Michael 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Journalists Need A Point Of View If They Want To Stay Relevant

    Michael ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2014 @ 08:51am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Yes, it started out already targeted at the center ground based upon prior events. Then as a tool for getting a more biased result, Republicans demanded 'compromise' (further shift towards their goals) trying to kill the deal and finally denied it support just because they were not getting the credit for leadership on that issue.

    I hate all political parties. I hate the voting systems that keep them in place (first past the poll). I hate the myopic voters who pick a party line and blindly stick to it. However what I hate most are those who would put petty squabbles before serving the people they are purportedly representing.

  • On the post: Stupid WiFi Hotspot Name Gets American Airlines Flight Grounded

    Michael ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2014 @ 01:04pm

    Re: Re: New ̶t̶e̶r̶r̶o̶r̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶s̶c̶h̶e̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶r̶u̶p̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶i̶r̶l̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶t̶w̶o̶r̶k̶s̶ art installation

    Mooninites; as a viral marketing campaign for that Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie.

    My favorite line from the pictured characters is probably still this: "Ignignokt: [flipping the bird] I hope he can see this 'cause I'm doing it as hard as I can." - http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0052023/quotes

  • On the post: America, The Defensive: Wars, Terrorism And Thirty Years Of Perpetual 'States Of Emergencies'

    Michael ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2014 @ 12:15pm

    Broken laws without funding or teeth as usual...

    Why should congress actually /do/ something if there's no penalty for not doing it?

    One of the patches for the next revision of government should be requiring that 'or else' is always defined, as well as any supply (source and quantity) of revenue required for a result.

  • On the post: Judges Want To Make Life Harder On Patent Trolls: Want Them To Actually Have To Explain What Infringement Happened

    Michael ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2014 @ 02:52am

    Re:

    Someone aside from the Trolls needs to be active.

  • On the post: Snowden: I Probably Wouldn't Have Revealed Quite As Much As Reporters Did

    Michael ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2014 @ 02:08pm

    Re: Re:

    There is also a distinction between what normal people would consider 'dragnet surveillance' and what normal people expect and what Snowden's revelations suggest various government agencies consider actual 'surveillance' to be.

    After various corrections (trusting infrastructure isn't eavesdropped upon) I would be willing to trust Google and similar parties to respond only to lawful, adversarial reviewed, court orders for data /provided they are able to disclose said requests publicly/ for accountability (no less than one year after the cases go to trial or are dropped).

    As recent lawsuits have revealed, we do not yet have the conditions that would allow any consumers, my self included, to trust /any/ corporation in that manor.

  • On the post: Twitter Sues The US Government For The Right To Disclose Surveillance Requests

    Michael ( profile ), 07 Oct, 2014 @ 04:24pm

    Re: Warrant canaries prohibited ?

    I was thinking the same thing as I read this.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: All Electric Vehicles

    Michael ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2014 @ 08:20pm

    Re:

    I'm guessing it's something to do with hot swapping in a /seriously charged/ set of plates in to a new Leiden jar.

    I'd like the robot to do the job please.

  • On the post: NSA Can Neither Confirm Nor Deny It Uses The Phrases It Used On A Leaked Slide

    Michael ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2014 @ 01:30pm

    External validation?

    I'd be far more inclined to believe an external validation authority over taking the word of an agency that has, quite frankly, irreparably lost any form of trust anyone should have ever had.

  • On the post: Phew: Appeals Court Says Having 'Dirt' In Your Domain Name Doesn't Remove Safe Harbor Protections

    Michael ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2014 @ 12:59pm

    Reasonable log retention times...

    I wonder if the (intentional deep pockets fishing expedition) lawsuit being aimed at the wrong party may have delayed the discovery of whomever the anonymous commentator is for long enough that it is now impossible to determine the identity of that party?

  • On the post: IRS Claims Two Years Of Emails Were Destroyed In A 'Computer Crash;' Congressman Asks The NSA To Supply 'Missing' Email Metadata

    Michael ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2014 @ 10:57am

    Incompetence they should outsource

    As far as I am aware, the IRS does not handle any sensitive data. They should really just outsource this portion of their infrastructure to an outside party that is actually competent and capable of maintaining backups.

    Their failure should also be considered a sign of guilt.

  • On the post: Tesla Seems To Recognize That Its Own Patents Are Holding Back Innovation

    Michael ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2014 @ 11:13am

    Just like basic Internet protocols

    The free to implement open infrastructure is critical to the Internet being what it is today. Proprietary protocols and the disaster of limited/no interoperability are a thing that was tried and which died out in favor of a platform that was common and had no barriers to entry.

