crazy_diamond 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (40)

• On the post: Babies & Bathwater: WSJ OpEd Suggests Banning Cryptocurrency Entirely To Stop Ransomware

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 26 May, 2021 @ 09:01pm

  The Op-Ed buried the lede. The scandal is not that a company's business was shut down by ransomeware whose bounty was paid in cryptocurrency. The scandal is that we allow private entities to control vital national infrastructure with minimal oversight. The trillion dollars plus that we spend on the DoD and "Intelligence Agencies" might even be justified if they were tasked with preventing cyber threats instead of dropping bombs on poor people. It shouldn't be a stretch to demand that those massively profiting by providing critical services should meet stringent (and expensive, profit-lowering) security standards.

  A serious attack on, say, the electric power grid in January, would make the number killed on 9/11 look like a rounding error, and we wasted trillions of dollars and killed an unimaginable number of people in our ineffectual response to that attack.

  I'm as wary of invasive, over-reaching government power as one can be, but we're not talking about social media here, something which has both the left and right wasting a lot of time finding problems for their regulatory solutions.

  But of course The Journal published this garbage because it has no problem with the status quo but big problem with anything that disrupts it and doesn't benefit the incumbents. And cryptocurrency must be stopped because the incumbents don't get a slice of every transaction.

• On the post: Baltimore Prosecutor Asks FCC To Go After Local News Broadcasters She Doesn't Like

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 10 May, 2021 @ 08:18pm

  Everything Mosby complains about in WBFF's coverage are techniques that police and prosecutors use all the time. Every day those agents put out statements which can be described by any of the adjectives she uses, and knowingly advanced even when demonstrably false. Think of all the law enforcement narratives which blow up when video shows no one could honestly give those narratives. Of course, the local news always parrots the authorities without question and I don't hear Mosby complaining about that.

• On the post: Fifth Circuit Strips Immunity From Cops Who Ended A Mental Health Crisis By Restraining A Man To Death

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 03 May, 2021 @ 09:03pm

  Re: Screw civil court, what about a murder charge?

  What about perjury, making false statements or obstruction of justice? These are all things prosecutors love to threaten us little people with if they even think we're lying, but never the cops even when there's video evidence.

• On the post: MyPillow CEO Sues Dominion For Violating His Company's Right To Say The Things About Election Fraud It Definitely Isn't Saying

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2021 @ 07:33pm

  Correct me if I'm wrong, which I probably am, but didn't the MyPillow account on Twitter get shut down because Lindell was posting the same B.S. about Dominion that got his personal account but down?

• On the post: FBI Flexes Rule 41 Powers, Uses Remote Access Technique To Neutralize Compromised Software All Over The US

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2021 @ 05:10pm

  I absolutely trust the FBI and/or any other government agency to break into systems for our own protection, even though they've shown no proof that everything they broke into were unpatched servers. They can't won't because that would expose "sources and "methods". This is just getting us used to more pervasive and invasive surveillance.

• On the post: Striking Cable Techs Build Their Own ISP In NYC

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2021 @ 03:53pm

  I'm so pissed that my Covid-25 pounds have cause me to outgrow my IBEW t-shirt. I just ordered another one. Union Yes.

• On the post: Lying NYPD Narcotics Detective Just Cost Prosecutors Nearly 100 Convictions

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2021 @ 09:20pm

  Please don't forget the culpability of certain members general public who are empaneled as jurors in cases where cops are defendants. One of the Big Myths we're taught about this country is that those who work in law infliction are above reproach without overwhelming evidence to the contrary -- they are really the only ones accorded the assumptions of innocence and honesty. When cops are actually charged with a crime, there's always a "person of faith" on the jury whose faith in the cops puts them above reproach, lest the cognitive dissonance become too great.

• On the post: Justice Thomas Goes Weird Again; Suggests Twitter Can't Moderate & Section 230 Violates 1st Amendment

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2021 @ 09:17pm

  Having read Thomas' opinions over the decades and noted his increasingly bizarre "reasoning", that in my non-medical opinion the Justice is suffering from late stage syphilis.

• On the post: Appeals Court Judge Attacks Fundamental Principle Of 1st Amendment Law, Because He Thinks The Media Likes Democrats Too Much

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2021 @ 08:39pm

  It's my opinion that there's a rampant, undisclosed epidemic of late-stage syphillis raging in our judiciary.

