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For the past year and a half, Mike Hallatt has been driving across the U.S.-Canada border and back, bringing loads of groceries back to Vancouver. There's no food shortage in Canada — but there's an absolute lack of Trader Joe's grocery stores, and that created an opening for an entrepreneur who doesn't mind making a long drive.

Originally called Pirate Joe's, Hallatt's store serves a niche market: Canadians who wish Trader Joe's was in their country and who will pay a bit extra for triple ginger snaps and fanciful trail mixes.

Trader Joe's is not pleased. It filed a lawsuit this summer, complaining that Pirate Joe's harms the grocer's brand by selling its products outside its control and confusing customers. In response, Hallatt changed the store's name to _irate Joe's.

"I bought the stuff at full retail. I own it," Hallatt says. "I get to do with it whatever I want to, including reselling it to Canadians. My right to do this is unassailable."

And, he says, "There is no confusion in the marketplace. Pirate Joe's, now _irate Joe's, is blatant and unambiguous."

But Hallatt adds that he doesn't see the big chain, which is owned by the same German family that owns the Aldi supermarkets, as an enemy. And he says the company is damaging its own brand by pursuing him in court. Hallatt has spoken to numerous news outlets about the case, including NPR member stations in Southern California and New Hampshire.

"I would prefer Trader Joe's accept my long-standing offer to follow guidance on how they would like me to operate," Hallatt says in an email.

As for reselling Trader Joe's products, he says he's far from alone.

"I discovered there are many people running resale businesses on eBay and Amazon," Hallatt says. "The amount online resellers manage to mark up the prices is the stuff of legend among TJ's employees."

More intriguingly, he adds, "There are three grocery stores reselling Trader Joe's products in the U.S. that I know of."

The Vancouver store's motto carved into its threshold reads, "Better than nothing" — with a trademark symbol identifying it as a protected slogan. It seems that the Canadians who crave Trader Joe's treats would agree.

As Hallatt says, "Business is brisk!"

The unique business model led us to get in touch with Hallatt. Below is a lightly edited version of his answers to our questions. Trader Joe's has not been speaking publicly about the active lawsuit.

NPR: Will there be a hearing on Trader Joe's lawsuit soon?

Hallatt: "We filed a motion to dismiss a few weeks ago, they responded [last] Monday and we [responded] to that. The court will take a look at it soon I hope. Parallel to that we are in the early stages of discovery ahead of a jury trial to resolve their complaint — if it comes to that."

I assume people get really attached to some products. What are your biggest sellers?

"We have people come in and say things like, "My babies," as they pull items off the shelf. I'm amazed how many specific and emphatic requests we have received in the past year and a half. There are at least a few people attached to every product we carry, and if I don't have it sitting on the shelf I hear about it.

"I'm reluctant to open on a day we are out of stock on Ridge Cut Salt & Pepper Potato Chips, for example.

"Once a week we get a call from a guy who asks only, 'Is it safe?' This is code for Low Calorie Lemonade. There are maybe 25 people in Vancouver who know about that stuff. It's fantastic."

Have you been told to leave Trader Joe's stores?

"Not formally from corporate. When the first squeeze came around the time of the cease and desist letter last year, it was the manager of the Bellingham [Wash.] store who apologetically asked me not to shop there anymore.

"I'm still OK if I'm shopping for myself or my family, although my cart gets looked over.

"I tell people who are 'helping' me shop not to clear out shelves but to shop like a typical shopper in there, stocking up. Get one or two of a set of items, bag them yourself and get out of there."

Do you have to portion supplies out to several vehicles?

"For too long it was just my Honda Element. The record was 98 bags of groceries. A few were on my lap. I've since up/downgraded to a '93 E-250 extended van. [It has a] straight six, so I need earplugs over 50 mph. Ninety-eight bags barely dents capacity.

"We call our product acquisition program 'Plan C' and we have a sign in the store that reads, 'Don't ask because we can't tell you.' "

What are the export laws for bringing groceries over the border?

"Pretty much anything I can buy in the U.S., I can legally import into Canada. There are permits required for meat, seafood and dairy. We stick to vegetarian packaged nonperishable items.

"Packaging compliance is also required and we are working closely with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure we are fully compliant."

Do you have any plans to expand?

"_irate Joe's is a unique response to the market Trader Joe's created in Vancouver when it opened a store just over the border in Bellingham. I feel they should either open a store up here or leave the free market to sort itself out. Requiring a 160-mile round trip across an international border to get their products is anything but neighborly."

Each Friday we round up the big conversations in tech and culture during the week that was. We also revisit the work that appeared on this blog and highlight what we're reading from our fellow technology writers and observers across the Internet.

ICYMI

The Syrian Electronic Army returned to the public consciousness after it was suspected of hacking the domain server of The New York Times, Huffington Post and Twitter. The Times was taken out for some users for upwards of 18 hours. We offered a primer on the group and what its motivations are (read: political). As fast-food workers protested across the country, it reminded us of automated fast-food restaurants in places like Amsterdam. Our weekly innovation pick was the cuddle mattress. The design lets your arm fall in between slats so it doesn't go numb while cuddling your partner.

On the air, Steve Henn explained the #NSAPickupLines that are all the rage in the twitterverse, Laura Sydell explored whether streaming music can make real money, and I reported on bossless offices — a move in the tech industry toward flatter hierarchies and team-based management to facilitate faster innovation. It's especially timely now, as the reports about Microsoft's unappealing workplace culture seem the complete opposite of emerging tech companies, like Medium.

