Ehud Gavron 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Error 402: Would You Pay A Tenth Of A Penny For This Article?

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2024 @ 04:47pm

    Mr Beats

    I typoed "Mr. Beast" :) Not this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwsewSMWIas

  • On the post: Error 402: Would You Pay A Tenth Of A Penny For This Article?

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2024 @ 04:46pm

    Spam showed this won't work

    When spam first started getting big, a proposed solution was a $0.01/email for every email sent. For normal people this doesn't amount to much, and if it does you could make it $0.001 or whatever. For spammers it costs a lot. The problem is the spammers can use intermediate (possibly infected, RATted, etc.) systems to send the email... so they pay nothing, but the victim machine owner gets a hefty fine. That's obvious not fair or workable. Just like an IP address is not a person, neither is a mail relay host a billable entity. Same problem here. Today most of the time when we browse our browser makes a direct connection to the server, we download the article and enjoy it. However, web proxies have been around since the days of Spyglass then IE and Netscape Navigator. BlackHats could then offer a set of infected web proxies. You pay the blackhat, you browse through these web proxies. Web proxy owners get the invoices. (Actually those responsible for the IP address of the web proxy would... and we already know that's not a billable entity.) Societal problems can't be solved by technical means. It's never worked. It won't work here. Content creators need to create content so compelling that it will be easy to monetize it. See e.g. Mr. Beats, Kim Kardashian, makers on Etsy, etc. If they make crap they'll earn crap. See e.g. Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, US News and World Distort, PragerU, etc.

  • On the post: My Comments To Attorney General Rob Bonta Regarding Common Sense Media’s Dangerous ‘Protect The Kids’ Ballot Initiative

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2024 @ 05:06pm

    Kids not in jeopardy

    The problem is not that social media causes some kids problems… So you dispute the research in the papers the author cited?
    Research has shown social media doesn't cause kid problems. The author cited no condlicting reports. Your passive aggressive question to the previous poster helps nobody. If you have sources that support a position you have, post them. Othewise, thanks so much for your rhetorical useless question. He who asserts must prove. Not "he who asserts must ask stupid questions about whether those who previously asserted things have proof." I dispute anything you say that has no backing or proof. Prove me wrong.

  • On the post: My Comments To Attorney General Rob Bonta Regarding Common Sense Media’s Dangerous ‘Protect The Kids’ Ballot Initiative

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2024 @ 01:39pm

    Words of wisdom

    Well said. I'm sure the ostriches in power will keep their head in the sand until this is made law. They get the cookies for passing stupid legislation, and double cookies when they later call out the commie Courts for dismantling this kid-saving law. Well said. Too bad our "representatives" don't want to either listen nor represent.

  • On the post: Blame All Around: Lawyers Bicker Over Who Is Responsible For Former Trump Fixer Michael Cohen Submitting AI Hallucinated Case Citations In Court

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2024 @ 02:19am

    Disbarment

    Cohen is an attorney. He got disbarred in New York but that doesn’t make him not be an attorney any more, just unable to practice law in New York.
    Everyone is an attorney. To be a lawyer, however, requires licensing, and he's permanently lost his license. He is not a lawyer in anywhere in the world right now, although he could certainly go through the process to try and correct that. The difference is that an attorney is someone who can represent anyone else. It could be as simple as representing yourself or having a POA or LPOA or HCPOA etc. to represent someone else in specific circumstances. A lawyer can represent someone else in front of a court, including entering filings on behalf of someone else. Michael Cohen's privilege to do this has been withdrawn. If an analogy will help, you are welcome to the following: You are welcome to drive on any private roadway with the property owner's permission. No driver license requirement on behalf of the government exists. On a public roadway you are required to have a license from the government to exercise the privilege of driving on a public roadway. If you move to another US state you may keep your original state license in some circumstances (state dependent unless you're AD military) or surrender it and get one from the new state in which you live. In all cases you're not allowed to hold more than one such license from more than one such jurisdiction. If you lose that license due to court action you can't just keep driving and/or apply for a different-state license. Your privilege to drive on public roadways has been revoked. Michael Cohen's license to act as a "lawyer" has been revoked. He's still able to help people with their POA stuff, drafting documents that don't require "practicing law", etc. ---not going to go into that wormhole of whether driving on public roadways is REALLY a privilege vs a right in 2024---

  • On the post: Blame All Around: Lawyers Bicker Over Who Is Responsible For Former Trump Fixer Michael Cohen Submitting AI Hallucinated Case Citations In Court

