K`Tetch 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Marvin Gaye Family Not Done With Pharrell Just Yet: Bring Him Back To Court Claiming Perjury

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2019 @ 03:59pm

    Did they hear it on the grapevine?
    "how much money can they make thine?"

    oh, I'm just about to lose my mind....

  • On the post: Defense Department To Congress: 'No, Wait, Encryption Is Actually Good; Don't Break It'

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2019 @ 12:05pm

    earlier this year, I moderated a panel with AccessNow's (now Silkicon Flatiron's) Amie Stepanovich, and EFF General Counsel Kurt Opsahl on this topic (although looking at it working from Australia (at the time of the panel submission, they were the only one although a week or two before the panel was held, Barr came out in favor)
    You can see it here
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI3uEATDxIk

    And yes, Strong Encryption is good. One of the other panels is hosted by a friend of mine, Elonka Dunin, and she has cryptography as a hobby. And by Hobby I mean 'she's writing a book on it, has social engineered her way into CIA HQ to see the Kryptos statue in the past, and filmed a documentary on it earlier this year'. She has a list of other encryptions, still not broken today - Beale, Elgar, voynich Manuscript, and of course, Kryptos. (for those that don't know, Kryptos is a sculpture in the grounds of the CIA HQ put there in 1991, and has 4 codes on it. 3 have been broken, the 4th hasn't. The CIA and NSA have been working on it (in competition) for almost 30 years now, even with those who made it dropping clues.
    Video here
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Mb74yGbX4

    Encryption can be hard to break, unless you know there's a key that's always going to work, so you can attack that key. After all, why attack a key that can only unlock that one thing, when you can go for a key that unlocks that thing AND everything else.
    And as soon as that key leaks, thats it, there's no security at all. Prime example are the travelsafe TSA locks. They have as much security as a velcro loop, because anyone can unlock them with an easily available key.
    Excelent video by Lockpick lawyer here.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhESSMvf_to

  • On the post: Why Won't Creative Future's Members Comment About This Hollywood Front Group Smearing A Well Respected Law Professor?

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2019 @ 01:05pm

    Creative Future:
    An organisation that exists to advocate for the movie industry's future, while being so creative with finances that anyone but the big boys has no future.

  • On the post: Oregon Supreme Court Shuts Down Pretextual Traffic Stops; Says Cops Can't Ask Questions Unrelated To The Violation

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2019 @ 08:24pm

    Re: Re: No I don't, and no I don't

    No, it can't be used as grounds. That's conspiracy-theory level reasoning (you know, if X that's evidence for it, if not-X that's them suppressing evidence of it). This was established back in 1973 in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte. And Colorado, NYC and a few NC cities actually require informed consent to be given, Fayetteville NC actually requires the given consent to be written. But just imagine if you could have asserting your 4th amendment right to be grounds to ignore your 4th amendment rights, then there's no point in having the 4th amendment. Kinda the point the judges here made.

  • On the post: Troll Lawyer Shows Up In Court To Explain His 'Dead Grandfather' Excuse, Gets His 'Fitness To Practice' Questioned By The Judge

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2019 @ 11:10am

    who'da thunk it

    A copyright troll lawyer lying to court.
    I'd never have believed it, except for the fact that the entire litigation strategy relies on such things.

    At this point, perhaps we need to change the stereotype of scummy lawyers from ambulance chasers, to Copyright cronies

  • On the post: DirectTV Forgot To Stop Charging Customers For Channels That Were Blacked Out

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2019 @ 10:57pm

    Re:

    In case anyone's wondering the specifics, The RICO act (U.S. Code § 1961) includes as "rackettering activity" the following Title 18 sections, amongst others "section 1341 (relating to mail fraud), section 1343 (relating to wire fraud), section 1344 (relating to financial institution fraud)". If they've sent a paper bill, that's mail fraud; an electronic bill, wire fraud, and if any of their customers includes a bank (say they have it for the financial news channels and because it bundles to lower their overall costs), that's financial institution fraud.

  • On the post: DirectTV Forgot To Stop Charging Customers For Channels That Were Blacked Out

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2019 @ 10:48pm

    They took money for a service they weren't providing. That's Fraud The service was deliberately not being provided as an active choice by DirecTV/comcast That makes it deliberate. DirecTV isn't even acting like it was an accident, but is all 'yeah, so what'. They've also commited fraud a number of other times (example - https://www.cleveland.com/moneymatters/2019/05/att-overcharges-woman-by-1500-and-wont-refund-it-money-matters.html) You could call them Predicate offenses, since they have a similar method/purpose/result, are committed by the same company, with the same intent, and they sure as hell aren't isolated events... That's right, it's RICO BABY!!!!!! (Sorry not sorry, Ken) Let's start having these executives face some consequences for their actions for once.

