June 2018 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

war story: power failure makes CentOS system unbootable
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 30 Sep '22

30 Sep '22

tl;dr / spoiler: change fstab so that /boot/efi is not automatically mounted. See the recommendation at the end of this message. My gateway computer is a little PC running CentOS. It does not come back after a power failure. The reason (as best I can tell) is interesting and I think that I have a fix. My system is UEFI. It boots from a UEFI system partition, known as /boot/efi to Linux. If this gets corrupted, it won't boot. It is a VFAT partition. On my gateway (a Zotac Zbox RI321, a cute little box with two ethernet ports), the UEFI firmware apparently won't boot if the dirty bit is set in the system partition. CentOS normally runs with /boot/efi mounted. So when the system isn't shut down cleanly, the dirty bit will be on. Consequence: the system is not going to boot after a power failure. Odd observation 1: if I put a live Fedora 25 USB stick in the system and try to boot in this otherwise-unbootable state, CentOS boots from the main disk. So this really looks like a firmware bug/quirk. Odd observation 2: fsck doesn't seem to automatically fix the system partition. Once CentOS 7 booted, I dismounted /boot/efi and did an fsck on it. $ sudo fsck /dev/sda1 fsck from util-linux 2.23.2 fsck.fat 3.0.20 (12 Jun 2013) 0x25: Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt. 1) Remove dirty bit 2) No action ? 1 Leaving filesystem unchanged. /dev/sda1: 16 files, 2420/51145 clusters Googling got me to <https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=50917> In particular, this advice seemed quite good: ==== recommendation ==== Two other changes I recommend for UEFI systems, to each OS's /etc/fstab. - For the /boot/efi mountpoint, add the mount options x-systemd.automount,noauto - Change fs_passno (last column) to a 1 or 2; the canonical fstab instructions suggest 2, but systemd treats 1 and 2 as the same. The first change means the EFI System partition will not be automatically read-write mounted at boot time; it's a bad idea this is the default because it puts the ESP at risk especially if ther are crashes, FAT has no journal and will therefore always be marked dirty in such a case; no other UEFI OS mounts the ESP by default. Second, if anything tries to access /boot/efi (read or write), systemd will automatically mount it, and because of the fs_passno 1 or 2, it will fsck it first and that fixes and clears the dirty bit in case it's set. Right now without these changes, it's just a matter of having the right number and bad timing of crashes to render the EFI System partition corrupt.

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glittery cheap but useless toy computers
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 30 Sep '18

30 Sep '18

The price of this looks very attractive: <https://www.zapals.com/nexbox-a95x-tv-box-4k-android-7-1-amlogic-s905w-quad…> - US$23.99, with free (very slow) shipping, probably no tax - only FullHD - 1G RAM, 8G eMMC (a little light) - Amlogic S905w: quad core Arm Cortex A53 processor; penta core Mali 450MP GPU. There are a lot of cheap boxes meant for running Kodi and this is one of them. Technically, they run Android and easily hook up to your TV. But they don't run Android TV (a subtle but important difference). Because of "Digital Rights Management", they cannot run Netflix at a good resolution. I don't remember if YouTube also limits them. So what's left? Unauthorized content discovered through Kodi plug-ins. I've never tried this. I understand that there is a large turnover in plug-ins as they get taken down. For TV use, I much prefer a Xiaomi Mi Box with genuine Android TV (US$70 from US Walmart). BUT. The raw hardware for these cheap boxes is interesting. Faster than a Raspberry Pi. And these come with a box, remote control, and power supply. Expandability and openness in general is a lot worse. The worst thing is that all their GPUs are proprietary (and a few other things too) so you cannot drop an ordinary Linux on them. I think that they all use uboot and device tree, but in an idiosyncratic way, adding to the difficulty. I bought a (less) cheap S912 box that I intend to play with. Apparently you can run Linux on these if you don't need video output. I won't give links because I don't know which efforts are the best.

