NoahVail 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: AI Isn't Making The Criminal Justice System Any Smarter

    NoahVail ( profile ), 29 Jun, 2019 @ 07:13am

    Re: Re: Not really Artificial Intelligence. Nor "carceral&q

    Nor "carceral" a word.
    Is your false assertion here bait?
    Asking because the alternative is you making-up crap out of the blue.

  • On the post: US Government Rings Up Another Whistleblower On Espionage Charges

    NoahVail ( profile ), 13 May, 2019 @ 07:48am

    Re: Re:

    They took an oath. They broke it.
    By "broke" you mean they upheld it w/ bravery and distinction? The 1st & foremost part of the oath reads;
    I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
    Which well describes what whistleblowers do, who release info to taxpayers - info that was hidden by Gov w/o a clear public interest in doing so In this case it may also reference a violation of Article 1 Section 8
    The Congress shall have Power ... To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

  • On the post: Marcus Hutchins — The Guy Who Stopped Wannacry — Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy Charges

    NoahVail ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2019 @ 08:31am

    The "War On Redemption" is proceeding apace

    Show me a "security researcher" who knowingly distributes malicious software, and I'll show you someone who is likely a criminal, whether they would call themselves one or not.

    "Distributes" is present tense. What better fits your assertion is:

    Show me a "security researcher" who once distributed malicious software, and I'll show you someone who is likely still a criminal. It's of no consequence that years of benevolent behavior clearly shows otherwise.

    A likely scenario is Hutchins made bad choices years ago and then followed that up with years of ethical behavior, indicating he had reformed himself.

    Someone tell me. What is the actual damn point of anyone, anywhere reforming their bad behavior and becoming a benefit to society if society is going to effectively ignore their reformation and treat them as if their bad behavior is still happening today?

    Years after this legal fiasco is over, Hutchins will continue to be punished (via background records) for the rest of his life. This system of Lifetime Punishment For Every Possible Transgression is an ideal incentive - if the goal is to create as many criminals as possible. Indications are this exactly what the goal is.

  • On the post: No, YouTube Cannot Reasonably Moderate All Content On Its Platform

    NoahVail ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2019 @ 08:09am

    Baby steps

    Before we leap into a huge endeavor like mods reviewing every upload, maybe we should trial the "Review Process" on a more reasonable scale.
    I suggest having politicians read and understand every law, before they vote on it.

  • On the post: As Trump Prepares Ban On Huawei, Few Notice The Major Holes In The Underlying Logic

    NoahVail ( profile ), 13 Feb, 2019 @ 07:48am

    Shill I continue?

    After ~15yrs of reading Karl Bode's columns nearly every day, I'm more convinced than ever that he's the most needed columnist in America - or at the least, a model thereof.

  • On the post: Mystery Lobbying Group Using Huawei Security Hysteria To Target Sprint, T-Mobile Merger

    NoahVail ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2018 @ 01:57pm

    Digging

    I'm thinking that Protect America's Wireless is built by folks from New Paradigm Strategy Group.

    The only contact info found on the PAW site is for:
    Carli Kientzie carli@npstrategygroup.com
    https://npstrategygroup.com/team/carli-kientzle/
    and
    Regan Page regan@npstrategygroup.com https://npstrategygroup.com/team/regan-page/

    Also npstrategygroup.com & protectamericaswireless.org share same GoDaddy IP.

    That's all I got.

  • On the post: Microsoft Posts List Of Facial Recognition Tech Guidelines It Thinks The Government Should Make Mandatory

    NoahVail ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2018 @ 09:04am

    Re: Re: Fines that work, make it personal

    "If you demand zero false positives, you won't have any system at all."

    Works for me.

  • On the post: Microsoft Posts List Of Facial Recognition Tech Guidelines It Thinks The Government Should Make Mandatory

    NoahVail ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2018 @ 06:24am

    Re: Microsoft would never collaborate with government

    Adding NYPD's years-old Domain Awareness System - built/maintained/expanded by Microsoft, which includes Facial Recognition tech.

