John Fenderson 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (17316)

• On the post: Court Says Bugs The FBI Planted Around California Courthouses Did Not Violate Anyone's Expectation Of Privacy

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 03:56pm

  Re: Interesting finding in a 2-party consent state

  That's a really excellent point.

• On the post: Court Says Bugs The FBI Planted Around California Courthouses Did Not Violate Anyone's Expectation Of Privacy

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 03:54pm

  Re:

  Ubiquitous tech that sees through walls -> no expectation of privacy in your home
  
  https://www.google.com/#q=see+through+wall+technology

• On the post: This Is What It Was Like To Take Part In The Failed Turkish Coup, In The Words Of The Plotters

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 12:51pm

  Re: Bellingcat, Elliot Higgins and NYT's are Propagandists

  "In short any analysis put forth by Elliot Higgins/Bellingcat should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism."
  
  In truth, any analysis put forth by anybody at all should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

• On the post: This Is What It Was Like To Take Part In The Failed Turkish Coup, In The Words Of The Plotters

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 10:49am

  Re:

  When Edrogen asked the people to turn out in the streets to impede the coup, they did so. That was why the coup failed.
  
  This indicates that a lot of people were not in favor of the coup, but it doesn't necessarily indicate that the people like Edrogen. They may have reasons to oppose the coup that are independent of their opinion of him.

• On the post: The Internet Of Things Is a Security And Privacy Dumpster Fire And The Check Is About To Come Due

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 10:40am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: People have already died

  The NTSC found that he was speeding at the time of the crash. He was going 74, not 90.
  
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-26/florida-driver-in-fatal-tesla-crash-using-autopilot-was-speeding
  
  The DVD thing is speculation. A portable DVD player was found in the car, leading to the speculation that he was watching it, but to the best of my knowledge there is no evidence indicating that it was actively being used at the time.
  
  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot-dvd-idUSKCN0ZH5BW
  
  However, the basic fact is that he was supposed to be actively driving the car and failed to notice and avoid a semitrailer in his path.
  
  The only way I can see that the Tesla system could be considered at fault is if it steered him into the truck when he was trying to avoid it -- but literally nobody is asserting that's what happened.

• On the post: Anti-Vax Film Distributors Threaten Critic And Autistic Rights Advocate With Defamation

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 10:31am

  Re: Re: Re: n Time Tested Vaccines

  From everything I could gather, this is a rather large distortion of the facts.
  
  The issue is that a county in Maryland passed a law requiring vaccinations of children, with the potential of up to 10 days in jail for failure to comply. This penalty has not been applied to anybody, and in fact the county itself has said that they haven't even figured out how they're going to enforce this law.
  
  Pretty much everyone agrees that this law is a bad idea, and it seems likely that it won't ever really take effect as the county is revisiting the thing.
  
  That appears to be the whole story. Nobody was being vaccinated "at gunpoint", and indeed nobody has (yet) even been forced to vaccinate under the law.

• On the post: Putin's Internet Trolls Are Stoking The Vitriolic Fire By Posing As Trump Supporters

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 10:09am

  Re: Re:

  Yes, this. I doubt if Russia would care about who the president is as much as it would care about increasing the amount of distrust between the US government and US citizenry.

• On the post: Federal Prosecutors Use All Writs Order To Compel Suspect To Unlock Phone With His Fingerprint

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 04:26pm

  Stop using fingerprints

  Using fingerprint scanning for authentication is a security disaster. Stop doing it.

• On the post: Anti-Vax Film Distributors Threaten Critic And Autistic Rights Advocate With Defamation

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 08:25am

  Re: Re: Re: Modern medicine and its usefulness to society at large

  "I'd wager that being vaccinated doesn't necessarily make you unable to be a carrier of the disease."
  
  I'm far from a medical expert, but I was intrigued by this idea. My 15 minutes of Googling (i.e., take this with a block of salt) has led me to suspect that there is merit to this, but it isn't a universal thing.
  
  It appears that for certain diseases, such as pertussis, a vaccinated person can still be a carrier. However, these are the exceptions, not the rule. Also, getting vaccinated doesn't seem to increase the chances of being a carrier.
  
  Are there any actual experts here who can chime in about this?