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bash completion half broken on FC 27
by Giles Orr 30 Jun '18

30 Jun '18

I have two laptops, both running Fedora 27. The main difference (from the OS point of view) is how they got to F27: the newer one was a fresh install at that version, whereas the other was upgraded step-by-step from F24. The other difference is the package sets, which vary somewhat - but both have bash, bash-completion, and 'pass'. (Since 'pass' is unsearchable, I'll point -> passwordstore.org - liking it so far.) On the older machine, Bash tab completion of files and subcommands works fine with 'pass'. On the newer machine, completion works for most things like 'dnf' and 'ls' - but not for 'pass'. I've traced this as well as I could: the pass package installs /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/pass . That file should be sourced by /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion which is sourced by /etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh, which is in turn sourced by both /etc/bashrc and /etc/profile. And my eyeball-diff says that all these files are essentially matched on both machines (I opened and examined the relevant clauses in every file named). If I simply source /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/pass in a terminal, 'pass' completion works. So I thought "I'll use ~/.bash_completion to source it!" But here I found another bit of breakage: that file apparently doesn't get sourced (it does on the older machine). I can just throw a line 'source /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/pass' into my own or the system's bashrc, but I'd rather figure out the problem. Any suggestions? -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr(a)gmail.com

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(OT) home renovation courses for home owner?
by William Park 29 Jun '18

29 Jun '18

Very off-topic, but since most Linux guys are handy with their hands, so who knows... Are there courses for home owner who is thinking about doing home renovation? There are tasks that should be left for professionals. But, if the owner can do minor things, then it could be cost saving. Assuming he does the jobs right. Hence, the question. -- William Park <opengeometry(a)yahoo.ca>

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Rogers dhcp mystery
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 28 Jun '18

28 Jun '18

My internet connection stopped working. After some hunting, and some pecking, it works again. But I'm not sure why. Setup: - Rogers Cable - modem is set in bridge mode (i.e. it is not acting as a router and does not do Network Address Translation). - my router is a little PC with two ethernet ports, running the latest CentOS 7. - I'm using Network Manager. What went wrong? My router got an RFC 1918 IP address, 192.168.100.100. So it looked as if the modem forgot it was in bridge mode and started acting like a router. I don't know if it was doing NATing, but it certainly acted as a DHCP server, something it should not have done. I have no idea what precipitated this. I logged into the modem and it said that it was in bridge mode. (I had rebooted it a couple of times but with no obvious benefit). Connecting to the modem's web page was easy since the PC had been given an IP address on the same LAN. Normally I'd have to add the subnet onto the interface (something that I've not done done in a long time). I don't exactly know why my router couldn't work behind NAT. Double NAT is dumb but I think that it should work. Perhaps NATing was not being done. If not, packets from 192.168.100.100 were going nowhere. I rebooted my PC, hoping to lose the 192.168.100.100 IP address, but it stuck. This was one of many false starts -- I don't even remember all the details. I tried this command and my PC got the proper address: sudo nmcli c up WAN - c is short for "connection" - "up" means "Activate a device with a connection". I don't know what that means. Maybe it released the lease and acquired a new one. Maybe not. - WAN is the name of my Rogers-facing interface - I previously found the name of my connections with this command: sudo nmcli c show I don't actually know for sure that this command fixed by problem or something else did. I wanted to tell dhclient to release its leases and acquire a new one. The -r flag should do that. But dhclient is being run by NetworkManager and I didn't know how to properly do a -r. Observation: Network Manager mostly works but it makes it hard for me to apply my bottom-up knowledge of networking.

2 1

Gerbera DLNA problems
by Stephen 28 Jun '18

28 Jun '18

For years I ran Mediatomb, a DNLA server, on Ubuntu and played on a Panasonic Blu-ray player. Three locations throughout my home. No problems at all. Now, Ubuntu killed Mediatome, but Gerbera has taken over and I have that installed and running. But I have problems with some mp4 files. Some play very well. But they take longer to start playing than under my old setup. And many do not play at all. After about 30 seconds of trying to load a message window appears for 1/10 of a second, and I am back to the menu for selecting files. No idea what the message is is. All files play just fine on the Ubuntu computer. No problem with flac music files. I am asking for ideas on how to diagnose this problem. I can’t find any kind of support forum for Gerbera. All help appreciated! -- Stephen

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I not have a smaller phone, and therefor want it's big brother in a pad
by David Collier-Brown 27 Jun '18

27 Jun '18

I used to use a smallish LG, but courtesy of Scott, I have a Unihertz jelly, https://www.unihertz.com/jelly.html that is about half the size , (3 1/2 x 1 3/4")with about 2/3 the screen area of the LG (3 1/2 x 1 3/4") Now I need something about the size of my Kobo, https://ca.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-aura (6.5 x 4.5") for programs like Open Street Map and Waites' Guide to North American Birds. Any recommendations for good, relatively inexpensive pads that run Android 7 or 8? --dave -- David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest davecb(a)spamcop.net | -- Mark Twain

