One of the most high profile victims of the Heartbleed vulnerability was the Canadian tax service, Canada Revenue Agency, which shut down its online tax filing offering. A few days later, the agency admitted that about 900 Canadians had information copied from the site via someone exploiting the vulnerability, prior to the site being shut down. And, from there, it was just a day or so until it was reported that a teenager, Stephen Arthuro Solis-Reyes, had been arrested for the hack.

Given the speed of the arrest, it would not appear that Solis-Reyes did very much to cover his tracks. In fact, reports say he did nothing to hide his IP address. He's a computer science student -- and his father is a CS professor, with a specialty in data mining. It seems at least reasonably likely that the "hack" was more of a "test" to see what could be done with Heartbleed and (perhaps) an attempt to show off how risky the bug could be, rather than anything malicious. It will be interesting to see how he is treated by Canadian officials, compared to say, the arrests of Aaron Swartz and weev.

Yesterday we, like many, were perplexed by Ed Snowden's decision to go on a Russian television program, and to ask Vladimir Putin a question about whether or not the Russians do mass surveillance like the NSA does (which was, of course, exposed by Ed Snowden). It was clearly playing into Putin's propaganda efforts, because Putin immediately took the opportunity to insist that no, Russia does not do mass surveillance like that. Of course, Putin's answer was not true. Many of Snowden's detractors immediately jumped on this as an example of how he was working for the Putin propaganda machine -- and many (including us), wondered if he was, at the very least, pressured to play a role in order to keep his temporary asylum. Others thought he was just being naive. Some Snowden supporters, however, insisted that we should hear him out, and see if there was some more specific motive behind his question.

Apparently, we didn't have to wait long. Snowden himself has now directly called Putin out for lying about Russian surveillance, and said that his question was designed to act similar to Senator Ron Wyden's now famous question to James Clapper, leading to Clapper's lie, which (in part) sparked Snowden's decision to finally release the files he'd been collecting. Snowden, writing in the Guardian, explained:

On Thursday, I questioned Russia's involvement in mass surveillance on live television. I asked Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, a question that cannot credibly be answered in the negative by any leader who runs a modern, intrusive surveillance program: "Does [your country] intercept, analyse or store millions of individuals' communications?"

I went on to challenge whether, even if such a mass surveillance program were effective and technically legal, it could ever be morally justified.

The question was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange in US Senate intelligence committee hearings between senator Ron Wyden and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, about whether the NSA collected records on millions of Americans, and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion. (See a side-by-side comparison of Wyden's question and mine here.)

Clapper's lie – to the Senate and to the public – was a major motivating force behind my decision to go public, and a historic example of the importance of official accountability.

From there, he explains why he thinks Putin was lying, and how he expects this to now be exposed in Russia, as it was in the US:

In his response, Putin denied the first part of the question and dodged on the latter. There are serious inconsistencies in his denial – and we'll get to them soon – but it was not the president's suspiciously narrow answer that was criticised by many pundits. It was that I had chosen to ask a question at all.

I was surprised that people who witnessed me risk my life to expose the surveillance practices of my own country could not believe that I might also criticise the surveillance policies of Russia, a country to which I have sworn no allegiance, without ulterior motive. I regret that my question could be misinterpreted, and that it enabled many to ignore the substance of the question – and Putin's evasive response – in order to speculate, wildly and incorrectly, about my motives for asking it.

The investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, perhaps the single most prominent critic of Russia's surveillance apparatus (and someone who has repeatedly criticised me in the past year), described my question as "extremely important for Russia". It could, he said, "lift a de facto ban on public conversations about state eavesdropping."

Snowden also pointed out the remarkably similar response from Putin and Obama when asked about their domestic surveillance programs, and noted that he expects the Russian press to finally start challenging Putin on this assertion.

When this event comes around next year, I hope we'll see more questions on surveillance programs and other controversial policies. But we don't have to wait until then. For example, journalists might ask for clarification as to how millions of individuals' communications are not being intercepted, analysed or stored, when, at least on a technical level, the systems that are in place must do precisely that in order to function. They might ask whether the social media companies reporting that they have received bulk collection requests from the Russian government are telling the truth.

