"The CRTC Really Does Care About You" Mailout by Treephrog 08/01/03 Questions, comments and whatnot: treephrog@verbaltheory.net Flames and general idiocy: me@yamamashouse.org Shouts: greasy, theclone, wizbone, cyb0rgasm, the_p0pe, tek, cybersk4nk, Hack Canada all its affiliates, and the whole #hackcanada crew... "Oh, bags to that!" - Zeddicus Z'ul Zorander Opened my phone bill last week. Amongst the usual pleadings for money to feed the starving telco workers was a small 3.5" by 7.25" insert, plain vanilla with black text. Being half-asleep at the time, I was about to ball it up and send it to paper heaven when two things on it caught my eye; "CRTC" and "bill of rights"... Hmmmm. Wazzat? Guess maybe this deserves closer inspection. What follows is verbatim from the card. With the exception that anything enclosed in ( ) are my thoughts/snide comments upon the second reading. *grinz* Yes, as a matter of fact, I DO enjoy being a smart ass... "Consumers' bill of rights The CRTC* is responsible for regulating the providers of telephone service in Canada. (Really? I always thought Cyb0rg/asm and The Clone were reponsible for that...) It has decided to created a "consumers' bill of rights". (... does this mean my rate is getting jacked again? And what's with the quotations? Aren't things that are theoretical and/or humorous in nature usually enclosed in quotes? See the title of this phile for example.) The consumers' bill of rights will set out the rights you have as a telephone user. (... yup, my rates are getting jacked again.) The CRTC wants to know which of your rights as a telephone user you believe should be included in the consumers' bill of rights. (How about a right to bear arms against gluttonous, profiteering corporations?) You can send your suggestions in one of three ways: (Only one? What is this, multiple choice? Oh my God, is this a quiz??? I didn't study! Argh!) by mail to CRTC, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0N2 by fax to (819) 953-0795 by e-mail to procedure@crtc.gc.ca Please send your ideas by 21 January 2004. For more information, call the CRTC at 1-877-249-2782. This is a free call. (... there's where the rate jack came from...) You can also check the CRTC web site as www.crtc.gc.ca *The CRTC is the "Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission"." (What the hell is a Radio-television??? And where can I get one???) Okay, all jokes aside, this actually has potential. The CRTC seems to have clued in that people are starting (albeit sloooowly) to wake up from "sheep mode", and start thinking outside the box. This would include things like people wondering what rights they actually have as a telephone user. Otherwise, the CRTC wouldn't be putting this little project together. I could be wrong, but it smells to me like they're trying to something in writing that will give themselves, and telecommunications companies, a leg to stand on if and when something major happens. Maybe they know something we don't? Regardless, with the telecommunications deregulation going like mad, and long distance and wireless services popping up like weeds in a cow pasture, the old school telco companies have got to be filling their pants, worried that the new services will prove to the customer just how badly, and for how long they've been getting hosed. To that effect, a lot of their customers are going to get mad. Which leads me to believe that this is part of the reason for the CRTC to be doing this now, when it could have been done 10, 15 or 20 years ago. In my opinion, the second reason comes from the telcos again. With petabytes of information being transported across hundreds of thousands of networks everyday, communication is quickly becoming easier, faster, and in most cases cheaper. With this suicidal growth rate comes holes in the system, some big enough to drive a Mack truck through. I think that when the smoke clears, and this bill of rights is in place, it will serve as a "box" for telco's to put customer usage in. That way, when someone operates outside the "box", they will, theoretically, have few legal rights, because they were operating outside of their rights, clearly defined in the "CRTC Consumers' bill of Rights". Looks like this could be used for some easy legal leverage by the telcos in prosecuting phreaks, and, depending on the coverage of the final document, hackers. It wouldn't be hard for them to tie hacking back to telephone usage if you're using dial-up. And if you're hacking over broadband cable, well, they don't care, that's got nothing to do with them. Can't speak for anyone else, but I plan on dumping a few e-mails, faxes and phone calls to the CRTC. The worst that could happen is that they ignore you. The best that could happen is that you might actually affect the final outcome of what could be the final decision on what your rights as a telephone user are. Either way, it's a half-an-hour of your time. What the hell. Or, you could do nothing, and let someone else decide your rights for you. Either way, it will be interesting to see the final outcome... Treephrog http://www.verbaltheory.net