Groaker 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Senators Burr And Feinstein, Once Again, Threatening New Bill To Backdoor Encryption

    Groaker ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2016 @ 04:54pm

    Feinstein and the rest of the Senators just loved being spied on by the CIA. It made them feel just so important that the CIA would actually break the law to find out what the Senate was thinking about.

  • On the post: White House Apparently Not Necessarily In Agreement With FBI's Position On Encryption Backdoors

    Groaker ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2016 @ 11:52am

    re: Telling silence

    Without even considering the issue involved, I have fired people for lying the way that Comey does.

    And with consideration given to the Constitution destroying nature of Comey, I can only agree with @ThatOneGuy that silence is assent on an incredibly important issue. The President, and all those under him who speak to the press, have an obligation to make their position known. Failure to do so is rank cowardice.

  • On the post: What Should We Do About Linking To Sites That Block People Using Ad Blockers?

    Groaker ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2016 @ 10:41am

    Let me first say that I use an adblocker.

    I don't care if a site locks me out for using the adblocker. Most likely such a site has ads that are repugnant and obnoxious. There are more valuable sites than I can read in a day.

    Let them watch their traffic go down, and their revenue per view will follow. This is a market of abundance.

  • On the post: GCHQ Boss Says Tech Companies, Government Should Work Together To Give The Government What It Wants

    Groaker ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2016 @ 03:53am

    We know what governments want -- complete enslavement of 99%+ of the population.

  • On the post: Maryland Court Suppresses Evidence Gathered By Warrantless Stingray Use

    Groaker ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2016 @ 12:54pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Technology

    No, I never said cops weren't murderers from the beginning. I said that shooting people in the back, laughing about it, posing for pictures high fiving the corpse would have been unacceptable -- there is a difference. The cops needed to pretend that things were other than they were.

  • On the post: The FBI Claims Failure To Guess Password Will Make Data 'Permanently Inaccessible,' Which Isn't True

    Groaker ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2016 @ 08:20am

    Re: Thanks for this

    The FBI's forensic labs are so incompetent that nothing that comes out of them has any meaning. Their test results are often contradictory to known physical laws, and/or to the demonstrated evidence at hand.

  • On the post: Maryland Court Suppresses Evidence Gathered By Warrantless Stingray Use

    Groaker ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2016 @ 05:59am

    Re: Re: Re: Technology

    If it was just the Baltimore police, then it would be a solvable problem. But it is a pandemic meme. There was a time when a cop shooting a man in the back, claiming it was an incredible rush, and then posing for pictures high fiving the corpse, would have resulted in a massive outrage. Now it doesn't even make the news cycle. Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident, but rather an exemplar of "cop culture."

  • On the post: Maryland Court Suppresses Evidence Gathered By Warrantless Stingray Use

    Groaker ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2016 @ 04:49am

    Re: Re: Technology

    That is a very nice ideal. But it has been demonstrated repeatedly not to be effective. And the problems are getting worse, not better.

    Fifty years ago there were labor limits on how many wiretaps could be performed, and what information could be extracted from them. Today every electronic communication is swept up illegally. The head of the FBI prevaricates to Congress and SCOTUS, and brags about it. Refuses to answer questions to a Congressional inquirey committee, and gets away with it.

    Police shoot people in the back, destroy evidence of same, hide other evidence of same, and nothing happens.

    What makes you think that things are going to get better?

  • On the post: Apple Might Be Forced To Reveal & Share iPhone Unlocking Code Widely

    Groaker ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2016 @ 12:49pm

    And I thought slavery was over when the draft ended. Seems it is back again.

  • On the post: The FBI Claims Failure To Guess Password Will Make Data 'Permanently Inaccessible,' Which Isn't True

    Groaker ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2016 @ 06:37am

    True or not

    It would be better if the FBI didn't have so much information. There have been any number of spies in the FBI that have fed data to "allies" and enemies alike. How many are operating there now?

    Hansen was an exemplar. He should have been caught dozens of times over, but was let go repeatedly.

    What has the FBI done for us lately? Capture our personal phone calls? Lie about what it is doing? Lie about the risks that we face? Hype fear? Entrap morons and imbeciles as terrorists, when they don't know what the word means? Fail to substitute a dummy explosive in the first WTC bombing when it knew what was happening, and had the opportunity? Invent laboratory tests that a 9th grader has the knowledge to shred as unworkable? And ever so much more.

