Chris 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (1771)

• On the post: FBI, While Hating On Encryption, Starts Encrypting All Visits To Its Website

  

  Chris ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2015 @ 01:06pm

  Re: Re:

  Yeah, seems like a DNS leak.
  
  I noticed the other day that a mis-typed domain name popped up my ISP's obnoxious "Couldn't find that site, so here are some ads instead" page whereas my traffic should have been flowing entirely through my VPN. A quick trip to my VPN software settings fixed the issue.

• On the post: UK Government Goes Full Orwell: Snooper's Charter, Encryption Backdoors, Free Speech Suppression

  

  Chris ( profile ), 28 May, 2015 @ 11:50am

  Re: Re: Re: "Social cohesion"

  The word "liberal" hasn't always meant "progressive nanny-statist". The fact that it eventually morphed into the sad state it is today is why the term "libertarian" was coined.

• On the post: Court Shuts Down NYPD's Argument That When Searching For Black Male Suspects, Any Black Male Will Do

  

  Chris ( profile ), 28 May, 2015 @ 07:05am

  Re:

  Won't somebOdy think of teh childrun?!??

  You may be chomping at the bit to give up any or all of your essential rights in a fit of pearl-clutching hyperventilation, but not all of us are as prone to fainting spells.
  
  If you really wanted to prevent those things, you'd oppose the war on drugs, since it's the policy causing shootouts and dangerous product in the first place.

• On the post: US Marshal Shuts Down Citizen Recording By Grabbing Phone And Smashing It On The Ground

  

  Chris ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2015 @ 11:13am

  Re: Re: The police are out of control

  If you say "Black lives matter!" and someone else interjects with "Hey, all lives matter!" they are being an asshole, I agree.
  
  However, if an ally says "All lives matter!" and you interject with "Hey, black lives matter!" (as was the case in the post you are responding to), you're the asshole.

• On the post: Comcast, CenturyLink Give New Home Owner Kafka-esque Introduction To U.S. Broadband Market

  

  Chris ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2015 @ 01:27pm

  Hits Too Close to Home

  When I had my current house built, I was told by the builder that Brighthouse would be my cable provider (who I adore). Brighthouse's online tool confirmed coverage for my zip code, as did Comcast's. After signing the papers, I went to set up my utilities and Brighthouse said no. Damn.
  
  Grudgingly, I turned to Comcast. But although online it said that service was available to me, it kept giving me an error when I went to actually complete the check-out process, and their online chat rep told me that I would have to go into a Comcast office in person to sort it out. When I did, the tech came back after 10 minutes and told me I was years away from ever getting service at that address, even if they were to start the process now, which, by the way, they weren't even considering. So, thanks to Comcast for wasting as much of time as possible.
  
  I ended up with CenturyLink, whose best offered DSL plan in my area is 10 mbps, but who told me they could only offer me 6 mbps under it (with no discount of course). So I ended up going from a 150/10 connection to a 6/0.5 connection.
  
  Still, it could be worse. At least I have a connection that can stream a video . . .

• On the post: Copyright Bots Kill App Over 'Potentially Infringing' Images, Follow This Up By Blocking App For Use Of CC/Public Domain Images

  

  Chris ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2015 @ 10:40am

  Re: Re: Re:

  I think that once arbitrary decisions hurt somebody financially one can at least question the legality of such moves under anti-trust issues.

  "Does not accept all uses of their platform that I personally wish they would accept" is not anti-trust. At all. Like, it's not just not in the same ball park, you aren't in the same state. There are multiple other competitors in the app store space, and Google themselves specifically allows you to side-load any app you want. They aren't a monopoly. If you don't like the app store's terms of service, use a different one.
  

  Besides I'd say there's enough room for using fair use here and on similar cases.

  There is nothing in the law that says Google has to allow content on its platform merely because that content qualifies as fair use.
  

  Sure Google can reject applications but once they accepted all based on public guidelines then they should not discriminate.

  If developers had a contract with them that stated they were owed damages should Google change their mind, that's one thing, but they don't. Changing their mind after approving an app is not illegal, or actionable.
  

  I am interpreting it to be a civil matter at least in the fair use front

  Fair use has to do with whether or not the developer or Google could be sued by the owner of the pictures in question, not whether or not Google must host a particular app.
  

  So if it's an open platform and anybody can sell there why are they discriminating a few players?

  Discrimination based on content isn't illegal, nor should it be.
  

  My wording may have been poor but don't you agree that there are legal questions to be asked here?

  No. There are no legal questions here regarding Google's right to not host an app.

• On the post: Copyright Bots Kill App Over 'Potentially Infringing' Images, Follow This Up By Blocking App For Use Of CC/Public Domain Images

  

  Chris ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2015 @ 07:40am

  Re:

  Simple: all devs should start suing Google when they remo0ve their application without legal basis and proper explanation.

  Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else has a legal right to publish apps on the Google Play store in the first place, so they can remove apps as they see fit, even in situations that are unfair, short-sighted, done "without legal basis", and without "proper explanation". In short, Google owes you jack shit.
  
