The article bears re-reading as you think naming a server (with an octothorpe or without) is a trademark issue. It does not. You think it's a First Amendment issue, which also it is not.
I have stuff on many could servers throughout the world and there's no trademark prohibiting from saying I use Amazon S3 as one of them. Nor can anyone restrict my commenting about the service name, its quality, or how much I love it (I do). That means it's not a 1AM topic either.
Can Nintendo do [their usual threat stuff]? Yes. Should we take it as a given and debate the minutae? NO!!! They have no trademark case, and no 1AM case. People are free to speak about it. Today at any rate.
Ehud
#Nintendo suck, its servers suck, no law violated by this line.
Several things are assumed-true which begs the questions below.
TL;DR Trademark requires specific items, and those who later comment on it and use undefined terms ("hashmark", "channel", "pound", "number sign") only add confusion. Nintendo takes this for granted and runs with it to the court. Don't YOU let them.
E
Long version:
Other than the obvious lawfare financial burden, what "big stick" does Nintendo have? Is there REALLY a criminal or major civil violation of US law [and if so perhaps that law needs amending]
Hashtag is modern day slang for a 7-bit ASCII string preceded by an octothorpe. You may take 0x23 and call it Julie or Andrew but there's nothing hash-browns nor pound-foolish nor "number sign" about it. It's a part of our alphabet like 'A' is A. You could say 'A' is a hash and that's as meaningless as the TikTok chowderheads pretending '#' is any number of words.
That pretense disallows trademark. The USPTO (I'm only talking about the US because I'm familiar with its laws on the topic) allows registration BUT it must be specific including fixation in a media, form, font, color, etc. An obscure reference doesn't cut it.
If an alien life form (hi Alf!!!) saw "hashmark taken" would they 'get it'? No. So it's not a tradmark violation.
Patents are not a part of this discussion. Neither are copyrights. That should remove DMCA and §230 from the discussion.
Don't let Nintendo take "our words" and use them to DEVELOP RIGHTS they don't have, aren't entitled to have, and do nothing more than censure our speech.
Since 2024 the regular price for the gold star membership is $65. It has no restriction.
This is no "deal."
Ehud
https://www.google.com/search?q=costco+membership+price&oq=costco+membership+price&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDUzOTZqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
If you want a router, eBay is full of them, starting at around $5+s/h. Sure, Wi-Fi 8 isn't quite there, but 802.11 is just fine with abgn.
Want to build your own? It takes longer to order MikroTik hardware (mainboard, radios) than to put them together to make a custom router. The hardest part is finding (or 3D-printing) a case. An RB9111 or the like is just bare bones and doesn't need a license from Carr.
SDR Wi-Fi: https://github.com/open-sdr/openwifi
“The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” -- John Gilmore
That’s been set aside as the court awaits the govenrment’s explanation for its actions
"Govenrment" --> "goverment".
It's a great writeup. I don't anything new to add that TD, TNR, NYT (sucks) and others haven't said for months.
Thad did suggest King Trump can't rule forever. Technically true given his health, but martial law in the US and the elimination of elections is coming. I will feel no joy in being right here, but senseless random "rationalized justification" killing of innocent people by armed thugs with qualified immunity and with the full post-facto support of their command... along with high seas piracy, foreign invasion and kidnapping.
Where does it end? Oh wait, that's rhetorical. I already suggested martial law. Don't forget to convice as a "seditionist" anyone who speaks about "unlawful orders."
And yet Republicrap congresscritters toe the line, fear "being primaried" and allow this.
We used to ask for half a decade "How COULD Hitler have been elected and done what he did?" The answer is before us in 2026.
Hi, I live in Arizona, and TDS is worse than you write. My opinion follows. Also it's no longer January 5th so maybe redo the "support us by Jan 5th" message... especially since §230 will be history shortly...
Arizona is a US state with varying degrees of support for any one person, like the current one.
Southern Arizona disassociates itself from northern Arizona, and the unofficial secession non-movement is called "Baja, Arizona." Google is your friend there.
Superior, Prescott, the 10+ Phoenix suburbs who pretend to be entities (Mesa, Goodyear, Chandler, Scottsdale, I'm already tired typing...) are strongholds of the Rebuplicrap party.
Jump to the northwest Arizona and you get Measles-Center or MAGA-Center or Pedophile-center. Kingman, Havasu, and the borders of Nevada or Utah suggest it's a different country.
