tqk 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: DHS Official Thinks People Should Have To Give Up Their Anonymity To Use The Internet

    tqk ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2016 @ 02:14pm

    Re:

    It's not that you support those evil terrorists, just that your need to be anonymous gives them an equal footing.

    So the fact that all these bad guys (criminals) are hiding in the midst of all of us law abiding (non-criminals) is why we need to have our rights taken away?

    You should probably not sleep in that top bunk any more. I think you've hit your head way more often than you should've by falling out repeatedly.

  • On the post: DHS Official Thinks People Should Have To Give Up Their Anonymity To Use The Internet

    tqk ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2016 @ 02:05pm

    Re: Re: Plates do not identify the driver

    I think that the IP would be more the equivelent of the license plate of a car ...

    Nope. I think I've a choice of about five places within a block of where I live that I could walk into and use their freely provided WiFi connection, not to mention all the open unlocked routers people have in their homes in the area. Some of them, I wouldn't even need to go inside. I could be sitting at a bus stop outside across the street. Fold in a VPN and you or anyone else would never be able to find out who or where I am.

    I'm beginning to think demanding people have a valid Internet driver's license may be a thing we should consider just to keep the imbeciles off until they've learned enough about it not to hurt themselves or others while connected. I do not want that license to be provided by government. An ISP can do that perfectly well when you show up to buy your connection.

  • On the post: Hillary Clinton Flip Flopped On TPP Before, So Big Business Lobbyists Are Confident She'll Really Flip Back After Election

    tqk ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2016 @ 08:54pm

    "Jane, you disgusting slut!"

    Sorry, but I love that line from Dan Ackroyd on SNL. It seemed apropos.

    So his decision was to hide it. And now, it seems likely that plenty of politicians are basically doing the same -- hide the TPP until the public isn't looking or can't really do anything, and then shove it through.

    Sort of sounds like SOPA. The mass of the DNC is gagging on TPP, so how the !@#$ is she the front runner for the nomination? Because "female president?" Damn, that's shallow. I've got nothing against females, but ffs, why Hillary? Because she's female?!? That's stupid. Grace Hopper I'd vote for. Hillary? Not even if the world was going to end if I didn't. No, by the way, I'm not a Fiorina fan either. Ick.

    It sure would be lovely if, at the last minute, the whole world stood up on it's hind legs to shout out (a la "Network") "I'm mad as hell and am not going to take it anymore!"

    What a cheesy witch that woman is. Damn, I despise pragmatism! "Whatever works" sounds a lot like "The ends justify the means" to me, and everybody knows that's evil.

    Idealism is what we should all aspire to. "Things as they could, and should, be", to quote Aristotle.

  • On the post: YouTube Wins This Round In Germany In The Stupid Neverending War With GEMA Over Streaming Rates

    tqk ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2016 @ 09:52am

    Re: I loathe GEMA with every fibre of my being...

    Created by the Nazi government in the mid-thirties ...

    Those poor Nazis always get such a bad rap. They gave us the autobahn, and Volkswagen, and kicked out the Kaiser, invented Blitzkrieg, and the 88 artillery, and Panzers. All brilliant stuff.

    Stalin was the real mass murderer back then. Hitler and his buddies didn't even approach what he got away with.

    No, I'm not really trying to defend them. Just trying to put it into perspective.

  • On the post: YouTube Wins This Round In Germany In The Stupid Neverending War With GEMA Over Streaming Rates

    tqk ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2016 @ 09:39am

    Re: Win/Win when you think about it...

    ... and without that the options for non-GEMA members ...

    The way I understand it, you cannot not be a GEMA represented artist. They've got "divine right of kings" on their side, or they assume it. They will demand to collect for you whether they've ever heard of you or not.

    Whether you, the artist, will ever see it is irrelevant. GEMA's job is to collect, period. If Germany doesn't like that, their option is to elect other politicians, and pray.

  • On the post: YouTube Wins This Round In Germany In The Stupid Neverending War With GEMA Over Streaming Rates

    tqk ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2016 @ 09:17am

    Re:

    Does Whatever think this is bullcrap, too?

    I'm pretty sure Whatever and I couldn't remain for long in the same room without us ending up in a spitting match, or something comparable.