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[GTALUG-Announce] GTALUG Meeting on Tuesday 10 July at 7:30pm
by hi＠gtalug.org 27 Jun '18

27 Jun '18

<http://gtalug.org/meeting/2018-07/> # Internet Bots w/ Don Tai Don Tai shares their experience having explored the ever growing space of internet bots and web hacking tools. A discussion of the concepts and tools for: * Internet traffic: what is bots vs humans? * Bot traffic signatures: spam bots (feedback, referrer), scrapers, malicious bot examples * Observing Bots and Controlling Bots: raw access log, WHOIS, htaccess * Reconnaissance: NMap, Armitage, Metasploit * Working with Vulnerability databases ## Location George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre 245 Church Street, Room 203 Ryerson University <http://goo.gl/maps/16oJ2> <http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/23447525> ## Schedule * 6:00 pm - Please discuss on the general mailing list (i.e. <talk(a)gtalug.org>) where you want to go for dinner. * 7:30 pm - Meeting and presentation. * 9:00 pm - After each meeting, a group of GTALUGers move to The Imperial Pub (54 Dundas St East) for refreshments and more socialising. # Code of Conduct We want a productive happy community that can welcome new ideas, improve every process every year, and foster collaboration between individuals with differing needs, interests and skills. We gain strength from diversity, and actively seek participation from those who enhance it. This code of conduct exists to ensure that diverse groups collaborate to mutual advantage and enjoyment. We will challenge prejudice that could jeopardise the participation of any person in the community. The Code of Conduct governs how we behave in public or in private whenever the Linux community will be judged by our actions. We expect it to be honoured by everyone who represents the community officially or informally, claims affiliation or participates directly. It applies to activities online or offline. We invite anybody to participate. Our community is open. Please read more about the GTALUG Code of Conduct here: <http://gtalug.org/about/code-of-conduct/>. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the GTALUG Code of Conduct please contact the GTALUG Board @ <board(a)gtalug.org>. --- GTALUG Announce mailing list announce(a)gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Addressing one of our longest-standing legal problems
by David Collier-Brown 25 Jun '18

