People of the world, UNITE!

[Lord_Mizaru]

There's trouble brewing, big, big, big trouble. Right now I'm up in Canada, my home country. I'm back here for summer. I've been collecting quite a few files I need to take back home with me on my hard drive, but my low tech parents have no CD's. Fair enough, I go out to buy some. I see a 50 pack for $20, good price I think to myself. I take them up to the cashier.

"That'll be $34.98."

"WHAT? I thought the sign said $20?"

"That's right, but there's the levy."

"Oh, so I picked up the wrong ones?"

"No, they all have the levy."

So I walk out of there, thinking what the hell. Look at my bill. Sure enough, Sony CD-R - $19.99
Levy 50 pack CD-R - $10.50

This is unacceptable. This is a crime. This has to be illegal. You cannot charge me a levy that's more than 50% because I have the potential to burn copyrighted music onto them (which is, I discovered, what this levy is about). If you are to do that, then you must put a levy on paper because I have the potential to photocopy a book, a levy on film because I have the potential to take a picture of a copyrighted picture or a work of art, and you must put a levy on DVD's because I could copy movies. That's right, there's no levy on DVD's.

I'm outraged. This is the beginning of a very dark era. Stamp this dead before it gets a chance to pick up momentum. Do not purchase CD’s; do not accept this levy as common place, kill it dead in its tracks before it can start. Write to your politicians, write to the Prime Minister. Let freedom of information and most of all freedom of choice prevail at no cost, how dare they charge us a premium for media? How dare they charge us this premium for a virtual necessity?

Canadians unite. Hackers unite. If one country gets away with it, then more will follow suit. HELP KILL THIS, AND KILL IT NOW!

[Lord_Mizaru]

UPDATE: To try and spread this story I added it to digg.com, if you agree with me or support this then please go here and digg it to try and get this on the front page.

http://www.digg.com/technology/Hackers_of_the_world,_UNITE_

[missypuss]

Eventually I can see a world in which we are charged a levy every time we step onto a pavement outside our front doors..
A levy for the amount of air we breathe each and every day...
And perhaps even a levy for thinking thoughts about how much we hate living in a world where there is a price to pay for every little tiny thing we do which brings us pleasure...
(I know no hackers and am not a hacker can I still support the cause??) :twisted:

[sandy82]

L_M, what is the stated purpose/destination of this levy? Joe Clark and Jean Chretien didn't distinguish themselves in Ottawa. Is this a levy to top off the pensions of failed prime ministers? (We won't get to failed presidents. Days...and lifetimes...are too short.)

If the money is not going to Clark and Chretien, is it being used to subsidize the national music industry--or does it merely go into the general fund, like Social Security payments/payroll taxes in the US? (Washington actually adds an extra paper step for the SS transfer, in order to make the transaction appear reputable.)

It is unclear why you were charged $34.98. The total of $19.99 and $10.50 is $30.49. The difference amounts to almost 15 percent on $30.49 and almost 25 percent on the actual purchase of $19.99. It looks like the Ottawa feds or the provincial government is charging a whopping unhidden sales tax, as opposed to a hidden VAT tax.

[Lord_Mizaru]

As always Sandy, you catch every flaw instantly. You are quite right that the final price was not $34.98. Truth be told I lost the recipt after I took the CD's back... and by lost I mean destroyed. Since I wrote this the second I got through the door, I didn't take time to actually figure out what it would have cost. Truth be told, it would have been slightly less. The total would have been $33.29, but for some reason I got $34 stuck in my head and decided at the time that .98 would be a good end to that figure.

One of the many joys of living in BC is not only do you have to pay a 7% General Sales Tax, but there's also a 7% Provincial Sales Tax.

As for where it's going, according to a website I found that seems to cover the issue (although is not official), it goes:

To Eligible Authors 66.0%
To Eligible Performers 18.9%
To Eligible Makers 15.1%

[sandy82]

Thanks for the compliment, L_M. You leave very few to be caught. :wink: . There's a bright side to the figures below: with a total of $33.29, you are not being taxed on a tax. Each 7% is figured separately on the purchase price, and the surcharge is added afterwards.

The dark side is grants to eligible (almost certainly Canadians all, but otherwise relatively obscure) authors, performers, and makers. And so, for the ostensible reason of protecting against pirated copies, Ottawa is collecting money from computer users and giving the proceeds to authors, performers, and makers less likely to be pirated anyway.

