Here's a thought. Treat it like all those food products with "may contain traces of nuts" warnings on the labels.
If Techdirt's servers decide the user is in NY then shove up a big ugly splash screen with "may contain addictive features such as [the complete list]" with three buttons: "close the window and leave the site", "ignore and continue to the site", and "inform yourself on this topic" which leads to links of the various excellent TechDirt articles debunking this nonsense.
Perhaps also include a "write your governor" button leading to an email window pre-addressed to "Dear Kathy" plus some sample paras that can be dragged-and-dropped. You could even add a veneer of "balance" by providing paras containing both pro (drawn from Kathy's own press releases) and con stances (the science). It'd be interesting to see which paras were chosen by NYers because, in my experience, they don't take kindly to BS.
At the ripe old age of >70 I'm long past being "carded". Even before this "age [assurance | verification | whatever] became the political moral panic du jour, I always voted with my feet. Paraphrasing Groucho Marks, I refuse to spend money with, or contribute to, any organisation that expects me to prove diddly squat just to walk in the door, whether that door is bricks-and-mortar or electronic. I'm used to "free" meaning that I'm the product but there's no way I'm paying for the privilege by forking over personal info for corporates to lose and otherwise abuse.
In any event, I don't have all that many social media accounts. Never been on UglyMugBook (couldn't stand the owner). Decamped Twitter the day it came over all toXic. Never seen the point of TikTok (or other "shorts") and don't give so much as a particle of nevermind re the political-cum-Sinophobic piddle about who owns it. If Mastodon, Bluesky, Discord or even this august publication start carding me, so be it. Account abandoned. Kiss my ring. No regrets.
The best I can hope for is either someone with the means and nous challenging the stupid laws and them being found unconstitutional, or so many people refusing to be carded and abandoning their accounts that the Big End of Town starts screaming at the nitwit pollies who came up with this puerile twaddle.
That all said, there is one situation where I might be prepared to play the game. If there was a government app/site where I could mint one time tokens which did no more than confirm "this token entitles the bearer to claim s/he is over [age] years of age" then that might work. No names. No addresses. No dates of birth or any other personally identifying information. If parents want to mint tokens for their kids then I reckon that's a parental right (anathema to the control freaks who want to impose their weird and morally suspect ideas on everyone else). The one-time nature would prevent sharing and cross-site tracking. It would not interfere with the right to speak either under your own name or anonymously. All the well-established nom-de-whatevers would be unaffected (eg S. J. Rozan can still write as Sam Cabot), and neither would the right to lurk (to read/watch and be informed without needing to speak) be compromised.
Anyone care to take bets on the likelihood of something sensible happening?
This story made my day, week and year. Most days it's nothing but woe and despair as far as the eye can see on the news horizon. A bully getting it shoved where the sun doesn't shine reminds you that there are still a few good people around.
I can't escape the impression that I'm seeing a fair bit of actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth throughout this saga. Would it not be ironic if "Times v Mamdani" became the counterpoint for "Times v Sullivan"?
I've been a Mac person since 1987. I'm not such a fan that feel any need to rush out and buy the latest product but it's fair to say that the next whatever is more likely to be from Apple than any other manufacturer.
However, I have never been a fan of the App Store 30%. I've always seem it as something outrageous that Apple decided to do simply because it could and where the iPhone was the perfect "lock down" vehicle; and which they would love to extend to the Mac.
So, for me, the fact that Apple just got a serious whack from the courts is something that should have happened 20 years ago, had regulators not been asleep at the switch and foreseen the anti-competitive nature of the whole plan.
Ultimately, I hope Apple is (metaphorically) hung, drawn and quartered, with a serious message being sent to the entire tech sector that consumer choice must be preeminent. I've also long been of the opinion that many corporate execs park their consciences at the door when they come to work and fully expect to hide behind the corporate shield, and that the only way to deal with this problem is to haul them out of their offices and throw them in the pokey. Incarcerate one, educate a thousand!
I think you're being unfair to the judge, Mike.
I can hear the withering sarcasm in the printed version of the judge's remarks. It comes through very clearly.