• On the post: Arizona's $24-Million Prison Management Software Is Keeping People Locked Up Past The End Of Their Sentences

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2021 @ 09:04pm

  This is obviously a bug which became a feature for Arizona "law enforcement". How many times do we have to be reminded that the purpose of policing in this country is to inflict maximum brutality and terror on the marginalized for no other reason than to have favored population feel "safe", and to keep the money flowing for cops. The affluent and otherwise powerful don't see this as a problem, because their fate will never depend on this system because they'll never see the inside of a cell.

• On the post: A Teenaged Tech CEO Tries To Sneak In After Curfew And Finds His Mom Waited Up For Him

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2021 @ 10:15pm

  Thank you. THANK YOU!! I haven't laughed this hard in a year, and I have solid, industry supported data to support that position.

• On the post: Texas Power, Phone Outages Again Highlight How Infrastructure Underinvestment Will Be Fatal Moving Forward

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2021 @ 08:09pm

  The "Texas Miracle" indeed.

• On the post: Without Twitter, Trump Is Left To Write Tweets He Would Have Said On Paper

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 08 Feb, 2021 @ 09:38pm

  I wonder which color crayons he's using on the Mar a Lago tablecloths

• On the post: Police Chief Demands Holes In Encryption Because Some Cops Decided To Participate In The DC Insurrection

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2021 @ 09:24am

  It's funny how cops always promote themselves as bloodhounds who are gifted in sniffing our crime, yet whose keen senses are somehow nullified when the criminals wear the same uniform, or even ride in the same car. Then, when one of their own is caught, they'll all say how "good" cops don't want those "bad apples" on the force. This leads to only one conclusion: that most cops are bad, since they keep voting for the noxious unions contracts which make it nearly impossible to get rid of the "bad apples". Compounding the problem is that these contracts allow even the rarely fired cop to head right down the road and get hired by another chapter of the gang since their disciplinary and personnel records can't be released.

• On the post: Sheriff's Office Asks Court To Prevent A Different Gov't Agency From Releasing Records Related To The US Marshals' Killing Of An Antifa Activist

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2020 @ 07:09pm

  All good

  Regardless of the outcome, I imagine there will be laws proposed in various legislatures declaring any killing by a Joint Wet Work Task Force immune from judicial review or records requests. This was hit, pure and simple.

• On the post: Stupid Cable TV Retrans Feuds And Blackouts Make Their Way To Streaming TV

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 10 Dec, 2020 @ 09:22pm

  The NBC affiliate in Denver has off the air on DirecTV for the last 2 weeks over the same kind of pissing match. People might shrug this off more easily if it hadn't resulted in having a Broncos game being completely blacked out unless you had Comcast. Wallow in your cesspool of greed, but don't fuck with people's football, especially during a pandemic when vicarious enjoyment is crucial.

• On the post: Zoom Gets An FTC Wrist Slap For Misleading Users On Security, Encryption

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2020 @ 10:20pm

  How much ya wanna bet

  1) DHS knew all about the holes in Zoom
  2) Was all about it because even if they couldn't hack Zoom data themselves, LE could intimidate Zoom into giving them whatever they want
  3) We'll never know about any of it due to parallel construction and other government fuckery

  Fines and "penalties" won't do anything against these beasts; if you use them, you're part of the problem.

• On the post: Tom Lehrer, Still Awesome, Releases Lyrics Into The Public Domain

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 23 Oct, 2020 @ 09:02pm

  Nostalgia

  Lehrer's songs were a sing-a-long staple on road trips in my family (remember when you could ride in the way-back of a station wagon without it being a crime?). We were thoroughly indoctrinated by his subversive music as well as that of Pete Seeger. Later, when my younger sister was old enough to participate, we mimicked the homosexual, equality-loving Communists who recorded "Free to be You and Me".

  Dad wasn't all too comfortable with it, but Mom showed us the truism of "when you got 'em by the balls, they will shut up and drive".

• On the post: Former Patent Litigator Becomes Federal Judge And Begins Advertising For Patent Trolls To Come To His Court (And They Have In Droves)

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2020 @ 10:18pm

  Are you FKM?

  I've learned he lingo. Corruption like no one has ever seen before. Trust nothing involved with a government agency tasked with the administration of "justice'.

• On the post: Inspector General: ICE Detention Facility Inspections Are A Joke

  

  crazy_diamond ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2018 @ 09:19pm

  Painful irony

  This story is even more craven when one considers the history of the U.S. government's treatment of Japanese Americans and the fact that Nakamoto is solely owned by one Jenni Nakamoto, a Japanese American. I guess profiting on cruelty and bigotry is OK if it's being perpetrated on a different ethnic group.