  • On the post: Mobile Location Scandals Keep Making Facebook's Privacy Flubs Look Like Child's Play

    NoahVail ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2018 @ 07:14am

    HIPAA compliance

    Does tracking & selling someone's medical appointment history (potentially revealing type & scope of ailments) require that entity to be HIPAA compliant?

    A possibly similar scenario;
    If someone hacked a medical services provider and sold patient data, would the hacker have committed a HIPAA violation?

  • On the post: Shitty Man Shows How Shitty Men Can Shit On Free Speech By Suing Over The Shitty Media Men List

    NoahVail ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2018 @ 08:19pm

    As recently as Oct 11, Stephen Elliot's twitter was public.
    https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://twitter.com/s___elliott

    Today it is not. https://twitter.com/S___Elliott
    Neither is his Instagram https://www.instagram.com/s___elliott/

    Perhaps re-victimizing women is not working out the way he had hoped.

  • On the post: Actual Research On Political Bias In Search Results Would Be Useful, But So Far It Doesn't Show Anything

    NoahVail ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2018 @ 09:52am

    Bias crapposting is the new abortion debate

  • On the post: DOJ And State Attorneys General Threatening Social Media Companies Over Moderation Practices Is A First Amendment Issue

    NoahVail ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2018 @ 09:43am

    Trump brings out the worst in himself.

  • On the post: Reddit Ignored A Year's Worth Of User Warnings About Iranian Propaganda

    NoahVail ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2018 @ 01:40pm

    Wishes

    I wish deep existing partisan, racial, and ideological divisions weren't okay with nearly everyone.

  • On the post: There's A Reason That Misleading Claims Of Bias In Search And Social Media Enjoy Such Traction

    NoahVail ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2018 @ 12:41pm

    On balance I agree with this article, especially the following:

    "Search engines and social media platforms have been too secretive about how their algorithms work, and too secretive about how content moderation works."


    Sidebar: As we consider how secret algorithms are used to effect the public, it'd be super groovy if Tarleton Gillespie could lead another Techdirt conversation, one about Microsoft's Domain Awareness System.

    Thanks!

  • On the post: Daily Deal: NordVPN

    NoahVail ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2018 @ 08:45pm

    Re:

    "NordVPN is a standout amongst the most benevolent suppliers we've seen"
    - Stellamaxwell (Aug 19 2018)


    Bot-curated content seems to agree with Stellamaxwell.
    Really, really agree.


    "NordVPN is a standout amongst the most all around regarded VPNs"
    - blogwordpress (May 30, 2018)
    http://internetobey.com/15-best-android-vpn-apps-in-2018/


    "NordVPN is a standout amongst the most mainstream VPNs"
    -Fozia (July 5, 2017)
    https://www.recommendedvpn.com/best-vpn-for-iphone


    "NordVPN is outstanding amongst other virtual private system (VPN) suppliers"
    -Fozia (April 12, 2018)
    https://www.recommendedvpn.com/What+type+of+security+does+NordVPN+use%3F


    I can't say what made me itch about this deal.
    Turns out, I wasn't the only one.

    "NordVPN is paying sites to “spread the gospel of Nord” if you will. Check out how NordVPN got caught manipulating Trustpilot reviews."
    - Ripoff Reporter (Aug 28, 2018)
    http://vpnscam.com/is-nordvpn-a-honeypot/

  • On the post: That Time Telco Lobbyists Sent Me All Their Talking Points About Trying To Shift The Blame To Internet Companies

    NoahVail ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2018 @ 03:52pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Windows only prevents a few MS owned domains from hosts (& I believe Windows Firewall) blocking.
    Hosts can still be used to block a ton of Windows telemetry.

