tom 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (374)

• On the post: Man Who Doxxed Dozens Of People, Engaged In Nineteen 'Swattings', Nets Only One Year In Prison

  

  tom ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2016 @ 05:44am

  At the very least, the fake active shooter call on the U of Arizona should qualify as domestic terrorism since there were probably a lot of folks on and around that campus that were terrorized.
  
  Seems like the judge implemented a variation of the 'Hillary Defense', in that he apparently thinks that Islam didn't really mean to hurt anyone, regardless of how reckless his actions.
  
  Hopefully, Arizona will bring charges for violations of state laws or at least a civil tort for recovery of the costs for the various Swat calls.

• On the post: New York Times Public Editor Scolded For Suggesting Websites Should Treat News Commenters Like Actual Human Beings

  

  tom ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2016 @ 07:12pm

  Remember, for many "News" websites, the real customers are not the site visitors, they are the advertising companies that buy the data harvested by the websites spying on the visitors. Once site editors start viewing visitors as nothing more then sources of profitable data, it becomes easy to justify treating them like crap.

• On the post: Sony Locks Up The PSN Account Of A Man Named 'Jihad' Because You'll Never Guess Why

  

  tom ( profile ), 05 Jul, 2016 @ 05:41am

  Wonder how long before they ban Hispanics named Jesus or Middle Eastern folks named Mohammad?

• On the post: Nest May Be The First Major Casualty Of Hollow 'Internet Of Things' Hype

  

  tom ( profile ), 08 Jun, 2016 @ 06:19am

  My $40 programmable thermostat doesn't spy on me, doesn't report back to some insecure cloud storage, and isn't subject to remote bricking by some 3rd party company after acquiring the mfg. Nest products have none of these desirable features and cost much more.

• On the post: Congressman Wants To Make Attacking A Cop A Federal 'Hate' Crime

  

  tom ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2016 @ 09:58am

  Why is Criminal A killing/raping/vandalizing Victim B somehow worse if Criminal A has different skin color, religious beliefs or sexual preferences then Victim B? Victim B is just as dead or traumatized. If the sentence for the basic crime isn't harsh enough, change that rather then creating a special class of crime based on Criminal A being different somehow then Victim B. Hate crime charges by definition are discriminatory.

• On the post: Broadband Industry Has A Hissy Fit As FCC Unveils Some Fairly Basic New Broadband Privacy Protections

  

  tom ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2016 @ 11:58am

  The real hissy fit will start when ALL websites and web service providers have to have simple to understand privacy policies and easy opt out options. The rabid screeching will commence once they are held financially liable for breaches and scripts gone wild.

• On the post: California Legislator Says Encryption 'Threatens Our Freedoms' Calls For Ban On Encrypted Cell Phones

  

  tom ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2016 @ 10:27am

  You honesty expected that the equation of [(California + Legislator + Attempt Brain Activity) = Result] would turn out any different?

• On the post: South Carolina Politicians Propose Ridculous Plan To Register Journalists… To Make A Statement About Gun Control

  

  tom ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2016 @ 03:29am

  Given the number of Police blotter entries that include the phrase "Alcohol use suspected", maybe the next bill should require a background check for past DWI charges and a waiting period before all alcohol purchases.

• On the post: TVs Now 'Smart' Enough To Get Hijacked, Pick Up Malware

  

  tom ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2016 @ 07:44pm

  When someone's smart entertainment system gets hacked and used to determine when the parents are gone and the kids are home alone, and said kids are taken and never seen again, folks may wake up to some of the risks.

• On the post: Forbes Site, After Begging You To Turn Off Adblocker, Serves Up A Steaming Pile Of Malware 'Ads'

  

  tom ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2016 @ 07:34pm

  A real newspaper is responsible, in part, for the entirety of the content that lands on subscriber's porches, including advertising in the paper proper and inserts, at least as far as meeting community standards.
  
  Time for websites to be held to similar standards. Deliver malware, stand by for lawsuits. No exemptions for disclaimers in TOS or EULA.

• On the post: GQ And Forbes Go After Ad Blocker Users Rather Than Their Own Shitty Advertising Inventory

  

  tom ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2016 @ 02:23pm

  And nothing of real value was lost.
  
  I bet that even if I were to white list the sites in question that ads still won't show due to my script blocker preventing the running of scrips from other domains. Until these sites are held liable in court or via legislation for harm from 3rd party scripts launched from their sites, no way.

