Michael Johnstone 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: After Aereo's Collapse, Founder Hopes To Disrupt Wireless Broadband Market With 'Starry'

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2016 @ 11:33am

    Disruption Has A Short Life Expectancy

    You can only be a disrupter for a short time, before you are either aaronswartzed, gitmoed, or TPP'ed.

  • On the post: Pakistan Orders ISPs To Block 429,343 Websites Completely, Because There's Porn On The Internet

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2016 @ 11:04am

    Information is Power

    I can't tell if it's global ignorance about the technology that makes up telecommunications, or if it's a smoke screen for establishing control over information. Maybe it's a little of both.

    Two true facts are at play here:

    Telecommunications, and the information it carries, is an anathema to the elite. (This fact led to Aaron Swartz' demise.)

    You can't legislate morality, but morality laws are really good at removing any opposition to those in power.

  • On the post: Body Cam Footage Leads To Federal Indictment Of Abusive Las Vegas Cop

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2016 @ 11:13am

    This Kind of Thing Happens More Than is Reported

    My son works at the trauma unit at the local hospital, and he was working a youth that happened to be the wrong race, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and got roughed up by the police and ended up with a skull fracture, broken femur, and all kinds of trauma. The cops were trying to steal the boys cell phone, but my son kept them from getting it, and told them they had to leave and asked them if they didn't have some black youth to shoot somewhere. (He really doesn't like the local police who have a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later.) As far as I can tell the incident went unreported.

  • On the post: One Of Congress's Biggest Defenders Of NSA Surveillance Suddenly Aghast That NSA May Have Spied On Him

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2015 @ 02:46pm

    Isn't it obvious? Seems obvious to me.

    Obviously State monitoring isn't about safety, it's about societal control.

    And government is about power, and power brokers. So it's a little unsettling for any of them to learn they didn't have as much power as they thought.

    That's what all this noise is about. Hoekstra just found out he didn't have as much power as he thought.

  • On the post: Montana Newspaper Decides To Just Delete Old Comments After People Get Upset About Plans To Reveal Their Names

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2015 @ 09:35am

    I'm Not Surprised

    Montana. Newspaper. Those two words don't read technically savvy to me. Maybe they're using Joomla!, or somesuch CMS. It's been awhile since I've looked at Joomla!, but if I recall it was pretty limited on features.

  • On the post: HIV Dating App Company Threatens Press With HIV Infection For Reporting On Personal Info Leak

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2015 @ 02:17pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Right, a coworker of mine was fired for letting a foster care family know that a child was HIV positive.

  • On the post: Gospel Show Guy Sues High School Over Decade Old Singing Competition Called 'Singsation'

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2015 @ 10:15am

    Educational Institutions Fear Suits

    And for a good reason they cost money, and that is something precious to those in education. This makes them an easy target, as they will do anything to avoid legal fees and save budget dollars.

    I expect the school to capitulate on this matter as is typically the case.

  • On the post: Chicago's Mayor Promises New Era Of Transparency After Shooting Video Forced Out Of City's Hands By Court

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2015 @ 10:03am

    Hawk Management

    Many of the people that make up a society want to go about their business, but most people grow up knowing there are two ways of viewing culture; One way is as a hawk, where the person views others as a resource to be used as they see fit, and The other way is as a chicken where they see others as members of a cultural pool (though not necessarily as equals, aka pecking order).

    A police force is established by the majority of the culture, because they desire a life free from "hawk" predation (hawk management).

    The problem with this is that those individuals who tend to be hawks are the same group that make "good" police officers. My daughter dated a cop and they talked about the psych profile for becoming a police officer, and it was as you'd expect a hawk personality to look like: Type A, aggressive, and domineering. If you want to employ a person who is good at controlling others then a hawk is just the type of person you want.

    So the issue for a society is how do you achieve security by giving control to another and at the same time continue to live free from those with power taking advantage of those without power.

    (I have some cultural design ideas that might work if it wasn't true that people tend to fall into patterns and the above societal structure is one that history proves people naturally tend to, and so it would be pointless to make a suggestion knowing that people would reject it because it didn't feel natural to them.)

  • On the post: No, Strong Crypto Is Not Making The World 'Go Dark' For Intelligence Agencies: Here's Why

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2015 @ 09:21am

    Why Backdoors?

    I have a theory about why the government wants backdoors. We know they collect metadata, and have been for years, so they understand the value.

    I theorize that they are worried about losing large swaths of social data that is being actively mined for analytical reasons as a way of using popular opinion to push policy.

    There seems to be a feedback loop between policy, social opinion, and media output that is to coordinated to be haphazard.

  • On the post: This Survey Sucks, And The Internet Needs You To Fill It Out

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 10 Dec, 2015 @ 09:32am

    Impact and Response by the Careless Public

    I think the general populace of the world will go where the media leads them. To that end there are a few loud voices using recent dramatic events that play nicely into their hands. I suspect in time that evil/power will wrest control of the flow of information on the Internet from its user base. What I wonder about is how many lethal targetings, asset forfeitures, and midnight home raids it will take before the public realizes the costs.