  • On the post: DirectTV Forgot To Stop Charging Customers For Channels That Were Blacked Out

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2019 @ 10:48pm

    They took money for a service they weren't providing. That's Fraud The service was deliberately not being provided as an active choice by DirecTV/comcast That makes it deliberate. DirecTV isn't even acting like it was an accident, but is all 'yeah, so what'. They've also commited fraud a number of other times (example - https://www.cleveland.com/moneymatters/2019/05/att-overcharges-woman-by-1500-and-wont-refund-it-money-matters.html) You could call them Predicate offenses, since they have a similar method/purpose/result, are committed by the same company, with the same intent, and they sure as hell aren't isolated events... That's right, it's RICO BABY!!!!!! (Sorry not sorry, Ken) Let's start having these executives face some consequences for their actions for once.

  • On the post: Too Many Streaming Exclusives Is Already Starting To Piss Users Off

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2019 @ 11:33am

    Amazon is the WORST for this

    We decide the other day, we want to watch the Rocky horror Picture Show as a family.

    Go to netflix, search, it's not there.
    go to Hulu, search, it's not there.
    Go to Prime video, oh look its there. Oh wait, no it's not.

    That amazon has so many entries for things that it doesn't have, and regularly throws them up in the search results or suggests them is one of the most aggravating things ever.

    Me to Youngest - "how about we watch Bab5 - when we last tried watchign it, you were like 5" (prompted by seeing Bab5 listed) "ok". Now, I think that this time, I'll go chronological order, so I go to the Bab5 movies thing, click 'In the Beginning' and... nope, not available - THEN WHY DID YOU OFFER ME IT, AND HAVE PAGES FOR IT LIKE IT WAS YOU OFFSPRING OF A CENTAURI-NARN RAPE!

    It's enough to drive me to torrent.

  • On the post: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2019 @ 04:08pm

    Re: Re: Re: Second amendment?

    In a country where most of the troops don't know the language, where the population generally opposes them, where local knowledge is poor, and where htey're in limited manpower, in a climate they don't know?
    Yeah, it's a bit of a shitshow, and an annoyance. One of my wife's best friends is a major in the GA national guard (and a full time guardsman). before he went to OCS 12 years ago, he was a part time enlisted guardsman, and a deputy for the next county over for 10 years. He knows that county like a cop, he knows this county like a local. He knows a shit load of people, as do his parents, his friends, etc. In this rural part of GA (stuff filmed around here includes walking dead [also set here] and the 'bombed to shit' bits of the hunger games films, and even My Cousin Vinny. You don't think all those cops know all those 'insurrectionist' hiding places, because they're also where the crims hide. I personally know of about 4-5 militia groups around here, let alone the cops. A guerrilla movement needs distance to work, seperation of 'us and them' which you don't get in the US. And the 2nd Amendment works against you there too, because any armed shithead group already gets treated as a potential terrorist group, so info is collected. I was just listening to the BBC global podcast today and they were talking about who will take over ISIS after Baghdadi, and they were saying that it'll be someone we don't know, who'd take a pseudonym, and stay covert - because we don't have the inroads. You thing organised crime gangs that already try that don't get frustrated regularly as it is?

  • On the post: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2019 @ 11:17am

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

    So, what's the Message? </KLemon>

  • On the post: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2019 @ 11:17am

    Re: Second amendment?

    Probably because they know that outside of chest thumping, that argument has fuck-all validity. If you read the constitution, you'll note the 2nd exists to form a militia. If you read the enumerated powers of congress, one of them is to control the militia and use it to put down insurrections (it's not just the creation of copyright in that bit). So the 2nd doesn't have anything to do with 'protecting against tyranical governments', but is in fact the specific tool of a tyranical government, to specifically be used against those taking arms against the government. Let's be honest, the whole idea of this is absurd anyway, and was physically shown to be bullshit back in the 1920s (Blair Mountain) - since then personal weaponry hasn't advanced much, but aircraft alone has advanced beyond the Martin's used then (which had the speed and range of a small hatchback, but half the capacity) with binoculars and weighted message flags (think NFL penalty flags) to communicate, to supersonic fighters with 2+ tons of explosives usable from outside visual range and the ability to communicate globally in real-time and be coordinated by a 767 AWACS 200 miles away) and long-loiter drones with video uplink capability. To say nothing of the change from mark 1 tanks to the M1A2's, and Bradleys.
    Any Charge of the Redneck Brigade will end much as Tenyson's Crimean 300. The whole 'tyranny' thing is a scam, a made up story by gun lobbyists to sell guns to paranoid dipshits.

  • On the post: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2019 @ 10:23pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    the militarization of the police is a 1970s on thing.
    the military is not - as far as i'm aware - oppressing the citizens (posse comitatus etc) so i can deny one, and the other is - funnily enough - pretty much along the lines of things Madison himself would have done. In many ways, Trump is the modern Madison - rich father, dodged war service thanks to his rich father, beat Clinton (a member of the previous government) to become President, felt he was an expert on the military [he wasn't], liked to refer to his own words and big-up his own statements by pretending to be other people (the federalist papers), got into wars that were needless and a mess through arrogance, massively expanded the military (thats right, the one you claim he hated) and hated spending on things good for citizens (such as the Bonus Bill) preferring to spend it on the military), opposition to some cabinet members (Gallatin), while the rest were incompetent or ineffectual meaning he rarely called on them, and almost never listened to them, preferring to listen to Gallatin like a Hannity/Guiliani/Miller; he tried tariffs to dominate trade and punish with the Embargo Act of 1807 (failure); oh, and cutting taxes. not quite the man you think of eh?