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2024 @ 02:43pm

    Who is responsible

    Cohen is responsible.
    Cohen is the movant and he is not a lawyer. Filings before the court are made by lawyers [pro se aside and not relevant in the instant action]. While --at times-- lawyers let their good buddies who are not licensed to practice law provide them with research in return for a discount, it is up to the lawyer that files with the court to ensure accuracy. What is Cohen responsible for? Well, he was convicted of criminal behavior and served some time. For sure, he's responsible for that. Is he responsible for using some so-called AI for research? As per his own words yes. Is he responsible for filing it with the court? Hell no. The lawyer who puts forth words for the court and signs it is the responsible party. No more, no less. I'm trying to keep this out of the "Cohen is a scumbag" or "Cohen helped a scumbag" or anything political... just about when you represent something to the court... whether as an officer of the court, a pro se, or even the janitor opining on record, you are the one responsible for those words... not whomever lied to you in the hallway and put them in your ear. E I've only been accused of UPL once. I had to get a lawyer. All matters were dismissed. Sometimes "having to get a lawyer" or "a lawyer who has a lawyer" just means someone wants another set of eyes, ears, and a mouth to help the avoid trouble they didn't create.

  • On the post: How Copyright Exceptionalism In France Risks Undermining The EU Legal System

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2024 @ 03:37am

    France crackdown

    I'm unable to locate anything in the media about a French crackdown against encryption, encrypted drives, linux encrypted drives, or Signal. Can you provide a link or two with more information about this, please? TIA

  • On the post: New Year’s Message: Moving Fast And Breaking Things Is The Opposite Of Tech Optimism

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2023 @ 02:33pm

    AC/DC

    Yes, I misspoke :) Generators generally generate direct current. Alternators, in the alternative, make alternating current ;-) It all hertz so very very much. (But thanks for catching that!) E

  • On the post: New Year’s Message: Moving Fast And Breaking Things Is The Opposite Of Tech Optimism

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2023 @ 12:52pm

    Nuclear plants spinning up

    Those nuclear powerplants appear to not be spinning up and adding their power to the grid…
    Admittedly I did work for a time at Los Alamos National Laboratory. See, I know this is complicated, Nuclear reactions involve the release of energized subatomic particles. They tend to heat up things, like water, which is then used to run through turbines which "spool" up (I know, you said spin, and the distinction is really only useful for fishermen, but hey, why have two different words if the meaning is not the same.) So the super-duper energy-filled thingies cause the water to get hot, and the wheels to go spooly-spooly, and they drive generators (that's the AC version of alternators) and so on. But what IN THE WILD WILD WORLD OF SPORTS does this have to do with China and Oceangate and Coal, Oil, and whatnot???

  • On the post: New Year’s Message: Moving Fast And Breaking Things Is The Opposite Of Tech Optimism

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2023 @ 11:22am

    Marc Andreesen blocked you

    Take the award with aplomb. The person with fingers in the ears saying "I can't hear you" loudly is not the solution. When I tune into a YT video it tells me how many people are watching. I use that to gauge if it's a "real" SpaceX launch of something "missoin" something. Sometimes I wish TD would tell me "900,000 other people are reading this." It wouldn't change much... if anything... but I'd know whether it's a topic of interest to the global audience. There are a lot of smart people on this planet. It's not a competition. Marc is not up there with you, Mike.

  • On the post: Law Enforcement Officers Crash SUV Into Local Bar, Arrest Bar Owner For Being Angry About It

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2023 @ 03:04pm

    In Lew

    in Lew of being fired
    Imagine if aynnglisheth was something you rote.

  • On the post: Law Enforcement Officers Crash SUV Into Local Bar, Arrest Bar Owner For Being Angry About It

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2023 @ 12:12pm

    AC asking AC questions

    Did you just throw words together?
    When you ACs talk to each other its plainly obvious it's one loser talking to himself. Asking yourself a question is equally pointless. If you're too lame to sign your name, fuck the hell off till you can up your game. Ehud

  • On the post: Law Enforcement Officers Crash SUV Into Local Bar, Arrest Bar Owner For Being Angry About It

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2023 @ 11:59am

    Standards

    Cops are the worst. Cops should be held to the same standards they want to hold others to. I'm not saying "civilians" because no matter how they pretend, cops are civilians. The people they should be protecting are as well. And then we have:

    That’s the sort of impulsive carelessness you’d expect to see displayed by a teen...
    Teens are pretty good drivers. It's a new experience. They have no complacency of "I've done this for twenty years and I know what I'm doing" and drive better and follow the law. Cops don't. If you're the type who doesn't come to a full stop, doesn't use your turn signals "because there's nobody behind me" or any other stupid excuses, YOU are the problem, not TEENs and not COPs. COPs are the worst. It's part of their culture. That "thin blue line" delineates assholes from the rest. Cops are on the asshole side. I have so many dashcam vids of cops running intersections code 1 later to exit that same intersection code 4 because it was convenient. Cops are the worst. Like the song says. Fuck the police. E

