Jay, even some of your allies report that Hechme insisted that her WiFi account was secured. There was no open connection.
All this flailing is unbecoming. Now the best some of you can do is claim that the Privacy Commissioner is part of the plot against free speech. Have you not run out of tinfoil yet?
February 1st, 2009 at 7:44 am
Dawg, not to go into rabid denialist mode or anything, but it’s fairly trivial to crack WEP encrypted wireless. Like a minute or so.
Cheers,
lance
February 1st, 2009 at 8:23 am
“...Hechme insisted that her WiFi account was secured.”
Like that means anything. I repair computers and help consumers with their home networking for a living. 75% of my customers don’t know their WiFi from a hole in the ground. I’ve had MANY who have told me their router was “secured” because they had a password for it. No, they actually had a password for their e-mail account from TELUS. Their router, OTOH, was wide open.
Best clueless customer moment of the past week: Told customer to bring in her tower, which was infected with Antivirus 360. “What part is it?” she asks. “The box that everything plugs into” I answer. So she walks into my store with the display, which to be fair, two cables do plug into. She thought the “big box” (the Dell tower) was just a large surge suppressor and power switch, and that the screens were self-contained like an iMac.
...so I trust you’ll forgive me for not taking Ms. Hechme at her word.
February 1st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Sure, but you’ll trust me to use Occam’s Razor yet again. Why go to all the fuss and bother of using a WiFi a quarter-mile distant and situated behind two office towers when you can use open connection much closer by?
But this is all moot. Terrence sums up the salient points on Jay’s later post, taken from the assiduous research of Buckets. I really can’t add anything to that, except to say that conspirazoid thinking (now the CHRC, AND the RCMP, AND the Privacy Commission are in on the plot) is beginning to reach Troofer levels.
February 1st, 2009 at 12:58 pm
“Why go to all the fuss and bother of using a WiFi a quarter-mile distant and situated behind two office towers when you can use open connection much closer by?”
I suspect, Dawg, that this was a largely automated process. Basically, you tell your computer to look for a signal. It provides you with a list of signals. You click on one without the slightest clue where it is coming from.
The more interesting question, Dawg, is why didn’t the Junior G-Men use the Commission’s server and internet connection. What were they trying to hide? Could it have been the fact they were faking up a bit of evidence?
February 1st, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Jay, you have not established that the CHRC staff didn’t use the Commission’s server and Internet connection. Have you?
February 1st, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Interesting point Dawg…and one which, as I recall, the transcript is not entirely clear on but I may be wrong. I have some stuff to do this afternoon but I will look at it a bit later.
February 1st, 2009 at 7:41 pm
BTW, someone who has one of these:
http://www.tranzeo.com//products/docs/TRSL5.pdf
Can easily ping off a network 5km away with no effort. Costs approx $175 CAD. I’ve seen people using more expensive Tranzeo units to piggyback off networks over 20km away.