    However, on the other hand, when I think of some commuter sitting on a bus looking for tunes on his cellphone to amuse themself on their commute, $0.17 doesn't really look all that exorbitant. Yeah, it's a one time play and when it's over you've got nothing to show for it but the memory, but $0.17? That sounds pretty reasonable. I wouldn't do it, but I expect a lot of people would.

    When a head of cauliflour sells for ten bucks, and a months worth of decent coffee sells for eight bucks, $0.17 to stream a tune sounds like a fairly reasonable deal to me. Yeah, if you're Google/YouTube and you multiply $0.17 times a few million streams, you're going to be talking real money and they would damned sure like to avoid the hit, but at $0.17 per stream, GEMA sounds damned near reasonable for once, at least to me.

    So I guess I'm a contrarian on this for once.

  • On the post: DHS Official Thinks People Should Have To Give Up Their Anonymity To Use The Internet

    tqk ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2016 @ 01:39pm

    Somebody wake up Barnett!

    The license plate's identifiers are ignored most of the time by law enforcement [unless] the car is involved in a legal infraction or otherwise becomes a matter of public interest.

    I wonder what rock he's been living under. How can anyone not know about red light cameras, automated license plate readers, and CCTV surveillance cameras?

  • On the post: DHS Official Thinks People Should Have To Give Up Their Anonymity To Use The Internet

    tqk ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2016 @ 01:31pm

    Erik "The Nosy Pervert" Barnett should be thrown in jail.

    We've just been shown proof (his confession) of his intent to pervert the Constitutional protections of, what, seven billion people now? That's a lot of perversion! This is not at all funny. With imbeciles like this running around, who cares about terrorists and kiddie-fiddlers? They're nothing compared to this guy's ideas.

    How in the world does someone this foolish manage to grow to adulthood? The dumbth is staggering.

  • On the post: New Report Debunks FBI's 'Going Dark' FUD

    tqk ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2016 @ 11:28am

    Comey's just greedy.

    It's just average, every day greed. They can paint a target onto the back of anybody they damned well please any time they want to, but they want more. It's almost like he wishes more people were committing crimes so he could bust more lawbreakers. Which, for a lawman, is really missing the point of the whole thing he was hired to do. A lawman should be happy he can't find anyone committing crimes because no one's committing crimes.

    Comey's got it bass-ackwards. What a dipshit.

  • On the post: Monkey See, Monkey Do, But Judge Says Monkey Gets No Copyright

    tqk ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2016 @ 08:37am

    Re:

    If you don't add positive value recognized by those party to a relationship, you're not symbiotic; you're parasitic. Figuring out an angle by which you can get a cut of others' action is far better achieved by thieves, conmen, and various other forms of organized criminals. Lawyering mouthpieces can babble all they want about their necessity, but it doesn't make it rise above the level of charlatan amateur.

    Either grow up and find a valid reason to exist, or you'll deserve to go the way of the alchemists. We already have philosophy and science. Professional liars are not necessary for anything nor anyone. Criminals do what they do far more efficiently and at much lower cost.

  • On the post: Sad Raiders Fan Tries To Keep Team In Oakland By Squatting On Trademark

    tqk ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2016 @ 12:35pm

    Re:

    I get that losing a local sports team is pretty heartbreaking.

    You do? Why?

  • On the post: Pakistan Orders ISPs To Block 429,343 Websites Completely, Because There's Porn On The Internet

    tqk ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2016 @ 03:37pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    DNS services don't really play a role here as the ISP is tasked to block the IP Addresses that the DNS service will resolve.

    Wait, DNS isn't a euphemism, is it?

    Think of DNS as icing on the IP cake. You don't need to eat the icing to eat the cake. 31.192.117.132 will get you to pornhub.com even quicker than typing in its domain name address.

    Blocking the IP addresses makes DNS irrelevant. A VPN should make that blocking irrelevant, unless they're going to build a wall that drops anything incoming from "bad" domains.

    I wish prudes would clean up their own act before trying to save others from themselves. If Pakistani youth want to waste their time watching porn, you've got to wonder why. Perhaps they think what you're trying to sell them sucks.

  • On the post: FCC Takes Aim At The Pathetic Lack Of Cable Set Top Box Competition

    tqk ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2016 @ 01:42pm

    Re: Here we go again...

    Campaigning against a problem THEY caused!

    First, who's "THEY"? I'd say the cable industry caused it. There was money on the table and it wasn't illegal to demand it, just like phones and AT&T. However, assuming you mean gov't, I'd say it's more they allowed it to happen, through inaction. "Consumer protection? What a novel idea!"

