M. Alan Thomas II 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (216)

• On the post: DOJ Leans On Old Laws And Even Older Cases To Argue Against Privacy Expectations In Cell Site Location Data

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2014 @ 05:32pm

  I'm not sure we can argue without qualification that pre-cell-phone phone data didn't include location information; knowing that I'm calling from near tower X is a lot LESS specific than knowing that I'm calling from the pay phone on the NW corner of 5th and Park. The difference is that the cell phone roams everywhere with you (including on private property) and captures all calls (not just ones at specific locations being monitored).
  
  That being said, if I'm going to commit a planned crime, I'm not going to be carrying a tracking device with me.

• On the post: Why Requiring Social Networks To Monitor Posts To Spot Terrorists Will Make It Even Harder To Catch Them

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2014 @ 11:39pm

  I don't know that you can assume that Type I and Type II error rates are necessarily identical. Correlated, maybe, but probably inversely and rarely identical.

• On the post: Awesome Stuff: Black Friday Internet Freedom Edition

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2014 @ 12:55pm

  The Freedom to Read Foundation fights good old-fashioned analog censorship around the USA as well.

• On the post: FISA Judge To Yahoo: If US Citizens Don't Know They're Being Surveilled, There's No Harm

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 19 Nov, 2014 @ 04:55pm

  The number of nonexistent account could very well be spelled out. If it was thousands, it would be very hard to refer to it as "several" (although the government's sense of scale is obviously unreliable); I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be "seven" or "eight".

• On the post: Cop Who Obtained Warrant To Take Photo Of Teen's Erect Penis For Sexting Case Sues Teen's Lawyer For Defamation

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2014 @ 01:24am

  Asserting that someone is unfit for public office and public scrutiny of government officials is so perfectly protected by the First Amendment that the biggest delay in dismissing the case is going to be waiting for the judge to stop laughing.

• On the post: Comcast Supports The President's Net Neutrality Plan, Except For The Only Part That Does Anything Meaningful

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2014 @ 07:11pm

  The president's statement called for an investigation of net neutrality violations at interconnection. Now that we've got Comcast's okay on that, I'm sure we'll be seeing the FCC launching one any day now. . . . 9_9

• On the post: Surprise: President Obama Calls For Real Net Neutrality

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 10 Nov, 2014 @ 11:55pm

  He also said the other magic word: "interconnection".

• On the post: Scanner Patent Troll Slapped On The Wrist By FTC; Told To Stop Misleading Behavior.

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2014 @ 06:45pm

  Well, it does give the FTC unambiguous grounds for future fines. Whether or not MPHJ would agree that the things it has agreed to stop doing were illegal or governable by the FTC, they have now consented to the FTC being able to fine them $16,000 per violation from this point forward. Including for threatening lawsuits that they don't intend. Given that a blizzard of threatened lawsuits that they have no interest in pursuing is part of the definition of trolling in this context, that seems significant to me.

• On the post: Guy Accused Of Operating Silk Road 2.0 Arrested In SF… Just Like The Last One

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2014 @ 01:54pm

  It didn't help that he apparently allowed an undercover FBI agent to become pretty high up as a "support" staffer, giving him access to insider forums.

  So all that Tor and encryption and everything else I have to assume that they had going on and they were done in by . . . traditional police work. Gee, who could have seen that coming? (Not James Comey, apparently.)

• On the post: Latest EFF DMCA Exemption Requests Include The Right to Tinker With and Maintain Unsupported Video Games

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2014 @ 02:03pm

  I always like to see Professor McDonough quoted. (I went to the UofI library school and did an independent study with him.)

• On the post: UK Launches Orphan Work Licensing Scheme, Misses Huge Opportunity To Make It Much Better

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2014 @ 11:25pm

  As far as I'm concerned, a "hostage work" is one where we know exactly who the copyright holder is and how to contact them because they're busy demanding a ransom before they'll let the work go.

• On the post: Will The CIA Treat Amazon's Cloud The Same Way It Treated Drives It Shared With The Senate?

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2014 @ 10:55pm

  If there's shared hardware with any kind of vulnerability, how much do you want to bet that we find out about it when someone hacks the CIA?

• On the post: Canadian And American Politicians Use Ottawa Shootings As Excuses To Demand More Surveillance, Greater Policing Powers

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2014 @ 09:30pm

  Re:

  I should clarify: He shot up the Quebec parliament ("National Assembly of Quebec") and did 12 years (counting time served before conviction) before being paroled. Of course, he was active-duty Canadian military and not a terrorist in any technical sense of the word.

• On the post: Canadian And American Politicians Use Ottawa Shootings As Excuses To Demand More Surveillance, Greater Policing Powers

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2014 @ 09:25pm

  Here's some perspective for you: He's not the first guy to shoot up parliament in Canada. The last one killed three people, and you know what? He did his time and is out on parole.

• On the post: Is Adobe's Ebook Reader Spying On What You Read — And What You Have On Your Computer?

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2014 @ 12:32am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Two lessons here

  The publishers can say whatever the fuck they want; every state in the country has library privacy laws and the good ones—mine included—cover this. Amazon took heat for similar activity with regards to OverDrive and Kindle ebook lending, and it worked. Why? Giant corporations accused of being untrustworthy vs. the one near-universally loved governmental function fronted by a profession that oozes public trust does not go well for the corporations.

• On the post: New 'Company' Claims It Uses Algorithms To Create Content Faster Than Creators Can, Making All Future Creations 'Infringing'

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2014 @ 02:15pm

  Re: The flip side

  Beat me to it. :) Of course, I'd argue for corporate authorship, which generally runs shorter.

• On the post: Baltimore Ravens Meet Streisand Effect After Trying To Play 'Hide The Tweet'

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2014 @ 01:52pm

  If they'd made it clear that they were reporting what was said but IN NO WAY endorsed it, that would have been okay, Tweet-wise. The rest of it is, obviously, simply another expression of the ongoing domestic abuse problem in the NFL.

• On the post: Suburban Express Wants Round 4: Re-Files Lawsuits It Had Previously Dropped

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2014 @ 03:34pm

  What's the legal standard for dismissals and refilings here? How often can he do this before it's automatically considered with prejudice or a ruling on the merits?

• On the post: DOJ Pretends No Fly Guidelines Haven't Been Leaked, Claims 'State Secrets' To Avoid Revealing Them To The Judge

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2014 @ 08:02pm

  "Least restrictive method" screams "strict scrutiny" to me, which suggests the judge is setting the bar fatally high for the government.

• On the post: Government's Response To Snowden? Strip 100,000 Potential Whistleblowers Of Their Security Clearances

  

  M. Alan Thomas II ( profile ), 18 Aug, 2014 @ 03:57pm

  If there were 100,000 fewer people with security clearance because they were reducing operations or unnecessary classification, that would be fine. Sadly, there is no reason to believe that that's the case.

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