Ben S’s Techdirt Profile

kagenooni

About Ben S




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  • Jun 10th, 2013 @ 10:56am

    Re:

    It sounds as though you don't understand communism. Communism is the government people were to implement after overthrowing the existing establishment in order to prevent the exploitation of the lower classes by the upper classes. It would do this by means of total control so that businesses couldn't push or force the government to give them excessive power over the lesser classes. Nothing about our current government is trying to do this. It's a police state for sure, and is exercising more and more power all the time, claiming it's in our interest, even though it isn't, but it's most definitely not communist.

  • May 22nd, 2013 @ 7:45am

    Re: Passerby - NOT a silly fight.

    I'll try to explain the purpose of the site for you. Basically, Techdirt is about how new technologies can disrupt established industries, resulting in something that is overall good for the industry as a whole, yet seem harmful to the established players in those industries. In particular, the attempts by those established players to try to block the new innovations and advancements in technologies.

    Due to regulatory capture causing copyright, as well as patent law, to go far beyond anything reasonable, copyright and the DMCA are frequent topics here. The reason for this article is specifically the abuse of the takedown provisions of the DMCA, rather than the fight itself. This is a clear and obvious attempt to silence free speech using the DMCA is the method, despite defenders of the takedown provisions claiming that nothing about copyright can or will harm free speech.

  • May 22nd, 2013 @ 7:14am

    Re: Re: Re: Why am I not surprised?

    If, as you suggest, this email is *not* the original email, the defendant could subpoena a copy of the original email from the provider of the email service, or from the hosting provider, to prove the plaintiff is lying. This would be a very easy tactic to undermine all credibility the plaintiff may have, making a victory in this regard that much easier. I'm not really seeing that here, so chances are this email is indeed the original email.

  • May 8th, 2013 @ 10:48am

    Re: Huff and Puff

    I like that reference. It's been a while since I've seen that show. I should watch it again some time.

  • May 8th, 2013 @ 10:37am

    Re: Re: Re:

    That's a grey area, not sure if the 5th amendment covers that, though it might. Realistically, you can plead the 5th for any reason at all, even if you aren't technically guilty. The reason for this is that probing into the reasons for pleading the 5th would be trying to force the person to incriminate themselves. You'd have to provide solid evidence that the answer to the question could not possibly have incriminated the person giving testimony to be able to levy any form of punishment.

    For example, a person could testify in court in defense of some one who was definitely guilty of a crime, then plead the 5th when asked certain questions in order to deflect suspicion from the accused, onto them. You could try and question them as to why they plead the 5th, but they would respond by just pleading the 5th some more. How are you going to prove the answers to the questions can't possibly be seen as incriminating? That would be a hard thing to do, and I don't see it happening. The end result would be that a person can plead the 5th for any reason they want with out fear of any form of punishment.

  • May 7th, 2013 @ 9:41am

    Re: Re:

    What patents are these? A while back Oracle lost a lawsuit it filed against Google for infringing on its Java Copyright (specifically claiming the API is covered by copyright) on the Android OS. If they had patents on Java, why wouldn't they have also filed for infringement of the patents in question?

  • May 2nd, 2013 @ 6:58pm

    Re: Dear CBS:

    What a perfect response. Also, I happen to love that song, but I prefer the fan video Valve featured at one point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ClYY5mwbc

  • Apr 19th, 2013 @ 8:24am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: As usual, Misleading Mike reads only what fits his template.

    Probably nothing. It's just a Target he can aim at.

  • Apr 10th, 2013 @ 9:56am

    Re: Not even remotely fair use, they should pay

    For putting the logo on the uniforms yes, but not for things like a documentary which happens to show the logo they put on the uniforms. Same with the pictures on the stadium wall, as that's showing their history (even if it is one that includes copyright infringement). I could certainly see a potential argument regarding the video game though, as that isn't about documenting anything historically, but rather just a "retro" uniform that isn't needed to play the game.

  • Apr 10th, 2013 @ 7:45am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    In that last sentence, died should be dyed.

    I wish I could edit my comments on here.

  • Apr 10th, 2013 @ 7:43am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Maybe I'm feeding a troll here, but here goes.

    The Department of Justice (DoJ) has claimed that violation of the Terms of Service (ToS) is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Anyone (including Clinton) who has ever violated the ToS of a website, is, by the DoJ interpretation of the law, guilty of violating the CFAA, and, if convicted, is a felon.