Citing the Surgeon General with approval for topic X (because it suits your political agenda) while ignoring the Surgeon General on topic Y (because it doesn't suit your political agenda) is the kind of thing that even has small children yelling "hey, you can't have it both ways" at their parents when their eagle eyes detect inconsistency and hypocrisy.
I read the judge as saying, "well, if you want to cite the Surgeon General on a moral panic about under 16s then please first agree with the Surgeon General that COVID was and is serious, and that masks were and are an effective method for reducing transmission. If you want to have it both ways then you can eff right off."
Leaving stuff that would be in plain view if you didn't have tinted windows is just as dumb as assuming tinted windows are an effective barrier.
Like the advice to drivers of cars towing trailers, "cover your load". Heck, even a blanket would have done the job.
I'm afraid this is one of those (rare) TechDirt stories where I find myself thinking the cops and courts got this one right.
I have noticed the phrase "if Congress just does its job" a number of times over recent weeks. And not just here on TechDirt.
But what can Congress actually do at this point? Even if those on the hill agreed to pass new laws designed to tie Musk's hands, there are no guarantees that Trump wouldn't just veto the laws. If you assume Trump would sign new laws or that Congress could muster the numbers for an override, then there's the problem of enforcement and that would need the DoJ to resume normal service rather than misleading the courts. Then, assuming courts made decisions enforcing the new laws, there are no guarantees that Musk and co wouldn't continue ignoring any laws they don't like. But even if we assume new laws could get on the books and be obeyed, that all takes a huge amount of time when everything is being wrecked on an hourly basis.
The only other thing I can think of that Congress could actually do would be a "nuclear option" of not passing appropriation bills and starving the beast. That kind of strategy takes time to plan and a willingness to strike at the opportune moment.
If there are other things that Congress can actually do that would have actual teeth and stop what's going on, right now, it might be better to actually point out what strategies might work, explicitly, because, judging by the last couple of months, it sure as heck seems like Comgresscritters have no ideas either.
You might well be onto something there. After all, unless I missed it, nobody has come out since the most recent election to assert that Dominion Voting Systems or Smartmatic machines were rigged, hacked, whatever. That was all private prosecution. It seems that even the wackiest conspiracy-theory-prone nut-jobs' heads can be reached via their wallets.
I hope it succeeds.
Assuming this money did come from Meta and not Zuck's considerable personal funds, isn't this the kind of scenario where Meta shareholders could mount a class action against Zuck and the board? It'd be interesting seeing "protection" being justified in court as a legitimate business expense. Still, maybe all Meta's shareholders have MAGA hats in their closets and secretly approve.
I suppose it depends on your definition of weaponisation.
Most laws aimed at corporate behaviour/accountability are a kind of performance art. The legislators pretend they're tough. The corporates pretend they'll follow the law. It's all designed to fool the rest of us into believing it will work.
Corporates then set about undermining such regulators as exist ("regulatory capture") and legislators routinely deny the regulator the necessary funds to operate properly. And that's all well before we get to questions of corrupt behaviour like regulators doing deals with miscreant corporates because they're eyeing better-paying jobs, or chaps phoning chaps behind the scenes to arrange mere slaps on the wrist ("cost of doing business")..
It's really only when people like noyb come along that we make much progress. Their "weaponisation" (as I see it) is drawing public attention to the whole farcical "performance" in an attempt to shame (or, in some cases, force) the regulators into actually applying the law. I really can't think of a better term than "weaponisation" for their activities. Do you have a suggestion?
If regulators always acted against corporate misbehaviour with the same application and diligence as applies to, say, speeding fines and demerit points, the world would be a much better place.
Perhaps the USPTO has observed intellectual property bullying carried out by the NHL (eg strikes for YouTubers running fanzines) and is holding them to a higher standard.
That'd be a great policy - first TM granted on the basis we assume you're a reasonable person/organisation - but if you use it to fuck around, then you're gonna find out when you come asking for the next TM.
And thus the Streisand Effect kicks in. More people will see the cartoon now than would ever have seen it had the silly man not tried to suppress it. It will probably have the distinction of being taught in universities and may we'll come to occupy a place of honor in the Smithsonian.
