Richard 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (7496)

• On the post: So Much For The Fifth Amendment: Man Jailed For Seven Months For Not Turning Over Password

  

  Richard ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2016 @ 03:39pm

  Re: "ten years"

  Actually you are worse than Russia.
  
  Russia doesn't execute people anymore.

• On the post: Monster Corporate Sovereignty Ruling Against Russia Overturned By Dutch Court, But It's Hard To Tell Whether It's Over Yet

  

  Richard ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2016 @ 02:37pm

  Re: Vlad does not have to pay... for now

  We are talking here about him taking the third largest business in the world from its shareholders
  
  Those shareholders themselves took it from the Russian state when that drunk Yeltsin was in charge.
  
  If you steal my wallet and I take it back who's the thief?

• On the post: Monster Corporate Sovereignty Ruling Against Russia Overturned By Dutch Court, But It's Hard To Tell Whether It's Over Yet

  

  Richard ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2016 @ 09:42am

  It can get worse

  These cases are insane. To realise how insane this could get consider what has happened in Belgium.
  
  Because it is clear that, in fact, the Russian government will never pay the 50 Billion the Yukos shareholders have made an attempt to recover the money from anyone in Belgium who has any link to the Russian state - however tenuous that might be.
  For example the local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose assets have been accumulated by donations from local people - mostly Belgian nationals with Russian ancestry- has been included on a list of organisations from which the shareholders could recover money.
  
  http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=12131

• On the post: Ex-Game Maker Atari To Argue To The US PTO That Only It Can Make 'Haunted House' Games

  

  Richard ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2016 @ 02:43am

  This will continue

  This will continue until there is a significant penalty for failure in this type of case.
  
  At present US practice doesn't routinely require the loser to pay costs in these cases. Hence it is inevitable that the defendant will balance the cost of fighting (and winning) against a modest licencing fee and accept the fee.
  
  Winning such a case should never leave the defendant out of pocket.
  
  This is true in other countries - which is why the US has more problems than the ret of the world.

• On the post: Ignorant Anti-Encryption Law Enforcement Groups Made A Logo And A Hashtag… And It All Backfired

  

  Richard ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2016 @ 01:02pm

  Re: Re: Re: cough

  Personally I want a gun to protect myself from home invasions, but that's just me.
  
  All that does is give criminals and the police a good reason to shoot you first and ask questions afterwards.
  
  Protecting yourself with it is pure fantasy - you wouldn't get the chance.

• On the post: Ignorant Anti-Encryption Law Enforcement Groups Made A Logo And A Hashtag… And It All Backfired

  

  Richard ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2016 @ 12:56pm

  Re: cough

  Basic encryption (in it's simplest forms) is better than none. It's similar to having a cheap lock on a door rather than no lock at all.
  
  That is an analogy that doesn't work.
  
  In the digital world it is a boolean. You have a secure lock or no lock.

• On the post: EU-Canada Trade Deal Still Struggling, As Romania And Belgium Say They Won't/Can't Ratify Treaty

  

  Richard ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2016 @ 05:40am

  Of course

  Of course these "trade" deals are not really needed for the corporates to pursue a case. Other existing treaties can be enough - look at the Yukos case for example.

• On the post: Over 7,800 Prosecutions Questioned After NJ Lab Tech Caught Faking Drug Test Results

  

  Richard ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2016 @ 08:44am

  Re: Some Fixes

  How about this fix?
  
  Set up a "black team" to test the lab's integrity.
  
  The black team would submit samples randomly embedded along with all the regular ones - these samples would be known negative.
  
  If any are returned posiitve then the scientist gets to serve the time that would have resulted had the case been real.

• On the post: Report Exposes Flaws In Link Shorteners That Reveal Sensitive Info About Users And Track Their Offline Movements

  

  Richard ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2016 @ 09:45am

  Feymann

  as you can never tell whether the entity affected will respond with a bug fix or a police report -- not until after they've been informed.
  
  This attitude is not new.
  
  Richard Feynmann encountered it at Los Alamos 70 years ago when he explained how the safes could be cracked.

• On the post: Comedian Could Face 3 Years In German (Not Turkish!) Jail For Mocking Notoriously Thin-Skinned Turkish President

  

  Richard ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2016 @ 02:56am

  Re: Re: Re: Will they take the high road or not?

  Also Erdogan is on record - in his early, more openly Islamist days, saying that "democracy is like a bus - you use it to get where you want and then when you arrive you get off".
  
  His agenda - as often happens in countries with an Islamic culture - is to use democracy to establish his own power and then gradually dismantle it. The increasing number of religious laws and his recently tightened grip on the media are evidence of this.
  