  • On the post: How Copyright Exceptionalism In France Risks Undermining The EU Legal System

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2023 @ 03:01pm

    Obi Wan is our only hope

    Our only hope is that the CJEU itself recognizes how monstrous this would be, and refuses to do the same.
    If that's our only hope we are well and truly ****ed. Imagine if Europe laws meant anything in the real world. Well, we have our Reps and our Dems. So we're well and truly ****ed.

  • On the post: Dumb, Telecom Industry Backed ‘Network Fees’ Drive Twitch Out Of Korea

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 08 Dec, 2023 @ 09:43am

    Refunds for downtime

    Probably. Big purchasers like that will often have a service level agreement (SLA) that specifies refunds for down time.
    One could only wish. Typical SLAs have specific limits and thresholds: 1. 99.9% (yes, that's e 9's, not the 5 9's they said in the brochure). If you do the math, 99.999% uptime means no more than 5 minutes downtime a year. 99.99% uptime means no more than 50 minutes downtime in a year. 99.9 - 500 minutes - 1 business day.
    1. Pro rata CREDIT (not refund and there's a difference explained below) for time from "OUTAGE START + REPORTED" to "OUTAGE CLAIMED RESOLVED." As you can imagine, on a timeline REPORTED to CLAIMED RESOLVED is significantly less than "START to OUTAGE RESOLVED."
    2. A pro-rata credit on a 99.99% SLA for a one hour outage is 10 minutes. That's 1/6th of an hour, 1/144 of a day, and less than 0.02% of a month. If your monthly bill is $5,000 (going rate for 10G transit) then you can get that whopping $10 sometime soon.
    3. Refunds are required to be issued in the next billing cycle unless the T&Cs say otherwise. You did read them, right? Because talking of SLAs without mentioning the 9's or the pro-rata suggests NOT. CREDITS can be issued anytime up until contract termination and are sometimes used to offset early termination liability (ETL). You can imagine that your 60 minutes of downtime when allowed 50 minutes of downtime means you can term early by 10 minutes with no penalty.
    In my former company we offered a 100.00% SLA. It required 3 physical (layer 1) circuits, 3 carriers (layer 2), and 3 IP networks (layer 3) and routing protocols (layer 4) to ensure full bidirectional connectivity. It was expensive, but nobody ever called to say "We're done!!" or "For every hour my chiropractic office is down I'm losing $100,000" or "babies will die." I've not seen that offered elsewhere. In various capacities and roles I've negotiated contracts and the key elements are: 1. SLA percentage of uptime 2. Removal of percentile scoring 3. Immediate refund or credit of a higher-tier amount, not the pro-rata 4. Documentation. I don't want to hear "try it now" or "we think we figured it out." Figure it out and fix it and then let's talk. Ehud

  • On the post: Dumb, Telecom Industry Backed ‘Network Fees’ Drive Twitch Out Of Korea

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2023 @ 05:15pm

    Re: Jesus fuck that’s incoherent

    If you want to go back to MFS and WCOM and then disclaim L3 was selling transit, you may want to look at original sources. Unfortunately history wasn't being stored like it is now so it takes more than a click on the G icon to get there. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Regional-Presence/AsiaPacific/SiteAssets/Pages/ITU-ASP-CoE-Training-on-/itu-asp-coe-te-session6_internetevolution.pdf I love it that your heroes had a meeting in 1998 -- a full five years after the MAEs and the CIX were functional and nobody thought any more about NSFnet but Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were amazed. 1998 wasn't the breakout year of anything.... except for this... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142134/ History is ALWAYS re-written by the victors. If you've come along a generation too late you have nothing to trust, but as you said "Jesus fuck that's incoherent." E

  • On the post: Dumb, Telecom Industry Backed ‘Network Fees’ Drive Twitch Out Of Korea

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2023 @ 03:21pm

    History is facts, not suspicions.