• On the post: Anti-Vax Film Distributors Threaten Critic And Autistic Rights Advocate With Defamation

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2016 @ 08:14am

  Re: Re: In 2016? Really?!

  "He believes that the "risk" isn't worth it, because the chance of a kid getting a "serious" illness like Polio is almost nonexistent"
  
  The irony is that the reason the the chances of getting something like Polio is so low (even for the unvaccinated now) is because of vaccinations.
  
  But Polio (and so on) still exist. If the vaccination rate falls low enough, the chances of getting those illnesses will dramatically increase.
  
  We live in a world that has been incredibly improved through vaccinations. So improved that most people have no experience what it was like before they existed. But if the anti-vaxxers have their way, everyone will be reminded in a pretty harsh way.

• On the post: The Internet Of Things Is a Security And Privacy Dumpster Fire And The Check Is About To Come Due

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 11:50am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  It looks to me like he's expressing admiration more than just finding common ground. And not just for Putin, but for a number of strong-arm authoritarians.

• On the post: The Internet Of Things Is a Security And Privacy Dumpster Fire And The Check Is About To Come Due

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 11:47am

  Re: Re: Re: People have already died

  Where am I blaming the victim? The guy was supposed to be driving the car, and failed to pay as much attention to doing that as was required. That's placing the blame in the correct place.
  
  Nobody ever claimed that the car could drive itself. In fact, Tesla specifically said otherwise -- even going so far as to say so in a warning screen you had to acknowledge before using the feature.
  
  "They were jokes, son, jokes"
  
  The jokes were exaggerated versions of the effect (like the old tale about the guy driving an RV and getting out of the driver's seat to make a sandwich or some nonsense).
  
  But there were actual cases that were less egregious than the jokes, where people overestimated what cruise control could actually do and paid less attention to driving the car as a result.

• On the post: The Internet Of Things Is a Security And Privacy Dumpster Fire And The Check Is About To Come Due

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 10:52am

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  I wasn't talking about his ideas about war. I was talking about the sorts of leaders he expresses admiration for.

• On the post: Declaring Cyberwar On Russia Because Of The DNC Hack Is A Bad Idea

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 10:49am

  Re: Re: Re: Cyberwar

  Yes, that's a huge factor as well. It's not even new -- weapons-makers stoking war to increase their sales was a problem even in ancient times.

• On the post: Declaring Cyberwar On Russia Because Of The DNC Hack Is A Bad Idea

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 10:16am

  Re: Cyberwar

  That's a pleasant utopian idea, but it ignores the entire point of any war: to take something of economic value from the enemy and/or to eliminate the ability of the enemy to do something that war-maker objects to.

• On the post: The Internet Of Things Is a Security And Privacy Dumpster Fire And The Check Is About To Come Due

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 09:25am

  Re: People have already died

  "No, it wasn't a security flaw, but much more serious."
  
  Yes, it was -- it was a human driver failing to actually drive.
  
  That was exactly the same sort of thing that happened when cruise control was first introduced and there were idiots who thought that it meant they could stop being drivers.

• On the post: The Internet Of Things Is a Security And Privacy Dumpster Fire And The Check Is About To Come Due

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 09:22am

  Re: Re:

  The signal I get from Trump's empathy toward Putin (and other strong-man "leaders") is that Trump's mentality is of the same sort.
  
  Game recognize game.

• On the post: John Oliver's Story On Campaign Music And Copyright Is… Wrong

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 09:11am

  Re: Dis 'em hell yeah

  "He could be trying to confuse those politicians and muddy up the water. Who can blame him for that."
  
  I don't think that was his intention (I prefer to think he was honestly misguided on this), but if it was then I would absolutely call him out on that kind of bullshit.
  
  You don't fight lies by telling more lies.

• On the post: [Updated] Wikileaks Leak Of Turkish Emails Reveals Private Details; Raises Ethical Questions; Or Not…

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 09:08am

  Re: Re: Or wikileaks is now pwned

  Wow, from the amount of emotion you're displaying, I have to wonder if one of your own emails wasn't in that batch.

• On the post: MPAA Front Group, Pretending To Represent Consumer Interests, Slams CloudFlare For Not Censoring The Internet

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2016 @ 07:37am

  Re: Re:

  "Stakeholder" itself has become one of those warning words that indicate you should be on the lookout for deception.

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