Well, they've done a fantastic job of selling it then. The sole take-home message I've received each time they've tried to inveigle me into subscribing is that it would be ad-free. Almost as stellar a job as Apple has done with thus far failing to convince me that AppleTV+ offers any more than fourth fifths of diddly-squat. Had Prime for the shipping but that went beyond the enshittification line and got cancelled. I'm so over being milked. The answer is no.
I'm puzzled. I'm not a YouTube "subscriber" (in the sense of paying them any money) but I'm a "watcher" (in the sense of using their app and having an account that I sign into, and numerous channels that I "subscribe" to). Everything I watch on YouTube is content that is produced by people who do it all themselves and just upload the finished work to YouTube. As far as I can see, other than paying those content creators some fraction of revenue earned from ads, Google has zero costs of production. And, for that revenue fraction, as far as I can see Google sets the terms on a take it or leave it basis. There would seem to be no way for content creators to pass on "increasing costs of production" to Google so what the actual fuck are they talking about?
Feat?
I agree with @btr1701 - I think this might be one area where Australian consumers might have better protection. Down here you would just say "I do not authorise you to charge the amount to my credit card" and walk out the door, at which point any charge becomes "unauthorised" and a raft of consumer protections kick in, starting with you not having to pay a single cent while the dispute is sorted out, and likely ending with Hertz having to pay both hefty fines and chargeback fees. If the situation really is as reported here, Hertz would be on a hiding to nothing.
That doesn't stop me from being gob-smacked by the distance travelled. Maybe this dude had a previous bad experience with Hertz and placed the car on a dyno just to prove a point.
It's been a good 20 years since I've had to rent a car but, back then, Hertz was my go-to company. Never any problems at either end of the rental process. Just worked. Sad to see how far the mighty can fall down Enshittification Ravine.
“The reboot timer is not tied to any network or charging functions and only tied to inactivity of the device since last lock [sic],”
not tied to any network activity
As I interpret this and other articles on the topic, the only real hope that someone who doesn't know the passcode has (whether it's an investigator or a criminal) is to obtain a phone in an unlocked state and keep it that way until exfiltration is complete.
So, grabbing a phone while someone is using it, or being in a position to compel biometrics if the phone is in AFU state so it can be unlocked would seem to be about it. If it's locked but in AFU then you have to hope your "cracking toolkit" will work before the phone reboots into BFU state. No more hanging onto a phone you can't currently crack until an exploit is developed.
"This means iPhones running the latest iOS version will need to be treated like time bombs by investigators. The clock will start running the moment they remove the phones from the networks they use."
Hasn't the article just been at pains to explain that the timed reboot has nothing to do with data commmunications?
Would it not be more correct to say "The clock will start running the moment they seize a phone"?
May contain nutjobs
Here's a thought. Treat it like all those food products with "may contain traces of nuts" warnings on the labels. If Techdirt's servers decide the user is in NY then shove up a big ugly splash screen with "may contain addictive features such as [the complete list]" with three buttons: "close the window and leave the site", "ignore and continue to the site", and "inform yourself on this topic" which leads to links of the various excellent TechDirt articles debunking this nonsense. Perhaps also include a "write your governor" button leading to an email window pre-addressed to "Dear Kathy" plus some sample paras that can be dragged-and-dropped. You could even add a veneer of "balance" by providing paras containing both pro (drawn from Kathy's own press releases) and con stances (the science). It'd be interesting to see which paras were chosen by NYers because, in my experience, they don't take kindly to BS.
Two Washingtons, no waiting
So, in your grand rationalisation to dispense with hot spares, which Washington should go to the junk pile?
