umccullough 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Weird Al Denied Permission To Parody Lady Gaga… Releases New Song For Free Anyway [Updated]

    umccullough ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2011 @ 12:42pm

    Re: Re: That's Not True

    Precisely, and it was released on countless websites for free.

    You can see his sarcastic plug about that here:

    http://www.weirdal.com/alnewsfeed.shtml

  • On the post: Details Of Apple's Lawsuit Against Samsung Revealed; And It's Even More Ridiculous

    umccullough ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2011 @ 06:18pm

    Re:

    I think you're mixing up patents and trademarks there, the latter requires the owner to defend them if they wish to keep them.

  • On the post: Details Of Apple's Lawsuit Against Samsung Revealed; And It's Even More Ridiculous

    umccullough ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2011 @ 04:49pm

    Trademarks on individual icons?

    I must admit, I was surprised to see that they've trademarked individual icons...

    I can understand if your icon contains a logo... but beyond copyright protection so nobody blatantly rips off your artwork, seriously?

  • On the post: RIAA Lawyer In Limewire Lawsuit Recommended As A Federal Judge

    umccullough ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2011 @ 03:23pm

    Re: Re: Re: Are IP lawyers more biased? Or, should we ban all lawyers from becoming judges?

    Certainly nobody who has been to law school... that's ridiculous!

  • On the post: RIAA Lawyer In Limewire Lawsuit Recommended As A Federal Judge

    umccullough ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2011 @ 01:05pm

    Re:

    The theory is that they saw the flaws and abuses that went on when they were an attorney.

    Reminds me of this:

    Fletcher: Your honor, I object!
    Judge: Why?
    Fletcher: Because it's devastating to my case!
    Judge: Overruled.
    Fletcher: Good call!

  • On the post: Righthaven Tells Judge Handling All Its Colorado Cases That He's Wrong

    umccullough ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2011 @ 02:24pm

    Re:

  • On the post: Feds Seize Poker Websites; Founders Indicted

    umccullough ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2011 @ 03:46pm

    Re: Re: DNS caching?

    And... my server's caching of these domains has finally expired.

    Suck it, I know how DNS works.

  • On the post: Feds Seize Poker Websites; Founders Indicted

    umccullough ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2011 @ 03:17pm

    Re: Re: DNS caching?

    Really now?

    So, when I ping pokerstars.com and it returns 77.87.179.116 here because my upstream DNS server still has the entry cached, that's somehow a misunderstanding on my part?

  • On the post: Feds Seize Poker Websites; Founders Indicted

    umccullough ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2011 @ 03:09pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    You're right, people gain/lose money in both - but one is decidedly more evil.

  • On the post: Feds Seize Poker Websites; Founders Indicted

    umccullough ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2011 @ 02:56pm

    Re:

    Regardless of whether it's legal or not - seizing the domain doesn't shut down the site, and doesn't prevent people from accessing it... which is perhaps why it's a story here.

  • On the post: Feds Seize Poker Websites; Founders Indicted

    umccullough ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2011 @ 02:51pm

    Re:

    Actually, could you please point me to where you found your definition of "gamble"? I tried looking it up and pretty much none of the definitions I found reference "skill".

  • On the post: Feds Seize Poker Websites; Founders Indicted

    umccullough ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2011 @ 02:46pm

    Re:

    To gamble is to wager money in a game of skill or chance.

    Much like the stock market...

  • On the post: Feds Seize Poker Websites; Founders Indicted

    umccullough ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2011 @ 02:19pm

    DNS caching?

    It's interesting - some of my coworkers, upon reading this news, immediately logged into their FullTilt and Pokerstars clients - and found that their money was still in there.

    If the client programs are even using the domains to access the sites, they will continue to work as long as DNS caches are intact.

    At this point, since I work in a shop full of software developers, they're probably just gonna add pokerstars.com to their hosts file and continue on their merry way... which is pretty amusing. I guess they'll be stuck playing with other smart people, maybe online poker will become more challenging ;)

  • On the post: FBI Hijacks Botnet, With Court Order… Then Issues Kill Signal To Millions Of Computers

    umccullough ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2011 @ 07:58am

    Re: All I can say is Holy Crap!!!

    The conspiracy theorist in me wants to suggest we'll see more of these botnets now, infecting machines belonging "people of interest" - and th FBI will receive court orders allowing them to "take control" of said botnets and "clean them up" ;)

  • On the post: FBI Hijacks Botnet, With Court Order… Then Issues Kill Signal To Millions Of Computers

    umccullough ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2011 @ 07:56am

    This did little to help the owners

    Removed a piece of malware from a bunch of machines - wow... what good samaritans right?

    Not likely. The machines are probably infected with multiple pieces of malware (such is generally the case with machines like this), and the owners have learned nothing from this exercise.

    Notification and Education should be the proper solution - not "let us clean this up for you without your knowlege".

  • On the post: Geohot Supporters Angry He Settled With Sony

    umccullough ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2011 @ 10:16pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Let's think about it another way:

    If I point out how poor your security is, did I commit a crime?

    If I produced a key that happens to fit the lock on your house, but I didn't use it to commit a crime, am I punishable by law?

  • On the post: Geohot Supporters Angry He Settled With Sony

    umccullough ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2011 @ 10:12pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    When did circumventing DRM equate to copyright infringement?

  • On the post: Geohot Supporters Angry He Settled With Sony

    umccullough ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2011 @ 07:50pm

    Re:

    and he DID technically break the DMCA

    Yes, the technicalities here are what I was most interested in seeing...

    Because technically, he located and distributed the key to their DRM, which would suggest it wasn't entirely "circumvented" (insomuch much as holding the shift key down while you put a DRM-infested audio CD cancels the auto-run from running). Poorly-implemented DRM should not be protected as such. Now, on the other hand, since it did take significant effort to locate this key - it's arguable that he was attempting to circumvent it.

    On the other hand, he also was not (allegedly) attempting to circumvent it for purposes of copyright infringement - does that then make the DMCA null/void in this case?

  • On the post: Geohot Supporters Angry He Settled With Sony

    umccullough ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2011 @ 07:19pm

    Settlement terms aren't completely known

    As he mentioned in response to many angry comments in his blog - the settlement terms are confidential, and he cannot discuss them. He tries to point out that the permanent injunction is not the full settlement terms, but only the court-related portion.

    So, we really don't know what Sony is obligated to do here as a result of the settlement (if anything).

    I'm just suggesting that a lot of people have come to the conclusion that "Sony won" but we don't really know that for sure.

  • On the post: Sony Settles PS3 Jailbreaking Lawsuit Against Geohot

    umccullough ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2011 @ 04:05pm

    Re: Looks like a win for GeoHot

    Yes, the public docket only appears harsh, but basically they're just saying: you can't hack any of our stuff now.

    As for the actual settlement, apparently the details are confidential. Per geohot's blog, he cannot discuss them, but assures people that he has fought for their rights.

    I guess time will tell, or a leak ;)

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