    Still won't make me want to sign up for teevee any time soon.

  • On the post: Medium Stands Up To Malaysia's Attempt To Take Down Investigative Reporting; Gets Entire Site Blocked In Malaysia

    tqk ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2016 @ 12:45pm

    Re:

    You have your rights, as does the Malaysian government, no?

    No. How is the world made a better place by acknowledging governments have rights? They don't need them, for one thing. If they really dislike something, there's lots of things they can do about it.

    Imagine a gov't losing an election or confidence vote then taking that as a personal attack. That doesn't get anyone but tyrants anywhere. They should be forced to defend themselves. They don't need rights.

  • On the post: Kuwait Creating Mandatory DNA Database Of All Citizens, Residents — And Visitors

    tqk ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2016 @ 11:16am

    Re: Re: Sci Fi Dystopian Nightmare

    Spoiler Alert

    It's worth noting that though Gattaca showed gov't doing all those horrible things by abusing technology, smart and determined people were still able to get around them and win out in the end. Doing so even changed the opinions of some who were at first strongly supportive of the evil use of technology.

    Those people you thought you were protecting by misusing tech. may even be the ones most determined to make it fail.

  • On the post: Kuwait Creating Mandatory DNA Database Of All Citizens, Residents — And Visitors

    tqk ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2016 @ 11:07am

    Re: Re: Re: Test accuracy

    And, their twin brother would wear an hijab if he were transsexual. I concede your point, as obviously transsexuality is likely illegal (at least) in Muslim countries. :-)

  • On the post: Kuwait Creating Mandatory DNA Database Of All Citizens, Residents — And Visitors

    tqk ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2016 @ 10:58am

    Re: Re: Test accuracy

    my twin brother committed the crime of not wearing a hijab

    The hijab is worn by women.

    True, and females can have twin brothers.

  • On the post: Canada Temporarily Drops Out Of Five Eyes Spying Coalition, After Realizing It Wasn't Properly Protecting Information

    tqk ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2016 @ 04:24pm

    CSE, please hire better people.

    Having met and worked with and been pushed under the bus by a CSE alumnus (though ultimately vindicated), I'm not the least bit surprised these technical wizards can't code a correct SQL select statement to extract only the columns necessary from an rdb table containing raw ISP data. It makes me wonder if the NSA told them, "Just use this", and they blindly did a copy & paste.

    What trusting sorts we Canucks can be. Now we get to have them play with C-51. Great. :-P

  • On the post: Direct Democracy: Successful Petition Gives Swiss Citizens Chance To Vote Against New Surveillance Law

    tqk ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2016 @ 05:35pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Regardless, every time I bring up the prospect of direct democracy to one of my friends, they almost always complain that in such a scenario, 'idiots' will end up voting and winning on something completely idiotic.

    So, no difference then. That's what we have now.

    Maybe if people had the right to actually weigh in on stuff (as Switzerland does), more than just marking a ballot once every four years, they might actually care about issues (instead of their party vs. the other party). Maybe they'd even care enough to educate themselves. Instead, that's all short-circuited by Red Team vs. Blue Team noisemaking & propaganda.

    It's depressing to watch the movers and shakers, with the help of various middlemen and hangers-on (party insiders, pundits, tamed media) wrapping the electorate around their baby fingers. We shouldn't have to tolerate this charade.

  • On the post: Direct Democracy: Successful Petition Gives Swiss Citizens Chance To Vote Against New Surveillance Law

    tqk ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2016 @ 01:29pm

    In Canada ...

    We're having to plead with the minister in charge of this for a public consultation on the issue, the results of which will have no power to bind them in any way. In another of these things recently, the minister accepted no questions from the floor. It was just PR to be seen to be open and listening to the people, and immediately forgotten.

    Most western style democracy is a sham. I'm thankful not to have to suffer the more in your face tyrannies elsewhere still in the world, but it's pretty insulting to still have to accept this arrogant bondage in this day and age. We've made many advances in many ways in the last few centuries, but not very much as far as individual freedom from oligarchies and plutocracies. We're still being easily bought off by bread and circuses just as it was in Imperial Rome, and still must tolerate and pay for whatever boondoggles and whims with which our puppetmasters choose to concern themselves. I wonder if this can ever change.

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