    Standards are a lot less likely to have competitors when everyone can see (and even more so contribute to) the community efforts.

  • On the post: Yes, Verizon Is At Fault In Netflix Dispute; It's Not Delivering What It Sold Customers

    Michael ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2014 @ 11:00am

    Re:

    I find this unlikely or simplified to the point of misinformation. Citation of claim is necessary.

  • On the post: DOJ Admits It's Still Destroying Evidence In NSA Case; Judge Orders Them (Again) To Stop; DOJ Flips Out

    Michael ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2014 @ 08:13am

    Re:

    The only way I can imagine this to actually be true is if the NSA is some farce that has unlimited peeping access to everything, but absolute ineptitude about how to actually filter out data on targeted investigations. Only in that scenario could I see holding a day's worth of evidence to cripple them.

    However if holding days worth of evidence would cripple them I also don't see how they could possibly be able to function as a security agency as they also then could not understand the information faster than it is being 'produced'.

  • On the post: The World Has Changed Since The First Snowden Revelation, But It's Only A Small Start

    Michael ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2014 @ 01:27pm

    Re: change we can believe in?

    Given the current US electoral system devolves in to a two-party selection system at least one of the following should be true.

    * We could not have adequately known.
    * Even if we did know, we probably picked the 'lesser' of evils.
    * Something about the system (government/elections/etc) is corrupting to the degree that good actors turn bad when exposed to that same system.
    * We, the people, do not deserve to have a say in the system. (I do not believe this to be true, but I must conclude that it is a possibility to consider.)

  • On the post: Why Won't Senator Feinstein Call Torture Torture?

    Michael ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2014 @ 11:06am

    Re:

    Dolores Umbridge

  • On the post: Smokey Robinson Sues Ex-Wife To Prevent Her From Claiming 50% Of His Recaptured Motown Hits

    Michael ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2014 @ 11:53am

    Re: Interesting

    The only /logical/ reason I could see for this is if the argument is about a right of control versus a right to profit. In that case it would make sense that this specific right to control could only be exercised by the creator and would apply with their current obligations instead of those determined at prior determinations of asset division.

    However I don't agree that the intent of copyright / patents is being served; providing incentive to 'artisans' and the spread of useful knowledge. Clearly the terms at the time of creation were sufficient and these later laws are simply a form of welfare and/or avoiding suit against the various monopoly groups (RIAA/MPAA etc) by misdirecting the issue.

  • On the post: Government Employees Suddenly Worried About Surveillance As New Plans To Stop The Next Snowden Strip All Privacy

    Michael ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2014 @ 01:56pm

    Glass Houses

    I would rather they lived in glass houses with everything being /eventually/ reported to the public and 'secrets' time+further review sealed. This principle applies to everything government related.

  • On the post: Comcast Mega-Corp Shoveling Money At FCC Subcommittee

    Michael ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2014 @ 10:18am

    Re:

    So THAT'S where the Tea Party came from!

  • On the post: Cell Phone Kill Switches Are A Slippery Slope For Abusive Governments

    Michael ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2014 @ 01:50pm

    Global problem global database

    The idea of tracking cell phone serial numbers (IMEI) is the correct tool for this job. The scale of the database just needs to be global.

    It's not like replicating that data would be difficult; nor is searching a well structured database computationally intensive. These same numbers are already used to associate the customer to account information (and if not this is a very small extra thing to track).

  • On the post: Comcast Mega-Corp Shoveling Money At FCC Subcommittee

    Michael ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2014 @ 04:29pm

    Re: Re: Proportional

    Further details:

    The House -> Energy and Commerce Committee -> Communications and Technology

    http://www.opensecrets.org/cmteprofiles/profiles.php?cycle=2014&cmteid=H07&cmte=HENE&congno=113&chamber=H&indus=B09

    The table here appears to be (unhelpfully) sorted by Last Name. Sorting by Donation Quantity, state, or 'seniority' (loosely years in federal political service seems like a good guess).

    At a quick glance:

    Greg Walden (R-Ore) $42,250
    Mike Rogers (R-Mich) $22,600
    Doris O. Matsui (D-Calif) $20,500
    Anna Eshoo (D-Calif) $20,500
    Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash) $17,700
    Fred Upton (R-Mich) $17,750
    Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif) $17,750

    However most unhelpfully this list does not tell me whom they are on 'the take' from. If money is freedom of speech should I know who's 'speaking' with my representatives (and the magnitude with which they are being spoken at)?

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