Peter Kieser

Canadian gov't using lies to sell Internet wiretapping law.

Michael Geist sez, "The Canadian government has introduced Internet surveillance legislation that requires ISPs to disclose customer information without a warrant. Peter Van Loan, the Minister in charge, claims that a Vancouver kidnapping earlier this year shows the need for these powers. I did some digging and shows this to be a lie – the Vancouver police acknowledge that the case did not involve an ISP request and the suspect is now in custody."

Hydro Olympic suite angers the NDP.

The NDP wants to know why BC Hydro spent $264,000 on a luxury suite at GM Place for the 2010 Games.

We're funding the Olympics by getting other crown corporations to buy tickets and luxury suites for the Olympics so that we come out of the Olympics without a deficit that was directly caused by the Olympics.

Oh, the joy of it it all. I knew from day one that the Olympics would cause financial hardship for British Columbians for years to come – But nobody (at first) believed me. Well, now we get to see the direct result of the Olympics and everyone has to suffer.

Please, tell me again why all of British Columbia did not get a referendum on the Olympics when we are picking up the tab for it?

Climate goal eased for B.C.'s public sector – The Globe and Mail.

B.C.'s Minister for Climate Action has granted the province's public sector an extra two years to meet carbon-emission targets.

I'm confused, I thought the BC Liberals were all about the environment? That's why we have the Carbon Tax, is it not? But then, I forgot it's perfectly acceptable to tax the middle class and poor, but it's not okay to tax buddies of the BC Liberals.

How can a corporation be carbon neutral? I'm sorry, but I don't buy this whole "carbon credit" scam that is going on as of late.

YouTube – Jack Layton: Party For Sale or Rent.

At least Jack Layton has a sense of humour, unlike Harper and Iggy.

B.C. may force homeless indoors in cold snaps.

Internal government documents show the B.C. government is drafting legislation to force homeless people into emergency shelters during extreme winter weather, according to the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

Vancouver does not have "extreme winter weather", we have snowfall for a few days of the year and it does not amount to much. This is just another effort to sweep the problem of homelessness under the rug in time for the wonderful gongshow that is the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

Instead of legislating the problem away (and criminalizing poverty and homelessness in the process), the BC Liberals should open the mental care facilities that they closed that made most of these people homeless in the first place. Most of these people are not fit to live on the streets, nor are they capable of sustaining a job to keep them off the streets.

Time and time again it has been proven that by housing and taking care of these individuals that our police services could be put to better use, property crime would go down and society as a whole would be better off. Policing service is a lot more expensive for these individuals than taking care of them in proper facilities.

By passing a law to force homeless indoors during a cold snap, the BC Liberals are effectively making it so that homeless persons will hide in every knook and cranny they can find. This will prevent caregivers from finding them, and will ultimately lead to more deaths related to exposure. Who wants to go to jail, even if you're homeless?

On a related note, I think it would be possible to get more homeless to use shelters if they had a way to lock/tag their belongings so that they would not be stolen. Most homeless people seem to have a cart or other ways to carry their possessions which a lot of shelters will not deal with.

Oh well, I guess we should just sweep them under the rug for the Olympics, eh?

Poll: 42% of Vancouver Point Grey voters would recall Campbell.

A B.C. Federation of Labour news release this morning cited a new Environics Poll showing 42 percent of voters in Vancouver Point Grey would sign a petition to recall Campbell, including a quarter of those who voted for him in May.

This are the OS signing keys for different Texas Instruments calculators. The key for the TI-83 calculator was first published by someone at the unitedti.org forum in this message: http://www.unitedti.org/index.php?showtopic=8888. He or she needed several months to crack it. The other keys were found after a few weeks by the unitedti.org community through a distributed computing project. The keys make it possible to sign your own operating system for the Texas Instruments calculators.

Texas Instruments now contacted several people with a DMCA notice to take down the keys from their websites. Some of the websites which got a DMCA notice are: unitedti.org, brandonw.net and reddit.com. One of these DCMA notices can be found here: http://brandonw.net/calcstuff/DMCA_notice.txt

Here are the three keys:

TI-83 (Plus):

n=82EF4009ED7CAC2A5EE12B5F8E8AD9A0
AB9CC9F4F3E44B7E8BF2D57A2F2BEACE
83424E1CFF0D2A5A7E2E53CB926D61F3
47DFAA4B35B205B5881CEB40B328E58F
p=B709D3A0CD2FEC08EAFCCF540D8A100BB38E5E091D646ADB7B14D021096FFCD
q=B7207BD184E0B5A0B89832AA68849B29EDFB03FBA2E8917B176504F08A96246CB
d=4D0534BA8BB2BFA0740BFB6562E843C7
EC7A58AE351CE11D43438CA239DD9927
6CD125FEBAEE5D2696579FA3A3958FF4FC54C685EAA91723BC8888F292947BA1
e=11

