K`Tetch 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 02:12pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    yeah, that was the sideshow bob quote i was trying to call to indirectly... funnily enough, I just referenced another of Grammar's characters on the Ars story on this, speciflcally General Partridge from Pentagon Wars, and hos edited report on Col Burton's report on the Bradley, much like Barr's version of Mueller's summery.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 01:13pm

    Re:

    yeah, what next? criminalizing ATTEMPTED murder? Since when should you face a judge for attempting to commit a crime, and failing?

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 01:11pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Special

    Thank you for that, I'm sure the judge will find that useful ... to line the litter box of assange's cat.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 12:37pm

    Re:

    " If Julian Assange were to pull off a miracle and defeat the US charges, could Sweden still re-file the twice-dropped rape charges against him?" Yes The first dropping was just the generic prosecutor not wanting to bother, so it was appealed by a lawyer retained by the women (this is also why anyone claiming the women never wanted him prosecuted are extremely stupid, and have only gotten their info from the wikileaks 'defense' site, which was the only place that ever claimed this) and it went to a specialist sex crimes prosecutor (Ny)
    So not really a dropping. The second 'dropping' is an administrative drop. In that Swedish law requires active cases to be actively pursued. Ny could not take the next step in her case, which was the arrest, the charge/trial, because of the embassy situation. As such because the case was stalemated, she administratively halted the prosecution, making it no longer an active case, but she specifically stated that should the situation change before the statute of limitations expires in August 2020, that she would reactivate the charges.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

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

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Special

    at no point did I say it had to be written for that express purpose. it's special in that it was brought in for the purpose. It was deliberately chosen with deliberate premeditation to be used for that purpose, as an external program not usually found on that system.
    That's what makes it 'special' in the legal context. In the ordinary course of work, did manning have need or use of that software on that system? no, then it was "otherwise different from usual" (the adjective definition of special) - see also Special election, special prosecutor, etc. - and thus 'special software'. it's really not a hard term to grasp, if you don't keep trying to think about it as an elitist coder.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 10:26am

    Re: Re: Re: Special

    again, not saying its 'special' meaning it's unique or unprecedented.
    It's 'special' in that it was software deliberately chosen for the purpose of gaining unprotected access to a system. It's the fact of being an external program introduced solely for the purpose of committing the alleged crime that makes it 'special', the premediational use, you might say.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 10:23am

    Re: Selfish interest

    thing is, this indictment is from 13 months ago. it's not from when he went into hiding.
    And if it were, at the time he ran, it wouldn't have mattered. The Swedish extradition warrant was filed, and finalized 2 days earlier. No US extradition request would even be considered at that point. The 624 days before the Supreme Court's final ruling, yes then it'd be considered (to a diminishing amount as time went on), but with the rejection of his final appeal, and the SCOTUK setting an extradition timetable, US extradition is a non-possibility. So, he ran from a thing that couldn't happen, then made up a justification after the fact. And that is fed by his continued lies leading up to that, including lying to his own defense witnesses to extract favourable testimony, which they later recanted in court when the lies were exposed. I'm pretty sure THAT is what Snow was referring to.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 10:17am

    Re: Special

    I think it uses 'special' not in that it's wondrous, or whatever, but to imply in a legal sense that it is not the software that would normally be used, but that it was used eSPECIALly for the purpose of attempting to circumvent restrictions. So it's "special" in the meaning of deliberately chosen, non-usual software picked to do a job the underlying system was not normally used for. Not in that it's extraordinary in its abilities or non-normal in other or ordinary use.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

