tqk 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Facebook Going After Designbook Because All The Books Are Belong To Them

    tqk ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2015 @ 07:38am

    Re:

    In it he uses only the thousand most common English words to explain a variety of interesting things.

    That's a fascinating problem. I'm imagining a recursive algorithm wrapped around a thesaurus. Maybe there's a perl module for it.

  • On the post: EU Official Says It's Time To Harm American Internet Companies Via Regulations… Hours Later Antitrust Charges Against Google Announced

    tqk ( profile ), 11 Jun, 2015 @ 07:07am

    Re: Proprietorships and partnerships

    are for businesses too small to incorporate ...

    There's no such thing. I was working as a self-employed contractor. I bought an incorporation package from a lawyer, and client cheques went to its business account, from which I withdrew. It's the only way RevCan and the corps will allow. The sad part of it is needing to go through headhunters to get contracts.

  • On the post: Canada Passes 'Anti-Terror' Spy Bill, Taking Away Civil Liberties

    tqk ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2015 @ 01:11pm

    Re: Canadian mainsream reporting

    Maybe they're all just in jail. I see nothing on TO Star, CBC, or NP.

  • On the post: Canada Passes 'Anti-Terror' Spy Bill, Taking Away Civil Liberties

    tqk ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2015 @ 10:14am

    Re: Fascism on the rise

    What we really see here is a worldwide re-arising of fascism (by any other name).

    Wierd, eh? However, I hope and expect this one gets laughed out of court by our supreme santaclauses.

  • On the post: Canada Passes 'Anti-Terror' Spy Bill, Taking Away Civil Liberties

    tqk ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2015 @ 10:10am

    Re:

    Are you new to this webby thing? Can't follow links and read?

  • On the post: Mitch McConnell Wants To Dump Bogus 'Cybersecurity' Bill Into Defense Authorization

    tqk ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2015 @ 04:10pm

    Re:

    I'm going with useful idiot. Credulous useful idiot.

  • On the post: Bell Exec Urges Public To Shame Users Who 'Steal' Netflix Content Via VPNs

    tqk ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2015 @ 04:04pm

    Re:

    Ah, jeez. All she wanted was to watch a few goofy sitcoms, and now she's labeled for life another misfit Mitnick clone? Poor kid. Divorce your mother. Run away!

  • On the post: Justice Department Issues Subpoenas To Reason To Identify Angry Anonymous Commenters

    tqk ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2015 @ 12:50pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Snowden

    I hope you're just an ignorant bastard, as in not knowing what happened to David Drake, John Kiriakou, or Jeffrey Sterling when they tried to work within the system.

    However, I suspect you're just a bald-faced liar. Die screaming in a fire.

  • On the post: Justice Department Issues Subpoenas To Reason To Identify Angry Anonymous Commenters

    tqk ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2015 @ 10:17am

    Re: Re:

    Right down there at the bottom with the tribalists and nationalists.

  • On the post: New Zealand Steps In To Block US Gov't From Stealing All Of Kim Dotcom's Stuff

    tqk ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2015 @ 05:55pm

    Re: Re: Given you don't have any respect for their rights

    You have no moral right to brandish dangerous weaopns just for the sheer hell of it.

    Who said anything about brandishing? Who gave you the right to decide someone else's morality?
    Just because your country, alone of all the countries in the world, gives you the legal permission to do so, does not make it right.

    Many would say they have a moral obligation to their country to do that. You don't understand the US, nor must you be familiar with its history.

    BTW, this is the Canuck writing this. Canada, NZ, and decreasingly Australia are traditionally much closer together wrt mores and values than any of us are with the US. The latter broke away from the mother ship (Britain) a long time ago. They're different, not necessarily wrong. They are supposed to cherish freedom over order, which is the opposite in our countries, though recent events show a reversal of that trend.

  • On the post: New Zealand Steps In To Block US Gov't From Stealing All Of Kim Dotcom's Stuff

    tqk ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2015 @ 09:19pm

    Re: Re: Guns are force focusing and targeting tools.

    A gun is designed to accurately and effectively stike its target. What the shooter has in mind is another thing which should have no connection whatsoever with what the designer had in mind. It's just a tool. What's done with it is on the shooter.

    I wasn't trying to talk fancy. I was trying to explain it with physical principles.

  • On the post: New Zealand Steps In To Block US Gov't From Stealing All Of Kim Dotcom's Stuff

    tqk ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2015 @ 02:33pm

    Re: Bombs...

    Like the stuff which we do most of our mining these days?

    Those aren't bombs; they're explosives. Controlled demolition uses the same stuff, but the last thing they want is slabs of buildings flying off-site. They don't even want to break windows in the bldg. next door.

    There's also rocks the size of houses flying out of volcanos, ...

  • On the post: New Zealand Steps In To Block US Gov't From Stealing All Of Kim Dotcom's Stuff

    tqk ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2015 @ 09:02am

    Re: Re: Guns can be used destructively, but so can pretty near anything.

    The difference is that guns can only be used destructively.

    That is a meaningless, emotional argument. You're wrong. What you're talking about are bombs, and by that, I'd agree. Guns are force focusing and targeting tools. That's the big difference between guns and bombs.

