Whatever 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (1712)

• On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 93: Pardon Snowden

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2016 @ 04:46am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: He might as well face it

  1 - if you don't like it, don't read it. You stay you don't then you go on an on about it. Stupid shit indeed!
  
  2 - Actually, the document count isn't what he touched, but what he has likely downloaded or copied. Stupid shit indeed!
  
  3 - "manning, kiriakou, sterling, binney, drake, klein, browning, assange, etc are a MILLION times the person, a MILLION times the Patriot you are ". Let's see. Manning has issues (lots of them) and will live in prison for mos to rest of her life. Assange is potentially a rapist hiding out in an embassy to avoid facing the law. Patriots my ass. Stupid shit indeed!
  
  Congrats on being not only vile and seemingly unable to express yourself without bad words, but also in seemingly being totally blind to reality. I am not getting educated by you, but I am laughing at you!

• On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 93: Pardon Snowden

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2016 @ 04:41am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: He might as well face it

  I congratulate you on pulling out the propaganda card. That's usually the last defense of those unwilling to look at reality. Congrats!

• On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 93: Pardon Snowden

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2016 @ 03:18am

  Re: Re: He might as well face it

  No examples? Hmmm, let's see.
  
  A good example may be what happened in the Ukraine and Crimea. Some would suggest that Russia's play in this area (and many others) has been a result of weakened US intelligence and the inability to take action before Russia pushes forward. This sort of lines up pretty clearly with Snowden ending up in Russia, there are many sites and more than a few news organizations suggesting that he is employed by the Kremlin as a sort of digital spy now.
  
  You could also look at Syria, and Russia's sudden willingness to step in to help a leader who they would otherwise have ignored. Perhaps their intimate knowledge of US actors in the area, and that the US would be surprised by their actions allowed Russia to do what they might not otherwise do.
  
  The potential is that part of the rise of ISIS (or ISL if you prefer) was due to diminished US spy operations, the loss of operatives in the region (no longer want to deal with the US), and lessons learned from the whole affair which encouraged the group to better disguise their communications.
  
  The real difficulty in showing SPECIFIC harm is that none of us know all of the gears, levers, and whatnot involved in international politics. We can stand back and say "gee, since late 2013 the US is suddenly on the back foot and getting surprised by a lot of things they use to be ahead of the curve on", and conversely, we can also say that "Russia seems to be way more on the ball these days and is pushing hard where they never dared before".
  
  It's likely that the Snowden effect will not be entirely clearly understood for a long time to come. World politics are glacial, slow moving things. If you look yesterday and today, perhaps there is not enough movement to show anything. But over a longer period of time...

• On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 93: Pardon Snowden

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2016 @ 03:05am

  Re: Re: Re: He might as well face it

  Mike, the number of documents involved isn't hundreds or thousands, it's potentially more than a million. That isn't a narrow, focused piece of whistleblowing, that is data dumping the whole damn program and letting his selected media friends ransack through it looking for juicy tidbits.
  
  That is way to wide of a scope to be just pointing out a problem, it was intended to f-ck up multiple programs and really screw the US solidly, and for an extended period of time.
  
  "So, why do you feel the need to always lie here? It's kinda pathetic."
  
  So why is your answer to anyone willing to point out the obvious always a put down or an insult rather than a discussion? I think a million plus documents qualify as a data dump. You may not. Just because we don't agree doesn't make my point a lie, but your saying so clearly looks like you are being defensive.

• On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 93: Pardon Snowden

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2016 @ 01:52pm

  Re: He might as well face it

  hear hear!
  
  Had he leaked data on something specific, he would potentially be a hero. Data dumping almost the entire US spy setup was, well, a little much.
  
  Whatever good he did doesn't balance out against the harm done.

• On the post: EFF Asks Court To Block The DOJ From Prosecuting Researcher For DMCA Violations

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2016 @ 04:40am

  Re: Response to: Whatever on Oct 4th, 2016 @ 2:30am

  Generally, the courts rule when there is a case before them, you know, someone gets charged with something and then their lawyer can argue that the law is not constitutional. The courts generally deal with real cases, and not hypothetical ones.
  