Finally, he notes that his position continues to remain entirely consistent:

I blew the whistle on the NSA's surveillance practices not because I believed that the United States was uniquely at fault, but because I believe that mass surveillance of innocents – the construction of enormous, state-run surveillance time machines that can turn back the clock on the most intimate details of our lives – is a threat to all people, everywhere, no matter who runs them.

Last year, I risked family, life, and freedom to help initiate a global debate that even Obama himself conceded "will make our nation stronger". I am no more willing to trade my principles for privilege today than I was then.

I understand the concerns of critics, but there is a more obvious explanation for my question than a secret desire to defend the kind of policies I sacrificed a comfortable life to challenge: if we are to test the truth of officials' claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims.

I don't think many people -- other than perhaps the most diehard Snowden supporters -- expected something quite like this. For months, many Snowden detractors have repeatedly criticized Snowden for not speaking out against Russian authoritarianism and surveillance. Many of us have felt that those criticisms were significantly off-base, in part because that wasn't Snowden's particular fight (nor did he have any unique knowledge of Russian surveillance, as he did with the US). It seemed like a stupid false equivalency to try to make Snowden look bad. And when he asked his question to Putin, some people argued that this showed he was actually "questioning" Russian surveillance. Except that the TV question felt like such a softball, so designed to allow Putin to spin some propaganda that this didn't really seem like Snowden challenging anything.

However, this latest response suggests that Snowden is (once again) playing a game where he's several moves ahead of many folks. The question may have set up a propaganda answer, but it appears there was a bigger strategy behind it -- and one that remains entirely consistent with what Snowden has claimed his position has been since the beginning. Frankly, while this possibility was raised about his original question to Putin, many people (myself included) thought it was unlikely that Snowden would so directly go after his current hosts (who only became his hosts thanks to the US pulling his passport). Putin is not known for gracefully handling those who directly challenge him, and I don't think it would be surprise anyone if Snowden had continued to stay out of the question of Russian surveillance, simply out of basic necessity.

Snowden, however, has said from the beginning, that this story has never been about him, and he accepts that the end result of his starting the process may not be good for himself. He's made it clear that he was willing to effectively sacrifice himself to get this debate going -- and having done it once, he apparently has decided he can do it again in another context. While I was confused by this move 24 hours ago, I'll admit it was because I never thought Snowden would go this far (and so quickly) to criticize Russia while he was there. Already, given what Snowden did in releasing the NSA documents, he's shown that he's much braver (and in many ways, patriotic to the public) than just about anyone. In now questioning -- and then calling BS on Putin's answer -- he's shown that bravery was not a one-time thing, but a position he intends to live by going forward.

Snowden likely made a lot more powerful enemies today -- including more who could make life very uncomfortable for him very soon. But he also showed why the public, around the globe, owes him an incredibly large debt of gratitude, one which it's unclear we'll ever be able to pay off.

As we draw near to the conclusion of TAFTA/TTIP's first year of negotiations, the detailed differences are starting to emerge between the US and EU. But one thing they both take for granted is that it's a good idea. "Good" in this context is essentially about money: the argument is that concluding a trade deal between the US and EU will boost both their economies, increase companies' profits, create employment and generally make people better off. Of course, since all of those are in the future, the only way to justify those kind of claims is to model the likely effects of TTIP on the various economies -- of the US, EU and rest of the world.

That's precisely what a study entitled "Reducing Transatlantic Barriers to Trade and Investment; An Economic Assessment" aimed to do (pdf). Although it's not the only study, it's indubitably the most quoted -- its figures crop up in most articles about the benefits of TAFTA/TTIP. That's largely because it was paid for by the European Commission, and therefore forms the "official" predictions of the benefits that are likely to flow from the agreement:

An ambitious and comprehensive transatlantic trade and investment agreement could bring significant economic gains as a whole for the EU (€119/$165 billion a year) and US (€95/$131 billion a year). This translates to an extra €545/$750 in disposable income each year for a family of 4 in the EU, on average, and €655/$910.