Best 2026 wishes to all.
E
Mexico, as not a part of the United States pays no taxes to Texas... so they can't be last.
Texas is not in last place for contributing US states (or territories or minor islands). They appear to be 17th of 19 that contribute more to the Feds than they get.
https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-contribute-the-most-and-least-to-federal-revenue/
This is all mostly irrelevant to the topic here, because the discussion is about their unconstitutional laws, backing from the 5th circuit, and like their King they will push this as far up the chain as they can afford to -- their money isn't earned -- while private groups use donor funds to attempt to make a difference.
There's also the chilling effect of trying to challenge this law, knowing it may bankrupt your organization, and worse create a precedent later to be used by similar states or the Feds.
@MrWilson > using AI for anything official relating to charges or trials should lead to an automatic dismissal of charges
A government that uses its Depart of Justice to go after its "enemies", commits warm crimes, doesn't apply the law fairly equitably, and reguarly lies and refuses to provide transparency (how about that Epstein list) isn't to be expect to know what or when a dismissal should occur, let alone an automatic one, let alone for violating protocol or standards or even having any.
@Tim > Garbage in, garbage out.
That it is garbage isn't in question but that the LEO uses it as if it's mana from Heaven with no Earthly taste as good... is a current administration thing, lacks oversight, accountability, and transparency.
We don't expect "white-out" to fix our thinking, just remove typos. First-gen spellcheck did the same but it was so much better than white-out. Second-gen was grammar highlight which surely could detected insure vs ensure and affect vs effect but didn't. Third-gen is ChatpGPT.
It's not an intelligence, and pretending it is and using that word and creating two new alternate levels (AGI and SGI) pretends that where we are today we HAVE an intellilgence.
We do not. We have a third-gen spell and grammar checker 100% based on crap already published by others. It's like putting a line cook next to a Cordeon Blue and saying "turn out food like he does."
Everyone who insists on using the term AI because "it's too hard to call it an LLM or explain the difference" contributes to the overall stupidity of the users who expect an actual intelligence.
That includes lawyers, judges, websites, magazines, and police reports.
The problem has become so ingrained the assumption now is a begged question and thusly accepted and ignored.
The show you want to watch is Person of Interest. Res ipsa loquitur.
Also the person that went into Sam's apartment to find the cellphone - was he charged with trespass or is The Machine protecting him.
I hear sound and fury.
“The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” -John Gilmore
Give credit when you use someone else's work and words.
When they are effective at anything technical, wake me up. Cryptocurrency laundromats are a much higher priority and cost billion$ in damages than little Suzy's pink pony fetish.
Bought one. Have to activate by end of month. Can't recharge existing membership. Initial refusal of refund took five messages and back charge offer to get them to see reason.
They day it's for new members only. Read the description and see of you can find it.
But that will kick off yet another constitutional crisis...
We've all heard the myth of the boiling toad. It's not true, but it does serve a purpose.
YOU Techdirt writers and WE Techdirt readers have talked constitutional crisis since 2017.
AND YET it's always "coming soon." This goon has destroyed the federal government, our trade with the rest of the world, deported citizens to LDCs, claimed rights to own Greenland and Canada, has promoted IDIOTS to SECDEF, ODNI, AG, AUSAs, etc.
He has ignored court orders. His thugs are rapelling from UH60s to arrest US CITIZENS theoretically safe under the castle doctrine.
And yet...
You tell me a constitutional crisis is coming.
What WILL it take? Please elucidate a bright line so when it's crossed we don't just use our tennis shoes to wipe it out, step back 10 feet, and draw a new line in the sand.
Pussies. And bullies. Pick one.
Quantum and post-quantum have no meaning except as steps in a long staircase. It's like "nextgen" something. All good until it's obsolete.
One-way functions are not one-way functions. They seem to be that way because that's how Ron, Adi, and Len (sorry, Ken, off by one letter) developed modern day public key cryptography.
There is no mathematical proof that there exists a true one-way algorithm. Argue all you want, post PDF links all you want, but that's the reality of it. This means potentially one day some number of one-way algs will be reversed.
And on that day all previously hertofore thought unbreakable encryption will be nothing more than an obsolete formula. Your CVV2 will mean nothing, much as CVV (now called CVV1) means nothing, much as entering it at a POS terminal means nothing so now we just let NFC handle it.
