Several people have written to me about the federal government’s online census system, which is open only to Windows and Mac users. Russell provides a good analysis of the security issues raised by the approach.
The Census and Open Source
May 7, 2006
Share this post
One Comment

Law Bytes
Episode 278: Ben Waldman on Gander Social and the Challenges of Building a Sovereign Social Network
byMichael Geist

August 10, 2026
Michael Geist
Search Results placeholder
Michael Geist on Substack
Recent Posts
The Wrong Target: Why the CBC Should Be Asking About the Yom Kippur Protesters, Not the Journalist Who Reported on Them
Buried in Bill C-39: The Enabling Digital Trade Act Brings Canada Its First Federal Electronic Trade Documents Law
A Definition That Meets the Moment: Federal Government Recognizes Antisemitism Includes Anti-Zionism
Nobody Can Say They Weren’t Warned: Canada’s Threat Assessments Predicted the Belleville Yom Kippur Attack
An AI Transparency Act for Canada: My Submission to the Government’s AI Transparency Consultation

They’ve changed their minds
See http://www22.statcan.ca/ccr02/ccr02_003_e.htm
The restriction has been lifted for linux users. The remaining requirements are the same as for Windows/Mac, i.e. specific browser and Java versions. The text switches back and forth between “open source” and “linux”, so I don’t know if this applies to *BSD as well.