Usually, those figures are repeated without further comment or analysis. That's unfortunate, because there are a number of important assumptions behind them. For example, the use of the phrase "ambitious and comprehensive" is no mere rhetorical flourish: it refers to the most optimistic scenario considered in the study -- in other words, the best-case outcome. Significantly, it not only assumes that all remaining tariffs will be removed -- since these are already low (around 4%), the benefit from doing so is slight -- but also many "non-tariff barriers", economist-speak for regulations and standards. Of course, what industry regards as "barriers", citizens may see more as protections.

The other fact that is almost never mentioned is that the Commission's figures quoted above all refer to 2027, and are the predicted gains from TAFTA/TTIP after it has been in place for 10 years. Leaving aside the difficulty of predicting the US and EU economies in 2027, it also means that the claimed increases in GDP -- 0.39% for the US, and 0.48% for the EU -- are cumulative gains over ten years, and amount to less than 0.05% extra GDP added per year.

Those figures not only refer to the "ambitious and comprehensive" scenario -- in other words, they are an upper bound on what is likely to be obtained -- but also fail to take into account key costs associated with the changes that TAFTA/TTIP would bring about. It's perhaps not surprising that the European Commission's own analysis does not include these -- after all, they reduce the already-small benefits yet further. But clearly, in considering whether to proceed with TTIP, politicians and the public need to have the full picture, and that includes the likely costs as well as the likely benefits.

Fortunately, estimates for those costs have now been produced in some new research. It has been commissioned by the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) political group in the European Parliament. That group has an obvious political agenda, but then so does the European Commission. What's important is to have a range of analyses of the benefits and costs of TAFTA/TTIP so as to be able to form an overall, independent opinion drawing on them all.

The report "Assessing the Claimed Benefits of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (pdf) offers a critical analysis not just of the European Commission's study, but of three others too. It examines their underlying econometric models in great detail to expose the assumptions made and data used. Here's its summary:

All of the four scrutinized studies report small, but positive effects on GDP, trade flows and real wages in the EU. GDP and real wage increases are however estimated by most studies to range from 0.3 to 1.3 %, even in the most optimistic liberalization scenarios. These changes refer to a level change within 10 to 20 years (!), annual GDP growth during this transition period would thus amount to 0.03 to 0.13 % at most.

That confirms that the very low GDP boost from TTIP, as predicted by the European Commission's study, is also a feature of the others. That's interesting for economists, but for non-specialists the new report's chief virtue is that for the first time it estimates the likely costs of TTIP. It points out that there are several major classes of these, largely ignored in the four studies considered:

Adjustment costs are mostly neglected or downplayed in the TTIP studies. This refers in particular to macroeconomic adjustment costs, which can come in the form of (i) changes to the current account balance, (ii) losses to public revenues, and (iii) changes to the level of unemployment.

These are costs associated with the changes brought about by TAFTA/TTIP. For example, removing tariff barriers necessarily reduces the income received by governments; the GUE/NGL study considers this in various scenarios, and comes up with a cost over 10 years of around €30/$40 bn for the EU economy. Costs are not calculated for the US, unfortunately, but it is likely that a similar figure would apply there too.

There are also significant labor adjustment costs, as some industries take on new workers, while others make them redundant. The report estimates these at around €10/$14 bn over the first ten years of TTIP. There will also be concomitant losses as a result of lower income tax and social security contributions from those who lose their jobs -- another €7/$10 bn.

That makes a total of €47/$64 bn. On top of that, there are two other important classes of costs. One is those arising out of corporate sovereignty payments. These can reach billions of euros/dollars per award, and are likely to become common given that there are 75,000 companies that could use an ISDS chapter in TTIP to sue the US or EU. The amount potentially involved is hard to quantify at this stage, as are the associated "social costs" of removing non-tariff barriers:

the elimination of [non-tariff barriers] will result in a potential welfare loss to society, in so far as this elimination threatens public policy goals (e.g. consumer safety, public health, environmental safety), which are not taken care of by some other measure or policy. Though subject to considerable insecurity, these types of adjustment costs might be substantial, and require careful case-by-case analysis. As we will see in the following, although the social costs of regulatory change are of particular relevance for the analysis of TTIP because of its emphasis of regulation issues, they have not been dealt with properly by the four scrutinized TTIP studies.

