beltorak 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Internet Comes Through For Developer Of Key Email Encryption Tool

    beltorak ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2015 @ 10:00am

    This is really good to hear.

    I've come to the conclusion after heartbleed (and this confirms it) that companies that choose a FLOSS project instead of a costly proprietary one should take some of the money that would have gone to licensing and donate it to the FLOSS project.

    OpenSSL is a particular sore spot for me as I know that a lot of companies devoted huge amounts of developer resources to their own proprietary fork, and spent another ton of money to get their own fork FIPS certified so they could use it in their products. Over and over and over again these companies redo the same damn work (as a group and individually when they went through the same process for a newer version of OpenSSL) and very little of it (if any) made it back to the project or developers in terms of code or money.

    This seems to stem from a the entitlement culture - the grand daddy of the permission culture - that tries to claim "ownership" of every scrap of "intellectual property".

    I am glad this has a happy continuation, but I can't help but wonder what are we overlooking? What other FLOSS projects out there are critical to the internet ecosystem, and what are their needs?

  • On the post: You Don't Own What You Bought: Drone Maker Updates Firmware On All Drones To Stop Any Flights In DC

    beltorak ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2015 @ 03:54pm

    Re: Re: Different application, same old cr@p...DRM

    That is the very nature and design of DRM. It is the raison d'être. To deny the service of something at someone else's whim.

  • On the post: Nobody Saw This Coming: Now China Too Wants Company Encryption Keys And Backdoors In Hardware And Software

    beltorak ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2015 @ 03:38pm

    Re: A boon for open source...

    That's only half the solution though. Everyone seems to conveniently forget the gaping security hole introduced by arguably the most popular FOSS encryption library, OpenSSL.

    The other half is to take at least some of that money your company would have spent on the proprietary software and donate it to the FOSS tools you are using.

    It doesn't have to be a cash donation (in case the project doesn't really have a project manager in charge of financials, like, say, OpenSSL); offer to pay a developer's salary. Offer to pay for infrastructure and set it up.

    For some projects, a year of salary or infrastructure might still be cheaper than licenses. For others you could band together with a few other companies and form a joint subsidiary (or whatever) and pool your money.

  • On the post: You Don't Own What You Bought: Drone Maker Updates Firmware On All Drones To Stop Any Flights In DC

    beltorak ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2015 @ 08:57am

    Re:

    this is only done in consumer firmware. LEOs will have an override. you can count on it.

    so a government employee fucks up and everyone else get screwed twice because of it.

  • On the post: You Don't Own What You Bought: Drone Maker Updates Firmware On All Drones To Stop Any Flights In DC

    beltorak ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2015 @ 08:56am

    Re: Re:

    which leads me to wonder (with my tinfoil hat firmly strapped on) if this employee "volunteered" to be the sacrificial goat in a deliberate plot to take away our freedoms....

  • On the post: You Don't Own What You Bought: Drone Maker Updates Firmware On All Drones To Stop Any Flights In DC

    beltorak ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2015 @ 08:52am

    Re: Re: This is why

    Open source hardware, open source firmware, open source software. We are making strides in open source hardware. The other two are much easier to obtain.

    Automatic updates should be a feature, not a manacle.

  • On the post: New Michigan FOIA Caps Per Page Fees, Drops Costs Further If Agencies Miss Response Deadlines

    beltorak ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2015 @ 07:40pm

    Fines for Late Work

    You know when private entities contract a job and there's a financial penalty for late delivery, there's no bullshit "50% cap".

    If it wasn't for the fact that it's all taxpayer money anyway, I'd say we should do to them what the FISA court did to yahoo. A 250,000 dollar per day fine, to double every week, until they comply.

  • On the post: New Michigan FOIA Caps Per Page Fees, Drops Costs Further If Agencies Miss Response Deadlines

    beltorak ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2015 @ 07:33pm

    10 cents a page?

    "Do you have any idea how much a page of black printer ink costs??!? We'll go broke!!"

  • On the post: Tor Isn't A Child Porn Enthusiast's Best Friend, No Matter What The DOJ Claims

    beltorak ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2015 @ 07:18pm

    The waters may get even more muddy now that facebook has its own hidden service....

  • On the post: Je Suis Disappoint: French Court Convicts Idiots For Homophobic Stupidity

    beltorak ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2015 @ 07:21am

    Re: Re: Responsibility

    Not so fast. It's like this. You have the right to blow the whistle to the public on crimes committed by the government, and you should take responsibility for the repercussions of that by spending 9 months in solitary confinement before being placed in prison for 35 years.

    at least I think that's what aglynn is trying to say....

  • On the post: The MPAA Isn't About Helping Hollywood. It's About Preserving Its Own Need To Exist.

    beltorak ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2015 @ 11:07am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    mitigate? sure.

    * installing a rootkit onto my machine for a copy i legally bought;

    * enforcing censorship "that has worked well in repressive regimes such as china, so it should work here";

    * curtailing the free expression of others without a whiff of due process;

    * preventing people from connecting through the most revolutionary communication medium since the mainstream adoption of the printing press (a la gutenberg)?

    fuck no.

    as said in the past, "your rights end where mine begin".