  (Is this one of those "Everything I personally disagree with should be illegal!" arguments? They do seem to be all the rage these days . . .)

• On the post: Government Pays $18k To Journalists Whose Tank Plant Photos It Deleted

  

  Chris ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2015 @ 09:27am

  Re: Re: So, did they publish the photos?

  Hard drive manufacturers these days, in a quest for higher data density, basically squeeze so many bytes out of every platter that it is no longer necessary to perform a crazy amount of rewrites to truly delete data on a standard hard drive. There's just not significant extra space hanging out at the margins as a buffer anymore.
  
  Also, wear-leveling algorithms in solid-state drives' firmware lets them remap which sectors of the flash memory are reported as what to the OS, so even if you tell an SSD to write to a particular sector, internally it may choose to write the data to somewhere different.

• On the post: White House Celebrates National Freedom Of Information Day By Making Office Of The Administration Completely UnFOIA-able

  

  Chris ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2015 @ 06:42am

  Re: Re:

  when you have a president that wipes his ass with your vaunted constitution what do you expect.

  How far back would one have to go in history to find a president who didn't? I swear, voters are like battered spouses ("He promised us that this time would be different!")

• On the post: Not So Awesome Stuff: Your Worst Crowdfunding Project?

  

  Chris ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2015 @ 07:45am

  Variability

  I wonder if the percentage of crowd-funding products that don't come through varies wildly based on project type. According to Kickstarter, I've backed 83 projects. Out of those, I've only written off one of them, but nearly all of mine were tabletop games.

• On the post: If You Want To See What The U.S. Broadband Market Really Looks Like, Take A Close Look At West Virginia

  

  Chris ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2015 @ 12:49pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  It's kind of ridiculous to find examples where the entire economy and capital structure of a country was leveled by years of missile strikes and urban combat and then blame the resulting chaos and shortages on "governmental collapse".

• On the post: If You Want To See What The U.S. Broadband Market Really Looks Like, Take A Close Look At West Virginia

  

  Chris ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2015 @ 12:14pm

  Re: Re:

  Think Goldmad Sacks wouldn't assemble an army of mercenaries if they could?

  They don't need one. The government already has that job, and at a much cheaper price than Goldman could do it on their own, since it's funded by taxpayers.

• On the post: FedEx Refuses To Ship Perfectly Legal Milling Machine (Which Can Also Craft Gun Parts), Can't Provide A Coherent Reason Why

  

  Chris ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2015 @ 01:34pm

  Re: Please, PLEASE don't tell me you're siding with Defense Distributed.

  You're acting like it wasn't Cody's entire goal with DD to show how arbitrary the law is, and how hollow the corporate stooges' and politicians' justifications are. Seems to me that he's doing a great job of it.

• On the post: Cable Industry Fights New 25 Mbps Broadband Definition Because The Need For Those Speeds Is 'Hypothetical'

  

  Chris ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2015 @ 06:45am

  Re: Re: Ugh

  I'd actually be willing to go with Comcast, but they don't service my area.

• On the post: Cable Industry Fights New 25 Mbps Broadband Definition Because The Need For Those Speeds Is 'Hypothetical'

  

  Chris ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2015 @ 12:07pm

  Ugh

  As someone who is losing their 105/10 cable connection for a 6/0.8 DSL connection, I feel the pain now.

• On the post: John Steele Looking To Join Former Prenda Lawyer Paul Hansmeier In ADA Lawsuit Shakedown Business

  

  Chris ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2015 @ 02:03pm

  exploiting a good law for negative ends

  
  Can it really be a good law, then? Pathway to hell, and all that.

• On the post: UK Party Leader Attacks Satirical Mobile Game Made By Teenagers Interested In Politics

  

  Chris ( profile ), 26 Dec, 2014 @ 04:22pm

  "He cannot expect young people to engage in politics and then criticise what they say when they do.”

  Why the heck not?

• On the post: Google Pulls Out The Nuclear Option: Shuts Down Google News In Spain Over Ridiculous Copyright Law

  

  Chris ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2014 @ 08:29am

  Re:

  I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet Spanish news outlets will sue Google for "lost revenue".

• On the post: No, Tech Companies Can't Easily Create A 'ContentID' For Harassment, And It Would Be A Disaster If They Did

  

  Chris ( profile ), 10 Dec, 2014 @ 02:47pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  Check your sarcasm meter; I think it's busted. :)

• On the post: St. Louis Police Claim It's Their 'First Amendment' Rights Not To Protect Football Players Who Supported Protestors

  

  Chris ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2014 @ 03:33pm

  Maybe I'm Missing Something

  I'm as critical of our burgeoning police state as anyone, but I can't see anywhere in the quote where he threatened or even hinted that the cops would stop protecting NFL players.
  
  "You have a first amendment right to say that you support the looters, and we have a first amendment right to say that the looters are not your primary supporters" seems like a fairly innocuous thing to say.

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