In other words, the cost of removing or harmonizing regulations and standards is not fully included in the calculation of whether TAFTA/TTIP is worth pursuing. Once again, that reveals that TTIP is currently seen purely through the optic of business -- whether profits are increased, not whether society must pay a corresponding, or even higher, price to make that possible.

While some will doubtless argue about the details of the new GUE/NGL analysis, it has the valuable function of reminding us that TAFTA/TTIP is not just about corporate profits, but also concerns the 800 million people who make up the citizenry of the US and EU. Until they are included in the equation, and their potential losses and gains factored in, any claims about TTIP's "benefits" -- even the tiny ones that the European Commission's analysis comes up with in its "ambitious and comprehensive" agreement -- must be regarded as simplistic, one-sided and incomplete.

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Last month, Tim Cushing wrote about how the Lt. Gov. of Louisiana, Jay Dardenne, had sued Moveon.org over a billboard that used the state's trademarked "Pick your passion!" slogan. The suit was filled with so much technicality-probing nonsense, one wondered how a judge would be able to look through it without needing a couple of long naps. Chief among the claims was that folks seeing the billboard might somehow think the Lt. Governor was responsible for criticizing the Governor, Bobby Jindal, despite the fact the billboard wasn't meant for commercial purposes, criticized the same government Dardenne is a part of, and clearly denotes the responsible party as Moveon.org. It seemed like a pretty clear attempt to stifle criticism over the technicality of a frivolous trademark claim. More egregious, Dardenne wanted the billboard removed while the case was litigated.

Fortunately, while we hear so many stories like this that end up with courts being overprotective of any intellectual property claim, the court has sided with free speech and ruled the billboard will stay up while the trademark claim makes its way through the court.

U.S. Judge Shelly D. Dick, who is over seeing the case, said in an April 7 ruling that forcing the group to take down the sign while the trademark infringement issue is being litigated would deny MoveOn.org its right to free political speech. Dick said while the State of Louisiana’s tourism trademark is a legally protectable mark, the burden of proving trademark infringement is on the state which would have to present more compelling information that the infringement was occurring especially because the billboard was merely expressing a point of view.

“The State argues that viewers of the billboard will be confused into thinking that the Lieutenant Governor, as the alleged owner of the service mark, is being critical of the Governor. In this Court’s view, the Lieutenant Governor underestimates the intelligence and reasonableness of people viewing the billboard,” Dick’s ruling states.

It's an interesting distinction in the ruling, since to disagree would put Dardenne in the uncomfortable position of suggesting his own constituents aren't as intelligent as Judge Dick thinks. In any case, the ruling goes on to note that its the actual citizens of Louisiana that would get to claim ownership of the trademarked slogan, rather than any individual members of the state's government who were the billboard's actual targets, and that no irreparable harm had been proven.

So the billboard stays up and the justice system proves it thinks more of the citizens of Louisiana than some in the state's own government. Meanwhile, a small single billboard continues to find its way into the media spotlight, where it likely never would have found any purchase if the attempt to take it down hadn't been made. Well done all around, Lt. Governor!

Some biblical characters lived for hundreds of years. (eg. Methuselah lived to be 969.) However, people living now don't quite get that old. Aging is a mysterious process that is slowly killing everyone, and there are more than a few projects working on ways to avoid death. Immortality could be a blessing or a curse, and maybe someday we'll find out which it is.