At the ripe old age of >70 I'm long past being "carded". Even before this "age [assurance | verification | whatever] became the political moral panic du jour, I always voted with my feet. Paraphrasing Groucho Marks, I refuse to spend money with, or contribute to, any organisation that expects me to prove diddly squat just to walk in the door, whether that door is bricks-and-mortar or electronic. I'm used to "free" meaning that I'm the product but there's no way I'm paying for the privilege by forking over personal info for corporates to lose and otherwise abuse. In any event, I don't have all that many social media accounts. Never been on UglyMugBook (couldn't stand the owner). Decamped Twitter the day it came over all toXic. Never seen the point of TikTok (or other "shorts") and don't give so much as a particle of nevermind re the political-cum-Sinophobic piddle about who owns it. If Mastodon, Bluesky, Discord or even this august publication start carding me, so be it. Account abandoned. Kiss my ring. No regrets. The best I can hope for is either someone with the means and nous challenging the stupid laws and them being found unconstitutional, or so many people refusing to be carded and abandoning their accounts that the Big End of Town starts screaming at the nitwit pollies who came up with this puerile twaddle. That all said, there is one situation where I might be prepared to play the game. If there was a government app/site where I could mint one time tokens which did no more than confirm "this token entitles the bearer to claim s/he is over [age] years of age" then that might work. No names. No addresses. No dates of birth or any other personally identifying information. If parents want to mint tokens for their kids then I reckon that's a parental right (anathema to the control freaks who want to impose their weird and morally suspect ideas on everyone else). The one-time nature would prevent sharing and cross-site tracking. It would not interfere with the right to speak either under your own name or anonymously. All the well-established nom-de-whatevers would be unaffected (eg S. J. Rozan can still write as Sam Cabot), and neither would the right to lurk (to read/watch and be informed without needing to speak) be compromised. Anyone care to take bets on the likelihood of something sensible happening?
Bliss
This story made my day, week and year. Most days it's nothing but woe and despair as far as the eye can see on the news horizon. A bully getting it shoved where the sun doesn't shine reminds you that there are still a few good people around.
I can't escape the impression that I'm seeing a fair bit of actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth throughout this saga. Would it not be ironic if "Times v Mamdani" became the counterpoint for "Times v Sullivan"?
I am an Apple fan boy
I've been a Mac person since 1987. I'm not such a fan that feel any need to rush out and buy the latest product but it's fair to say that the next whatever is more likely to be from Apple than any other manufacturer. However, I have never been a fan of the App Store 30%. I've always seem it as something outrageous that Apple decided to do simply because it could and where the iPhone was the perfect "lock down" vehicle; and which they would love to extend to the Mac. So, for me, the fact that Apple just got a serious whack from the courts is something that should have happened 20 years ago, had regulators not been asleep at the switch and foreseen the anti-competitive nature of the whole plan. Ultimately, I hope Apple is (metaphorically) hung, drawn and quartered, with a serious message being sent to the entire tech sector that consumer choice must be preeminent. I've also long been of the opinion that many corporate execs park their consciences at the door when they come to work and fully expect to hide behind the corporate shield, and that the only way to deal with this problem is to haul them out of their offices and throw them in the pokey. Incarcerate one, educate a thousand!
Sarcasm flies over some people's heads
I think you're being unfair to the judge, Mike. I can hear the withering sarcasm in the printed version of the judge's remarks. It comes through very clearly. Citing the Surgeon General with approval for topic X (because it suits your political agenda) while ignoring the Surgeon General on topic Y (because it doesn't suit your political agenda) is the kind of thing that even has small children yelling "hey, you can't have it both ways" at their parents when their eagle eyes detect inconsistency and hypocrisy. I read the judge as saying, "well, if you want to cite the Surgeon General on a moral panic about under 16s then please first agree with the Surgeon General that COVID was and is serious, and that masks were and are an effective method for reducing transmission. If you want to have it both ways then you can eff right off."
And the moral of this story is
Leaving stuff that would be in plain view if you didn't have tinted windows is just as dumb as assuming tinted windows are an effective barrier. Like the advice to drivers of cars towing trailers, "cover your load". Heck, even a blanket would have done the job. I'm afraid this is one of those (rare) TechDirt stories where I find myself thinking the cops and courts got this one right.