An ingenious share-the-wealth scheme.

The line dancers up at Giant Yellowknife will be happy to receive their "share." :P

As always Sandy, you catch every flaw instantly. You are quite right that the final price was not $34.98. Truth be told I lost the recipt after I took the CD's back... and by lost I mean destroyed. Since I wrote this the second I got through the door, I didn't take time to actually figure out what it would have cost. Truth be told, it would have been slightly less. The total would have been $33.29, but for some reason I got $34 stuck in my head and decided at the time that .98 would be a good end to that figure.

One of the many joys of living in BC is not only do you have to pay a 7% General Sales Tax, but there's also a 7% Provincial Sales Tax.

As for where it's going, according to a website I found that seems to cover the issue (although is not official), it goes:

To Eligible Authors 66.0%
To Eligible Performers 18.9%
To Eligible Makers 15.1%

[Lord_Mizaru]

Anybody wanting more info check this link out

http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml#is_it_a_tax

It was left in the comments of the digg, so thanks to 5had0w for it.

[missypuss]

What is a hacker ?? I am asking this as an illiterate and fairly new computer user..
but what exactly does a hacker do ?? :P

[Jack]

A hacker is an individual who bypasses computer security to obtain different levels of access(usually "root" access, which is the highest level) to computers/servers for some reason of their own by widely known or mostly unknown methods. Some do it maliciously. Some do it for fun. Most believe in the freedom of information.

[missypuss]

Ok Jack ..
I understand the freedom of information bit and the bit about malicious intent.. but whats the fun in it if you are hacking someone who never finds out you are hacking them..
Surely Hacking id have thought was a game of intent...
The intent to peer into someone elses windows so to speak... :twisted:
What does your average hacker recieve as a reward for this ??

[makidas]

Holy, glad I don't live in Canada, did you happen to see the levy on the iPods?

[Lord_Mizaru]

A hacker is an individual who bypasses computer security to obtain different levels of access(usually "root" access, which is the highest level) to computers/servers for some reason of their own by widely known or mostly unknown methods. Some do it maliciously. Some do it for fun. Most believe in the freedom of information.

Actually, that's absolute crap. A hacker is an individual who is concerned with learning all that he or she can about something; more often than not this is computer related. A hacker can be from any walk of life, and do anything. A hacker is more a way of going on, a spirit that somebody has towards something than a term for what you described. For instance, an artist could be considered a hacker, though he would never call himself one. A hacker is simply a person who's goal is to learn all that is learnable.

Granted when it comes to the area of computer security, knowing how to break into other people’s machines becomes extremely easy to do, how could it not when a person knows as much as they do about all things security related on a computer? What you described though, is somebody whose only intent is to break into peoples computers. That would be somebody called a cracker, or worse yet, if they only use programs which other people have created to try and break into a computer, they are called skiddies (the scum of the internet).



By the way makidas, there is no such levy; that was simply proposed. But holy crap, what if it had passed?!?!?!

[Jack]

A difference in opinion. You are right about the "a hacker is an individual who wants to learn all they can about something." A cracker to me is an individual who cracks serial numbers and passwords in general. We called people who use other peoples work for going around security either "script kiddies" or "losers."


missypuss:

It's not always about getting at the information someone has. Sometimes it's just to see if you can do it, and how you can do it. Testing your own abilities and knowledge. Sometimes it's both. Sometimes it's neither. Personally, I would hack into a box/server/computer for the most part just to see if I could do it without being noticed. Then I'd wait a week, make sure there was no way of being found out, and then send an anonymous e-mail to whoever needed to know(head of internet security for example) and let them know what they need to do to fix whatever methods I used to gain access.

[missypuss]

Thanks Jack and Lord Miz. for your most succint answers, as is usual I seem to have led your topic off topic (again) sorry!!
Perhaps you could start levying me for each time I manage to do that!! :wink:

[chymos]

With regard to hacking, here's about the best explanation I've seen to date:

http://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

FYI, Richard Stallman was (and may still be ) involved in creating many of the tools, commands, and programs that are part of Linux, for those interested.

[BobbyS]

And there was me thinking a hacker was a guy who hacked into computers and information databases.

[chymos]

well, if such a thing is done but without malicious intent, it might be considered hacking, for example, testing security to figure out where the flaws and holes are so that it can be improved.