  Generally injunctive relief is sought in this manner when inaction would lead to someone breaking the law. Say a change in business record keeping, or something of similar nature.
  
  What the EFF is trying to do here is get the courts to re-write or change a law before it's ever been applied. Without an actual defendant, the courts should send them packing. They have no standing and no case on which the courts can rule, only an injunction against what is a theoretical situation for the moment.
  
  The gentleman can publish his book, and if the authorities decides to charge him THEN the EFF might be able to come to his aid. For the moment, they are swinging at empty air.

• On the post: John Oliver Takes On Police Accountability And The Colossally-Stupid 'Bad Apple' Defense

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2016 @ 02:53am

  Giggles

  More giggles courtesy of Techdirt and one of their current faves...
  
  Let's toss out the bad apple defense. So now, when a pro basketball player does drugs, we know that EVERY DAMN ONE of the rest of them are druggies too. Murder? Indict all of them!
  
  Holding all police responsible for the acts of a few is silly. Trace the bad acts down to the people who support, tolerate, and encourage them and punish them - don't punish all of the police.
  
  I would expect crap like this from the extreme left.

• On the post: EFF Asks Court To Block The DOJ From Prosecuting Researcher For DMCA Violations

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2016 @ 02:30am

  From what I can tell, the court is most likely to tell them to go away, and come back when it's actually relevant (ie, he's been charged with something). For the moment, they are asking for an injunction to effectively try to re-write the law before it's even applied. Their true remedy is to deal with congress and work for change.

• On the post: Can Someone Explain To The RIAA That SOPA Didn't Actually Pass?

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 01 Oct, 2016 @ 02:31am

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

  Wendy, I am a UK citizen. I understand the complexities of the whole UK / Northern Ireland / Ireland thing. I also understand that there is the legal question of "doing business in...".
  
  If the tool available to be used in the UK? Yes. Is the UK part of the EU? Yes. Does the UK have a legal system that tends to frown on "[pirate innovations"? yes. It's the perfect place therefore to filing suit.
  
  Ireland has it's only legal system which tends to lean (aggressively) in support to technology companies who have brought jobs to the country, investment, and little or no tax revenue. Filing there wouldn't be as productive.
  
  As both are part of the EU, so a good ruling in the UK against the tool would be a great start towards applying it to other parts of the EU.

• On the post: Can Someone Explain To The RIAA That SOPA Didn't Actually Pass?

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2016 @ 04:13pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  Ireland and the UK are BOTH part of the EU, muppet.
  
  You are truly lame.

• On the post: Does The FTC Get To Ignore Section 230 Of The CDA?

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2016 @ 02:04am

  Re: Not sure how 230 is relevant here...

  Nice to see I am not the only one that caught this.
  
  Good affiliate programs will shut down the accounts and lock out affiliates who mislead the public, cheat, or lie to get signups. Fake news sites are intentionally misleading consumers into believing a product has a good reputation and has not been found to be a scam. Affiliate programs that support that sort of nonsense should be dealt with by the FTC.
  
  "Section 230's year-of-woe keeps going" because people are trying to use it to cover and excuse all sorts of bad behavior. No, section 230 is not a cover for affiliate program scammers nor does it somehow magically make the program not responsible for the actions of the people they both pay and help with fresh "news" stories.
  
  It's sort of shocking to see a lawyer not grasping something so basic.

• On the post: Can Someone Explain To The RIAA That SOPA Didn't Actually Pass?

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2016 @ 04:40am

  For the location of the lawsuit, there are a few things to consider here:
  
  Youtube, aka Google, are an American company based in California. They are the source of the material, and thus, there is at least a "toe in the water" in that state.
  
  Further, the mentioned website appears to be hosted on Amazon's platform, with an IP that points to their Ireland data centers - but that can and does easily change. A new instance could be fired up anywhere. Filing in the UK (which is still part of the EU last I checked) seems reasonable.
  
  Pretty much every ripping tool faces the same issue. This one faces a bigger legal issue because there are only race circumstances where what you would be ripping would be something you have the rights to. So there are limited legal uses, many potentially illegal uses. It's hard to imagine it standing up to a legal challenge, even if the guy did show up.