  • On the post: Maryland Court Suppresses Evidence Gathered By Warrantless Stingray Use

    Groaker ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2016 @ 04:10am

    Technology

    This is happy news, but rather useless. Technology moves more rapidly than the law, and the divergence is increasing exponentially.

    The only solution is to provide culpability when law enforcement steps over the line. No lawyer in their right mind would believe that an NDA signed with a private company provides a legal basis for committing perjury to a judge.

    Some heavy jail time in genpop would do wonders for these problems, but nothing else will.

  • On the post: Broadband Industry 'Studies' Claim Users Don't Need Privacy Protections Because ISPs Are Just Harmless, Innovative Sweethearts

    Groaker ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2016 @ 04:34pm

    The financial community either does not care, or is oblivious to cyber crime. The chip tech put being put into use has been broken for at least six years, and possibly ten in other parts of the world. Multiple techniques, from the trivial to the sophisticated are known.

    My banks security is a joke, the saving grace is that I am known by face. Every brokerage is a laughingstock that depends upon ignorance rather than safety.

  • On the post: Of Cockpits And Phone Encryption: Tradeoffs And Probabilities

    Groaker ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2016 @ 01:26pm

    Very few people have a concept of risk.

    Very few people have a concept of numbers as high as 14. To them the death of 14 in San Bernadino is infinitely more horrible than 14 murders on the streets of any city.

    Yet we expect these same people to deal with risks that are on the order of one in a billion or one in a trillion. As a scientist who used to work with incredibly large and small numbers, I can not truly grasp a billion. I will still count pennies by twos and threes like almost everybody else.

  • On the post: DOM Defense Department Seeks SUB Hackers, Tech Companies For Partnership Built On Distrust

    Groaker ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2016 @ 06:09am

    I seem to remember a War Game before the Iraq war, in which the commander of the forces playing Iraq won. The military decided his tactics were not "fair" because they were unexpected. And the win was given to the commander of the American forces.

    I can only assume that the same rules will apply.

  • On the post: French Parliament Votes For Law That Would Put Tech Execs In Jail If They Don't Decrypt Data

    Groaker ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2016 @ 07:18am

    Re: Why idiots keep getting voted in.

    In the '50s, if you didn't understand how TV, radio and the telephone worked, then at least you knew someone who did.

    Now knowledge in the sciences has become so vertical that it takes a lifetime to understand what is half way to the hemorrhaging edge. Fifty years ago I did investigatory work in Quantum Mechanics. Today I don't have a clue as to what is going on. Quantum entanglement, quantum computing, qubits, and more?

    My dad went to NYU for engineering. One of his chemistry labs was beating flour and water in a cloth sack to demonstrate the formation of gluten. I laughed at this. When my daughter was in 9th grade she was being taught concepts I didn't hit until grad school (minus the math.) An interesting question is just how much can the mind hold?

    People fear what they do not understand. The Salem witch trials are repeating. Italian scientists went to jail for "failing" to predict an earthquake. Now tech execs are going to jail. How long before they are dragged into the streets for lynching?

  • On the post: John Yoo's Legal Rationale: Warrantless Surveillance Is Basically A DUI Checkpoint, But For Terrorism

    Groaker ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2016 @ 02:56pm

    Yoo has been working too hard. He needs several years off in a North Korean prison.

  • On the post: San Bernardino DA Tells Judge To Side With FBI Over Apple Because iPhone May Have Mythical Cyber Weapon

    Groaker ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2016 @ 01:17pm

    The judge should consider holding commitment hearings for the DA.

  • On the post: 2002 Legal Rationale For Warrantless Surveillance: Because The President Can Do It, Shut Up

    Groaker ( profile ), 01 Mar, 2016 @ 03:37pm

    Yoo's rationale should win him a vacation

    For a trip to the Hague for a surprise war crimes trial.

  • On the post: Courts, DOJ: Using Tor Doesn't Give You A Greater Expectation Of Privacy

    Groaker ( profile ), 29 Feb, 2016 @ 01:16pm

    Re: Those who do not use Tor, have no rights

    Let us note that the FBI was only able to break into TOR by collecting all of the data that passed through nodes. Just like listening to all telephone conversations without a warrant. Yes they do it, but that does not make it Constitutional.

  • On the post: Leaked! Details Of The New Congressional Commission To Take On The Encryption Issue

    Groaker ( profile ), 29 Feb, 2016 @ 01:28pm

    The war against cryptography will be as effective as the war against drugs.

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