  Turkey is transitioning from the secular autocracy established by Ataturk to a religious based one. The secular democracy that Ataturk attempted to bequeath has not survived.

• On the post: Comedian Could Face 3 Years In German (Not Turkish!) Jail For Mocking Notoriously Thin-Skinned Turkish President

  

  Richard ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2016 @ 02:47am

  Re: RIP EU

  If Turkey gets in Britian will get out - regardless of what happens in the June referendum.
  
  However it is unlikely that it will get that far.
  
  I can't see any British government failing to veto Turkey.
  
  I can't see any Cypriot goverment letting Turkey in until it stops occupying Northern Cyprus.
  
  I can't see any Greek government letting Turkey in without significant concessions to the Orthodox church in Constantinople - eg return of the Hagia Sophia to the church.
  
  Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary and Romania will also likely have objections - as will several of the other countries that are currently in the process of joining.

• On the post: DailyDirt: Personal Flying Machines

  

  Richard ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2016 @ 04:39am

  Ther is a betterJetpack already out there

  Huh - the Martin aircraft one is still futureware - but there is already one flying.
  
  Look HERE http://jetpackaviation.com/
  
  Not hard to find - surprised you missed it!

• On the post: DailyDirt: Who Cares About Moore's Law Anymore?

  

  Richard ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2016 @ 03:20pm

  Re: Re: My dream...

  The Tempus editor on the Atari ST ran quicker and more responsively than any modern word processor!

• On the post: DailyDirt: Who Cares About Moore's Law Anymore?

  

  Richard ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2016 @ 03:17pm

  Re: Re: Moore's Law

  density is still improving nicely, so Moore's law is still in no danger of ending.
  
  But, without a similar increase in speed we have found it difficult to make use of the extra density - so practical performance has not improved to the same extent.
  
  
  Also Vitanyi's 1995 prediction for the inevitably 3kw laptop/heater by 2015 has not materialised and so we have definitely fallen short in some sense.

• On the post: Hollywood Forced SlySoft DVD Ripping Software Out Of Business, Only To Have It Return As RedFox

  

  Richard ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2016 @ 04:02pm

  Re:

  CD's are not copy protected, most DVD's are. It's the anti-circumvention clause in the DMCA that it the issue here. It isn't some arbitrary distinction.
  
  That IS an arbitrary distinction.

• On the post: Using The All Writs Act To Route Around The Fifth Amendment

  

  Richard ( profile ), 06 Apr, 2016 @ 10:03am

  Re: i don't know

  What makes a short string of character less invasive than bodily fluids?
  
  That string of characters is something you remember whereas the dna is a physical thing that could in principle be obtained forcibly without torture.

• On the post: Using The All Writs Act To Route Around The Fifth Amendment

  

  Richard ( profile ), 06 Apr, 2016 @ 10:00am

  Re: Re: Re: Simple tests

  The court also has the technicities wrong.
  
  Suppose the encryption was a one time pad.
  
  In that case the key and the encrypted data are essentially equivalent. Thus handing over the key would be the same thing as handing over the data. I don't think the nature of the encryption should be regarded as important - and since the key is stored in his memory handing over the key is exactly equivalent to self incrimination.
  
  Having said that I don't think the court used legal precedent and logic to arrive at their conclusions - I think they attempted to use them to justify a conclusion that they had predetermined.

• On the post: Swedish Court: Wikipedia Hosting Photos Of Public Artwork Is Copyright Infringement For Some Reason

  

  Richard ( profile ), 06 Apr, 2016 @ 09:53am

  what about

  Facebook, Instagram etc etc and all the other places where such images can be found?

• On the post: Nothing To Hide (And Nowhere To Hide It) But Everything To Fear: The Police Vs. The Unarmed And Naked

  

  Richard ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2016 @ 02:45pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Training

  The NRA is not the problem. You are the problem. The NRA is trying to support the 2nd Amendment,
  
  The 2nd amendment is the problem. It is the biggest piece of collective stupidity ever enacted.
  
  From my side of the atlantic all the pro-gun arguments just look barking mad.
  
  The simplest solution to the problem is to remove the second amendment, put in really effective gun control and disarm the police.
  
  That, and only that would save many lives in America.

• On the post: You Don't Actually Own What You Buy Volume 2,203: Google Bricking Revolv Smart Home Hardware

  

  Richard ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2016 @ 02:30pm

  Re:

  Google gives all appearance of betting that people will either forget their deeds of the past, or not know about them.
  
  They will presumably be relying on the right to be forgotten.

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