25 Jun '18

Many moons ago, ISPs were concerned that they would be legally required to eavesdrop on their customers, and the GTALUG board spun off a group to follow and comment on legalistic and political matters. The posting below is specifically about misbehavior by Telus, but it's also a potted history of the improvement of the situation in Canada over time, and over the US, where stored communications cab be seized without a warrant. --dave [This is a resend: the first one was too big] -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Telus Texts Not Intercepted When Stored Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2018 03:37:59 +0000 From: Omar Ha-Redeye <> http://www.slaw.ca/2018/06/24/telus-texts-not-intercepted-when-stored/ Telus Texts Not Intercepted When Stored Many Canadians confuse the law when it comes to recording telephone conversations, likely due to exposure to American concepts in the media. Although the Wiretap Act of 1968 (18 U.S.C. § 2511) contains a one-party consent rule, a dozen states have a two-party consent that supersedes American Federal law, and given its presence in California (Cal. Penal Code § 632), it’s likely that this is often the source of the misunderstanding in Canada. In Canada, we have Part VI <https://qweri.lexum.com/w/calegis/rsc-1985-c-c-46-en#%21fragment/PART_VI_In…> of the Criminal Code, which states, Consent to interception *183.1* Where a private communication is originated by more than one person or is intended by the originator thereof to be received by more than one person, a consent to the interception thereof by any one of those persons is sufficient consent for the purposes of any provision of this Part. An unauthorized interception is subject to an indictable offence, and serves to protect against the invasion of privacy. These provisions are also applicable to law enforcement, limiting the ability of the police to eavesdrop into the conversations of Canadian citizens. The Court in /R. v. Duarte / <http://canlii.ca/t/1fszz>explained the rationale for this as follows, The rationale for regulating the power of the state to record communications that their originator expects will not be intercepted by anyone other than the person intended by the originator to receive it (see definition section of Part IV.1 of the/ Code/) has nothing to do with protecting individuals from the threat that their interlocutors will divulge communications that are meant to be private. No set of laws could immunize us from that risk. Rather, the regulation of electronic surveillance protects us from a risk of a different order, i.e., not the risk that someone will repeat our words but the much more insidious danger inherent in allowing the state, in its unfettered discretion, to record and transmit our words. The reason for this protection is the realization that if the state were free, at its sole discretion, to make permanent electronic recordings of our private communications, there would be no meaningful residuum to our right to live our lives free from surveillance. The very efficacy of electronic surveillance is such that it has the potential, if left unregulated, to annihilate any expectation that our communications will remain private. A society which exposed us, at the whim of the state, to the risk of having a permanent electronic recording made of our words every time we opened our mouths might be superbly equipped to fight crime, but would be one in which privacy no longer had any meaning. As Douglas J., dissenting in/ United States v. White/,/ supra/, put it, at p. 756: “Electronic surveillance is the greatest leveler of human privacy ever known.” If the state may arbitrarily record and transmit our private communications, it is no longer possible to strike an appropriate balance between the right of the individual to be left alone and the right of the state to intrude on privacy in the furtherance of its goals, notably the need to investigate and combat crime. There are several mechanisms through which law enforcement can obtain this information. The first is through a wiretap under a Part VI authorization, which can include a general wiretap authorized under s. 185 and 186, a wiretap with consent under s. 184, and an emergency wiretap under s. 184.4 and 188. The latter two do not require full judicial authorization, but a reasonable belief is required that a specific offence has been, is being, or is about to be committed. Police are required to have reasonable and probably grounds to believe that the target of the wiretap will be engaging in a particular communication that will provide evidence for an investigation. A less common way to obtain communications information would be through using a Production Order under s. 487.012<https://qweri.lexum.com/calegis/rsc-1985-c-c-46-en#%21fragment/sec487.012> of the /Criminal Code<https://qweri.lexum.com/calegis/rsc-1985-c-c-46-en>/ (now s. 487.014 , <https://qweri.lexum.com/calegis/rsc-1985-c-c-46-en#%21fragment/sec487.014>following Bill C-13: Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act 2014). A Production Order has a much less stringent requirements than a Part VI authorization, but its use is limited by the technological practices employed by different telecommunication companies. The Court in /R. v. Marakah / <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2017/2017scc59/2017scc59.html>confirmed last year that both sent and received text messages can potentially attract a reasonable expectation of privacy, and therefore receive s. 8 /Charter /protections. The companion case of /R. v. Jones <http://canlii.ca/t/hp63x> /examined the use of a Production Order to obtain some text messages given the privacy expectations that text messages should receive. The police in this case were able to obtain incriminating text messages because the service provider here, Telus, maintained a copy of sent and received texts on their servers for service purposes. The obtained several Production Orders against other service providers as well, but because they did not store the texts in this way they could not be provided to the police. They are legally entitled to do so under an exception in s. 184(2) of the /Code. / The significance of this unique practice was highlighted in the Court’s 2013 decision in /R. v. TELUS Communications Co. / <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2013/2013scc16/2013scc16.html>where the Court stated, [59] The fact that Telus stores its subscribers’ text messages in this manner is significant — indeed, it is the reason this appeal exists — because it creates an investigative resource for the authorities. This decisions was released during the accused’s trial in /Jones/, but the trial judge dismissed the application to re-open the s. 8 ruling. The Court in /Jones /referred to the /TELUS /case as follows, [44] /TELUS/ implicitly acknowledges that, as a normative matter, it is reasonable to expect a service provider to keep information private where its receipt and retention of such information is incidental to its role of delivering private communications to the intended recipient. That is intuitive. One would not reasonably expect the service provider to share his text messages with an unintended recipient, or post them publicly for the world to see. Despite this reasonable expectation of privacy in the subject matter of the texts, the Court’s analysis focused on the reasonableness of the search itself through the use of a Production Order as opposed to a Part VI authorization. This issue was not addressed in /TELUS/, which instead focused on prospective production of future text messages under Part VI authorizations for future communications. The majority’s decision hinged on an interpretation of the provisions by distinguishing interception and disclosure, the former requiring a prospective application of information. A Production Order, in contrast, was providing a copy of records that Telus had already intercepted and stored, and had done so lawfully under the Part VI exceptions. The majority of the Court concluded, [77] In