The Big Conversation(s)

The week led off with news that the digital divide persists. The annual Pew Research Center study on broadband penetration reveals that 30 percent of American adults still aren't connected to high-speed broadband, either because of choice — those above age 70 are least likely to be connected — or because of socioeconomic status. But smartphones are making inroads. Ten percent of Americans say they don't have broadband at home but access the Intenet via smartphone. Midweek, news that Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife were splitting, reportedly because of his relationship with a Google Glass marketing officer, led to personality-based intrigue that spilled into larger business questions. That's because, as Quartz's Christopher Mims details, a top Google employee's "defection" to work for the "Apple of China" is entangled with Brin's love life.

What's Catching Our Eye

The Columbus Dispatch: DeWine Backs Use of Facial Recognition Software

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is having to review law enforcement's use of facial recognition software. The program matches suspects' photos with those in the Ohio driver's license photo database; civil liberties groups and some Ohioans are crying foul.

Salon: Will robots make us sexist?

Salon makes a case for how robots are confirming gender norms rather than challenging them.

CNNMoney: Facebook friends could change your credit score

Some lenders see social connections as a good indicator of a person's creditworthiness, but a credit expert says FICO scores are a better predictor of lending risk.

The prospect of a military strike against Syria in the next few days has private U.S. firms bracing for retaliation — in cyberspace.

A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army has already gone after some U.S. targets, including The New York Times, whose website was taken down for an extended period this week. The group supports the Bashar Assad regime in Syria and has vowed to help defend the country against its enemies, including the United States.

The Syrian Electronic Army could soon have that opportunity, most likely with the blessing of the Syrian government. Cyberretaliation against civilian targets might be seen by the Syrian leadership as less risky than counterstrikes against U.S. or allied military assets.

"I think the Syrians have all the interest in the world in disrupting as many websites as possible and making commercial operations as difficult as possible inside the United States and elsewhere to communicate a message that it can respond," says Chris Bronk, who specializes in cybergeopolitics at Rice University.

Cyberattacks are silent. They can be invisible until it's too late to defend against them. And they are hard to trace. Given their dependence on computer network operations, U.S. firms are taking notice of the risk they may face from Syrian hackers.

"A lot of companies are coming and asking us to do assessments on the Syrian Electronic Army and other actors in the broader region and how they may suffer attacks in the coming weeks from them," says Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer at CrowdStrike, which provides companies with cybersecurity advice and assistance.

"My phone has been buzzing off the hook over the last few days because of this," he says.

So far, the Syrian hackers have generally carried out relatively unsophisticated "denial of service" attacks, directing so much computer traffic at a website that it is overloaded and shuts down. The group has targeted the news media in particular, taking credit for attacks against The Washington Post and NPR, among other organizations.

This week's attack on The New York Times, however, was somewhat more sophisticated, involving a penetration of the Domain Name System, the directory that translates domain names into numerical Internet addresses. The attack raised the possibility that the Syrian Electronic Army could go after other targets and cause more damage.

"It has potentially both the capabilities of a grass-roots movement and an intelligence service," says Bronk. "It's a new type of organization."

Should Syria's leaders decide to retaliate in cyberspace for a U.S. missile strike against them, they might also call for help from their ally Iran, which is developing an increasingly serious cyberwarfare capability of its own.

U.S. cybersecurity experts worry most about an attack on critical infrastructure in the United States, including the power grid or the transportation system. Such an attack would probably result in an escalation of any military conflict with the United States.

"I think there will be a judgment call on behalf of the Syrian government to see if they want to provoke the U.S. into further escalation and trip over another red line, or whether they just want to endure the strike and move on," says Alperovitch.

The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, hasn't issued any special alerts for U.S. companies to be on the lookout for cyberattacks in the next few days, largely because there's been no official U.S. decision yet on whether to strike Syria.

"DHS is closely following the situation and actively collaborates and shares information with public and private sector partners every day in the face of constantly evolving threats," says Peter Boogaard, a Homeland Security spokesman.

The government of Ecuador has abandoned a plan that would have kept part of the Amazonian rainforest off limits to oil drilling. The initiative was an unusual one: Ecuador was promising to keep the oil in the ground, but it wanted to be paid for doing so.

The oil sits under the Yasuni national park, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth — orchids, jaguars, monkeys, birds. To get the corner of the park that holds the oil, you have to take a plane, then a motorboat, then paddle a canoe. "Even the sound of the motor will destroy the fragility of this place," Ivonne A-Baki, who works for the Ecuadorian government, told me this year.

In 2007, the country's president, Rafael Correa, told the world that Ecuador would leave the oil in the ground. But the country wanted to be paid half of what the oil was valued at, at the time. Ecuador wanted $3.6 billion.

When I talked with Ivonne A-Baki, earlier this year, she was traveling the world asking for contributions. This was delicate, because the pitch, viewed a certain way, could sound a bit like blackmail. Pay us or we'll shoot the trees.

Ecuador set up a fund through the United Nations. Some countries, companies and individuals pledged money, but it was far short of the goal. By the end of 2012, the fund only had $6.5 million in it.

President Correa said scrapping the program was one of the hardest decisions of his presidency. "The real dilemma is this," he said in a televised address last week. "Do we protect 100 percent of the Yasun and have no resources to meet the urgent needs of our people, or do we save 99 percent of it and have $18 billion to fight poverty?"

Since Correa's announcement, environmental groups in Ecuador have said they will fight the decision; they're hoping to get signatures to force a national referendum that would protect the park.

But the original plan for the Yasuni initiative seems to be dead. The initiative was an attempt to solve a problem that comes up all the time: Who should pay to protect the rainforest? Who should pay to protect the environment that, arguably, we all benefit from?

Clearly the world is still working on an answer.