sporaderic 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (470)

• On the post: UK Cops Have Decided Impolite Online Speech Is Worth A Visit From An Officer

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2018 @ 12:42pm

  Re:

  The world has simply changed. Get used to it. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Who needs Hugo Boss? I think suede & denim look nice together.

• On the post: Both Things Are True: Press Freakouts Over Facebook's Practices Have Been Misleading & Facebook Has A Privacy Problem

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2018 @ 11:47am

  Re: Re:

  It doesn't matter how valid your complaint is: if you lie to make it sound worse, it makes everyone take your original problem less seriously. The epitaph of innumerable good causes.

• On the post: Cubs, Nationals Launch Another Trademark Opposition Over A 'W' Logo

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2018 @ 06:29pm

  Re: Re:

  And yes, that's basically the same dumb joke I made in the article from three years ago as an AC. (At least I'm only ripping myself off here, instead of repackaging a John Oliver joke like I usually do.)

• On the post: Cubs, Nationals Launch Another Trademark Opposition Over A 'W' Logo

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2018 @ 06:19pm

  Re:

  But what the hell do the Chicago Cubs have to do with the letter W? I've always associated the Cubs with the letter L.

• On the post: Man Shot By Cops Claims Shotspotter Found Phantom 'Gunshot' To Justify Officer's Deadly Force

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2018 @ 08:43am

  Re: Shotspotter shot itself in the foot, leg, arm, torso and head

  And any good lawyer is going to use this to end the use of Shotspotter in any court case. - TAC Shotspotter shot itself in the foot... It seems to me that Shotspotter can now be called into question every time is it used by LEO's as evidence of something or other. - AAC You & TAC have good points, but I'd say this case works out great for Shotspotter since at this point they can just claim the evidence was manufactured by a rogue employee acting on his own and fire him -- no more problems in court, because there's not yet evidence of a long term pattern of this behavior. What do they get out of it? Free "wink wink nudge nudge" marketing to LEAs that they'll go the extra mile to help 'em out, and a reminder to develop a decent OTR communication channel between themselves and their customers for special circumstances. I bet sales will skyrocket.

• On the post: New York Court Tells CBP Agent He's Not Allowed To Pretend He's A Traffic Cop

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2018 @ 04:51pm

  I can't be alone here in kinda wishing the court had just said that "OK, have it your way, it was in fact a valid citizen's arrest"... and then had the CBP "citizen" charged with impersonating an officer?

• On the post: Tennessee Legislators Can't Stand Up To Cops; Keep Federal Loophole Open For Nashville Law Enforcement

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2018 @ 04:41pm

  Stopping drugs on their way into a destination state is just throwing away money. Stop a trafficker? All you get is dope that the state can't re-sell (easily at least) and a vehicle. But if you let the drugs in you get:

  • Cash from the wholesale price of the drugs & a vehicle (from traffickers leaving the state)
  • Cash from retail sales plus vehicles, homes, and random other property from in-state dealers
  • Even more cash, vehicles, homes, etc. from the end customers/users

  Stopping the flow of drugs on their way in would be interfering with a doesn't-get-much-better-than-this business model.

• On the post: Exec Who Had Sealed US Court Docs Seized By UK Parliament Suggests UK Journalist Tipped Off Parliament

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2018 @ 09:25am

  Re: ?

  Further, a reporter tipping off a UK MP that a person of interest to the wider Mueller and DMCS investigation - with a part that follows people, money flows and timelines that took place ahead of Trump and BRexit - was in the UK staying at a particular hotel - whoopie do. Quite a stretch to allege an ethics violation. Ignore the ethics angle. Ignore the fact that the seizure of the documents is legal in the UK. Cadwalladr was trying to use Kramer as a source to get dirt on Facebook, and when he wouldn't reveal as much as she wanted, she leveraged the power of the government to gain access to the material she wanted -- a move that could have landed him in legal trouble with US courts (violating the seal on the documents) or at the very least hurt his case against FB. How many potential sources is she going to lose for future stories she may work on because of an action like this? Forget about things being technically legal and ethical: this move destroys trust.

• On the post: Supreme Court Appears Inclined To Apply The Eighth Amendment To Civil Asset Forfeiture

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 30 Nov, 2018 @ 06:23pm

  Some Assembly Required (Re: Re: NEED VIDEO!!!)

  Avidemux: https://sourceforge.net/projects/avidemux/ Real Animals, Fake Paws Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=tug71xZL7yc Timbs v. Indiana Audio: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2018/17-1091

• On the post: Exec Who Had Sealed US Court Docs Seized By UK Parliament Suggests UK Journalist Tipped Off Parliament

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 30 Nov, 2018 @ 04:14pm

  Re: Goodbye professional ethics and reputation

  I'd hope that The Guardian publicly calls her out if not fires her for this, because if they don't they are all but saying flat out that they have no problem with their reporters making use of the kind of tactics you'd expect from sleazy paparazzi and the kind of magazines that employ them. The Guardian of a few years ago would call her out. The Guardian today? They'll give her a bonus and ask her to write a story about how Mark Zuckerberg conspired with Julian Assange to help Russia annex Crimea in 2014, which lead to a tenfold increase in international sex trafficking and... I dunno, Trump and puppy vivisection cults.

