DSchneider 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (48) comment rss

  • On the post: US Has A 'Secret Exception' To Reasonable Suspicion For Putting People On The No Fly List

    DSchneider ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2014 @ 09:16am

    Re:

    No, I believe it's actually called the "Why? Because fuck you, that's why" exception.

  • On the post: LA Sheriff's Dept. On New Surveillance Program: We Knew The Public Wouldn't Like It, So We Kept It A Secret

    DSchneider ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2014 @ 08:58am

    I really don't understand

    I mean I understand why they would want a system like this. Drive by shooting...just roll back the tape and see where the car came from and where it went.

    What I don't understand is why they don't bring in privacy experts to advise them on these systems. They know the blow back once its found out is going to be huge and possibly get the whole thing shut down. Why not bring in the ACLU, Larry Lessig, etc and say "This is what we're planning to do, these are the benefits we see to this. What kind of safeguards can we put in place to protect privacy, make this acceptable to the public, and still achieve our goals?"

    Maybe there are none and they just continue as they were, but maybe, just maybe there would be a way to keep the system in place, catch bad guys, and still protect the rights of everyone else. Problem is, until they do this we'll never know.

  • On the post: LG Smart TV Caught Collecting Data On Files Stored On Connected USB Drives

    DSchneider ( profile ), 20 Nov, 2013 @ 09:07am

    Re: Re: Stop the abuse!!

    I don't have a smart tv either, but it may be that blocking the site may break some functionality. Even if it were possible, this isn't something that you're average person is going to be able to do. Since we're reading a blog with "tech" in the title most of us here are technically savvy or at least technically aware of things, but do you think your average senior citizen is going to know how to configure their router and setup a white/black list?

    Won't someone think of the Grandparents!

  • On the post: School Threatens Child With Expulsion For Halloween Drawings

    DSchneider ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2013 @ 01:27pm

    National Draw a Gun at School Day

    What we need is a day when every kid at a school with these stupid zero tolerance policies pulls out a piece of paper and draws a picture of a gun. Let's see how their policies fare in the face of massive disobedience.

    Worse case, if they end up expelling all the kids, they'll no longer need to be employed.

  • On the post: Maryland Tops Off Awful Cyberbullying Law With Direct Line To Facebook To Remove Content 'Without Societal Value'

    DSchneider ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2013 @ 01:51pm

    Re: Facebook is a permitted entity: it has NO "entitlement":

    "or else the public -- which by grace of god or nature has the ONLY entitlements that exist -- is entitled to remove Facebook's privilege to exist"

    This is entirely true to bad the rest of your arguments are the exact opposite of this statement.

    The problem is all to often it's some sort grandstanding public official and not "the public" or not "society" for those "without societal value" statements that is trying to make that determination.

  • On the post: No Surprise: NSA Stores All Metadata It Collects For At Least A Year, Even If It Has Nothing To Do With Anything

    DSchneider ( profile ), 30 Sep, 2013 @ 02:27pm

    Kevin Bacon's to Blame

    The over collection of US user data really isn't the NSA's fault. They had all the proper checks in place to make sure they were only getting those people who were within the contact circle of a target. The problem started when a "foreign target" miss-dialed one of his contacts and got Kevin Bacon instead. Once they got 6 layers out from Kevin, they had inadvertently collected the data of the entire country.

  • On the post: LAPD Detains A Photographer For 'Interfering' With A Police Investigation… From 90 Feet Away

    DSchneider ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2013 @ 09:21am

    Re: For What it's Worth:

    Does it really matter what he said? He could have called the cop a pinko communist fascist pig cocksucker and it shouldn't have mattered. He was doing nothing wrong and we have this thing called the 1st Amendment.

    Was Nee being an ass? A little bit, but who cares. Far to many cops seem to think that any manner of disrespect is somehow a threat to their "authoritah" and they need to do something about it. What they should do is simply roll their eyes and walk away.

  • On the post: LAPD Detains A Photographer For 'Interfering' With A Police Investigation… From 90 Feet Away

    DSchneider ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2013 @ 09:08am

    Re: For those of us living in countries with saner measurement systems

    Maybe it's just me, but if in order to "admonish that individual that they're too close" you have to shout so the person can hear you then maybe they aren't actually that close.

  • On the post: Speed Cam Contractor Responds To Challenged Tickets By Cropping Photos, Moving Cameras

    DSchneider ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2013 @ 10:10am

    Re: Re: Re: Step #1 to fix this, ban private contractors from collecting ticket money

    No, I understand WHY they want to bill by the citation, just not why the Law Enforcement Agencies ALLOWED them to do so.

    All it would take is all the the various Law Enforcement Agencies that are looking to purchase these systems to just say no to that part of the contract. Eventually one of these camera companies will agree to the terms and that will be that for the rest of them.

    As I said almost all other hardware/software agreements operate on the initial price to buy + yearly maintenance costs model, so I don't see why the camera companies can't do the same.

    I mean look at paper tickets. Does the company that prints out the ticket form get a cut of the citation? What about the company the provides the pens, what about them. It doesn't make sense there and it certainly doesn't make sense for the camera companies as well.

