John Fenderson 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (17316)

• On the post: Yes, The Democratic National Committee Flat Out Lied In Claiming No Donor Financial Info Leaked

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 23 Jul, 2016 @ 07:49am

  Re: Politicians not lying would be real news...

  You're a bit late. Your fear was realized quite a few election cycles ago.

• On the post: Former Homeland Security Advisor: Tech Companies Have The Burden Of Proving Harm Of Backdoored Encryption

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 08:08pm

  Re: Re: Homeland insecurity

  One of the reasons that the Clipper chip (which used SkipJack) was abandoned was that someone had broken it pretty much immediately.

• On the post: Administration's One-Year Experimentation With Reining In Police Militarization Apparently Over

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 04:02pm

  Re: Need

  I don't see how your example shows that the cops need military equipment. All it shows is that they used it.
  
  If they really truly do need military equipment, though, then the situation requires military personnel, not cops. Call in the national guard.

• On the post: Administration's One-Year Experimentation With Reining In Police Militarization Apparently Over

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 04:00pm

  Re: Perfect way to ensure more police deaths

  "treating non-police like the enemy"
  
  When you treat people as if they're your enemy, they tend to become your enemy.

• On the post: Wall Street Journal Reporter Hassled At LA Airport; Successfully Prevents DHS From Searching Her Phones

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 01:45pm

  Re: Re:

  I think the actual thing to do is to avoid carrying anything that you care about. If you must have a phone in transity, carry a burner phone just for that purpose and ship your phone (and laptop or other valuables of importance) ahead to your destination via a parcel service.

• On the post: Wall Street Journal Reporter Hassled At LA Airport; Successfully Prevents DHS From Searching Her Phones

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 11:21am

  Re: Re: Nice, but thin dodge

  I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the DHS actually did call the WSJ, and the WSJ said "no".

• On the post: Dear US Olympic Committee: Tweeting About The Olympics Is Never Trademark Infringement

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 04:07pm

  My fantasy

  Wouldn't it be fantastic if businesses across the nation started routinely tweeting things the USOC despises, but are nonetheless legal? So many businesses that the sheer numbers makes it impossible to for the USOC to intimidate them all?
  
  Perhaps using the hashtag #FUSOC

• On the post: Ed Snowden And Bunnie Huang Design Phone Case To Warn You If Your Phone Is Compromised

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 07:58am

  Re: Re: Re: Does anyone remember the phone charms that would flash if your phone was ringing?

  Why for?
  
  I have no interest in getting a patent of something I think shouldn't be patentable (like this), and even if an aspect of this is already patented, the nature of this particular project is such that I wouldn't be in violation of it anyway.

• On the post: Court Says Cop Calling 911 With Suspect's Phone To Obtain Owner Info Is Not A Search

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 07:55am

  Re: No sympathy

  It's not a question of having sympathy for the guy. I don't have any, anyhow.
  
  It's a question of protecting us all from law enforcement abuses.

• On the post: CenturyLink Claims Broadband Caps Improve The 'Internet Experience' And Empower Consumers

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 07:48am

  Re: Re: '

  This is not actually true. ISPs pay peering fees to other ISPs to route traffic through them. Those fees are in proportion to the amount of data they're routing.
  
  That said, the fees are relatively small, particularly since they're often balanced out by the traffic the ISPs route from other ISPs.

• On the post: Texas Governor Latest To Ask For A 'Hate Crime' Law That Covers Attacks On Cops

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 01:33pm

  Gaining respect is easy

  All you have to do is have a history of acting in a respectable manner. Also, there is no other method that works.

• On the post: CenturyLink Claims Broadband Caps Improve The 'Internet Experience' And Empower Consumers

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2016 @ 07:42am

  Why do they have to be insulting?

  OK, I get that they want to squeeze every last penny out of their customers that they can. They are a telecom company, after all.
  
  But why do they (and others) insist on insulting us all by telling us that it's for our own good? Do they really want to make themselves even more hated than they already are?

• On the post: Court Says Cop Calling 911 With Suspect's Phone To Obtain Owner Info Is Not A Search

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2016 @ 10:51pm

  Re: Re: This is nothing compared to 3D printing fingerprints

  And if a spoofer doesn't have an image of your fingerprint in a database somewhere, it's pretty easy to lift a usable print from something you've touched.
  
  In many past successful attacks, the print was lifted from the scanner itself.

• On the post: American Academy Of Pediatrics Claims Broad Consensus On Violent Media Effect That Doesn't Remotely Exist

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2016 @ 10:40pm

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

  I honestly can't tell if you're engaging pedantry or reductio ad absurdum here. On careful reading, I think it's a bit of both.
  
  Either way, you're clearly not trying to engage in an honest debate. You're using absurdly vague and broad definitions of "violence" in order to try to define your stance into correctness.

• On the post: Court Says Cop Calling 911 With Suspect's Phone To Obtain Owner Info Is Not A Search

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2016 @ 09:29pm

  Re: CFAA?

  ownER. Durrr.

• On the post: Ed Snowden And Bunnie Huang Design Phone Case To Warn You If Your Phone Is Compromised

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2016 @ 09:20pm

  Re: Re: Re: Does anyone remember the phone charms that would flash if your phone was ringing?

  About ten years ago, I did own a largish key fob device that would display the strength of Wifi signals it was near. I think I picked it up for about $10 at some bodega somewhere. But it would only react to Wifi, not cell or bluetooth.

• On the post: Court Says Cop Calling 911 With Suspect's Phone To Obtain Owner Info Is Not A Search

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2016 @ 09:15pm

  Re: Re: This is nothing compared to 3D printing fingerprints

  This.
  
  Fingerprints have never been, and will never be, remotely secure enough to rely on for authentication. All but the most sophisticated scanners (which are large and expensive) can be easily spoofed by people with average skills and materials.
  
  The sophisticated ones can be spoofed, too, but it takes more work and skill. Also, you're not going to have one of those on cell phones in the near future.

• On the post: Ed Snowden And Bunnie Huang Design Phone Case To Warn You If Your Phone Is Compromised

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2016 @ 03:50pm

  Re: Does anyone remember the phone charms that would flash if your phone was ringing?

  A hobby project I'm working on right now will react to cell phone, wifi, and bluetooth radio signals that are nearby (to allow an illuminated art piece to change its output according to events such as a cell phone ringing, etc.)
  
  It might be possible to scale this down to something that could fit in a key fob.
  
  Hmmm...

• On the post: Kickass Torrents Gets The Megaupload Treatment: Site Seized, Owner Arrested And Charged With Criminal Infringement

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2016 @ 03:12pm

  Re: Re:

  "ignoring requests to pull stuff led to the charge of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement."
  
  If that actually led to those charges, then I call foul. The repercussion should be that the site loses safe harbor protection from charges that were already in play, not that it would lead to new charges.

• On the post: Elon Musk's Master Plan Includes Turning Tesla Into An Autonomous Uber

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2016 @ 03:09pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  "Not something to be analyzed later by engineers."
  
  Every time an airplane disaster has happened, people didn't say "ban all the airplanes". Instead, we put a lot of effort into post-disaster engineering analysis to ensure that the same disaster won't happen again.
  
  That's the biggest reason why flying is the safest method of travel you can engage in.
  
  "In the world I like to live in this kind of mistake is career ending."
  
  In the world I like to live in, people would look at the larger picture rather than a single incident.
  
  If autonomous cars cut the car-related death rate even by 10%, then it wouldn't matter when the cars made the occasional mistake -- on the whole, we would still be better off.

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