Andy 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: DannyB's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    Andy ( profile ), 18 Jun, 2011 @ 09:54pm

    Anonymous whistleblowing

    Nice post, Danny.

    Your comment: "It's a shame the US government doesn't understand the importance of anonymous public whistle blowing. Of course, maybe they do, but I'd rather not go there" got me thinking (briefly).

    Here's how that ambivalence might play out:

    "Thank you for calling the Anonymous Whistleblower Hotline. We value your help in highlighting issues which we need to cover up. Please remain at your current location. A federal agent has already been dispatched and will be pleased to arrest you. Your concern for the public good is appreciated. Have a nice day."

  • On the post: NY Stock Exchange Claims Trademark On Any Depiction Of Trading Floor, Threatens TPM

    Andy ( profile ), 27 May, 2011 @ 08:51am

    Would be quite the hoot if they tried to claim trademark over all the ticker symbols of the stocks traded on their exchange! The sooner IP maximalists reach the extreme where they put themselves out of business, the better, perhaps.

  • On the post: Forget The Streisand Effect, I Think We've Seen The Dawning Of The Giggs Effect

    Andy ( profile ), 23 May, 2011 @ 08:30am

    Well, this IS a soccer player we're dealing with, so not too surprising if he is not particularly smart in pursuing this.

    An interesting development is that a second soccer player has also been granted one of these ridiculous super injunctions following hot on the heels of this case.

    Apparently the judge granted that injunction because the player concerned claimed publication of his name would have a significant impact on his wife and family. Hmmm, or perhaps it was his alleged adultery that had the impact rather than the reporting of that affair.

  • On the post: Sony CEO Howard Stringer: Month-long Hackathon Merely A 'Hiccup'

    Andy ( profile ), 18 May, 2011 @ 09:58am

    Hiccup attack

    Hiccup or no, reports seem to indicate another serious failure allegedly caused by a major problem. This site apparently found the problem and reported it to Sony:

    http://sony.nyleveia.com/2011/05/17/warning-all-psn-users-your-accounts-are-still-not-safe/

    There are a series of updates there relating progress.

  • On the post: Chicago Politicians Say Mobile Phones Should Block Kids From Texting While Driving

    Andy ( profile ), 05 May, 2011 @ 09:26pm

    I would like to make it illegal for politicians to speak before engaging their brains.

    Seriously, I suppose the tendency to resort to legislation as a cure for all ills is the result of a culture in which politicians (and many times, the public) see their job as "lawmakers". If your job is to make laws, that is what you will do even though legislation is many times not the appropriate solution.

    These cases are already covered by plenty of laws so one more on the books will not help. But education campaigns to help stigmatize these practices (as has been successfully done with drunk driving in many places) would be a better use of resources.

  • On the post: How Adobe Drives Infringement Of Its Products Through Incompatibility

    Andy ( profile ), 05 May, 2011 @ 07:54am

    Yes, yes, yes

    As an ICT manager, I find myself cursing Adobe more regularly than I would care to think. Every time we have a change in our personnel and need to transfer a licence to a new user or a new computer, we have to go through the incredible hoops set before us by Adobe.

    I consider their products to be expensive to purchase (with frequent updates being required caused by the very backwards compatibility issue described in the article) and in many cases ludicrously bloated. It is beyond inconvenient.

    Ironically, one of our former employees, who was enthusiastically advocating our own products be locked down by some complex licensing technology, was an ex-Adobe salesperson. He was extremely enamoured of the company for which he had previously worked and had no grasp of the trouble these tools cause for the customer who has actually bought their licence. And as has been observed so many times before, these same products can be obtained with cracks and serial codes from the torrents, thereby proving the pointlessness of these appalling mechanisms.

  • On the post: Is It Rude To Link To Someone Without First Asking Permission?

    Andy ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2011 @ 10:38am

    Permission to read?

    Given that linking is merely bringing the material to a wider readership, does he also, by extension, believe we should ask permission before reading his article? It seems the mark of a clueless person to publish material on the internet only to object to it reaching a wider audience than those who might have come across it on the site on which he himself published it. Words fail me.

  • On the post: UK Continues Issuing Tons Of Super Injunctions To Keep Famous People From Being Embarrassed

    Andy ( profile ), 26 Apr, 2011 @ 07:42am

    A timely news item

    I read this article on the BBC news site just a little earlier today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13190424

    The twist here is that the person in question, Andrew Marr, is a senior journalist (I'm not sure if he still is, but he used to be the BBC's own Political Editor) and here he was using one of these super injunctions to maintain his own privacy.

    The article refers to comments by Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye magazine and a "team captain" on the very popular BBC satirical news quiz show, Have I Got News For You. Hislop referred to Marr's use of a super injunction as "a touch hypocritical" using classic British understatement to describe the situation.

  • On the post: Canadians Face Fines & Jail Time If They Tweet Election Result News Prior To West Coast Poll Closings

    Andy ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2011 @ 07:45am

    Re: One simple solution

    This would be one solution, for sure. But what I can't get my head around, is how they would plan to handle the possibility that someone could pass the information to a friend outside Canadian jurisdiction who might then publish the information.