    Your whole argument seems suspect to me.
    Your suspicions do not change facts.
    In the mid 90’s Kewit (soon to spin of their telecom subsidiary as Level 3) didn’t offer IP products. Their infrastructure was all ATM at the time so an interconnection would have been by definition transit.
    That makes no sense whatsoever. Transit of IP traffic IS AN IP PRODUCT that they CLEARLY WERE SELLING.
    They didn’t announce until 98 that they would build out an IP network,
    Their public relations strategies and timing of announcements is not something of any relevance.
    and I’d be surprised if they had any fiber in use until 99.
    Your surprise or lack of education in the history is not something of relevance. All these things you said are entirely irrelevant except for the 1998 part. Whether layer 1 delivery was fiber or copper is irrelevant. If they used ATM or MPLS or whatever because TDM was just how things were... and... like the rest of your comment... irrelevant. Small-time Colorado company started a thing which has snowballed over more than two decades. That's a real thing. Next why don't you tell us all how you're "surprised" and "suspect" that Canter and Siegel didn't create spam. Or that Elon Musk didn't get bailed out by his PayPal cohorts to the tune of Tesla's current success. Really if you have nothing to say "I suspect" and "I'm surprised" could be better spent saying nothing. The commercial Internet has been around for a long time - 30 years if you would like a timeframe. During that time there have been various shifts in positions of thought. (Nothing as exciting as "suspicious surprises", but ok.) There is no more conceptualization of "THE backbone", "Tier-1 ISPs" etc. The same generalized concepts that went away means the difference between transit and peering and "network neutrality" is just a matter of definition... and contracts... and extortion. You want to defend Kewit or L3? Feel free. Their extortionist behavior started this... and it won't ever end.

  • On the post: Dumb, Telecom Industry Backed ‘Network Fees’ Drive Twitch Out Of Korea

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2023 @ 01:14pm

    This didn't start with AT&T and Google

    ...and it didn't start being called Net Neutrality. It was a mid 1990s issue where ONE COMPANY decided that they would DENY peering to ANOTHER COMPANY and require/force that company to BUY TRANSIT. Transit and peering are clear concepts to industry people, but to laypeople they are not. The words "net neutrality" became common over the following two decades (yeah, that long) to make it easier to understand. The bad guys: Level3. Hands down. History and facts are a reality that we live with. E So, if you read this far, surely you'd just dying to know what these words mean. TRANSIT: If you pay me, then I will take your bits and bytes and send them to the next point along the way to its destination. I will accept bits and bytes for your IP addresses and send them to you. You will pay for this. PEERING: You have a lot of traffic that MY customers want. You receive a lot of traffic that YOUR customers want. Also my customers want to send you traffic, and your customers want to send mine traffic. How about this... so long as it's a fairly even trade of bandwidth, we'll just connect this'a'here router port to that'a'there router port and we'll do some chingering with BGP[4] and ASNs and routing policies, and route registries and routing authorities (which are NOT authoritative) and we'll just make it all work hunky'dory'k? No need to write a check. We're just happy to work together. NET NEUTRALITY: It's whatever the legislative or regulatory bodies choose to invent it to be at the time they so choose. It's somewhere less expensive than transit, and somewhere more expensive for peering, and at the end of it all we the people pay more for the same thing. ISPs - provide Internet service and nothing else. TELCOs - provide telecommunication services (originally all TDM) CABLECOs - provide services using their own cable systems (now DOCSIS) Hope that helped.

  • On the post: Elon Musk’s Latest Round Of Bigoted Tweets Likely Cost ExTwitter $75 Million Over The Rest Of 2023

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2023 @ 06:33pm

    Hostile takeover

    Management. Ownership. Structure. Voting. You really should read up on "change of control". You have the right to speak free of government interference; it's enshrined in the US contitution. To be stupid is your choice entirely. Please stop making that choice.

    A hostile takeover is like any takeover – gain control of enough shares to take over control. A hostile takeover is simply one where management is unaware or opposed to the takeover. But that also means a hostile takeover uses the same mechanisms as any other takeover.
    No, none of those things are true. - no need to "gain control" (whatever you imagine that is). - simply (saying "simply" or "basically" is the mark of incompetence in explaining a process because one is a basic simpleton) - management is unaware -- irrelevant and not part of the procss - magagement is opposed -- depends on the charter. In some cases management may be opposed, in others not so. In any case not part of the process. A "hostile takeover" without mixing words into a failure of understanding is a beneficial change of ownership structure contrary to the desire of the existing one. There. Fixed that for you. Have a great weekend. If you've understood all the words I've used here, live free and breathe.

  • On the post: Elon Musk’s Latest Round Of Bigoted Tweets Likely Cost ExTwitter $75 Million Over The Rest Of 2023

    Ehud Gavron ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2023 @ 08:08pm

    "Shut up, self-loathing cracker!"

    I think what you meant to say is "I'm a racist. I'll be quiet now and stop attempting to bark out order like anyone follow them." Noted. You can sit back down now.

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