short, the state action in this case respected Part VI’s distinction between the interception of communications in ss. 184 to 192 and the disclosure of previously intercepted and stored communications as contemplated by s. 193. Based on the evidence, it also respected the requirement in /TELUS/ that a Part VI authorization be obtained for text messages that are still in the transmission process. Law enforcement cannot receive authorization to effectively intercept future communications through the “backdoor” of the general search and seizure regime in s. 487 of the /Code/. But law enforcement could — and did, in this case — lawfully obtain records of historical text messages by means of a Production Order under s. 487.012 of the /Code/ (as they can still do now under s. 487.014). … [80] Production orders must therefore be carefully circumscribed to ensure that authorized police techniques comply with s. 184(1) <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…>. A production order must not authorize, or potentially authorize, the production of any text messages that are either not yet in existence or are still capable of delivery at the time the order is issued. This should be clear from the face of the order. Where the technique at issue is an intercept within the meaning of s. 184(1) <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…>, then the application is properly rejected and a Part VI authorization must be obtained. A production order should not be used to sidestep the more stringent Part VI authorization requirements. The challenge with applying this ruling is that it necessarily involves the invasion of privacy and disclosure of information of individuals who may not be using Telus, but are communicating with an individual who is. Despite the lawful authorization of the mechanism in this way, Parliament could not have envisioned the unique practices employed by a single service provider in this manner, and the use of the statute to benefit from it as a result. These problems were highlighted by Justice Abella’s dissent, [105] The only difference between /TELUS/, dealing with prospective text messages, and this case, dealing with historical text messages, is the timing of the state’s request for authorization. This was reinforced by the intervener Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario in its factum where it said that, “[t]echnologically speaking, [/TELUS/] and [Mr. Jones’] case are identical: a private communication is made, it is then stored on the company’s computer, and then the state acquires it” (para. 16). If the term “intercept” in s. 183 <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…> is interpreted in the context of the broader Part VI scheme and the purpose that it is meant to serve, namely, to prevent the state acquisition of private communications without lawful authorization and to protect the privacy interests inherent in the content of private communications, then the Part VI protections should not fluctuate with the timing of the state’s interception of a private communication. As noted in /TELUS/,interpreting the phrase “intercept[ion] [of] a private communication” must “focus on the acquisition of informational content and the individual’s expectation of privacy at the time the communication was made” (para. 36). [emphasis added] Highlighting the timing as the only distinction between a Part VI authorization and a Production Order would have the effect of allowing law enforcement to essentially create repeated Production Orders over a period of time that would create a record similar to that of a Part VI authorization. Although it would not have the benefit of being able to prevent crimes from occurring, it would create the type of evidentiary record that would have a significant effect on providing incriminating statements against an accused, thereby having a significant impact on the /Charter/-protected interests of the accused (the 2nd step of the 24(2) analysis under /Grant/). More importantly, the evidence provided here did not originate from any legal distinctions between a Part VI authorization or a Production Order, but the unusual practices of a particular company, [113] In this case, the police obtained several Production Orders pursuant to s. 487.012 <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…> of the /Criminal Code <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…>/ directed at the service providers Bell, Rogers and Telus. Only Telus stored the content of incoming and outgoing text messages for a period of time after the messages were sent and received. No text messages were obtained from accounts held with the other service providers. Telus’ unique storage practices, rather than the underlying principles in Part VI, led to the production of copies of historical text messages from the targeted Telus account, and the loss of Mr. Jones’ privacy protections available under Part VI of the /Criminal Code <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…>/. Again,the applicability of Part VI should depend on the substance of what the investigative technique seeks to access, not on the timing of when access is sought, or on the vagaries of the service provider’s technological practices. [emphasis added] Justice Abella cited the evolution of shifting technology that has resulted in corresponding jurisprudence that attempts to keep up with the impact of these technological changes on the constitutional rights of an accused. The Court in /Marakah/ attempted to protect these interests by prioritizing the private nature of text message information, and the informational content relating to the biographical core of the individual, rather than weighing the location of the search too heavily, [37] Electronic conversations, in sum, are capable of revealing a great deal of personal information. Preservation of a “zone of privacy” in which personal information is safe from state intrusion is the very purpose of s. 8 <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk…> of the /Charter <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk…>/: see /Patrick/, at para. 77, per Abella J. As the foregoing examples illustrate, this zone of privacy extends beyond one’s own mobile device; it can include the electronic conversations in which one shares private information with others. It is reasonable to expect these private interactions — and not just the contents of a particular cell phone at a particular point in time — to remain private. However, this same emphasis on the private nature of the information does not feature as prominently in evaluating the reasonableness of how law enforcement can infringe on this zone of privacy through a search. The unreasonableness of the search was not disputed in /Marakah/, where text messages were used from a co-accused’s phone against him. Instead, the majority in /Marakah /anticipate at para 53 “that the justice system [will] adapt to the challenges of recognizing that some text message conversations may engage s. 8 <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk…> of the /Charter, <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk…>/” even as societal interests in protecting privacy interests outweigh the state’s interest in effective law enforcement. While this case law continues to develop, the jurisprudential gap between Production Orders and Part VI authorizations, in light of changing technological practices, may also warrant a review of these provisions by the legislature to better regulate the state’s discretion to record and transmit our words. {picture was here} (From Left:) Darryl Singler, Omar Ha-Redeye, Jon Rinaldi, Samatha Biglou, and Tara Brun, judging the 2018 Lions Cup on R. v. Jones, 2017, on June 24, 2018. <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:gCN0I…> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:ACf-c…> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:yIl2A…> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:I9og5…> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:qj6ID…>

