"Mr. Toews, we lost one of our e-mail can we have your copy please?"

Good Day Readers:

Now that Mr. Toews vehemently complained to the Speaker of the House who has agreed to an investigation you know what that means - here come the Mounties!

Whether or not the culprit(s) are found is really of little consequence, rather, Vic Toews monumental asinine comment comparing those opposed to Bill C-30 to child pornography advocates should be of great concern to all Canadians. Has a crime been committed other than the Minister's gross stupidity? We think not. Too bad for Mr. Toews his proposed Bill wasn't already law otherwise he'd have found out the co-ordinates of those involved long ago.

Details leaked about his messy 2007 divorce had to have come from publicly available documents at Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench File Registry. So where's the crime other than bad taste? While at The Court House earlier today covering the Mark Stobbe second degree murder trial we simply forgot to visit the File Registry to request the Toews' dossier. Monday we will to see if it's still there why wouldn't it?

Could staff track who has looked at it recently? Yes. When a member of the public requests a file they're required to complete a simple form providing date, name, address, telephone number while tendering one piece of photo identification. These are retained for about 3-months. If you're not a party to the litigation there's a $5 fee otherwise it's free.

Is it possible requests for copies of documents from a file can arrive at Queen's Bench in Winnipeg such that File Registry is not aware. Yes.

"Toewsgate" we believe will be a seminal event in federal politics. If your Member of Parliament has skeletons hidden in the closet they should be afraid, they should be very afraid!

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

Postscript

Moral of the Story? Mess with the internet and the internet will mess with you!
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'Vickileaks30' Twitter account silent since revelation by Citizen

By Vito Pilieci
Friday, February 17, 2012

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews: the Vikileaks30 Twitter account had been updated with new snippets about the personal life of Toews several times every hour, starting on February 14 right up until The Citizen revealed that the account was being administered from a House of Commons IP address. Vikileaks30 has since fallen silent. (Photograph by: Chris Wattie, Reuters)

OTTAWA — A Twitter account used to broadcast the personal life of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews went silent immediately following the revelation that the account was being administered on a computer from within the House of Commons.

Prior to its sudden silence, the Vikileaks30 Twitter account had been updated with new snippets about the personal life of Toews several times every hour, starting on February. 14.

The silence of the account came as Toews demanded a House of Commons investigation to determine who exactly was behind the Twitter feed. Reports from within government said House of Commons computer networks were closed shortly after The Citizen published the results of its investigation into the Vikileaks30 Twitter account. The servers were partially reopened early Friday morning, in a limited and monitored capacity.

A spokesman for Toews confirmed that the minister has approached the office of the Speaker of the House of Commons and lodged a complaint.

A spokeswoman for the Speaker acknowledged the allegations and said the office is looking into them.

The account, which surged into public prominence following the tabling of new legislation that would have allowed increased police surveillance of the Internet and those who use it, had become a lightning rod for protest against the legislation encouraging Canadians to share personal details about Toews via Twitter in protest.

The account had been setup with various safeguards to protect the poster’s identity. The person behind the account was using an encrypted email account from Hush.com to receive tips about Toews that could be posted to the Twitter feed. Hush.com offers email accounts that protect messages while they are in transit by encrypting them, most generally available email software does not provide this level of protection. The free service is aimed at people who specifically have privacy concerns in mind.

The poster also used Twitter to direct his comments at Toews, a platform that is relatively anonymous.

Anyone with Internet access and an email address can setup a Twitter account. The site does not confirm any additional personal information submitted by users.

In a bid to determine the origin of the account, The Citizen undertook an investigation on Thursday. An email was sent to the writer of the Vikileaks30 Twitter account, containing a link to a website. The website was monitored by the Citizen and only the author of Vikileaks30 had the address of the website. About 15 minutes after the email was sent, Vikileaks30 opened the link and visited the page, leaving behind an Internet Protocol (IP) address that belongs to the House of Commons.

IP addresses are like fingerprints on the Internet. Anyone surfing the Web leaves their IP address behind on any website or service that they visit. Those addresses can be used to determine a person or organization’s identity by simply tracing the address using any one of the hundreds of available services online.

A further look into the IP address associated with Vikileaks30 found the address had been in a range of online activities, including being used to edit several entries on the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia ranging on topics from the history of ice hockey to a biography of Whitney Houston, and to alter content on a variety of politically charged topics that span the political spectrum. It does not appear that the poster was targeting any specific political party or affiliation.

Residential Internet addresses are largely dynamic (recycled) among users. They are handed out from a pool of available addresses provided by Internet providers such as Bell, Rogers or Videotron. Those Internet providers log which user is using which connection at a given time. Tracking a dynamic address will reveal the user’s geographic location as well as which Internet service provider they have an account with. More personal information can be mined and provided to authorities if the Internet provider is presented with a warrant.

In the case of a business or government, the IP addresses are almost always static, meaning they are permanently assigned to those businesses and are not part of a pool. The IP addresses allow those organizations to monitor the flow of data coming and going from their networks to ensure employees aren’t using corporate Internet resources for unapproved uses. It also allows those organizations to protect themselves from outside attackers by monitoring the IP addresses they hold and installing software to protect those addresses.

The IP associated with the person behind Vikileaks30 was one of these static IP addresses that originate within the House of Commons.

When contacted by The Citizen on Thursday, an individual who recently used the IP address to make changes to a website denied any link with the Vikileaks30 Twitter account. The Citizen has chosen not reveal this individual’s identity because it is not clear that the individual is the author of the Vikileaks30 Twitter feed. The individual could not be reached for comment Friday.