• On the post: EFF White Paper Hopes To Educate Cops On The Difference Between An IP Address And A Person

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2016 @ 03:44am

  Re: Re:

  Paul, I try to keep the thoughts and points as narrow as possible so you can digest the ideas without being overwhelmed. Apparently it works.
  
  My feeling is that IP addresses should be like phone numbers or cars - you own the car, or it's your phone. What happens on that phone (or in that car) should be at least in some part your problem.
  
  Someone comes to your house for a party and spends all night making long distance calls to the Japanese time line... should the bill payer just be able to walk away saying SODDI?
  
  IP addresses do mean an end point, a point of control away from the ISP. If you choose to permit others to use your internet connection, should there not be at least some responsibility?
  
  Then again, I am also a believer that parents should be responsible for their children and their children's actions (at least to the point where they are adults). So if your home internet is "shared" with your teenagers who decide to set up a file server for pirated music, shouldn't the parent have some responsibility as a result?
  
  It's tricky topic, and not simple.

• On the post: CA Supreme Court Agrees To Review Appeals Court's Bludgeoning Of Section 230 And First Amendment

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2016 @ 04:28am

  Re: Re: Due What?

  " the court cannot and should not order someone that is not a party to a suit to do anything."
  
  In absence of the defendant taking any action (this is a default judgement) the court can be petitioned to take action to stop what it has found to be unacceptable. If the court didn't take this action, it's judgement would be meaningless and would have accomplished nothing.

• On the post: EFF White Paper Hopes To Educate Cops On The Difference Between An IP Address And A Person

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2016 @ 05:03am

  This assumption leads to blunders like ICE raiding a Tor exit node because it thought an IP address was some sort of unique identifier."
  
  This is exactly why you shouldn't run a TOR exit node, plain and simple.

• On the post: Traffic Is Fake, Audience Numbers Are Garbage, And Nobody Knows How Many People See Anything

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2016 @ 01:50am

  Well Duh

  You have to be pretty new to running a website or ignorant as f-ck not to realize that a huge percentage of the traffic to any given site is bots, scrapers, caching systems, and a huge collection of script kiddies banging away at every site online hoping to find one they can deface with their logo, their name, and "N3rd Hrd4r" in the middle of the page.
  
  You also have to be a little bit ignorant if you don't realize that advertising has always faced this problem the difference between potential eyeballs and actual views - and this all the way back to the beginning of each of commercial newspapers, magazines, radio, and televsion.
  
  Think about it. A newspaper distributes 100,000 copies per day, but how many of them are actually opened? How many people actually read ALL of the pages? Those numbers are hard to figure out, because there are so many variables. It's one of the reasons why ads closer to the front of a newspaper are considered most valuable, as they are most likely to be seen.
  
  Television has the same issue, in a different format: We know the general rating for shows and have a pretty good idea how many people see them, but except for those people meter things that actually measure who is in the room at a given time, there is no way to know how many people have been exposed to a given ad, or if they actually paid attention at all if they were in the room.
  
  Radio also suffers from this: People listen to the music, but zone out on the ads. Many people have the radio on all day but don't actively listen. Are they really hitting the ads?
  
  The ad world has always dealt with this in a pretty straight forward manner, a sort of quiet acceptance that some significant part of the audience may never see your print ad, may step out to pee when you tv commercial comes on, and may have the radio on but be ignoring it. It's always been an accepted part of the model.
  
  The internet is support to be more certain, which is why CPM was the original ad model. The ad model that has made Google rich (and everyone else poor) is charging by the click thru, using various information to filter out useless, automated, or repetitive clicks. But even that is a bit of a crap shoot, and many advertisers have lost their ass paying for clicks that don't convert into income.
  
  There was a story quite a long time ago about how retail website operators were getting all worked up about people who would come to their site, put something into a shopping cart, and then never finish the transaction. Mentally, they had a view of their physical stores with millions of shopping carts with single items strewn all over the place, and they were unable to shake the image. The reality was that it was more like someone window shopping, sometimes putting stuff in a shopping cart to check for a possible discounted price, shipping charges, or what not. The retailers thought they were losing valuable sales, when they were instead just confusing browsers (and bots) with actual potential buyers.
  