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Addressing one of our longest-standing legal problems
by David Collier-Brown 25 Jun '18

25 Jun '18

Many moons ago, ISPs were concerned that they would be legally required to eavesdrop on their customers, and the GTALUG board spun off a group to follow and comment on legalistic and political matters. The posting below is specifically about misbehavior by Telus, but it's also a potted history of the improvement of the situation in Canada over time, and over the US, where stored communications cab be seized without a warrant. --dave [This might make a good lightening talk] -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Telus Texts Not Intercepted When Stored Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2018 03:37:59 +0000 From: Omar Ha-Redeye <> http://www.slaw.ca/2018/06/24/telus-texts-not-intercepted-when-stored/ Telus Texts Not Intercepted When Stored Many Canadians confuse the law when it comes to recording telephone conversations, likely due to exposure to American concepts in the media. Although the Wiretap Act of 1968 (18 U.S.C. § 2511) contains a one-party consent rule, a dozen states have a two-party consent that supersedes American Federal law, and given its presence in California (Cal. Penal Code § 632), it’s likely that this is often the source of the misunderstanding in Canada. In Canada, we have Part VI <https://qweri.lexum.com/w/calegis/rsc-1985-c-c-46-en#%21fragment/PART_VI_In…> of the Criminal Code, which states, Consent to interception *183.1* Where a private communication is originated by more than one person or is intended by the originator thereof to be received by more than one person, a consent to the interception thereof by any one of those persons is sufficient consent for the purposes of any provision of this Part. An unauthorized interception is subject to an indictable offence, and serves to protect against the invasion of privacy. These provisions are also applicable to law enforcement, limiting the ability of the police to eavesdrop into the conversations of Canadian citizens. The Court in /R. v. Duarte / <http://canlii.ca/t/1fszz>explained the rationale for this as follows, The rationale for regulating the power of the state to record communications that their originator expects will not be intercepted by anyone other than the person intended by the originator to receive it (see definition section of Part IV.1 of the/ Code/) has nothing to do with protecting individuals from the threat that their interlocutors will divulge communications that are meant to be private. No set of laws could immunize us from that risk. Rather, the regulation of electronic surveillance protects us from a risk of a different order, i.e., not the risk that someone will repeat our words but the much more insidious danger inherent in allowing the state, in its unfettered discretion, to record and transmit our words. The reason for this protection is the realization that if the state were free, at its sole discretion, to make permanent electronic recordings of our private communications, there would be no meaningful residuum to our right to live our lives free from surveillance. The very efficacy of electronic surveillance is such that it has the potential, if left unregulated, to annihilate any expectation that our communications will remain private. A society which exposed us, at the whim of the state, to the risk of having a permanent electronic recording made of our words every time we opened our mouths might be superbly equipped to fight crime, but would be one in which privacy no longer had any meaning. As Douglas J., dissenting in/ United States v. White/,/ supra/, put it, at p. 756: “Electronic surveillance is the greatest leveler of human privacy ever known.” If the state may arbitrarily record and transmit our private communications, it is no longer possible to strike an appropriate balance between the right of the individual to be left alone and the right of the state to intrude on privacy in the furtherance of its goals, notably the need to investigate and combat crime. There are several mechanisms through which law enforcement can obtain this information. The first is through a wiretap under a Part VI authorization, which can include a general wiretap authorized under s. 185 and 186, a wiretap with consent under s. 184, and an emergency wiretap under s. 184.4 and 188. The latter two do not require full judicial authorization, but a reasonable belief is required that a specific offence has been, is being, or is about to be committed. Police are required to have reasonable and probably grounds to believe that the target of the wiretap will be engaging in a particular communication that will provide evidence for an investigation. A less common way to obtain communications information would be through using a Production Order under s. 487.012<https://qweri.lexum.com/calegis/rsc-1985-c-c-46-en#%21fragment/sec487.012> of the /Criminal Code<https://qweri.lexum.com/calegis/rsc-1985-c-c-46-en>/ (now s. 487.014 , <https://qweri.lexum.com/calegis/rsc-1985-c-c-46-en#%21fragment/sec487.014>following Bill C-13: Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act 2014). A Production Order has a much less stringent requirements than a Part VI authorization, but its use is limited by the technological practices employed by different telecommunication companies. The Court in /R. v. Marakah / <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2017/2017scc59/2017scc59.html>confirmed