Just checked my address... I expected it to report too many options I don't actually have. It has a few things I've never heard of, but, surprisingly, it completely misses my actual ISP. I have a 100mbps down cable connection from Spectrum. According to the FCC, the best I could possibly get would be 50mbps from Charter. Charter doesn't serve my area. Then they list garbage satellite jokes, many of which I do not believe I could use because very few satellites can get line of sight from my property. Then it lists Frontier of all things. Frontier doesn't want customers. They exist solely to collect money as a result of political favors. They purchased all of the copper phone lines from Verizon in my state and now offer wonderful benefits like month-long outages in home phone service and astronomical prices. To qualify for government money as part of Obama's economic stimulus, they installed a fiber network. And then refused to attach even a single customer to it. It sits there, unused, because they don't want customers. They got the check for the stimulus and that's all they ever wanted. Last I looked, the 25mbps ADSL that they offer had a 5GB/mo download cap and cost $100+/mo. They do NOT want customers.
If I were free of personal ethical concerns, why would I not start an agency which does exactly as Prenda Law has done today?
Because they got yelled at? Millions of dollars can buy very good ear plugs and even quite effective therapy should the worry of being seen poorly in the public eye for 5 minutes (do you remember their names even now?) keep me up at night.
Until there are monetary damages awarded which EXCEED the entire amount these guys gained from the venture (which will never happen), all this case does is establish a legitimate new business model. What is profitable is the only thing that matters to enough people that no other penalty can dissuade them.
So the bottom line is, their venture was profitable. And they will not be penalized monetarily. There's a word for things that cause all manner of sound and fury but at the end of the day turn a profit: The new way of doing business.
Oh no, being debarred and yelled at by a judge... that will hurt so bad while I polish my Lambourghini. And considering that one aspect of our economy is that it becomes exponentially easier to make money the more money you have, getting in, making a big chunk of change, and getting out quick is entirely a reasonable prospect.
I expect a thousand Prenda Laws to pop up around the country cribbing from Prendas playbook. The principals involved here will probably even get nice 6-figure consulting fees helping these new groups out!
People need to start fighting whatever domain maintaining organizations corroborated with these criminal actions. Just because someone knocks on your door and says "I'm from the government" does not mean that you relinquish all moral responsibility for your actions from then on. If they tell you to lock the domain, you tell them to present an actual legitimate court order or get the hell out of your office. DHS could not have done this without corroboration.
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These maps really are bad...
Just checked my address... I expected it to report too many options I don't actually have. It has a few things I've never heard of, but, surprisingly, it completely misses my actual ISP. I have a 100mbps down cable connection from Spectrum. According to the FCC, the best I could possibly get would be 50mbps from Charter. Charter doesn't serve my area. Then they list garbage satellite jokes, many of which I do not believe I could use because very few satellites can get line of sight from my property. Then it lists Frontier of all things. Frontier doesn't want customers. They exist solely to collect money as a result of political favors. They purchased all of the copper phone lines from Verizon in my state and now offer wonderful benefits like month-long outages in home phone service and astronomical prices. To qualify for government money as part of Obama's economic stimulus, they installed a fiber network. And then refused to attach even a single customer to it. It sits there, unused, because they don't want customers. They got the check for the stimulus and that's all they ever wanted. Last I looked, the 25mbps ADSL that they offer had a 5GB/mo download cap and cost $100+/mo. They do NOT want customers.
They don't care about China
Sure they might not spy for China. That's not the problem. The problem is that they don't spy for the US.
Re:
If I were free of personal ethical concerns, why would I not start an agency which does exactly as Prenda Law has done today?
Because they got yelled at? Millions of dollars can buy very good ear plugs and even quite effective therapy should the worry of being seen poorly in the public eye for 5 minutes (do you remember their names even now?) keep me up at night.
Until there are monetary damages awarded which EXCEED the entire amount these guys gained from the venture (which will never happen), all this case does is establish a legitimate new business model. What is profitable is the only thing that matters to enough people that no other penalty can dissuade them.
Where's the money?
So the bottom line is, their venture was profitable. And they will not be penalized monetarily. There's a word for things that cause all manner of sound and fury but at the end of the day turn a profit: The new way of doing business.
Oh no, being debarred and yelled at by a judge... that will hurt so bad while I polish my Lambourghini. And considering that one aspect of our economy is that it becomes exponentially easier to make money the more money you have, getting in, making a big chunk of change, and getting out quick is entirely a reasonable prospect.
I expect a thousand Prenda Laws to pop up around the country cribbing from Prendas playbook. The principals involved here will probably even get nice 6-figure consulting fees helping these new groups out!
People need to start fighting whatever domain maintaining organizations corroborated with these criminal actions. Just because someone knocks on your door and says "I'm from the government" does not mean that you relinquish all moral responsibility for your actions from then on. If they tell you to lock the domain, you tell them to present an actual legitimate court order or get the hell out of your office. DHS could not have done this without corroboration.