The Wanderer 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: The CIA Made A Card Game… And We're Releasing It

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2018 @ 05:04am

    Re: Re: awww so cute

    My best guess at that one is that the CIA are who was being referred to as "basic criminals and murderers".

    Doesn't make a lot of sense even with that, but it's closer than anything else that actually fits even vaguely with the article...

  • On the post: Another Survey Shows Massive Bipartisan Opposition To Net Neutrality Repeal

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2018 @ 04:53am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    You're focusing too narrowly on specifically the context of the effect of the comments on the FCC's decision-making.

    It may not matter who made the comments for the purposes of assessing whether or not it is appropriate to keep the regulations in question. (If the FCC is treating the comments as an indication of which viewpoints are more popular, even only for purposes of marketing their ultimate decision as being supported by the public, then it does still matter; if - as you correctly state is supposed to be the case - they're instead focusing only on the contents of the comments and ignoring what volume the comments take up, it indeed probably doesn't matter.)

    But the use of people's identities to post comments without their permission is itself a problem for other reasons, far outside of the scope of the FCC's decision-making. For the FCC to decline to cooperate with attempts to look into that matter for the matter's own sake - which I understand to have happened - is questionable at best.

  • On the post: It's Spreading: Lindsey Graham Now Insisting 'Fairness Doctrine' Applies To The Internet

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 24 Apr, 2018 @ 07:11am

    Re: Re: Re: MY WORST ENEMIES NOW HAVE CONTROL! GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK!

    Presumably, "or else" the law (having been changed in the ways Sens. Cruz and Graham have been cited as apparently wanting in this article and the previous one it links to) will come after you for it and shut you down. (For values of "you" that mean "Techdirt", since that's apparently who he asserts to be addressing.)

  • On the post: Another Survey Shows Massive Bipartisan Opposition To Net Neutrality Repeal

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 24 Apr, 2018 @ 04:50am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Of course the contents say what they say. That's tautological. The problem is that (at least in the allegation, many of) the people who are purported to have made those comments did not actually make them. The number of comments in each direction, much less the number of comments saying verbatim the same thing, is irrelevant; the objection is to pretending that all of the comments represent the views of, not merely "different people", but the people whose names are attached to them. The former is only important if trying to point to these comments as indicating popular support or opposition for one side or the other. (Which I have the vague impression I've seen the FCC trying to do, at least once, although I can't swear that that's accurate). The latter is a question of identity fraud. Regardless of whether the number of people supporting each view deserves consideration (a topic on which you may have a point, although you make it somewhat more offensively than may be necessary), the use of identity fraud in presenting those views deserves attention, and more serious treatment than the stonewalling the FCC has apparently given the question thus far.

  • On the post: Apple Sued An Independent Norwegian Repair Shop In Bid To Monopolize Repair — And Lost

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 23 Apr, 2018 @ 08:02pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Yes.

  • On the post: Another Survey Shows Massive Bipartisan Opposition To Net Neutrality Repeal

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 23 Apr, 2018 @ 05:01am

    Re: Re: Re:

    And that's fine enough as far as it goes (although there's reason to question their expertise in some instances), but it doesn't mean that it's legitimate for the FCC to pretend that a "poll" (as you put it) supports the policy move they want to make when it doesn't.

    It's also tangential from the point of whether the voices speaking up in that "poll" are legitimately people expressing their legitimate opinions, which is the point raised by the mention of "bots", although I'll concede that there's room to argue that that point is itself irrelevant.

  • On the post: Democratic National Committee's Lawsuit Against Russians, Wikileaks And Various Trump Associates Full Of Legally Nutty Arguments

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2018 @ 03:27pm

    Re: "Techdirt won't be on the net next year."

    The options are still there, under the "Insider Shop" link in the footer: Day Without Techdirt, a cool million. Silence Techdirt, a cool hundred million plus $1 (and allegedly rising).

  • On the post: MPAA Apparently Silently Shut Down Its Legal Movies Search Engine

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2018 @ 06:32am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    In some contexts, "sell" can be a synonym for "pitch", as in "pitch the sale of", as in "advertise". I'm guessing that this usage was intended to be in that sense.

  • On the post: Netflix Bows Out Of Cannes After Festival Tells Streaming Services To Get Off Its Lawn

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2018 @ 06:18am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    That doesn't make any sense.

    The movie business is the business of making, marketing, etc., movies. How the movie gets to the audience is an implementation detail; there may be good business reasons to do it one way, but just because someone else decides to do it a different way, that doesn't mean that that someone is not in the movie business.

  • On the post: In Trying To Ban Telegram, Russia Breaks The Internet

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2018 @ 05:09am

    Re: Learn something new every day

    Do we even have any indication that this particular AC is a "sovereign citizen" type, beyond Stephen T. Stone's inferring that from the use of the term "natural person"?

    I've always been a little uncomfortable with that inference (and subsequent labelling) based on that use, exactly because the term does have this legitimate legal meaning, but it never seemed worth trying to raise the point.

  • On the post: If Trump Is So Worried About Protecting Attorney-Client Privilege, He Should End The NSA's Bulk Surveillance (And CPB Device Seizures)

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2018 @ 09:12am

    Re: In-My-... Sarcasticly-Named-"Humble"-Opinion?

    Hey, the original words for those initials work, too. You just have to add a bit of punctuation: "In My So-Not-Humble Opinion".

  • On the post: At-Home Dental Appliance Company Sues Website For Having Opinions About Its Products

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2018 @ 06:01am

    Re:

    Psst: That's the joke.

    This is an intentional poke at the "TRADE LIABLE" misusage pointed out immediately afterwards.