• Suspended animation is a real medical procedure, and some techniques are being tested in emergency rooms. The FDA has approved a procedure that will be used at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital to replace near-fatal patients' blood with a cold saline solution. The process stops the patient's body from doing normal things like breathing, but patients can be revived hours later from a death-like state. [url]
• The Methuselah Foundation has a few projects to develop regenerative medicine that might allow people to live longer, healthier lives. Regrowing organs, developing custom chemotherapies based on a patient's DNA, and studying long-lived animals could help extend human lifespans. [url]
• Google funded an anti-aging startup in 2013 called Calico. Larry Page noted at its launch that "curing cancer" might not be a good enough goal because death might only be delayed a few years, even with a cure for cancer. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Let's lay out a couple of things we know. First, trademark is one of the better IP laws out there, ostensibly designed to limit customer confusion between brands (though it's still open to significant abuse). We also know that Nike, maker of all things apparel, firmly believes in the strongest of protections against anyone infringing on any of their intellectual property. We also know that Nike firmly believes that limits on copying sure as hell don't apply to Nike.

But I'm not sure we knew just how brazen they could be. Such appears to be the case when Nike decides to just blatantly use someone else's trademark of which they were absolutely aware.

Former San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman is suing athletic equipment giant Nike in San Diego federal court, alleging unfair competition and trademark infringement of his "Lights Out" brand. The suit, filed by Merriman's company, Lights Out Holdings, LLC, demands immediate injunctive relief to stop Nike's alleged actions, plus millions of dollars in damages. Merriman said he holds the federal trademark for the "Lights Out" brand on a Nike clothing line, which includes a broad range of apparel for men, women and children.

We deal a lot with frivolous trademark threats and suits that never appear to amount to much of the customer confusion the law is supposed to address, but this doesn't appear to be one of those cases. We're dealing with Nike using the mark, which Merriman holds, on similar sports apparel and clothes. Merriman is a sports figure whose company produces a clothing line. What makes this most egregious is that Nike was quite aware of the mark.

In late 2006 or 2007, according to the lawsuit, Nike entered into negotiations with Merriman for a "Lights Out" line of apparel. Negotiations between Merriman and Nike were unsuccessful but "after these discussions Nike decided to use the `Lights Out' clothing brand anyway," the suit alleges.

How nice of them. I'm sure they would look quite kindly on anyone who decided to just appropriate their infamous swoosh. Hypocrisy, thy name is Nike.

Eli Lilly bet its entire business model on patents years back, rather than on creating useful products that people want to buy. Lately it's been having trouble getting new patents, and is reacting extremely poorly to the fact that its last-gasp efforts to get new patents aren't working. As we've noted, a few years back, Canada rejected some patent applications for some Eli Lilly drug after the Canadian patent board "determined that the drug had failed to deliver the benefits the firm promised when obtaining the patent." In other words, after realizing that the drug is not useful, Canada rejected the patent.

And Eli Lilly flipped out.

Eli Lilly has sued Canada for $500 million claiming "lost profits." How is this possible, you ask? Well, it's those corporate sovereignty provisions that are finding their way into various trade agreements lately. They're usually called "investor state dispute settlement" (ISDS) provisions, because supporters know that such a phrase will bore most people to death and they won't realize what's happening. Eli Lilly is arguing that Canada's decision to check to see if a drug is actually useful somehow violates its international agreements. And thus that a sovereign decision by Canada not to patent drugs of questionable benefit is not just a violation of trade, but stomping on Eli Lilly's expected profits.

Lilly is now raising the stakes. Not only has it asked the USTR to put Canada back on the wacky "Special 301 list" of "naughty countries" that don't bow before American corporate demands, but it's convinced 32 members of Congress to out themselves as corporate shills for Eli Lilly by demanding that the USTR follow through on this request.

Eli Lilly seems to have no shame about this, happily admitting that it's behind this effort to have the US punish Canada for daring to judge whether or not a drug is useful. As he told the Wall Street Journal:

“We’ve been unsuccessful in bringing about change by other means,” said Lilly chief executive John Lechleiter. “It’s an issue right at our back door. And unfortunately, we’re afraid it can lead to other countries attempting to undermine intellectual property.”