last year that both sent and received text messages can potentially attract a reasonable expectation of privacy, and therefore receive s. 8 /Charter /protections. The companion case of /R. v. Jones <http://canlii.ca/t/hp63x> /examined the use of a Production Order to obtain some text messages given the privacy expectations that text messages should receive. The police in this case were able to obtain incriminating text messages because the service provider here, Telus, maintained a copy of sent and received texts on their servers for service purposes. The obtained several Production Orders against other service providers as well, but because they did not store the texts in this way they could not be provided to the police. They are legally entitled to do so under an exception in s. 184(2) of the /Code. / The significance of this unique practice was highlighted in the Court’s 2013 decision in /R. v. TELUS Communications Co. / <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2013/2013scc16/2013scc16.html>where the Court stated, [59] The fact that Telus stores its subscribers’ text messages in this manner is significant — indeed, it is the reason this appeal exists — because it creates an investigative resource for the authorities. This decisions was released during the accused’s trial in /Jones/, but the trial judge dismissed the application to re-open the s. 8 ruling. The Court in /Jones /referred to the /TELUS /case as follows, [44] /TELUS/ implicitly acknowledges that, as a normative matter, it is reasonable to expect a service provider to keep information private where its receipt and retention of such information is incidental to its role of delivering private communications to the intended recipient. That is intuitive. One would not reasonably expect the service provider to share his text messages with an unintended recipient, or post them publicly for the world to see. Despite this reasonable expectation of privacy in the subject matter of the texts, the Court’s analysis focused on the reasonableness of the search itself through the use of a Production Order as opposed to a Part VI authorization. This issue was not addressed in /TELUS/, which instead focused on prospective production of future text messages under Part VI authorizations for future communications. The majority’s decision hinged on an interpretation of the provisions by distinguishing interception and disclosure, the former requiring a prospective application of information. A Production Order, in contrast, was providing a copy of records that Telus had already intercepted and stored, and had done so lawfully under the Part VI exceptions. The majority of the Court concluded, [77] In short, the state action in this case respected Part VI’s distinction between the interception of communications in ss. 184 to 192 and the disclosure of previously intercepted and stored communications as contemplated by s. 193. Based on the evidence, it also respected the requirement in /TELUS/ that a Part VI authorization be obtained for text messages that are still in the transmission process. Law enforcement cannot receive authorization to effectively intercept future communications through the “backdoor” of the general search and seizure regime in s. 487 of the /Code/. But law enforcement could — and did, in this case — lawfully obtain records of historical text messages by means of a Production Order under s. 487.012 of the /Code/ (as they can still do now under s. 487.014). … [80] Production orders must therefore be carefully circumscribed to ensure that authorized police techniques comply with s. 184(1) <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…>. A production order must not authorize, or potentially authorize, the production of any text messages that are either not yet in existence or are still capable of delivery at the time the order is issued. This should be clear from the face of the order. Where the technique at issue is an intercept within the meaning of s. 184(1) <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…>, then the application is properly rejected and a Part VI authorization must be obtained. A production order should not be used to sidestep the more stringent Part VI authorization requirements. The challenge with applying this ruling is that it necessarily involves the invasion of privacy and disclosure of information of individuals who may not be using Telus, but are communicating with an individual who is. Despite the lawful authorization of the mechanism in this way, Parliament could not have envisioned the unique practices employed by a single service provider in this manner, and the use of the statute to benefit from it as a result. These problems were highlighted by Justice Abella’s dissent, [105] The only difference between /TELUS/, dealing with prospective text messages, and this case, dealing with historical text messages, is the timing of the state’s request for authorization. This was reinforced by the intervener Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario in its factum where it said that, “[t]echnologically speaking, [/TELUS/] and [Mr. Jones’] case are identical: a private communication is made, it is then stored on the company’s computer, and then the state acquires it” (para. 16). If the term “intercept” in s. 183 <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…> is interpreted in the context of the broader Part VI scheme and the purpose that it is