    There was no accusation by Mike. His complaint here, was that the DoJ interpretation of the CFAA is far too broad, and makes felons out of the average citizen for doing things that would be considered mundane and ordinary, rather than a seeming ethical or moral wrong. Here's a few examples.

    Under the DoJ interpretation, any child under the age of 13 who signs up for a Facebook account is a felon. Same with any parent that sets up an account for said child. If a website tells you not to view the source code for the website, and you do so, you are a felon. If you tell a little white lie in your profile on a dating site, such as claiming your hair color is natural, and not died, and the website says you aren't allowed to lie about your personal information, you are a felon.

  • Apr 5th, 2013 @ 3:32pm

    Re: Re:

    Just did a quick google search, turned up the Mac version, called GPG Tools.
    http://gpgtools.github.io/GPGTools_Homepage/

    And for Windows users:
    http://www.gpg4win.org/

    Linux users, you probably already know that you have it in your software center or equivalent.

  • Apr 5th, 2013 @ 3:27pm

    Re:

    Gnu Privacy Guard for your emails, but you'll need the receiving user to have it as well. Some linux distros will have it installed by default. Gnu PG for Windows is available for those using Windows computers (and even comes with a GUI, unlike mine). Chances are, it's also available for Mac.

    Useful tool. It works be creating 2 keys, public and private. The public key can only encrypt the email/document/file, it can't reverse the encryption. The private key though, is one you must protect and keep hidden. That key is the one that breaks the encryption. Keep a backup, but keep it locked up (for example, on a USB drive inside a lockbox) so prying eyes can't get their hands on it.

    Using GPG is not too hard. Step 1, create your public and private keys. Step 2, share the public key with anyone at all who would be interested in sending you encrypted emails. Step 3, obtain public keys from anyone you would want to send email to. Now you're ready to use it.

    Any emails you receive, you run through your personal private key, and it decrypts. Any emails you send, run the text through the receiving user's public key first to encrypt it, then send it out.

  • Apr 2nd, 2013 @ 8:22am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Yeah, I don't doubt it'd never make it through lobbying, but should such a change occur, that would, for the most part, fix the issue with large corporations controlling all the works.

  • Apr 2nd, 2013 @ 7:37am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Easy fix here. Give the artist the ability to revoke the licence after (just throwing out a number) 1 year. No exceptions.

    If one of the big record labels/movie studios cheats a creator, they will end up losing access to the work in question. If the label/studio succeeds in making it popular, the creator can then take full advantage of it.

    Now other labels/studios are more likely to give better licensing terms for something that's already hugely popular, assuming the creator of the work decides to go with another group. They could self-publish by that point in time.

  • Mar 29th, 2013 @ 10:21pm

    Re: Tech Support

    I do tech support actually. Discovered for a particular caller that their DNS server was down because of ping results. What's funny is that everyone in the office she was in was unaffected, just her assigned station. Of course, I'm not high enough level to be allowed to have her switch DNS servers as a temporary fix, so I had to transfer to a higher tech support.

  • Mar 29th, 2013 @ 8:52pm

    Re: Re: very funny, fortunately doesn't fit my experience

    Do you know who the ISP is through your HOA? You're talking over 14 times my current speed (downstream, upstream is far more vast a difference) at a mere 57% increase in price. I'm hoping Google Fiber begins to spread to force ISP prices down, but until then, the speeds and price you're getting sound awesome.

  • Mar 29th, 2013 @ 8:17am

    Re: Want higher rankings? Be better.

    Not exactly. It's which tags you use for what purpose. For example, The h1 tag treats an item as the most important point of your website, and phrases that match anything inside the tags will rank you up more than matches elsewhere on your page. I'm sure a certain amount of gaming the system is going to be part of it, but Google apparently looks for that kind of thing and will stop websites from showing up if it looks like you're using underhanded tactics to gain a ranking you don't deserve.

  • Mar 26th, 2013 @ 8:23pm

    Re: Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.

    Technically, there are paid applications you can get for Linux that are officially licensed for playing the videos. In that way, it can be legal to watch DVD's on Linux. But it's far better to use libdvdcss2 so that you can watch it with what ever video player you prefer. (Or use Handbrake to simply rip the video)

  • Mar 16th, 2013 @ 2:34pm

    Re:

    You know, I decided to check the comments just to see if some one referenced this. :)

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