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

    Re: Re: Re: quite a lot to unpick

    the major difference int he two sides is that in US->UK extradition, the uk government has to provide the evidence that is the basis of the complaint to the uk court during the extradition hearing.
    In UK->US hearings, the US does not have to provide that evidence, but it does have to testify that it exists.. I think thats the only imbalance in the 03 treaty. Of course, the question is, knowing that, and if he actually did fear US extradition, why leave SWeden (which he himself boasted does not extradite to the US for political crimes) for the UK, which has this 'express treaty'.
    The only answer I can find that makes sense is that after his lawyer was informed that he was to be arrested the following day at interview, he needed to leave the country fast. There were no flights to Australia that would land before he was late for hte interview (and so would be detained before clearing the international zone, if there were any he could take that day at all); he had ~25 days left on his Schengen visa, which means he could go elsewhere in schengen, but only for nearly 4 weeks before he violates that law. Every other country requires a visa, except the uk, so as a commonwealth citizen, he could stay for 180 days visaless, and hope to run out the clock, especially with a radically different legal system. And he never feared Us extradition, because he would have run to the embassy sooner, rather than 620 days later, especially as with the final supreme court ruling, it was then too late for a US extradition request to be made, as Sweden's was fully granted and final, meaning his justification for hiding doesn't make sense.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 08:48am

    Re: Re: quite a lot to unpick

    well, theres a requirement for dual criminality.
    if you access a protected computer in a contry you commit a crime, if you do it now over international borders, its still a crime, or else any crime could be gotten away with by just doing it over a border. The reason treason is out, is because it specifically requires you to have given an oath of allegiance to the US, which Assange has never done. You, by definition, can't commit treason against a country not your own.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 08:28am

    Re: About the use of Linux

    Remember, Manning was a soldier, operating in an overseas base. Of course there was physical access, and much of the restrictions are to prevent unauthorised persons accessing it at all if the room is unattended, not bad deeds by one of the rooms operators. Making a system too locked down to use reasonably might work in, say, an embassy, but in a military base in (I think it was) afghanistan, less so.

  • On the post: Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 08:24am

    quite a lot to unpick

    There's a lot in this, and as usual, Assange's supporters are busy trying to shape narratives.

    I've seen people claiming that any US extradition is a violation of an agreement to not extradite to a country with the death penalty, when it was the [utterlyustandard extradition requirement not to extradite someone facing the death penalty

    He's facing one count, of attempting to access a protected computer system (CIA system) by cracking a password, so basically a CFAA violation in conspiracy with Manning. its a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 371. Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States, and 18 U.S. Code § 1030. Fraud and related activity in connection with computers (that's the CFAA)

    Now there's some claiming 18 usc 793 (Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information) but that's what Manning was charged with (with its UCMJ version) but its inclusion in para 15B is referential. it's not listed in the charges he's facing.

    So under 371 he's looking at 5 years.
    under 1030 he's looking at 5 years.

    potentially 10 years max, is a LONG way from the death penalty. In fact, there's only two crimes that don't involve physical violence against large numbers of people or government officials in federal land or across state lines, and that's Treason and Espionage.
    Treason's out, as he's not a US citizen.
    Espionage would have to be a serious case of it to get it.
    But there are no espionage charges listed.

    The case is more akin to Gary McKinnon or Richard O'Dwyer now, than anything else.

  • On the post: Horse Race Announcer Sues Over Bill Murray Film That Included His Trademarked Tagline

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2019 @ 08:47am

    Re: Re: Re:

    probably the one year I wasn't in/around Aintree during the national (and was in the UK). We'd recently launched a family business just outside Bolton, and we'd stopped for lunch at a pub in Atherton, so my dad and uncle could have a few pints and watch the national. Was an epic meeting, indeed.

  • On the post: Horse Race Announcer Sues Over Bill Murray Film That Included His Trademarked Tagline

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2019 @ 09:47pm

    I grew up around horse racing in the UK (Regular at Haydock, Aintree racecourse mutiple times a week in the late 90s, even been to the Epsom Derby (and had the tent put up 5 feet from me when they euthanized a horse on track). Of course, I also spent a lot of time in betting shops with my grandparents, and half my scrap paper was betting slips, written on with bookie's pens, and my dad won a regional competition to be their 'top tipster of the year' with horse racing. Hell, I even got taught a song at school about tic-tac men. And yes, my parents even pushed me towards horse riding (unusual given we grew up in Liverpool slums, that made Compton seem nice) with the hope that being small and scrawny might mean I could be a jockey [my 6ft, 200lb ass now laughs at them].