  • On the post: Did David Cameron Just Say He Wants To Undermine All Encryption In The UK?

    beltorak ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2015 @ 04:11pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Onion encryption

    Isn't that exactly what I did?

    Everyone knows file sharing sites create piracy, and encryption creates pedophiles.

  • On the post: Did David Cameron Just Say He Wants To Undermine All Encryption In The UK?

    beltorak ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2015 @ 11:30am

    Re: Re: Onion encryption

    Ubiquitous surveillance to be sure, but don't forget selective "enforcement", which is what happens when you try to pass a law that is widely broken but impossible to enforce fully.

    "Hi John, here to take my daughter out? Oh, I see you have an unapproved encryption app on your phone...."

  • On the post: New York's Top Prosecutor Says We Need New Laws To Fight iPhone/Android Encryption

    beltorak ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2015 @ 09:50am

    "and other such devices"....

    Hello Cory Doctorow. Once again we have an excellent example of how people really don't understand modern technology. I don't have a phone in my pocket, I have a general purpose computer that happens to have a phone application running on it. Does this mean that encrypted-by-default laptops would be illegal? how about desktops? What if your company issues you one? What if you take a pocket sized super-computer and plug it into a full size keyboard and screen? Car GPS computers? Car radios? Your home cable modem?

    We are increasingly surrounded by more and more of these "other such devices", pretty soon that's all we will have. Arguing that law enforcement has a right to snoop in every piece of technology I own without a warrant is abhorrent.

  • On the post: When We Call Criminal Acts 'Terrorism' We Destroy Our Rights And Sacrifice Our Principles

    beltorak ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2015 @ 02:07pm

    Re: Terrorism and Crime

    you are a bit mistaken there; by the very words the "war on drugs" and "war on crime" is an attempt to treat (and even to cast) crimes as wars; they are not a model of treating crimes as crimes.

  • On the post: Spanish Judge Says Use Of 'Extreme Security Measures' For Email Is Evidence Of Terrorism

    beltorak ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2015 @ 01:08pm

    Re: Re: This is why we should Encrypt All The Things

    this fight is arguably easier tho. it is harder for many people to justify sharing copies of movies that they didn't pay for; it is not nearly as hard as saying "i encrypt all my emails just because". sure, it might be weird, but it's not immoral by almost anyone's definition. one has a moral stigma whether or not everyone does it, like masturbation; the other doesn't.

    yet.

  • On the post: Court Asked Why There's No Expectation Of Privacy In Cell Location Data, But An Expectation Of Privacy In The Cellphone Itself

    beltorak ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2015 @ 12:02am

    Re: Re: It seems to me that ...

    I smell another word play buried in this line of thought. On the one hand we have "expect" as the assumed state of affairs (e.g.: I expect that it will be cold this winter - I consider it likely). On the other we have the definition that the government is using for "expect" as in what is demanded or required (e.g.: I expect this to be taken seriously - I demand no less).

    So we can both be right at the same time. I can expect privacy, and I cannot expect privacy.

    I reject your connotations, and substitute my own. I demand my privacy; unfortunately I assume that my government is violating it.

    - https://www.wordnik.com/words/expect

  • On the post: Search For Free Downloads Of 'The Interview' Shows How Pointless The MPAA's Anti-Google Strategy Really Is

    beltorak ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 09:59pm

    Re:

    Instead of making the content available via multiple platforms to inspire competition and better services they chose to block the content from people who are doing it right....

    It comes down to a fear that the new tech will cannibalize the existing revenue stream because it provides an alternate. Which is true, it would, in the short term. Even if it would generate massively more revenue in the long run, that doesn't do anything to pad this quarter's earnings statement. I'm pretty sure NetFlix wasn't profitable on day 1. So to satisfy the need to always grow profits in the short term, they will only look at things that immediately add more money to their pockets without shrinking revenue any where else (similar short term thinking was demonstrated by the Verizon FiOS buildout and stall circa 2008).

    a rep from the MPAA.... said [to me]: "When you buy a movie to watch in your living room, we're only selling you the right to see it in your living room. Sending the same show upstairs to watch in your bedroom has value, and if it has value, we should be able to charge money for it."

    - Cory Doctorow

  • On the post: Court Asked Why There's No Expectation Of Privacy In Cell Location Data, But An Expectation Of Privacy In The Cellphone Itself

    beltorak ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 09:29pm

    It seems to me that ...

    ... to say we have no expectation of privacy in the business records created by our phone usage is to say we have no expectation of privacy in the billing records created by our family doctor visits, or the administrative records from our library patronage.

  • On the post: Rep. Mike Rogers, On His Way Out Of Congress, Slams Obama For Not Launching Premature Cyberwar Against North Korea

    beltorak ( profile ), 22 Dec, 2014 @ 09:42am

    "Damnit! Why couldn't it have been kiddie porn? That would have sold the dumb Americans!"

    - Mike Roger's Internal Monologue

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