No, not "undermine intellectual property." It's about actually making sure, before giving you a decades-long monopoly right, that your drug is actually useful. Of course, if the USTR actually follows through and puts Canada on the Special 301 list, it will just cement what a complete joke the Special 301 list really is. For years, the USTR -- at the behest of Hollywood -- put Canada on the Special 301 list. Each year Canadian officials would specifically state that they "don't recognize" the process of the Special 301 list as being legitimate (because it's not) and then proceed to do nothing. Eventually, though, with a new government in place, Canada did change its copyright laws, and was "downgraded" on the Special 301 list. Upgrading them back up to a "pirate" nation will just highlight why Canada (and every other country) should totally ignore the nearly entirely arbitrariness of the list.

Meanwhile, shame on those 32 members of Congress for supporting such a blatant attempt by a company to interfere in the sovereignty of Canada and its crazy idea that drugs should actually be useful to deserve patent protection.

There may have been a time in the past few years when you'd have sworn DRM was on its way out the digital door. Between free-to-play games, strong consumer feedback, and the overall failure of DRM to actually stop anyone actually interested in pirating games, movies or music, there just didn't seem to be much point any longer. With the advent of new crowdfunding business models, DRM made even less sense. But not only is DRM still around, legacy players using it are actually torpedoing otherwise useful leaps forward in business in story after story. And, despite the fact that some entrenched industry players are wising up to the futile nature of DRM, others are digging in their heels.

Such appears to be the case with Square Enix, the game producer responsible for such franchises as Final Fantasy. Square says DRM is here to stay, despite all of its problems.

Adam Sullivan, Square Enix America’s Senior Manager of Business and Legal Affairs, informs TorrentFreak that the company’s choice to include DRM in its products has its roots in a simple concept – maximizing revenue.

“We have a well-known reputation for being very protective of our IPs, which does deter many would-be pirates,” Sullivan adds. “However, effectiveness is notoriously difficult to measure — in short, we rely on the data available to us through our sales team and various vendors, along with consumer feedback.”

It's an interesting comment, in that it doesn't make a great deal of sense. The consuming public is notoriously anti-DRM, all the more so assuming Square Enix is primarily listening to the feedback of actual customers. Why would they be in favor of DRM? They're already paying. As for the feedback of the sales and vending partners, I assume it's no secret to them how laughably easy it is for anyone interested to circumvent DRM and pirate simple games if they're so inclined. Here's the amazing thing: most people aren't so inclined. Assuming a product is of a certain quality, priced to meet customer demand, and convenient to purchase, most people aren't interested in pirating these items. I know this because, as already stated, piracy isn't that tough, yet Square makes a great deal of money.

“The key to DRM is that it can’t interfere with the customer’s ability to play the game,” Sullivan says. “It’s not uncommon for people to get a new computer every few years, or to have multiple computers. Sometimes they don’t have reliable internet connections. There’s no perfect solution yet.”

Sure, but such imperfections only effect paying customers, which is the entire problem. There isn't a single pirate out there jumping through your DRM obstacle course, or finding themselves unable to jump through it. Just the paying customers. And Square's reaction to this?

“This depends on your definition of DRM, but generally yes — I think DRM will be essential for the foreseeable future,” Sullivan explains.

Essential isn't the word you're looking for. The correct word would be futile. But, hey, go on throwing those obstacles up for your customers while the pirates walk around them; I'm sure that will work out well in the long run.

In the ongoing attempts to deal with the (very real and serious) issue of "revenge porn" websites, various parties have been trying desperately to blame third parties, rather than figuring out ways to go after those actually responsible. In one such case, victims of the site had gone after the host and registrar of the revenge porn site Texxxan.com, which happened to be GoDaddy. A Texas trial court totally ignored Section 230 in finding GoDaddy liable. Thankfully, an appeals court has now reversed that, highlighting the importance of Section 230, and the lengths to which many will go to in an attempt to get around it, in order to blame third parties for the actions of others. Basically, the plaintiffs here tried to find a way around Section 230 by arguing that it "didn’t apply to intentional torts, obscene material that isn’t constitutionally protected, and civil lawsuits based on criminal statutes." However, the court rejected all of that:

All of plaintiffs’ claims against GoDaddy stem from GoDaddy’s publication of the contested content, its failure to remove the content, or its alleged violation of the Texas Penal Code for the same conduct. Allowing plaintiffs’ to assert any cause of action against GoDaddy for publishing content created by a third party, or for refusing to remove content created by a third party would be squarely inconsistent with section 230.