    I heard that phrase ALL MY LIFE around races. Literally ALL MY LIFE. It was quite a popular phrase of John McCririck, the freaky horse racing pundit and commentator from Channel 4 racing in the uk.

    I'd say bill Mirray is odds-on favourite, while this Dave Johnson guy (who I've never heard of, but then why would I, he plays in those cheap and nasty 'dirt' parks, doesn't he?) is at impossibly long odds, and should probably Shergar himself, before the knackermen come to turn him into glue (or findus lasagna, if you remember 2013...)

  • On the post: Federal Prosecutors Recommend Paul Hansmeier Spend The Next 12 Years In Prison

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2019 @ 10:35am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "That I don't buy. Any such published list would make YOU the plaintiff in an open-shut defamation case. " WRONG. In the US, court proceedings have ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY from defamation proceedings. So rather than an 'open and shut' case, you have a 'summarily dismissed' case for failure to state an actionable claim, now pay them their defense fees for filing a frivolous and vexatious defamation lawsuit

  • On the post: Stupid Law Making Assaulting Journalists A Federal Crime Revived By Congress

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2019 @ 04:42am

    Re: Re: Easy way to fix this

    that's a civil action for deprevation of rights. It's not a criminal action for assault which would remove immunity.

  • On the post: Stupid Law Making Assaulting Journalists A Federal Crime Revived By Congress

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2019 @ 10:57pm

    Easy way to fix this

    There's a way to make this law better all around.

    add that the assault has to be performed by an agent of the government acting under color of authority, removing qualified/absolute immunity. After all, when the local cops are the ones doing the assaulting, then yes, THEN you need the federal oversight. And by the same token, if a free press is so essential they need this kind of protection, the very people they'd most need it from are the government they're supposed to be monitoring.

    but not just law enforcement, politicians (Gianforte for instance) or the local road crew who the sheriff would sic on someone and then decline to arrest for lack of evidence. etc.

  • On the post: Asus Goes Mute As Hackers Covertly Install Backdoors Using Company Software Update

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2019 @ 12:49pm

    Re: Re:

    that would, at this point, take mroe effort than it's worth.
    plus it's not my laptop, it's my eldest's (I don't like laptops), its just the one I use when I'm on-site on a video job, to dump camera footage onto

  • On the post: New Zealand Censors Declare Christchurch Shooting Footage Illegal; Start Rounding Up Violators

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2019 @ 11:17am

    Re: Re: Re:

    A tip you might want to bear in mind.
    If you don't know what you're talking about, DON'T TALK! "British law does not allow truth as a defense for libel."
    Defamation Act 2013 chapter 26, Defences Section 2
    Truth
    (1)It is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true.
    (2)Subsection (3) applies in an action for defamation if the statement complained of conveys two or more distinct imputations.
    (3)If one or more of the imputations is not shown to be substantially true, the defence under this section does not fail if, having regard to the imputations which are shown to be substantially true, the imputations which are not shown to be substantially true do not seriously harm the claimant's reputation.
    (4)The common law defence of justification is abolished and, accordingly, section 5 of the Defamation Act 1952 (justification) is repealed. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/section/2 Oh, and that section 5 that was repealed said "Justification
    In an action for libel or slander in respect of words containing two or more distinct charges against the plaintiff, a defence of justification shall not fail by reason only that the truth of every charge is not proved if the words not proved to be true do not materially injure the plaintiff's reputation having regard to the truth of the remaining charges."
    In other words, even under hte 52 act, if it was true, it wasn't defamation. See, I know this, because I literally fought a Government department who claimed libel in a consultation submission. They had a bunch of lawyers (both in house, and at the collecting societies) to consult with, I had just myself. They admitted they overreached.
    And that was under the 1952 rules. So, stop repeating any old crap you once heard someone say, eh? Because odds are, it's not true.

  • On the post: Asus Goes Mute As Hackers Covertly Install Backdoors Using Company Software Update

    K`Tetch ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2019 @ 09:43am

    I hate all that damned crapware.

    I have an acer, and it's control center seems to be almost unkillable. Every time I disable it, or remove the process or disable the service, it restarts.

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