• On the post: Deputy AG Claims There's No Market For Better Security While Complaining About Encryption At A Cybercrime Conference

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 30 Nov, 2018 @ 10:02am

  I was wondering how anyone could get away with spewing such nonsense during his keynote address without the crowd driving him away from the podium with deafening, riotous laughter and a barrage of random objects, but then I noticed that the conference was co-sponsored by the DoJ.

• On the post: Philly Cops Skirting Forfeiture Restrictions By Seizing Cars As 'Evidence'

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 29 Nov, 2018 @ 08:27pm

  Re:

  If Kafka were writing today, his style would be classified as "Slice of Life Americana" built on a framework of forfeituresque realism.

• On the post: Ignorance Of The Law Is No Excuse, Court Tells Cop

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2018 @ 09:53am

  Re:

  At first, I was going to give Sperry a bit of leeway: yes, he should have known the law, but it sounded like he freely & openly admitted that he was mistaken; it seemed more like the prosecutors who were independently pushing the Ignorance Is OK thing. Then I read the decision and noticed that the LEO arrested the driver for DUI/No Interlock but "did not issue a citation or warning for the defective brake light." Seems more than a little suspicious to not even cite the guy for the infraction that started everything.

• On the post: Pompous 'International Grand Committee' Signs Useless But Equally Pompous 'Declaration On Principles Of Law Governing The Internet'

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2018 @ 05:40pm

  ii. The deliberate spreading of disinformation and division is a credible threat to the continuation and growth of democracy and a civilising global dialogue;

  We certainly wouldn't want people being allowed to vote on something until they've all agreed to cast their ballots the same way on it.

• On the post: From $1.50 To $10 Per Month: How Comcast's Bogus Fees Are False Advertising

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2018 @ 09:16am

  They hide all sorts of stuff below the line. My old roommate Ted was in charge of the cable/internet service, and two days after signing up with Comcast the installation tech showed up. I remember it like it was yesterday... [distorted dissolve to flashback:]

  TECH: Uhh, can I have your liver?

  TED: My what?

  TECH: Your liver. It's a large, ehh, glandular organ in your abdomen.

  TED: Yeah, I know what it is, but... I'm using it.

  TECH: What's this, then? Mm?

  TED: A Comcast contract.

  TECH: Need I say more?

  TED: Listen, I can't give it to you now. It says, 'in the event of death'.

  TECH: No one who has ever signed up with Comcast has survived.

  [TED bleeds to death while arguing with Customer Support on phone]

• On the post: Lawyers For Kobe Bryant Tout His Uselessness In Potential Trademark Opposition Fight

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 27 Nov, 2018 @ 11:04pm

  Lawyers For Kobe Bryant Tout His Uselessness In Potential Trademark Opposition Fight

  Lawyers For Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals Threaten To Add Phil Jackson To Legal Team, Make Kobe Useful

• On the post: Homicide, Sexual Assault Cases On The Line After Crime Lab Discovers Tech Using The Wrong Tools For The Job

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 27 Nov, 2018 @ 10:04am

  Re: Re: Re: Since no-one has mentioned it...

  The more I comment, the more I realize that my ideas are just bargain-basement reformulations of material from Dilbert, xkcd, and Gravity's Rainbow.

• On the post: Israeli Exploit Developer Caught Negotiating Spyware Sales With Saudi Government

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 27 Nov, 2018 @ 05:11pm

  From a Reuters item:

  Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for five suspects charged in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as the kingdom tries to contain its biggest political crisis for a generation.

  The first of the five who's gonna be found guilty? The one who forgot to check if Turkey was on NSO Group's customer list, too.

• On the post: Homicide, Sexual Assault Cases On The Line After Crime Lab Discovers Tech Using The Wrong Tools For The Job

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 26 Nov, 2018 @ 09:26pm

  Re: Since no-one has mentioned it...

  I used to work at a research facility, and this guy Ted would always bring in his personal UHPLC system to use at the end of the week. His reasoning was that "Dude it's, like, casual Friday, right? And my home gear's got, you know, a wicked awesome skull sticker on it... way laid back and cool, see what I'm sayin'?" My boss decided to let him keep doing it, telling the rest of us that "Ted's logic is impeccable, so if I stopped him we'd all have to go back to wearing ties five days a week."

• On the post: Homicide, Sexual Assault Cases On The Line After Crime Lab Discovers Tech Using The Wrong Tools For The Job

  

  sporaderic ( profile ), 26 Nov, 2018 @ 02:45pm

  Re:

  We talk about it being better that 100 guilty men walk rather than an innocent put in jail for a day... I can never let a Blackstone/Voltaire/Franklin reference go without mentioning the Dick Cheney Revision:

  I'm more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that, in fact, were innocent.

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