sehlat 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (722)

• On the post: UK Government Report Recommends Ending Online Anonymity

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 30 Jul, 2014 @ 11:28am

  Attn: Great Britain!

  1984 was a cautionary tale, not an operations manual.

• On the post: Key Sony Gaming Websites Go Down Because They Let Their Domains Expire

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2014 @ 01:25pm

  Re:

  Simple Answer: "Not my circus. Not my monkey."
  
  If you don't pay the power bill, and the power company sends an email to an address you haven't used in years, they have NO duty to send out bloodhounds to track you down and warn you your power is about to be cut off.
  
  Besides, reclaiming the expired domains really got Sony's attention, just as a housholder WILL notice the lights going out. It was a lot quicker and a lot less effort than bloodhounds.

• On the post: Supreme Court Tells Conan Doyle Estate To Take A Hike: Consider Sherlock Holmes In The Public Domain

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2014 @ 03:22pm

  Holmes: I refer to the strange thing the court did with the request.

  Watson: The court rejected it.
  
  Holmes: Precisely. That was the strange thing.

• On the post: Aereo: Okay, Fine, If You Say We Look Like A Duck, We'll Quack Like A Duck

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2014 @ 09:24am

  Re: Re:

  Actually, Schrödinger's Duck.
  
  Somebody really should incorporate as Schrödinger's Duck, LLC and let the feathers fly.

• On the post: DEA Gets Unchecked Access To Call Records; Taught To Lie About Where They Got Them

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2014 @ 10:42am

  An Awkward Question

  If the government won't obey its own laws, why should anybody else bother to obey them either, aside from threat and implementation of force and violence by that same government?

• On the post: Amazon Offers Authors 100% Of Ebook Sales To Get Them To Recognize Its Fight With Hachette Isn't About Screwing Authors

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2014 @ 02:25pm

  Re: Re: Re: Editors are actually kinda handy

  Baen, be it noted, was started by a book lover and continues in the capable hands of another. It has never been one of the Big Five Cabal.

• On the post: Amazon Offers Authors 100% Of Ebook Sales To Get Them To Recognize Its Fight With Hachette Isn't About Screwing Authors

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2014 @ 01:39pm

  Re: Editors are actually kinda handy

  The people who WORK at publishers aren't parasites. Editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, typesetters all contribute to the product.
  
  The people who RUN the publishers are lawyers, accountants, and investors. Lawyers ask "Who can we hurt so they don't hurt us?" and the latter two ask "How you going to make money with that?" Product? Quality? Who cares?
  
  There is NO major publisher that is run by book lovers, and it shows.

• On the post: Amazon Offers Authors 100% Of Ebook Sales To Get Them To Recognize Its Fight With Hachette Isn't About Screwing Authors

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2014 @ 01:36pm

  Re: Substitute MPAA for Publishers, Amazon for Movie Theaters

  Oops. Got that backwards. S.B. "Movie Theaters for Amazon"

• On the post: Amazon Offers Authors 100% Of Ebook Sales To Get Them To Recognize Its Fight With Hachette Isn't About Screwing Authors

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2014 @ 01:35pm

  Substitute MPAA for Publishers, Amazon for Movie Theaters

  Same basic approach, same basic model.
  
  We can't allow people who actually deliver the product to profit from our books or movies. They're ours!
  
  As long as we get our cut, it doesn't matter who we starve,
  and the public be damned.

• On the post: Restaurant Shows Us All How To Deal With Negative, Trolling Online Review

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2014 @ 10:39pm

  He did exactly the right thing. Awesomely.

  No other comment necessary.

• On the post: Webhost Protests FCC's Net Neutrality Proposal By Limiting FCC Access To 28.8Kbps

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 09 May, 2014 @ 12:41pm

  Show Comcast et. al. the Slow Lane, All Right!

  But do it with the court system. $100,000/day for each legal action they have active in the court system. Talk to a judge? $10,000/minute for every minute of delay under 24 hours delay. Their opponents pay nothing and get instant access.
  
  I'm sure ComCrash and others will appreciate being on the receiving end of their own ideas.

• On the post: UPDATED: NSA Denies Claims That It Knew About Heartbleed And Did Nothing

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2014 @ 03:42pm

  Re: Re: Binary Evaluation Set

  Update to prior comment: make that "willful failure". And there can be no doubt that, if they did in fact fail to report and get a major threat fixed, it was willful.

• On the post: UPDATED: NSA Denies Claims That It Knew About Heartbleed And Did Nothing

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2014 @ 03:40pm

  Re: Re: Binary Evaluation Set

  If failure to fix a major security threat isn't "giving aid and comfort to our nation's enemies" I will eat my mouse. Without salt.

• On the post: UPDATED: NSA Denies Claims That It Knew About Heartbleed And Did Nothing

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2014 @ 01:44pm

  Binary Evaluation Set

  Either:
  
  The NSA is lying and they actually failed to find the flaw, despite the fact that probing for buffer overruns is Hacking 101.
  
  Result: They are too incompetent to protect us from the real threats.
  
  The NSA is telling the truth and they spent two years knowing about a serious security flaw in the infrastructure of the internet, may have exploited it, and certainly failed to report it to the nation and enable us to protect ourselves.
  
  Result: They committed treason.
  
  Pick one.

• On the post: The Big Question: When Did The NSA Know About Heartbleed?

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2014 @ 04:17pm

  Heartbleed approximates Box of Chocolates

  It's effectively a giant crapshoot as to what you get when you exploit it.

  
  
  Not as tasty, though.

• On the post: Former NSA Official Thinks A Blog Containing Nothing But His Own Tweets Is 'Defamatory'

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2014 @ 12:30pm

  George Carlin Already Covered This Whole Thing

  ?Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.?

• On the post: GAO Finds Handling Of Intelligence Contractors Just As Screwed Up As Everything Else It's Investigated

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2014 @ 02:22pm

  Paging Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale

  Your background checks for top-secret NSA employment are ready. You passed with flying colors.

• On the post: Feds Own Cybersecurity Efforts Are A Joke: Employees Have 'Gone Rogue' To Avoid 'Ineptitude' Of IT Staff

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2014 @ 01:47pm

  Matthew 7:3

  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye,
  but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? (KJV)
  
  "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye
  and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (NIV)

• On the post: New Zealand Spy Agency Deleted Evidence About Its Illegal Spying On Kim Dotcom

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2014 @ 01:06pm

  The Trouble With Lying

  You then must remember which lies or truths you have already told. Forever.

• On the post: Network Solutions Tries To Auto-Enroll Users Into Its $1,850/Year Domain 'Protection Plan'

  

  sehlat ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2014 @ 09:30am

  As I commented recently to similar idiocy...

  in an email to Customer Service. The email included a PDF of my order acknowledgement from Amazon for the same merchandise I'd tried to purchase and been abused by [redacted]'s website for the attempt:
  
  If you read the attached PDF, you'll note I saved a dollar on your price for each of the two units, and got free shipping as well.
  
  Please remind your supervisors that every customer in the world can always vote with his mouse.

Next >>