Comments by greenbird

Tech Support

greenbird — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:51:09 PDT

Last time I call Verizon customer service I told them I couldn't ping the DNS server IP. She told me try pinging www.google.com. I heard her say to the mid level tech on the other line "Now he's laughing at me. Why is he laughing at me?".

EA Pressures to have modder charged

greenbird — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:20:12 PDT

How long before EA gets the modder arrested for violating the DMCA anti-circumvention provision?

Happened numerous times in the 20th Century

greenbird — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 09:58:35 PST

The point is technology has moved on to the point that a 'citizen' has no ability to stand against an army on his own, not with his own resources.

So I guess that explains Vietnam (both French and US intervention) and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. And yes there was some minor help from outside sources in both those cases but in neither case was it decisive. The reason US is not getting its ass whipped in Afghanistan right now has far more to do with a major effort not to fight the average citizen then any technological superiority over those average citizens.

Re: Is Google going to make the FULL works FREELY available?

greenbird — Tue, 9 Oct 2012 13:09:54 PDT

And as I've said before, once in full control of such resources

Ummm...You seem confused. Google has no control over the material. They're just trying to make it more accessible. It's the copyright maximalist that are trying to gain greater control over it and deny it to the public not Google.

Re: Re:

greenbird — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:22:58 PDT

Are you kidding? Apple probable has 500 patents on various aspects of the iPhone 5.

Re:

greenbird — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:13:47 PDT

This is especially scary given that those same disruptive technologies usually also challenge the government's ability to control the people.

Re:

greenbird — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:51:25 PDT

may have contributed

They also "may have contributed" to fairies coming out my ass. Although many have dug, no one yet has presented any reasonable evidence supporting either of those that I'm aware of.

In a free and open society anything like Wikileaks would be condoned and supported. Let me explain the reasons why.

First Wikileaks simple allows a channel for people to anonymously release information at least somewhat protected from retribution. The press use to be the channel for allowing this thus the protections for a free press in the US constitution as a check on government for it keeping it free and open. Unfortunately technology is changing the nature of how information is distributed. The main stream media is no longer the primary and exclusive means of distributing information. Because of this disruption of the gatekeeper role the main stream media has held in the past they are pushing the government to pass laws to help them slow down and/or stop the disruptive process. This pretty much negates the "free press" as being free from government interference as intended by it's constitutional protections. Add to this that even given the protections of the free press provided by the constitution the government has always had at least some limited ability to control the press. Historically they exercised this control often (likely far more often than we are aware of). How justified they were in doing this is no doubt variable and arguable. I have no doubt in many cases there would be a strong case it was justified. I also have no doubt there would be strong arguments in many cases the suppression was bordering on criminal. With Wikileaks they lose all control whether justified or not. In a free and open society, in my mind at least, the occasional release of information that would have been justifiable suppressed is far out weighed (I'll support this more below) by the suppression of information that exposes at best government inefficiencies or at worse down right criminal behavior by the government.

Now there are occasions where the suppression of information may be justified. The case I'll make here is that if such information has made it way to Wikileaks most likely the people who could use this information for nefarious purposes already have access to it (unless of course the nefarious purpose is to expose questionable actions by the government). Those people are going to typically be far more motivated to gain access to the information. In a free and open society, although there may be a significant cost, the information leaking to Wikileaks exposes weaknesses in how information is protected. This should allow the government to fix these holes in their security. This also helps fix a governmental problem. Although, again, there may be a cost associated with this it may also allow fixing the security thus eliminating a continuing information leak or an even more costly leak later.

The big problem with the recent documents Wikileaks published isn't that they "may have contributed to the death of soldiers" but who the government was trying to prevent from seeing those documents. First, given the obscenely piss poor security protecting those documents the information was likely already available to those who could use it to "contributed to the death of soldiers". Now obviously I have no way of supporting that assertion other than by general assertions as to the ease of which the security measures were circumvented. I will assert though that the primary person the government was trying to prevent from seeing those documents wasn't people who could use it to "contributed to the death of soldiers" but to the general public who would see many of the questionable things our government was doing. The rather scary part, other than operational and functional secrets our military shouldn't be trying to hide anything it does. Nothing functional was exposed that I'm aware of and Wikileaks tried to redact any operational information that could have put anyone in danger. And they would have been able do this much more effectively if our supposed "free and open" government had cooperated with Wikileaks in the redaction rather than working to attack them any way they could get away with. Wikileaks didn't leak the information. They just published it. But it's much easier to attack the message than to fix the source of the message they brought.