Doing its job
I have noticed the phrase "if Congress just does its job" a number of times over recent weeks. And not just here on TechDirt. But what can Congress actually do at this point? Even if those on the hill agreed to pass new laws designed to tie Musk's hands, there are no guarantees that Trump wouldn't just veto the laws. If you assume Trump would sign new laws or that Congress could muster the numbers for an override, then there's the problem of enforcement and that would need the DoJ to resume normal service rather than misleading the courts. Then, assuming courts made decisions enforcing the new laws, there are no guarantees that Musk and co wouldn't continue ignoring any laws they don't like. But even if we assume new laws could get on the books and be obeyed, that all takes a huge amount of time when everything is being wrecked on an hourly basis. The only other thing I can think of that Congress could actually do would be a "nuclear option" of not passing appropriation bills and starving the beast. That kind of strategy takes time to plan and a willingness to strike at the opportune moment. If there are other things that Congress can actually do that would have actual teeth and stop what's going on, right now, it might be better to actually point out what strategies might work, explicitly, because, judging by the last couple of months, it sure as heck seems like Comgresscritters have no ideas either.
You might well be onto something there. After all, unless I missed it, nobody has come out since the most recent election to assert that Dominion Voting Systems or Smartmatic machines were rigged, hacked, whatever. That was all private prosecution. It seems that even the wackiest conspiracy-theory-prone nut-jobs' heads can be reached via their wallets. I hope it succeeds.
Assuming this money did come from Meta and not Zuck's considerable personal funds, isn't this the kind of scenario where Meta shareholders could mount a class action against Zuck and the board? It'd be interesting seeing "protection" being justified in court as a legitimate business expense. Still, maybe all Meta's shareholders have MAGA hats in their closets and secretly approve.
I suppose it depends on your definition of weaponisation. Most laws aimed at corporate behaviour/accountability are a kind of performance art. The legislators pretend they're tough. The corporates pretend they'll follow the law. It's all designed to fool the rest of us into believing it will work. Corporates then set about undermining such regulators as exist ("regulatory capture") and legislators routinely deny the regulator the necessary funds to operate properly. And that's all well before we get to questions of corrupt behaviour like regulators doing deals with miscreant corporates because they're eyeing better-paying jobs, or chaps phoning chaps behind the scenes to arrange mere slaps on the wrist ("cost of doing business").. It's really only when people like noyb come along that we make much progress. Their "weaponisation" (as I see it) is drawing public attention to the whole farcical "performance" in an attempt to shame (or, in some cases, force) the regulators into actually applying the law. I really can't think of a better term than "weaponisation" for their activities. Do you have a suggestion? If regulators always acted against corporate misbehaviour with the same application and diligence as applies to, say, speeding fines and demerit points, the world would be a much better place.
Petard + hoist
Perhaps the USPTO has observed intellectual property bullying carried out by the NHL (eg strikes for YouTubers running fanzines) and is holding them to a higher standard. That'd be a great policy - first TM granted on the basis we assume you're a reasonable person/organisation - but if you use it to fuck around, then you're gonna find out when you come asking for the next TM.
Shoulda listened to Babra
And thus the Streisand Effect kicks in. More people will see the cartoon now than would ever have seen it had the silly man not tried to suppress it. It will probably have the distinction of being taught in universities and may we'll come to occupy a place of honor in the Smithsonian.
Well, they've done a fantastic job of selling it then. The sole take-home message I've received each time they've tried to inveigle me into subscribing is that it would be ad-free. Almost as stellar a job as Apple has done with thus far failing to convince me that AppleTV+ offers any more than fourth fifths of diddly-squat. Had Prime for the shipping but that went beyond the enshittification line and got cancelled. I'm so over being milked. The answer is no.
What content?
I'm puzzled. I'm not a YouTube "subscriber" (in the sense of paying them any money) but I'm a "watcher" (in the sense of using their app and having an account that I sign into, and numerous channels that I "subscribe" to). Everything I watch on YouTube is content that is produced by people who do it all themselves and just upload the finished work to YouTube. As far as I can see, other than paying those content creators some fraction of revenue earned from ads, Google has zero costs of production. And, for that revenue fraction, as far as I can see Google sets the terms on a take it or leave it basis. There would seem to be no way for content creators to pass on "increasing costs of production" to Google so what the actual fuck are they talking about?
Homonyms
Read it again
Repeating the mistake?