  • On the post: Singaporean Government Creates Fake News To Push Fake News Legislation

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2018 @ 05:54am

    Re: Re: Re: chutzpah

    At a guess, maybe this is a comment on the blog linked to in the hyperlink represented by the name "Jigsy" in the comment to which he(?) was replying?

    I haven't bothered following that link, so I have no idea whether the blog says anything like what is quoted or is anything like what is described, but the only other alternatives I can think of are that that reply was entirely misplaced or is pure "insert an entirely unrelated subject" trolling...

  • On the post: A Casino Was Hacked Thanks To The Internet Of Broken Things & A Fish Tank Thermometer

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2018 @ 08:41am

    Re: Re: Amazing

    A high-roller database falls under "business", naturally; the high rollers are cutomers, and the service offered to them is one of the casino's products.

    The "security" network would be for things like security cameras, door locks, alarm systems, et cetera.

    There might need to be some overlap, or rather some data synced between the two networks, for example in the realm of user and/or customer authentication (for example, if the casino's hotel operation issues high-value frequent customers personal ID cards which unlock their hotel-room doors, rather than handing out generic cards which have to be returned on departure) - but I see no reason why a database with enough customer information to be worth exfiltrating would ever need to be on the security network.

    (That just means that the security protecting access to the business network needs to be even better, of course.)

  • On the post: Netflix Bows Out Of Cannes After Festival Tells Streaming Services To Get Off Its Lawn

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2018 @ 04:15am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    It's about the cinema-exhibition business? I thought it was about the movie business.

  • On the post: We Interrupt Today's News With An Update From The Monkey Selfie Case

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2018 @ 08:08pm

    Re: Moot

    If I understand matters correctly, all such have already been submitted and argued, and no further input from the parties is needed; the only thing left is for the court to rule.

    Trying to withdraw at that point, even if both parties agree, seems a bit... questionable; at best, it would seem to represent a waste of the court system's resources.

  • On the post: Singaporean Government Creates Fake News To Push Fake News Legislation

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2018 @ 07:59am

    Re: Re:

    I'm guessing he read "seek out the opposing viewpoint" as being the second part, and "the truth will be somewhere in the middle" as being the third part.

  • On the post: Ted Cruz Demands A Return Of The Fairness Doctrine, Which He Has Mocked In The Past, Due To Misunderstanding CDA 230

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2018 @ 07:02am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: The INTENT of Congress with CDA was NOT to empower corporations!

    I think the bit about "neutral public forum" is probably (thought of as being) akin to the concept of the "public square".

    Something like:

    * Because of its dominance and near-universality, Facebook has become the modern equivalent of the public square.

    * Therefore, to exclude someone or something from Facebook is to exclude the same from the public square.

    * To exclude someone from the public square - whether done by the government or by a private citizen - is a violation of that someone's rights.

    * Therefore, to exclude someone from Facebook is to violate that someone's rights.

    With an expansion from just "Facebook" into "any part of the Internet where members of the public can post comments" (which fails for, among possibly other things, the reason you address in your last paragraph).

    If one accepts the idea in the very first point - that a privately-owned platform can be the de-facto public square - the logic would even seem to potentially hold.

    You present what looks to me like a counter to that idea in your last paragraph, but I'm fairly sure that he rejects that counter, on the grounds that the consequences for freedom of discourse would be entirely intolerable.

    Thing is, although his presentation and argumentation and overall tone (and possibly a few other things) are abhorrent, I'm not completely positive he's entirely wrong about the basic underlying point. It may, in fact, be possible for a privately-owned platform to supplant the public square - and if (with that having happened) the privately-owned platform can then institute unrestricted controls on speech on that platform, the consequences for freedom of discourse would indeed be intolerable.

    I am not at all convinced that this has happened yet, myself, or that it's likely to soon - but I can see room for it to happen at some future point, and in the event that it does, I'd prefer not to have already outright ruled out the possibility of correcting it by declaring that the rules of the public square must apply to the private platform.

  • On the post: Amended Complaint Filed Against Backpage… Now With SESTA/FOSTA

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2018 @ 03:46pm

    Re: Re:

    I read his question as being "Does the ex-post-facto prohibition apply to civil claims, rather than only to criminal offenses?" - either implying that it doesn't (and it's a big oversight for Mike to miss that), or genuinely asking whether it does (and stating that it's a big oversight for Mike to not address the question in the article).

  • On the post: ACLU: If Americans Want Privacy & Net Neutrality, They Should Build Their Own Broadband Networks

    The Wanderer ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2018 @ 08:29am

    Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 12th, 2018 @ 4:12pm

    Actually, I think there's a slight seed of legitimate objection underlying the point.

    Back during the Obama administration, when Wheeler was attempting to impose vaguely-meaningful network-neutrality rules, ISTR the campaign against them frequently attempting to claim that Obama was trying to impose government control of the Internet - either ignoring the middleman, or alleging that Wheeler was doing it because Obama had told him to.

    IIRC, there were articles posted on Techdirt which objected to that spin of the story, pointing out both that "it's not government control of the Internet" and that the FCC can act - and was acting - on its own authority without direction from the White House. (Also IIRC, the Obama White House eventually put out a statement explicitly stating that it had provided no such directions to the FCC.)

    To my eye, referring to Pai's actions with the name of the Trump administration does indeed look like a lesser form of that same sort of offense.

    It's not as severe as claiming that he's doing it because Trump told him to would be - the Pai FCC is indeed part of the Trump administration, and it's legitimate in principle to refer to it as such - but it does serve as a way to link the two in readers' minds, and thus to tar one with the same brush as the other, irrespective of whether that's actually deserved.

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