    I know from working in the public sector that the government really only goes after the powerless and isolated individuals. Because government bureaucracy breeds incompetence it sometimes happens that an individual with power, or person with powerful friends, gets targeted by the government's programs. In those cases the government has to spend resources to make the problem go away. To minimize the chance that the government will target the wrong person they collect a lot of information on everyone (big or small).

    Most public employees are good people, doing their jobs well, and at the same time pawns of the system and "blind to the workings" (mostly because they choose to be, btw). But if you ask these people if they know who has clout and who runs the agency they are quite aware of who calls the shots about who or what is targeted by the system.

  • On the post: What Did The UK Accomplish In Revoking The Right To Rip CDs After Just One Year… Other Than Greater Disrespect For Copyright?

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2015 @ 03:31pm

    Fiction Becoming Truth

    Isn't it true that if a culture, even a sub-culture, like the recording industry, tell a lie long enough it becomes part of the culture and thus a true to that culture? Isn't this how stubborn urban myths continue; Even after all the evidence proves the myth false?

    If that is correct then no amount of rational thinking or common sense will dispel their belief. In fact it could make the believers cling more tightly to their beliefs for fear of losing something important and tangible.

  • On the post: Loretta Lynch Essentially Says The Ferguson Effect Is Bullshit

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 20 Nov, 2015 @ 02:03pm

    One Possible Data Point

    I didn't know that this was called the Ferguson Effect, but let me pass along what the school resource officer told my wife when she asked him about the uptick in gang related shootings that our nurse son is seeing in the trauma unit at the local hospital.

    The officer said that in the past police administration allowed them to do random searches of known gang members, and the shooters knew this, and so wouldn't carry guns on them. Now police administration is telling officers to not even touch a gang member, and the gang members know this and all of them are carrying guns.

  • On the post: Next Shoe Drops For Prenda's Paul Hansmeier: Minnesota Law Board Seeks To Disbar Him

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 16 Nov, 2015 @ 04:58pm

    The System is Too Easy to Game

    The hawks know that the U.S. system of justice is easy to game. So the like peodophiles getting jobs involving young people, these hawks flock to the legal system.

    Since the legal system protects its own isn't the legal system partially to blame for this?

    So whether it's a terrorist group, an organized crime syndicate, or the U.S. legal system you have an organization that is rife with wolves seeking prey.

  • On the post: DOJ Has Blocked Everyone In The Executive Branch From Reading The Senate's Torture Report

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 11 Nov, 2015 @ 03:08pm

    From the "I Could Tell You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You" file

    Maybe they should classify the reading of the Feinstein torture report as threat to national security and subject the reader to immediate incarceration or the death penalty.

  • On the post: T-Mobile Exempts Video Streams From Wireless Data Caps, Sets A Horrible Precedent

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 10 Nov, 2015 @ 04:26pm

    T-Mobile's Dress Hiking Maneuver

    If you're broke down on the side of the road then show a little leg to get some attention.

    T-Mobile's customers are reaping the rewards of Deutsche Telekom's order to John Legere to get T-Mobile sold.

    Legere's going to keep making T-Mobile sweeter and sweeter until they're bought out. Once that happens being a customer isn't going to be a fun experience anymore.

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

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 20 Oct, 2015 @ 11:45am

    Re:

    Two things are guaranteed in Washington: No one with power will accept blame for their actions, and those with too little power will suffer for the failure of those with power.

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

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 20 Oct, 2015 @ 11:38am

    Security Epic Fail!

    Now tell me again why we want government spy agencies to have a set of master keys to our encryption?

  • On the post: Why Do Senators Keep Lying About What CISA Would Be Used For?

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 09 Oct, 2015 @ 11:59am

    What's Going on With Feeds

    Your news articles aren't coming up in my RSS feed.

  • On the post: How NSA Surveillance May Result In Fragmenting The Internet: EU Court Leaning Towards Ending 'Privacy Safe Harbor'

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2015 @ 12:39pm

    Result In Fragmenting The Internet

    As the title suggests the worldwide network will continue to fracture. The state spook activities are accelerating a process that has been going on for some time now.

    There will come a time when mankind will think fondly of the past, and the opine the loss of the worldwide community that had once been possible due to a free and open Internet.

  • On the post: CIA, FBI And Much Of US Military Aren't Doing The Most Basic Things To Encrypt Email

    Michael Johnstone ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2015 @ 02:07pm

    Incompetency

    How many times have after-the-fact reports made the claim that incompentency was the single greatest reason for some U.S. tragedy?

    DHS (a boondoggle in itself) was born out of the fact that upper officials didn't believe field agents reports that eventually proved true on 9/11. One of many examples where senior government officials were not able to make competent decisions.

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