TI-84 (Plus):

prp77 factor: 67070508990537181066342707695603050521324524613874331879259881495826493920589
prp78 factor: 186923771200711284770368041572205320486346816476524340240220962467860568859381

n=EF5FEF0B0AB6E22731C17539658B2E91E53A59BF8E00FCC81D05758F26C1791CD35AF6101B1E35
43AC3E78FD8BB8F37FC8FE85601C502EABC9132CEAD4711CB1
p=94489014C63CC9E1E1ADB192DBBDD1F78F90A630DA9C86EFC4CBCA44E5B4D54D
q=19D431AF2794229620B884E3750D622D1C74F2E4569DC15486FC8D5A3BCDFE2F5
d=2A3E1B2010F318D9BD7C7E19300980B055A0E2A9554B77E7142E23CDF7C7CA13C233A3D462FDFC
968B1F9CEAF2AC2CF305147992AD9E834192ACEBB517DB9941
e=11

TI-89:

prp76 factor: 2231124525637629443181963045297394875470510167130210300957267082210173784611
prp79 factor: 3226885534240147415018248397410101286362761128614350056368675111071170873486957

(these are factors of 71995834568684773636720438651160472297127884480206535156843307841378050889714332
73011970552138960583799368215373582308591928985045059261105298431035818727)

Thank you for sharing your concern over Bill C-61, An Act to amend the Copyright Act.

The NDP is strongly opposed to this bill and we are calling on MPs from other parties to listen to their constituents and join us in the growing chorus against it. Rather, we are pushing for legislation that will ensure that artists and creators are compensated for their work but that also ensures consumers are able to enjoy reasonable rights of access.

Over the past two years we have urged the government to consult with stakeholders and develop legislation that would protect artists, innovators and consumers in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the government has completely ignored calls to bring forward reasonable copyright legislation. In fact, this bill is worse than originally feared. There is no evidence of an attempt to strike any reasonable balance that would protect either artists or consumers. Instead, we are faced with a full capitulation to the U.S. corporate lobby that will pave the way for the criminalization of perfectly reasonable behaviour (like format shifting of most legally purchased content).

What can you do? If you haven't already, contact the Ministers of Industry and Heritage, the Prime Minister, the leaders of the other opposition parties, and your local MP to tell them that you oppose this piece of legislation. Encourage your friends and families to do the same. For contact information, please visit: http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/index.asp?Language=E. Your participation will be important to making the opposition to this bill impossible to ignore.

Again, I appreciate the time you have taken to register your views and concerns about this important issue. Feel free to pass along my email to anyone who may be interested. All the best.

Sincerely,

Jack Layton, MP (Toronto-Danforth)
Leader, Canada’s New Democrats

Layered Technologies, Inc. has decided to raise their prices again. The other day I woke up to an e-mail with the subject "Layered Technologies Pricing Update – Effective July 1, 2008", stating that they would be increasing the price of each of my works' servers by $28 dollars a month, this works out to a 21% price increase per server; This brings my works' AMD Athlon 64 3200+'s to an outrageous $160/Mo.

At Layered Technologies we are proud of the pioneering role we've played in the unmanaged server hosting market, as well as the trust we've developed within our community of thousands of clients and partners. We know that this trust is dependent on a number of factors including our ability to provide excellent customer service, market leading products, and highly available facilities and infrastructure. We also know it is imperative that we put in place the tools that allow us to provide more value and higher levels of service to those who depend on us and, like most other businesses, our underlying costs for providing these services have increased dramatically in the past year. As a result it has become necessary to adjust our pricing effective July 1, 2008.

I have never, in all my years of working in the IT industry heard of a data centre raising the prices of their dedicated hosting clients to such a great degree. This is not the first price increase that Layered Technologies has forced on their clients, if my memory serves correct this is the second price increase in less than a year. While Layered Technologies has stated in their email that they have a “technology refresh” available, I received the following e-mail when enquiring about having my server hardware upgraded:

Hello,

Unfortunately we are not offering free hardware upgrades. Please see our specials page here:

http://www.layeredtech.com/dedicated-servers/specials.php

Thanks,
Hallie

*******************************************

Hallie Weaver
Sales – Account Manager
1-866-584-6784 x 7038 > Toll Free
972-398-7083 > Direct
972-398-7055 > Fax
hallie.weaver@layeredtechnologies.com
Layered Technologies, Inc.

On-Demand Utility Computing & Hosting Solutions
Learn more>> http://www.layeredtechnologies.com

Join us! LT\\\'s 3rd Annual LT PACT 2008
Hosting Transformation Conference (June 25-27)
Las Vegas, NV – Caesars Palace www.ltpact.com

*****************************************

Confidentiality Note: The information contained in this transmission is legally privileged and confidential, intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you receive this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender of the email and delete the message. Thank you.

They are telling me that it's cheaper to replace my server, and go through the effort of transitioning over all my software than to simply upgrade my hardware? This is a provider to avoid using if you do not want to deal with unexpected price increases and shoddy support. There is a large thread on Web Hosting Talk regarding the price increases. I suggest if you are looking for hosting I suggest you take your business elsewhere. Layered Technologies does not warrant the premium that they are charging for their services.

The Canadian DMCA has been placed on paper as expected, please consider writing your MP and visiting Prentice's open house if you can.