And on that day HTTPS and SMTPS and SSL and LUKS and FDE and everything that relies on this "assumption" of one-way encoding not allowing decoding will fail.
There's an old joke about how Sicillians keep a secret. There's true encryption for you.
Also feel free to suggest anyone who disagrees with your some PDFs is an idiot. Many idiots have displaced many academicians. This too will happen.
Encryption is dead. We just don't know it yet.
Quick background: the $8 billion FCC Universal Service Fund (USF) applies a small surcharge on traditional phone lines
It's not $8B because the right wingnuts killed RHC and LifeLine. See USAC's report p.6 of:
https://www.usac.org/wp-content/uploads/about/documents/annual-reports/2024/2024_USAC_Annual_Report.pdf
It's not a "small surcharge" and it's not about whatever you think "traditional" phone lines are. You mean 1FBs? POTS? Whatever. USAC FUSF sucharges apply to CATV connections, T1s, T2s, T3s, E1s, etc. So long as it's used for interstate (and yes, a local loop used to service an interstate service counts) it gets the surcharge.
But hey:
It’s unfortunate because the USF really does need good faith reform.
Yes, the entire US Federal government's taxation and fee system DOES need reform. There's no good faith to be had from all the crooks scheming to get "their share" of the money.
But you did get it right about the fake organization and the 5th ckt. You malign the 6th ckt, but that's par for karl.
There youztabee these thin onion-skin papers that went on the choo-choo and delivered information. These "newsies" were good. By that I mean that people didn't say they radicalized anyone.
Then telegraph came around. Those same choo-choo tracks could send immediate messages. Some thought this was good... and some thought this might upend the newsies.
Then came radio. It was even better than telegraph. It had the potential for changing people's minds. It was evil.
Movies.
Television.
Video games.
Blame EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. The real problem is keeping the sheep down lest they learn to stop bleating and start revolting.
It's 2025. Video games have been around for over 50 years with no science showing a negative social effect. Same for television (80 years) or radio (100 years).
Negative effects arise from politicians. When they don't get their way they whine, bitch, mollycoddle, and engage in hystrionics (I say that in the medical way, not the mansplaining way).
What society needs is honest straight-forward people leading the way.
Holler when that's coming. Youztabee it was 'right 'round the 'orner.
All irrelevant shit. Blackhats WILL get your data if you're required to provide it. THAT is the point of the discussion. Read the damn article.
Specifically:
Couldn’t they just verify the government ID once, then take the key fields (name, birthday, address, license number, expiry date) then make a salted hash of the ID document?
Who is the "they" you trust with the original data? What is this "government ID" you think of?
What "license number" and since you couldn't be bothered to read my post above, I'll say "Why should my identification document ever expire or need to be renewed"???
Salted hash? Thanks 1975. Didn't realize you were calling. Encryption schemes are far beyond that now. FIPS 203 and 204 aren't quite as stupid as "hash with salt."
YOU ENTIRELY MISSED THE POINT. When you give away data it WILL get stolen. The key is not "how to encrypt it" for today, quantum, post-quantum, whatever quantum-next-gen is... but how NOT GO GIVE IT AWAY to ANYONE who will INVARIABLY lose it to the blackhats.
DO NOT TRUST because those you trust today are not those who will hack your data tomorrow.
Next up - submit (there's that word again) your government ID (what's that) to random elements to GET WHAT EXACTLY? The rights you already have.
Stand up for yourself, girl.
Comprehension from reading
The article bears re-reading as you think naming a server (with an octothorpe or without) is a trademark issue. It does not. You think it's a First Amendment issue, which also it is not. I have stuff on many could servers throughout the world and there's no trademark prohibiting from saying I use Amazon S3 as one of them. Nor can anyone restrict my commenting about the service name, its quality, or how much I love it (I do). That means it's not a 1AM topic either. Can Nintendo do [their usual threat stuff]? Yes. Should we take it as a given and debate the minutae? NO!!! They have no trademark case, and no 1AM case. People are free to speak about it. Today at any rate. Ehud #Nintendo suck, its servers suck, no law violated by this line.