  • On the post: Conservatives: Stop Crying Wolf On Tech Bias Or No One Will Ever Take You Seriously

    NoahVail ( profile ), 30 Aug, 2018 @ 09:39pm

    Re: Re: My conservative perspective

    I think you're assertion is reasonable. But my question is this.
    Once we've got the basic sewage report, 20 additional reports about different things seen floating in the sewer, 100 commentaries about hue & color of the sludge trails - what exactly are the remaining 5000+ media people bringing to us - except nothing new at all?

  • On the post: Conservatives: Stop Crying Wolf On Tech Bias Or No One Will Ever Take You Seriously

    NoahVail ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2018 @ 01:20pm

    My conservative perspective

    Twenty years ago, my complaints about left-leaning media bias were pretty similar to today's vocal Right. However 20 years is a lot of think-time and my position has moderated.

    There's lots of reasons why. Seeing compulsive Bush hatred adopted by conservatives and reworked into compulsive Obama hatred is one. RW media is another. From my perspective, that was just an arms-race response to LW bias. It expanded & amplified what was wrong with media in the first place. I struggle to find value in it.

    I still think there's widespread bias and I still think it trends left. However, I see where media outlets are a lot more self aware about bias than they used to be. There's also been a lot of attempts to by MSM to counter bias in it's ranks. Sometimes been really good (NPR coverage of 2008 elections), sometimes it's poorly thought-out and just reorders existing crappiness.

    In the end, I'm no longer clear that bias is a problem in and of itself. At a minimum, it's not a top priority. What I am clear about is that attacking bias ignores the media's overpowering problem - which is systemic incompetence and skewed priorities.

    I fully believe bad behavior within the Trump administration should be fully investigated & reported. Revealing it is the whole point of why extra-constitutional protections are afforded to the press.

    However, I also strongly believe the same vigor that is being used to seek out and expose wrong doing in this administration was largely abdicated during the last administration.

    That doesn't mean Obama was as morally bankrupt as Trump. The point is it doesn't matter how morally bankrupt Obama was. The press had a clear duty to it's constitutional protections to be an adversary to government and aggressively seek out & report bad government behavior. Too often, damning stories are handed to news outlets and they still have to be bullied into being interested (ie: Snowden revelations).

    Fast forward to today. Have I seen clear indicators that Google news is trending left-leaning stories & downplaying right? Sure. I think that aligns with the number and tone of stories that are published. For the record, I've seen right-leaning stories also trend on Google news, admittedly not as often.

    But the problem there isn't a bias problem, it's a lazy journalism problem. It's a problem that the vast majority of US news outlets all lead with the same 7 stories, often just copying and pasting each other content. It's a problem when news orgs only bring a tiny fraction of new stories to the table that they could be. It's a problems that fluff stories about sports and celebrities is believed to be of equal valuable to the public as is exposing malfeasance by the powerful.

    It's a problem that the press doesn't weigh each story against it's duty to honor it's extra constitutional protections.

    You want less bias? I do and I believe when press is doing their actual damn job (w/o taking 8 year hiatuses) they'd be a lot less likely to let natural human biases continually tilt their content.

  • On the post: Grandstanding Idiots In Congress Attack Social Media For Censoring Too Much And Too Little Without Understanding Anything

    NoahVail ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2018 @ 10:46am

    A conservative's perspective

    Mike is right, beginning to end.

  • On the post: Police Union Upset Not All Books Paint Cops As Heroes, Calls For Removal Of Titles From School's Reading List

    NoahVail ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2018 @ 10:04am

    Spot the influx of outrage

    "Whether it be through social media, whether it be through text message, whether it be phone calls, we've received an influx of tremendous outrage at the selections by this reading list."

    Lets play Spot the Outrage

    Here's tweets to/from the FOP Pres
    https://twitter.com/search?q=%40fopjohnb&src=typd

    Here's tweets to/from the Tri-County FOP
    https://twitter.com/search?q=%40scfop3&src=typd

    Hmm. All the outrage there seems directed AT the FOP & it's Pres. Certainly Pres Blackman isn't a bald faced liar. The community outrage must be elsewhere.

    Can anyone locate the Community Outrage on Facebook or other social media?

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