  • On the post: If US Is Really Able To Target ISIS Sites Based On Social Media Posts… Why Is It Trying To Stop ISIS From Using Social Media?

    tqk ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2015 @ 07:54pm

    Re:

    Yeah, not buying the story.

    Ditto. If it were true, it'd be classified top secret all the way down. Why tell 'em how you found them?!? That's nuts.

  • On the post: New Zealand Steps In To Block US Gov't From Stealing All Of Kim Dotcom's Stuff

    tqk ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2015 @ 07:43pm

    Re: Re: I wonder what other dangerous objects (pencils? power tools? satanic rock-&-roll?) are also banned in New Zealand

    Guns, on the other hand, are purely destructive. They can do none of the above. All they are good for is blowing holes in things. And people.

    Poor argument. Guns can be used destructively, but so can pretty near anything. They're just tools. They're even used in at least one Olympic event. They can be used to protect yourself from wild (or rabid) animals, or people, intent on causing harm (those are destructive!).

    In my country (Canada), there's a lot of places where guns are essential, especially the far north or just Hudson's Bay. Polar bears are not amenable to reasoned discussion. The Inuit can't just call a cop and expect him to arrive in time to be of any use. As usual, the most you can expect from a cop is he'll clean up the mess.

    I've never owned a gun of any kind, nor fired one of any kind. I do think everyone should know how to use them, whether they want to own one or not. For me, it's almost a civic duty. I hope I'll never need to use one, but it would be pretty silly to need to and not know how.

  • On the post: Top FBI Official Says Tech Companies Need To 'Prevent Encryption Above All Else'

    tqk ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2015 @ 03:00pm

    "Going dark".

    FYI, from Life after Snowden - journalists' new moral responsibility:

    Whenever I hear members of the security services claiming the bad guys are “going dark” on them, I think of an essay with that very title by professor Peter Swire, an internet, privacy, and encryption expert who worked at the White House, and was part of President Obama’s review panel into the issues raised by Snowden.

    “Due to changing technology, there are indeed specific ways that law enforcement and national security agencies lose specific previous capabilities’” he wrote in his November 2011 essay. “These specific losses, however, are more than offset by massive gains. Public debates should recognize that we are truly in a golden age of surveillance. By understanding that, we can reject calls for bad encryption policy. More generally, we should critically assess a wide range of proposals, and build a more secure computing and communications infrastructure.”

    It's a good read summing up Snowden's legacy (so far). I wonder why the administration is ignoring experts they themselves hired to inform themselves.

  • On the post: The Out And Out Corruption Of Hollywood's State Subsidies

    tqk ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2015 @ 09:02am

    $430 million, $1.5 billion, for only $50 grand! What a deal!

    It's amazing how cheaply these politicians sell themselves. The benefactors end up with fortunes, for less spent than for an average SUV.

    Chris Dodd must be one hell of a negotiator to get them to put out as much as they pay for his efforts. I'm sure the studios are damned near livid that he managed to get them to pay him as much as they do.

    Cheap bastards making a killing, yet they bitch and moan incessantly about infringers robbing them blind.

  • On the post: Top FBI Official Says Tech Companies Need To 'Prevent Encryption Above All Else'

    tqk ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2015 @ 08:42am

    What's really missing here is effective oversight.

    If this guy really believes what he's saying, he should never have got the job and should be fired immediately, or at least demoted to walking a beat.

    These agencies waste a fortune on people like this, but with effective oversight scaring them into actually doing their jobs as is expected of them, they'd be able to do multiple times better than they are now, and with far less. Instead, encouraging lazy minded and ignorant whiners like this, all that money just pours through the cracks in the floor.

    All big gov't agencies learn this truth eventually. Throw a fortune at them and they'll find a way to waste it and come back whining they need more. Effective oversight is the only solution.

    Oh, and fire the people who hired him and his immediate superior too. They're apparently just as lazy or incompetent, or both. None of them are earning their continued employment and blue ribbon salaries.

  • On the post: New Zealand Steps In To Block US Gov't From Stealing All Of Kim Dotcom's Stuff

    tqk ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2015 @ 03:35pm

    Re: Re: Re: Stop the charade

    Some common sense needed.

    That'd be nice, but I'd settle for proof instead. That is how a justice system is supposed to work.

    MPAA: "Mega robbed us!"

    DoJ: "We got your back, 'cause we just robbed him back! Yay justice!"

    That's not justice, and I don't care how many in Congress, or state attorneys general, you bribed that say it is.

  • On the post: New Zealand Steps In To Block US Gov't From Stealing All Of Kim Dotcom's Stuff

    tqk ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2015 @ 03:21pm

    Re: You can't rob a bank and defend yourself with stolen money.

    Not true at traffic stops and so on, but Dotcom is EXACTLY why civil forfeiture exists.

    Civil asset forfeiture exists mostly because of the War On Drugs, you ignorant twit, and because LEOs and judges don't appear to care anymore about the Constitution or individual rights. Copyright enforcement maximalists (like you?) have managed to bribe their stooges in Congress to apply it to copyright infringement as well. This is a common thread in US jurisprudence. RICO was intended to go after the Mafia and their violent criminal conspiracies, but was soon extended to lots of entirely unrelated things.

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