    Or maybe it is not what the law says that they are concerned about, merely that here is a law so it has to be enforced. Wonder how many other outdated laws are on the books that they do not enforce, though.

  • On the post: Prince Claims When Someone Covers Your Song, The Original No Longer Exists

    Andy ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2011 @ 10:06am

    Re:

    Quite. In fact I logged in here purely to reference him as "The artist formerly known as (almost) sane"!

  • On the post: Hugh Grant: Investigative Reporter

    Andy ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2011 @ 10:17am

    Flattery

    I felt obliged to log in and comment simply to say that equating News of the World journalists with professionals, to my mind, amounts to flattery in the extreme, but we can let that go considering the suggestion doesn't undermine your point, Mike!

  • On the post: Crade's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    Andy ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2011 @ 12:15am

    "Laws are decided jointly"

    Just two comments:

    First, isn't much of what we are struggling with in these discussions evidence of the fact that, although laws should be decided jointly, the fact is that they are actually decided by a very small minority (legislators) influenced by powerful vested interests.

    Second, I suspect the sentiments that give rise to your comment that "certainly my opinion is not going to do it..." are very much the reason most "normal" people feel somewhat powerless to effect change.

  • On the post: Why Hasn't The Report Debunking Entire US Foreign IP Policy Received The Attention It Deserves?

    Andy ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2011 @ 05:52am

    To put it bluntly

    There is of course a name for people who ignore or write off information and continue to hold opinions which flies in the face of the evidence. We call them bigots.

    And when government picks and chooses which research it will heed and which it will ignore, it is clear that truth is clearly not a guiding principle!

  • On the post: Boston College Tells Students That Using A Wireless Router Is A Sign Of Copyright Infringement

    Andy ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2011 @ 09:27am

    Re: Nut, meet sledgehammer!

    I am referring here to the detail referenced in the first post.

  • On the post: Boston College Tells Students That Using A Wireless Router Is A Sign Of Copyright Infringement

    Andy ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2011 @ 09:24am

    Nut, meet sledgehammer!

    Wow, that's a really shocking display of ignorance at so many levels by the college!

  • On the post: Federal Courts Afraid Your Smartphone Might Be A Bomb

    Andy ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2011 @ 06:50am

    Luddism or paranoia?

    I can't decide whether this appears to herald a new era of Luddism (and a pretty extreme form of it at that) or of heightened paranoia. Either way, if you want to fear the unknown like this, you will end up banning an incredibly long list of potential threats. Taken ad absurdum, there is really very little among the most mundane of objects which could not in some way be used to make mischief.

    "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" seems particularly apposite here.

  • On the post: Phone Calls Are So Last Century

    Andy ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2011 @ 07:39am

    I agree...and also

    As I have heard it noted before, a telephone is really a very rude device. It's ring is effectively the caller shouting "Here I am, give me your immediate attention!" Yes, one can ignore the ring, or silence it, but that is not always easy to do. For me, I start wondering whether I have ignored something really important.

    Things are mitigated somewhat with caller ID of course, so one can choose, based on caller, whether to answer or not. But ultimately, more modern methods of communication generally leave open the option to give them attention now or later on. If someone leaves a voicemail, phones offer that too, but so many people simply hang up when they hear the voicemail prompt that I rarely have the option available to me.

    I am in my late forties and identify wholeheartedly with the sentiment. To Yogi, who commented about women, I have to say that even my wife has commented to me that she rarely actually calls anyone and few people call her these days. Most of our communication, with friends, family or for work, is done using other electronic means (email, chat, instant messaging or even forum posts).

  • On the post: Microsoft Continues Its Backdoor Legal Fight Against Android: Sues Barnes & Noble Over Nook

    Andy ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2011 @ 07:00am

    One of those comments in favour

    I had to laugh. A quick scan of the comments on that blog only turned up one that I could spot supporting Microsoft. Someone calling himself QA trying to point out that this is how the patent system works. It's all beyond laughable and one has to hope that this backfiring PR effort might give Microsoft pause for thought.

    I particularly liked where one commenter highlighted a comment that MS is doing this for its customers and asked that he (as a customer) not be included.

    If this were not so incredibly sad, it would be hilarious. Who can really take big companies like this seriously when they act like petulant children?

  • On the post: Ryanair Shrugs Off Discovery That Others Can Edit Your Flight Booking; Says It's Your Problem

    Andy ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2011 @ 09:25am

    What an incredibly ignorant response from this guy. Obviously people should keep their personal data personal, but an email address is exactly the sort of thing people absolutely need to share. How else will anybody else be able to email them if they didn't pass that out. And knowing the dates someone is planning to travel is hardly secret personal information either. There are a host of reasons someone would get to know this.

    Ryanair are only compounding their image as a company with no concern or respect for their customers. Hardly a winning approach to doing business!

  • On the post: Homeland Security Strapping GPS Devices To Indian Students Victimized By Scam

    Andy ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2011 @ 08:24am

    You could run a compendium of DHS/ICE stories. I think an appropriate, if not original, title could be: How to Win Friends and Influence People!

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