Begged questions
Several things are assumed-true which begs the questions below. TL;DR Trademark requires specific items, and those who later comment on it and use undefined terms ("hashmark", "channel", "pound", "number sign") only add confusion. Nintendo takes this for granted and runs with it to the court. Don't YOU let them. E Long version:
- Other than the obvious lawfare financial burden, what "big stick" does Nintendo have? Is there REALLY a criminal or major civil violation of US law [and if so perhaps that law needs amending]
- Hashtag is modern day slang for a 7-bit ASCII string preceded by an octothorpe. You may take 0x23 and call it Julie or Andrew but there's nothing hash-browns nor pound-foolish nor "number sign" about it. It's a part of our alphabet like 'A' is A. You could say 'A' is a hash and that's as meaningless as the TikTok chowderheads pretending '#' is any number of words.
- That pretense disallows trademark. The USPTO (I'm only talking about the US because I'm familiar with its laws on the topic) allows registration BUT it must be specific including fixation in a media, form, font, color, etc. An obscure reference doesn't cut it.
If an alien life form (hi Alf!!!) saw "hashmark taken" would they 'get it'? No. So it's not a tradmark violation. Patents are not a part of this discussion. Neither are copyrights. That should remove DMCA and §230 from the discussion. Don't let Nintendo take "our words" and use them to DEVELOP RIGHTS they don't have, aren't entitled to have, and do nothing more than censure our speech.Regular price as a "special"?
Since 2024 the regular price for the gold star membership is $65. It has no restriction. This is no "deal." Ehud https://www.google.com/search?q=costco+membership+price&oq=costco+membership+price&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDUzOTZqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Baseball
Perhaps you're confusing Lucy with someone who pulled a baseball. In Charlie's case it was always a football.
NATIONAL SECURITY and routers not made by Trump's billionaire buddies.
If you want a router, eBay is full of them, starting at around $5+s/h. Sure, Wi-Fi 8 isn't quite there, but 802.11 is just fine with abgn. Want to build your own? It takes longer to order MikroTik hardware (mainboard, radios) than to put them together to make a custom router. The hardest part is finding (or 3D-printing) a case. An RB9111 or the like is just bare bones and doesn't need a license from Carr. SDR Wi-Fi: https://github.com/open-sdr/openwifi “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” -- John Gilmore
Typo
Arizona Legislators
Hi, I live in Arizona, and TDS is worse than you write. My opinion follows. Also it's no longer January 5th so maybe redo the "support us by Jan 5th" message... especially since §230 will be history shortly... Arizona is a US state with varying degrees of support for any one person, like the current one. Southern Arizona disassociates itself from northern Arizona, and the unofficial secession non-movement is called "Baja, Arizona." Google is your friend there. Superior, Prescott, the 10+ Phoenix suburbs who pretend to be entities (Mesa, Goodyear, Chandler, Scottsdale, I'm already tired typing...) are strongholds of the Rebuplicrap party. Jump to the northwest Arizona and you get Measles-Center or MAGA-Center or Pedophile-center. Kingman, Havasu, and the borders of Nevada or Utah suggest it's a different country. Best 2026 wishes to all. E
Filings
Deep link on RECAP (free): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70139392/zaid-v-executive-office-of-the-president/
Who ranks where
Mexico, as not a part of the United States pays no taxes to Texas... so they can't be last. Texas is not in last place for contributing US states (or territories or minor islands). They appear to be 17th of 19 that contribute more to the Feds than they get. https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-contribute-the-most-and-least-to-federal-revenue/ This is all mostly irrelevant to the topic here, because the discussion is about their unconstitutional laws, backing from the 5th circuit, and like their King they will push this as far up the chain as they can afford to -- their money isn't earned -- while private groups use donor funds to attempt to make a difference. There's also the chilling effect of trying to challenge this law, knowing it may bankrupt your organization, and worse create a precedent later to be used by similar states or the Feds.
Oh that ol Ron Johnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkwiQmGWK4c
@MrWilson > using AI for anything official relating to charges or trials should lead to an automatic dismissal of charges A government that uses its Depart of Justice to go after its "enemies", commits warm crimes, doesn't apply the law fairly equitably, and reguarly lies and refuses to provide transparency (how about that Epstein list) isn't to be expect to know what or when a dismissal should occur, let alone an automatic one, let alone for violating protocol or standards or even having any. @Tim > Garbage in, garbage out. That it is garbage isn't in question but that the LEO uses it as if it's mana from Heaven with no Earthly taste as good... is a current administration thing, lacks oversight, accountability, and transparency. We don't expect "white-out" to fix our thinking, just remove typos. First-gen spellcheck did the same but it was so much better than white-out. Second-gen was grammar highlight which surely could detected insure vs ensure and affect vs effect but didn't. Third-gen is ChatpGPT. It's not an intelligence, and pretending it is and using that word and creating two new alternate levels (AGI and SGI) pretends that where we are today we HAVE an intellilgence. We do not. We have a third-gen spell and grammar checker 100% based on crap already published by others. It's like putting a line cook next to a Cordeon Blue and saying "turn out food like he does." Everyone who insists on using the term AI because "it's too hard to call it an LLM or explain the difference" contributes to the overall stupidity of the users who expect an actual intelligence. That includes lawyers, judges, websites, magazines, and police reports. The problem has become so ingrained the assumption now is a begged question and thusly accepted and ignored.