Re: Dirty Commie!

greenbird — Thu, 9 Aug 2012 10:07:26 PDT

Ummm...you do realize that patents and copyright are the antithesis of capitalism and free markets?

Targetted?

greenbird — Fri, 6 Jul 2012 18:48:18 PDT

Ummm...wikileaks doesn't target anyone. People give them stuff and wikileaks makes it makes it public. That's how it works. No targeting involved.

Cookies no longer required to track you

greenbird — Wed, 1 Dec 2010 16:04:04 PST

The latest craze in tracking: fingerprinting.

Could cross into net neutrality

greenbird — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 08:33:17 PST

Where this could cross over to a net neutrality issue is if Comcast is threatening to disallow exclusively Netflix traffic in it's negotiations on a commercial peering agreement. If that's the case it's headed down that slippery slope of charging for specific traffic. If Comcast can establish that principal it makes it much easier to charge backbone providers for specific traffic that may compete with Comcast's other business offerings. The backbone operators would be forced to pass those additional costs on to the traffic originators. Without a lot more details of the negotiations and agreements it's difficult to say one way or the other if this is a step onto that slippery slope but it definitely has that potential.

Make all politicians sign non-competes

greenbird — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 08:50:44 PST

Make all the politicians sign non-competes as a condition of serving in the government. They cannot work in any industry or job directly or indirectly related to government operations or any job or industry related to any work they were involved in while in government service (including legislation) for a minimum of 5 years after they leave government service.

Re: Advertisers pulling out

greenbird — Thu, 4 Nov 2010 14:29:07 PDT

Hate to reply to my own post but it appears they're also finding hoards of other articles that were stolen by Cook's Source from a number of other sources.

Advertisers pulling out

greenbird — Thu, 4 Nov 2010 14:23:36 PDT

Ummm...this didn't just harm their reputation, it pretty much demolished it. Someone published a list of Cook's Source's advertisers and they're getting bombarded. Some have already stated they're pulling their ads and I'm guessing all will eventually. At least one small business that had ads there said they were pulling the ads despite having prepaid for several months and were going to have to eat the cost.

This has been picked up on Consumerist and Slashdot. They better pray the goons at 4Chan don't pick up on it.

It'll help large companies

greenbird — Fri, 1 Oct 2010 15:41:06 PDT

The way I see this is that it'll help the large companies without helping smaller companies. It'll likely make it cheaper to invalidate a patent than it currently is thus driving down the extortion charges from questionable patent holders. But the bigger companies can afford the hit. The problem is, with a smaller company the diversion of focus and resources to fighting any patent fight is often fatal in the earlier stages. Thus the large companies will be able to better fend off patent attacks while still being able to attack smaller nimbler competitors that out innovate the bigger companies.

greenbird — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:18:34 PDT

I'm not sure people really understand what's going on here. They're not subverting the laws. They're subverting freedom of speech, expression and privacy that once were the fundamental foundation of Western governments. There is no democracy without free speech. Once information is controlled so are the minds of the masses.

They're is actually a law being considered in the Senate of the United States that allows censorship of speech based solely on opposition to certain corporate interests. And it has a large nonpartisan support base. That should scare the s**t out of everyone who actually likes having a modicum of freedom. This isn't the slippery slope. It's kicking the rock hold the avalanche back.

Hell, in the US in the past it was difficult to impose censorship even during war when a great many lives were at stake. Now it's being imposed in the name of a few corporate interests who's business is being undermined by technological advances.

greenbird — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:16:50 PDT

greenbird — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:57:23 PDT

Techdirt will be on the list about 10 minutes after the bill passes.

Re: Opinions vs. facts.

greenbird — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 07:41:17 PDT

The report by Bob is opinion and copyrightable. ...what opinions Bob put in that report is not copyrightable.

That makes no sense. If what he put in the report isn't copyrightable what about the report is copyrightable? The paper he wrote it on? You say the opinions are copyrightable then in the next sentence they aren't copyrightable.

Yup simple, by the same fallacious logic the RIAA/MPAA members use in all there dealings on IP concerns.

Focus of the Essay

greenbird — Tue, 7 Sep 2010 22:26:45 PDT

I'd focus the essay on how out of touch the vast majority of judges are with modern technology and how it's used for social interaction in the modern world.