  For Techdirt, the solution has been a combination of begging (fund raising for "special" coverage that didn't seem any different from anything else done, selling t-shirts, and basically writing shill posts that ad blockers can't particularly filter out very well. Oh, that and the OPM (other people's money) projects where "sponsors" paid for posts (notice that disappeared pretty quick), for Insight (that is one dead website), or as sponsors of a think tank which is mostly just more of the same (with two whole blog updates in a year, woohoo!). It proves that there are ways to collect money, but doesn't really show any of them as valid long term business models. Rather, there seems to be a fair bit of sheep shearing going on.
  
  So advertising may not be an exact science, but it is self selecting... ;)

• On the post: CA Supreme Court Agrees To Review Appeals Court's Bludgeoning Of Section 230 And First Amendment

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2016 @ 01:18am

  Due What?

  I love this article because it almost entirely misses the point, which is that Yelp should not have a choice in the matter because they are only the host - not the author of or the owner of the comments / review in question.
  
  To give you a real world example, it would be a like a magazine being ordered off the shelves (stolen images, or whatever), and a small news stand saying "you can't do it, because we didn't get due process!". They don't get that choice. It's the same manner as the operator of the printing press not getting to second guess the courts and print things even after they are ordered not to. They don't get a choice in the matter, the ruling is against the author and NOT the website in question.
  
  Using section 230 to keep such reviews / posts up would essentially neuter the courts. A judgment (even a default one) should not suddenly be moot "because 230". That would essentially make libel online a form of protected speech above and beyond what is allowed in the first amendment. It would leave the choice to private companies rather than to the courts are to what is and what is not acceptable.
  
  I am suspecting a solid ruling in support of the original judgement.

• On the post: Journalists Blaming Facebook For Decline Is Just As Tiresome As When They Blamed Craigslist & Google

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2016 @ 01:29am

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

  It's a syncopate style situation. We like to hear what we already think, even if what we think is wrong or twisted. It is basic human nature. We like to be told we are right.
  
  It's the reason why people who seem extreme to many (Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, or even George Noory) seem perfectly sane and perfect to their believers. Those people want to believe it's the truth, and when they hear it or read it in the media, they feel a solid connection to the "truth".
  
  The problem for mainstream media is that they don't tend to say what people want to hear, and instead just tell them the truth (or the closest thing to it). It's why Foxnews overtook CNN, it's not about the news, they figured out how to present the news in a manner that engaged a certain segment of the population by playing to their fears and desires.
  
  So Techdirt is fairly popular, and in the same manner that Mike has his list of go-to sources for his slant, he is also one of the go-to guys for others looking for the slant. It's natural and normal. Techdirt plays well to the "ain't got nothing to protect" crowd.

• On the post: Journalists Blaming Facebook For Decline Is Just As Tiresome As When They Blamed Craigslist & Google

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 24 Sep, 2016 @ 01:43pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  "While you are one of the idiots that are often wrong about everything I think the point is that it's easy for me to tell. Your posts come off as arrogant, putting yourself 'above' anyone as if you somehow have a superior understanding of what's right and wrong than everyone else when clearly that's not the case at all. Even when people point out how wrong you are you absolutely refuse to acknowledge it, ever. But people see right through your nonsense."
  
  Slow clap. You almost had some valid points and then you destroyed it with a massive, hateful personal attack.
  
  "Techdirt, OTOH, exists in a much more organic environment where competition thrives and it still retains viewership."
  
  By telling the read what they want to hear, and not worrying about the fuller truth. Your long rant pretty much missed the point entirely, but hey, after the personal attack, I didn't expect any less.

• On the post: Journalists Blaming Facebook For Decline Is Just As Tiresome As When They Blamed Craigslist & Google

  

  Whatever ( profile ), 24 Sep, 2016 @ 05:30am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Nice deflection, too bad it's not exactly true.
  
  Plenty of people read the site (duh!) but not everyone takes him seriously. It's like learning politics from Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones. They both are "fairly popular" but only the extremists take them seriously. Everyone else points and laughs.

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