Person of interest
The show you want to watch is Person of Interest. Res ipsa loquitur. Also the person that went into Sam's apartment to find the cellphone - was he charged with trespass or is The Machine protecting him. I hear sound and fury.
seppuku vs hari-kiri
HBO not being a samurai cannot commit seppuku. The proper term in this case is hari-kiri, a death without honor, which is appropriate for HBO.
For new customers only
Bought one. Have to activate by end of month. Can't recharge existing membership. Initial refusal of refund took five messages and back charge offer to get them to see reason. They day it's for new members only. Read the description and see of you can find it.
Constitutional crisis
One way TODAY is not one way FOREVER.
Quantum and post-quantum have no meaning except as steps in a long staircase. It's like "nextgen" something. All good until it's obsolete. One-way functions are not one-way functions. They seem to be that way because that's how Ron, Adi, and Len (sorry, Ken, off by one letter) developed modern day public key cryptography. There is no mathematical proof that there exists a true one-way algorithm. Argue all you want, post PDF links all you want, but that's the reality of it. This means potentially one day some number of one-way algs will be reversed. And on that day all previously hertofore thought unbreakable encryption will be nothing more than an obsolete formula. Your CVV2 will mean nothing, much as CVV (now called CVV1) means nothing, much as entering it at a POS terminal means nothing so now we just let NFC handle it. And on that day HTTPS and SMTPS and SSL and LUKS and FDE and everything that relies on this "assumption" of one-way encoding not allowing decoding will fail. There's an old joke about how Sicillians keep a secret. There's true encryption for you. Also feel free to suggest anyone who disagrees with your some PDFs is an idiot. Many idiots have displaced many academicians. This too will happen. Encryption is dead. We just don't know it yet.
USF fees
Youztabee
There youztabee these thin onion-skin papers that went on the choo-choo and delivered information. These "newsies" were good. By that I mean that people didn't say they radicalized anyone. Then telegraph came around. Those same choo-choo tracks could send immediate messages. Some thought this was good... and some thought this might upend the newsies. Then came radio. It was even better than telegraph. It had the potential for changing people's minds. It was evil. Movies. Television. Video games. Blame EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. The real problem is keeping the sheep down lest they learn to stop bleating and start revolting. It's 2025. Video games have been around for over 50 years with no science showing a negative social effect. Same for television (80 years) or radio (100 years). Negative effects arise from politicians. When they don't get their way they whine, bitch, mollycoddle, and engage in hystrionics (I say that in the medical way, not the mansplaining way). What society needs is honest straight-forward people leading the way. Holler when that's coming. Youztabee it was 'right 'round the 'orner.
"They"
All irrelevant shit. Blackhats WILL get your data if you're required to provide it. THAT is the point of the discussion. Read the damn article. Specifically:
Who is the "they" you trust with the original data? What is this "government ID" you think of? What "license number" and since you couldn't be bothered to read my post above, I'll say "Why should my identification document ever expire or need to be renewed"??? Salted hash? Thanks 1975. Didn't realize you were calling. Encryption schemes are far beyond that now. FIPS 203 and 204 aren't quite as stupid as "hash with salt." YOU ENTIRELY MISSED THE POINT. When you give away data it WILL get stolen. The key is not "how to encrypt it" for today, quantum, post-quantum, whatever quantum-next-gen is... but how NOT GO GIVE IT AWAY to ANYONE who will INVARIABLY lose it to the blackhats. DO NOT TRUST because those you trust today are not those who will hack your data tomorrow. Next up - submit (there's that word again) your government ID (what's that) to random elements to GET WHAT EXACTLY? The rights you already have. Stand up for yourself, girl.