  • On the post: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2019 @ 06:29pm

    Re: Re:

    well, Madison thought himself a military expert, by virtue of his service.
    Which was taking the role of XO to his father, that his father bought for him, where he was kept from any sort of combat and left to do just admin work.
    Turned out, what Madison knew about the military was complete bullshit.

  • On the post: Adobe Announces Plan To Essentially Steal Money From Venezuelans Because It 'Has To' Due To US Sanctions

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2019 @ 10:59pm

    Re: Re: adobe

    Illustrator is one, inDesign is another (once you're set on a workflow, it's REALLY hard to change your system to a new one), and Premier is the 3rd. Everyone always goes on about photoshop - It's the easiest to replace, because most of it is so standard, and most projects are standalone. I do a lot of video editing (Media exporter has crunched for 40 of the last 72 hours - 90 minutes of that redoing the video because of the copyright claim mentioned above) and 4-5 months back I tried moving to daVinci, and couldn't. A friend has been trying to get me to use Sony Vegas for 3-4 years, and I can't get a handle on it.

  • On the post: Guy Who Tried To Extort YouTubers With Bogus DMCA Takedowns Agrees To Settlement

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2019 @ 05:32pm

    Re: What's the ratio of "bogus DMCA notices" to real infringemen

    "uncontested takedown" is a big misnomer. I got a copyright claim yesterday (a full worldwide block claim) for a video. Video is a panel discussion by a cryptographer, and its about her [second] trip to, and examination of, the Kryptos sculpture at CIA headquarters. Part of that trip was to film a small film with CNN about it (it plays a lot on CNN airport). So we have the introduction/trailer of the film showing at the panel, and she talks about what she did there, what she was looking for, why the film was made etc. and she had permission to show the film, and for us to include it in the video. it was blocked. I'm not bothering to contest it, despite being licensed, because the person administering the rights for CNN doesn't care, so it'll just be a strike. I ended up just cutting that bit out the video. I don't have the money to fight a lawsuit on it, I can't afford the impact of the takedown being rejected, and there's zero actual recourse for me. So it's uncontested, and I deal around it. The claim was not legitimate, but the system isn't set up to deal with legitimacy.

  • On the post: Lawsuit: School Strip-Searched An 8-Year-Old Because Someone Found Feces On A Bathroom Floor

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2019 @ 09:21pm

    Lets be clear, there's no reasonableness about this.

    At no point would anyone with any functioning brain look at the action chain here and think 'this is reasonable, prudent and proportional'.

    As such, there's only one inference that can come from this:

    There was an ulterior motive for this, there can be no other rational explanation. So let's treat it like it was - a sexually motivated assault on a small boy. Slap the scatologically obsessed officials on the sex offender register and let's be done. Because let's face it, there's nothing education in what they did. They acted with malicious intent to conceal the actions, even later, which shows premeditation, and then concealment of the actions. No-one acting in good faith would do the former, and no-one acting who felt their actions were reasonable would be hiding it.

    Right now this is pushing the limits of what they hope can be deemed acceptable - if ANYONE ELSE got a kid, and decided to randomly take him into a room, and 'investigate his anus' they'd be in protective isolation in jail after falling down every step in the building. But a government official does it, and suddenly it's ok. Gee I can't wait until we give them guns to help them enforce their will.

    Anything less than sexual assault charges and at least we won't have to worry about a teaching shortage, because if you can get away with this, then you're certainly going to get a boost in certain groups becoming teachers, for the sweet immunity (you know, like Qualified Immunity did for Cops)

  • On the post: Knight Institute Warns Rep. Ocasio-Cortez That She, Like Trump, Can't Block People On Twitter

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 03 Sep, 2019 @ 03:31pm

    Re: Re:

    thats just it though, you can petition the government in various ways 1) through a wide public forum (eg the news, or a public petition sent to a body as a whole)
    2) through contact with an appropriate office (such as majority leader of the senate for concerns that fall in that job's purview)
    3) via your elected representatives (that is why they're elected, to represent you and your views to the government as a whole)

  • On the post: Top MPAA Lawyer, Mastermind Behind Its Plan To Attack The Internet, Arrested On Blackmail And Sexual Assault Charges

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2019 @ 04:10pm

    Sleezebag acts like sleezebag
    film at 11

  • On the post: Devin Nunes Discovery Requests Against Twitter, A Fake Cow, And Liz Mair Show Just How Much A Fishing Expedition He's On

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2019 @ 10:57pm

    I guess he's going fishing now, to practice for when he's not re-elected next year...

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