As I explained last month, we had a hearing scheduled for March 30, to determine whether a higher Court will take jurisdiction of the case. Since the Crown is opposing the jurisdiction, this issue has to be decided first, before any of the real legal questions are answered. In order to do this, we had a short hearing before a Queen's Bench Judge, at which time, both sides made their positions known, and the Judge adjourned to make her decision.
She advised us that she should have an answer for us by the end of the week. That was on Monday, March 30th. As of this writing (April 24) we still have not heard anything! This seems very unusual. It was very hard to read this Judge during the hearing, and since the hearing was not very long, I did not think she was seriously considering taking it. However, she does not need to take her time to tell us she will not hear our motion. On the other hand, should she decide to take it, she will need to have a very well-reasoned, well thought-out decision, which will withstand any appeals. This is the only possible explanation we can think of. But then again, maybe she's just busy!
I had to laugh when my lawyer told me the Crown prosecutor called on the following Tuesday after the hearing, wondering why the Judge hadn't released a decision yet. "...maybe she agrees with me Darren..." was the response. This was 2 weeks ago, I could imagine the panic he is feeling by this time.
The Crown is deathly afraid of having this dealt with by way of a declaration of the law. It probably has alot to do with the fact that he cannot call any evidence, it is strictly interpretation of the law. What he would prefer is to have a trial, since he has a wide latitude of what he may call as evidence. We have seen this before. A perfect example is having Luther Haave, who's Super Channel signal at the time was scrambled with Oak Orion, testify about how much damage chipped VideoCiphers does to SuperChannel. Under the Radiocommunications Act however, this is not relevant to the charge. The Act does not distinguish signal from content, and as such, evidence from another signal provider about what the effects of people receiving signals other than theirs has on their business is simply not relevant,and in fact it is highly prejudicial as it creates the impression of a victim.
I hope to hear a decision from the Judge very soon, and am crossing my fingers for a favourable one. I am quite confident that if we do get the hearing, we will be successful. Hopefully, it will then be time to get back to business. But, the Crown has already made it clear they intend to appeal any decision they do not like.
Remember last month, when I told you about the Robin's Donuts give-away? Well, I filed an affidavit in support of our motion, part of which was the Robin's Donuts promotion, as well as an ad recently placed by a local electronics superstore. Boy, did I stir the pot! The day after it was filed, members of the RCM(TV)P, were dispatched to Robin's Donuts headquarters in Thunder Bay. They were threatening that they had better call off the give-away or else! Well, after consulting with their attorney (who is also working on my case.) they told the RCM(TV)P (politely) to go to hell. The draw was just held a few days ago, on April 19th. They were giving away 1 system per store. I don't know how many stores Robin's Donuts has, but I bet it would make my 35 systems that are in the hands of the RCM(TV)P look like small pickings! I hope Cpl. Struck and the boys had their ballots filled out....
Meanwhile on the card front, things have been quite busy over the last few weeks. A major ECM was dealt to most of the fixes, either plastic or circuit boards, and many of the plastic cards were 99ed. Suprisingly, NewsDatacom was gracious enough to only send a basic 99, and not cause any other unwanted damage to the cards. This is strange, since they could completely disable the card, almost as easily as they could 99 it. They also sent 5 more updates to the EEPROM, and as of this writing they are sending 2 more, for a total of 25 updates from the original H card. Of course, for anyone with access to the internal workings of the card, the updates and ECMs are nothing more than slightly bothersome. Within hours of the ECM, unreleased versions of software which had not been ECMed were ready to roll. The unfortunate fact is the cards spend more time in transit than it actually takes to fix them. But, with the average life span of a plastic 3M being around 4 months, nobody is complaining too much about the inconvenience. So long as the cards are fixable for little or no cost, people can live with the odd shutdown.
On other fronts, the shareware keeps coming out of the woodwork. Many people take advantage of public domain software, and some unscrupulous dealers will even sell the cards. Shareware is fun to play with, and can be quite educational, but you can be quite sure that at the same time you are playing with it, so is NewsDatacom. And that usually means ECMs are sure to follow.
I believe this is major reason why the 3M cards have lasted for such long periods, the code has remained behind closed doors. As well, any quality software is engineered with a lock, to prevent the code from being extracted and analyzed, either from other hackers or NDC. In any event, I think we will hear an announcement very soon about another card swap. Of course, even if they started today, it would take them many many months to complete, but with more and more hacks coming out, and the advent of do-it-yourself shareware, they have little choice.
It's been a crazy month, with lot's of catching up to do! Seeya next month.
Dean