  • On the post: Speed Cam Contractor Responds To Challenged Tickets By Cropping Photos, Moving Cameras

    DSchneider ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2013 @ 09:46am

    Re: Step #1 to fix this, ban private contractors from collecting ticket money

    THIS. I never understood why law enforcement ever allowed them a portion of the ticket revenue. They make the camera's and I'm assuming the software that runs the cameras. They should be selling all of that for X dollars with a yearly maintenance fee of Y dollars to fix and maintain the software and the cameras. Those costs shouldn't change whether the camera issues 1 ticket or 1 million tickets.
    This is how all other hardware and software vendors that I'm aware of due business, why are the red light camera companies different?

  • On the post: Senator Leahy Calls Bulls**t On Claim That Metadata Collection Stopped Terrorist Attacks

    DSchneider ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2013 @ 02:42pm

    Re: Re: Haaaaayyyyyyyy!

    In theory, yes, but that's assuming you have a good search and sort mechanism in place to go through all that data, and that's typically where the intelligence agencies fall down. 9/11 being prime example of this where they had all the information they needed to stop the attacks, but it was buried under all this other intelligence they had gathered (Gross oversimplification, but hopefully you get my point).
    To use another bad analogy, if you know you lost your needle at the Mohammed farm, it doesn't do you any good to collect the hay from the Smith, Johnson, Rodney, Andersen,...etc. Farms. Too much hay just makes it that much harder to find the needle.
    It is admittedly a good thing to have an over abundance of data after the fact to figure out what happened, but one, our laws don't allow for that and two the whole justification for these is the prevention of criminal acts.

  • On the post: Senator Leahy Calls Bulls**t On Claim That Metadata Collection Stopped Terrorist Attacks

    DSchneider ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2013 @ 01:36pm

    Haaaaayyyyyyyy!

    The problem is that they seem to be more interested in getting more haystacks than looking for the needles that are supposedly in it.

  • On the post: Ex-CIA/NSA Boss Says Snowden Worse Than Every Spy From Benedict Arnold To The Rosenbergs

    DSchneider ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2013 @ 08:51am

    Blame

    Hayden goes on to blame Snowden for: "the undeniable economic punishment that will be inflicted on American businesses for simply complying with American law."

    That sounds an awful lot like blaming your doctor because he told you you got syphilis from sleeping with a prostitute.

  • On the post: Ohio AG Gets Urban Outfitters To Pull Satirical Prescription Coffee Mugs From Stores, Citing His Own Lack Of Humor

    DSchneider ( profile ), 02 Jul, 2013 @ 03:06pm

    Re: Re: New Advertising Slogan

    Then don't buy it. If humor had to steer clear of anything that might have possibly hurt/damaged/offended someone in the past, then all we'd have left if knock-knock jokes. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in that world.

    There are plenty of things in this world that I find offensive, weird, or in bad taste, etc. My solution is to simply not buy/watch/support those things. It's not to try an magically make those things disappear and deprive them from those who enjoy them, as I'm sure there are many things that I and yes, you enjoy, that others don't like.

  • On the post: Ohio AG Gets Urban Outfitters To Pull Satirical Prescription Coffee Mugs From Stores, Citing His Own Lack Of Humor

    DSchneider ( profile ), 02 Jul, 2013 @ 12:48pm

    New Advertising Slogan

    23 out of 50 Attorney Generals Agree, this product is not funny at all. Really no humor to be seen here.

  • On the post: Ecuador Tells US To Take Its Trade Agreement And Shove It, After Threats Relayed Over Snowden

    DSchneider ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2013 @ 03:00pm

    Re: Stop and think

    I didn't get smacked down, my overbearing, out of control government did. It was warranted. It was deserved. And my only regret is that it wasn't the greater US population that did it.

  • On the post: The Next Time Someone Says Twitter Is Killing Deep Thinking With Short Quick Messages, Show Them This

    DSchneider ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2013 @ 02:26pm

    Re: Re: Mark Twain opened my eyes about this

    But officer, I wasn't paying for sex, it was just a licensing fee!!!

  • On the post: DailyDirt: English Curiosities

    DSchneider ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2013 @ 08:12am

    Re: Waste of my time in 9th grade

    Good god that first picture brought back bad memories I thought I had repressed. It was 7th/8th grade at my school, but yeah, it was the same deal. Diagramming sentences over and over and over and over again.
    I hadn't thought of the diagramming part in years till I saw that picture, but I still subconsciously break down sentences into their parts when I read them. Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions, I'm almost 40, why the hell do I still do that!

  • On the post: Flight Search Engines And The Multi-City Ripoff

    DSchneider ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2013 @ 04:17pm

    Re: Two other disadvantages of separate leg bookings

    Not that it justifies double the price, but I agree if you check any baggage this trick will not work unless you have huge layover times. As Danny says booking seperately means you can't check your bags to your final destination which means at each stop you will need to go down to baggage claim, get your bag, recheck it, and then re-go through security.
    Even without checked bags, if you forget to pre-print your boarding passes for you other flights you may have to leave the terminal to go check in which means another round of security. You may be able to find someone to check you in in the terminal at customer service or another gate, but that isn't a guarantee.

  • On the post: NJ Assemblyman Sean Kean Doubles Down On Bad Video Game Legislation

    DSchneider ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2013 @ 10:30am

    Can't have it both ways

    It's so detrimental to children we must prevent them from seeing it, unless according to the second bill, their parents get it for them. I look forward to his followup bills where cigarettes, alcohol, and porn are now ok for children as long as their parent or guardian purchases it for them.

Next >>