• On the post: Former NYPD Boss Ray Kelly's Emails 'Inadvertently' Wiped Despite Court Order To Preserve Them

  

  tom ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2016 @ 12:25pm

  Wonder if anyone has bothered to contact the NYPD IT dept? I bet they have full backups going back years. If they don't, they either need to produce signed dated orders stating that IT is NOT to make backups or they need to be fired for gross incompetence.

• On the post: UK Home Secretary Wants Everyone's Metadata; But If You Ask For Hers, Gov't Says You're Being Vexatious

  

  tom ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2015 @ 11:00am

  At least I can check off the "Learn something today" box. I learned what 'vexatious' means. And to think I was reading this because my computer game was being very vexatious. Irony.
  
  I wonder if the UK Home Secretary realizes the irony of her position on metadata?

• On the post: Who Needs A No-Fly List When You Can Just Ground 91 Million Citizens?

  

  tom ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2015 @ 10:53am

  Federal hypocrisy at its worst. My state, OK, is one of the ones that refuses to fully comply with the RealID act. So even though I am a natural born US citizen, I may lose the ability to travel via any means where the govt has placed TSA troops. Meanwhile, in states that both comply with RealID and allow illegal invaders to obtain driver's licenses, said illegal invaders will be allowed to travel.
  
  One positive. I won't have to worry about serving on Federal juries. If they won't let me in the Federal Courthouse because my OK driver's license doesn't meet their magic standards, I can't serve.

• On the post: Clinging To Relevance, Yahoo Prevents Ad Block Users From Checking Yahoo Mail

  

  tom ( profile ), 24 Nov, 2015 @ 06:14am

  Started using Yahoo mail last century. Been using Adblock, Noscript and other privacy extensions for years. My Yahoo screen is clean. Keep using it because of the large number of accounts that have it as a contact email. Be a real PITA to switch them all to something else.
  
  As of this morning, my Yahoo mail still working fine. Of course, if their check for Adblockers involves a script, the script blocker will eat it before it can do its damage.

• On the post: 'Hundreds' Of Teens Found Sexting At A Single School And Everyone Seems Unsure Of How To Proceed

  

  tom ( profile ), 09 Nov, 2015 @ 11:39am

  The DA is likely showing restraint because of the high probability that children of judges, law enforcement and local and state officials are involved. Trying to justify charging middle class kid #2 and not the mayor's kid would be kinda hard, given the large number of accused.

• On the post: 'Hate Speech' Laws Are Just Another Way For Governments To Punish People They Don't Like

  

  tom ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2015 @ 07:03am

  The irony here is the 1st amendment was designed to protect anti-government and anti-establishment speech.
  
  And it shouldn't matter why someone gets beat up. The punishment should be the same. The victim is just as beat up regardless of if the criminal didn't like the color of a victim's hat or victim's skin.

• On the post: CIA Director's Personal Email Account Breached By Hackers… Who Find Official Documents Stored In It

  

  tom ( profile ), 20 Oct, 2015 @ 10:33am

  Re: He failed question #1...

  Nothing wrong with having an AOL or yahoo type email account for your Personal, non-secure crap. His mistake was using it IN ANY FASHION for work related info. The whole point of most web-mail based systems is to allow the provider to data mine all of the user's emails for information.
  
  Sending that spreadsheet full of PII should result in the CIA having to send out data breach notifications and the resulting liability for possible identity theft. Plus a review of that person's suitability for his job. Didn't he hear about that small ruckus over Hillary's email server? What kind of intelligence gathering ability does the CIA have anyway? This failure to connect the dots doesn't fill me with great confidence.

• On the post: Making The Case Against Adding DRM To JPEG Images

  

  tom ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2015 @ 08:45am

  I disagree with part of the EFF position. Expecting sites like Facebook and Twitter to have effective privacy controls is silly. Anyone uploading anything to any of these 'public view' sites should expect all aspects of the thing in question to become fully public, regardless of any so called privacy settings on the file or its meta data. Its a rare week where we don't read about some kind of privacy breach on some site.

• On the post: How The Tribune Company And The DOJ Turned A 40 Minute Web Defacement Into $1 Million In 'Damages'

  

  tom ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2015 @ 12:41pm

  The DOJ had best be careful about setting precedents like this. If they lose the Kim Dotcom case and he uses a similar formula for calculating what the government has cost him, could be a sovereign bankruptcy generating event.

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