meant to serve, namely, to prevent the state acquisition of private communications without lawful authorization and to protect the privacy interests inherent in the content of private communications, then the Part VI protections should not fluctuate with the timing of the state’s interception of a private communication. As noted in /TELUS/,interpreting the phrase “intercept[ion] [of] a private communication” must “focus on the acquisition of informational content and the individual’s expectation of privacy at the time the communication was made” (para. 36). [emphasis added] Highlighting the timing as the only distinction between a Part VI authorization and a Production Order would have the effect of allowing law enforcement to essentially create repeated Production Orders over a period of time that would create a record similar to that of a Part VI authorization. Although it would not have the benefit of being able to prevent crimes from occurring, it would create the type of evidentiary record that would have a significant effect on providing incriminating statements against an accused, thereby having a significant impact on the /Charter/-protected interests of the accused (the 2nd step of the 24(2) analysis under /Grant/). More importantly, the evidence provided here did not originate from any legal distinctions between a Part VI authorization or a Production Order, but the unusual practices of a particular company, [113] In this case, the police obtained several Production Orders pursuant to s. 487.012 <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…> of the /Criminal Code <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…>/ directed at the service providers Bell, Rogers and Telus. Only Telus stored the content of incoming and outgoing text messages for a period of time after the messages were sent and received. No text messages were obtained from accounts held with the other service providers. Telus’ unique storage practices, rather than the underlying principles in Part VI, led to the production of copies of historical text messages from the targeted Telus account, and the loss of Mr. Jones’ privacy protections available under Part VI of the /Criminal Code <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-…>/. Again,the applicability of Part VI should depend on the substance of what the investigative technique seeks to access, not on the timing of when access is sought, or on the vagaries of the service provider’s technological practices. [emphasis added] Justice Abella cited the evolution of shifting technology that has resulted in corresponding jurisprudence that attempts to keep up with the impact of these technological changes on the constitutional rights of an accused. The Court in /Marakah/ attempted to protect these interests by prioritizing the private nature of text message information, and the informational content relating to the biographical core of the individual, rather than weighing the location of the search too heavily, [37] Electronic conversations, in sum, are capable of revealing a great deal of personal information. Preservation of a “zone of privacy” in which personal information is safe from state intrusion is the very purpose of s. 8 <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk…> of the /Charter <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk…>/: see /Patrick/, at para. 77, per Abella J. As the foregoing examples illustrate, this zone of privacy extends beyond one’s own mobile device; it can include the electronic conversations in which one shares private information with others. It is reasonable to expect these private interactions — and not just the contents of a particular cell phone at a particular point in time — to remain private. However, this same emphasis on the private nature of the information does not feature as prominently in evaluating the reasonableness of how law enforcement can infringe on this zone of privacy through a search. The unreasonableness of the search was not disputed in /Marakah/, where text messages were used from a co-accused’s phone against him. Instead, the majority in /Marakah /anticipate at para 53 “that the justice system [will] adapt to the challenges of recognizing that some text message conversations may engage s. 8 <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk…> of the /Charter, <https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk…>/” even as societal interests in protecting privacy interests outweigh the state’s interest in effective law enforcement. While this case law continues to develop, the jurisprudential gap between Production Orders and Part VI authorizations, in light of changing technological practices, may also warrant a review of these provisions by the legislature to better regulate the state’s discretion to record and transmit our words. <http://www.slaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2018-Lions-Cup-Competiton-1.j…> (From Left:) Darryl Singler, Omar Ha-Redeye, Jon Rinaldi, Samatha Biglou, and Tara Brun, judging the 2018 Lions Cup on R. v. Jones, 2017, on June 24, 2018. <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:gCN0I…> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:ACf-c…> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:yIl2A…> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:I9og5…> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/slaw/IkMK?a=99LrVPMw5RM:0O2YqRCQrGg:qj6ID…>

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