As Andrew McDiarmid at CDT points out, this is important:

Last week’s opinion reads like a greatest-hits record of Section 230 case law, and makes it clear that because GoDaddy had nothing to do with the creation of the content at issue it cannot be held liable. This is the right answer; hosts like GoDaddy must be protected from liability for their users’ (and their users’ users’) speech so that the Internet remains a vibrant platform for free expression and access to information. Otherwise, who would be willing to take the risk of opening up their servers for public hosting?

The plaintiffs attempted to argue that Section 230 doesn’t apply when the content at issue is illegal – an argument the judges rightly rejected. Shielding hosts from liability when their users upload illegal content is precisely the point of Section 230: those who post such content – not those who host it – should be legally responsible for it. Thankfully, the court recognized as much, writing that such a reading of the statute “would undermine its purpose.”

Of course, this is not the final word on this. The attorney for the plaintiffs has said that they will appeal to the Texas Supreme Court. And of course (once again) we have the issue that the person who has been credited with helping to draft the upcoming federal revenge porn law has flat out said that it's her intention to make companies like GoDaddy liable.

"The impact [of a federal law] for victims would be immediate," Franks said. "If it became a federal criminal law that you can't engage in this type of behavior, potentially Google, any website, Verizon, any of these entities might have to face liability for violations."

Indeed, this would target the GoDaddy's of the world as well. I recognize that there are serious issues involved in revenge porn, but targeting third parties like web hosts and search engines is idiotic. It will have tremendous unintended First Amendment consequences.

While we're still puzzled by Ed Snowden's question to Vladimir Putin concerning Russian surveillance, it's pretty well accepted that the Russians have significant surveillance powers, and they're not afraid to use them. Now the outspoken ousted founder of "Russia's Facebook," VKontakte, Pavel Durov, has said that Russian intelligence service FSB had demanded info on Ukrainian protestors -- and that VKontakte had refused to provide it. As Mashable explains:

"On December 13, 2013 the FSB demanded from us to turn over the personal data of organizers of the Euromaidan protesters," Pavel Durov wrote in a post (English translation) on his VKontakte page on Wednesday.

"Our response has been and remains a categorical refusal — Russian jurisdiction does not extend to Ukrainian users VKontakte," he wrote. "Giving personal details Ukrainians Russian authorities would not only be against the law, but also a betrayal of all those millions of people in Ukraine who have trusted us."

This actually provides some more background details on what happened with VKontakte and Durov in the past few months. In January, Durov "sold" his stake in the site to the CEO of a Russian mobile operator. Many people noted at the time that this was unlikely to have been a wholly voluntary transaction. Having known some folks working for startups/tech companies in Russia, stories of being "forced" to sell are not exactly uncommon.

Durov himself had been outspoken for a while about the importance of secure communications, and had criticized both the NSA and the FSB for mass surveillance. He's also been working for a while on a secure messaging app (separate from VKontakte).

Then, just a few weeks ago, despite promises that when he sold his shares, nothing would change about his management role, he abruptly resigned. It was noted at the time that he had been under pressure to shut down pages related to Alexei Navalny, an opposition candidate to the current government, whose web presence was broadly censored by the Russian government last month. However, it was also hinted at that Durov had been asked to give up info on Ukrainian protestors. His latest comments appear to confirm those rumors.

Also, given that he's no longer there, and this appears to be part of the reason, it seems reasonable to believe that the FSB now does likely have access to such information via VKontakte. For whatever Putin thought he was proving with his answer to Snowden's question, it's pretty clear that Russian surveillance reaches far and wide. And, of course, the NSA's activities allow him to play it off as less intrusive than the NSA (even if that's not true). Either way, all of this seems to highlight why we all need much more secure communications systems.