I really enjoy reverse engineering stuff. I also really like playing video games. Sometimes, I get bored and start wondering how the video game I’m playing works internally. Last year, this led me to analyze Tales of Symphonia 2, a Wii RPG. This game uses a custom virtual machine with some really interesting features (including cooperative multithreading) in order to describe cutscenes, maps, etc. I started to be very interested in how this virtual machine worked, and wrote a (mostly) complete implementation of this virtual machine in C . However, I recently discovered that some other games are also using this same virtual machine for their own scripts. I was quite interested by that fact and started analyzing scripts for these games and trying to find all the improvements between versions of the virtual machine. Three days ago, I started working on Tales of Vesperia (PS3) scripts, which seem to be compiled in the same format as I analyzed before. Unfortunately, every single file in the scripts directory seemed to be compressed using an unknown compression format, using the magic number “TLZC”.

There are numerous policy issues that should be put on the table, not all of them a matter for the federal government as some fall within provincial jurisdiction. I will highlight four and perhaps we can discuss more during the question period:

1. Moving ahead with the anti-spam rules, not diluted through regulation as some are calling for. Ensure swift passage of the just-introduced privacy measures. Moreover, the next round of privacy law review is due this year and we need tougher enforcement measures put on the table and retention of the principle of court oversight for mandatory personal information disclosure.

2. Copyright flexibility. Today and tomorrow’s e-commerce businesses rely far more on the flexibility of copyright law, not the digital locks that form a cornerstone of the current copyright bill. Other countries have adopted fair use or are considering the issue. Canada should do the same.

3. An equivalent for CDA Section 230 for Internet intermediaries is absolutely critical but would require provincial cooperation.

4. Removal of foreign investment and other competitive barriers in many of the sectors that touch on e-commerce. Moreover, foster a more competitive Internet environment with a set-aside for new entrants in the forthcoming spectrum auction. Note that Canada may have been the first with an online-only Netflix, but we also hold the dubious distinction of having had Netflix offer bandwidth reduced versions of its content due to data caps and high costs. The impact extends well beyond the consumer market as it directly affects e-commerce businesses as well.

Canada may have missed out on a generation of e-commerce leaders. We must not miss out on the next one.

you’re 53 years old, you’ve been in prison from 20 to 26, you didn’t finish high school, and you have a grandson who you’re now supporting because your daughter is in jail. You’re lucky, you have a job at the local Wendy’s. You have to fill out a renewal form for government assistance which has just been moved online as a cost saving measure (this isn’t hypothetical, more and more municipalities are doing this now). You have a very limited idea of how to use a computer, you don’t have Internet access, and your survival (and the survival of your grandson) is contingent upon this form being filled out correctly.

Do you go to the local social services office? No, you don’t. The overworked staff there says that due to budget cuts they can no longer do walk-in advising, and that there’s a 2 week waiting list to get assistance with filling out forms. You call them up on the by-the-minute phone you’re borrowing from your cousin (wasting 15 of her minutes on hold) and they say that they can’t help, but you can go to your public library. OK, so you go to your public library after work (you ask your other cousin to watch your grandson for the day since wasting those minutes has temporarily burned some bridges). Due to budget cuts the library no longer has evening hours, sorry, try again (and you also don’t get back the bus-fare or money you spent on a hack to get across town to the nearest branch, since other budget cuts closed the one in your neighborhood). OK, so you come back on the weekend. You ask the overworked librarian at the desk to sign up for a computer. She testily tells you that you’re at the wrong desk, and that sign-ups are at circulation. You feel foolish and go over to the circulation desk, who tells you that you need to sign up for a library card to use the computer. After filling out the forms the librarian starts to make your card for you, and informs you that she can’t process a card, since you have fines from 2 years ago that total fifty dollars. It’s an emergency, you say, you need to use the computer. She sighs heavily, informs you that it’s against policy, and then prints a guest pass anyway. You get 30 minutes at a time for a total of 2 hours per day. Computers are on the second floor.

You go up to the second floor to find a total of 20 computers with a waiting list of 15 people. You do some quick math in your head, and realize you’re probably going to be here for a while, so you walk over to the magazine section, and read People while you wait. Finally, it’s your turn. You walk over to your terminal, and your time starts ticking. Your breath seizes in your chest, and you realize you have no idea what to do. You have the form that they gave you at the social services office, which has an address, which you sort of know what that does, but you can’t quite remember – 17 minutes, by the way. You try typing X City Social Services in a box at the top, a page comes back and says “address not found” with a list of things below it. You’re panicking, because there’s a line forming (there always is) and the library will probably close before you can make it back on – 10 minutes, by the way. After a little more fumbling and clicking you have no luck, you’re kicked off, and immediately someone is standing behind you to use your computer. You relinquish your seat, and head back down stairs. You’re about to leave, already trying to think of who you know who has a computer who might let you use it, and might know about filling out these forms, but the only person you can think of is your friend in the county, and taking a bus out there would be awfully expensive.