Whatever 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Defense Department Screws Over FOIA Requester Repeatedly, Blames Him For 'Breaking' The FOIA Process

    Whatever ( profile ), 05 May, 2016 @ 11:52am

    Re: 1871 employees per request

    Your broken assumption is that 1.34 million employees have nothing better to do than answer this guys requests. I guess you think they have no other real jobs.

  • On the post: FBI Harassing Core Tor Developer, Demanding She Meet With Them, But Refusing To Explain Why

    Whatever ( profile ), 05 May, 2016 @ 11:50am

    Just a guess...

    I would be making a guess here, but let me show you how I add it up:

    The FBI has "documents" they want to talk to her about.

    The FBI wants an in person meeting, in the US.

    My guess is that they have (what they feel is) just about enough to arrest her and charge her with something, and her answers to certain questions related perhaps to what work she specifically did or some action she may have taken would be the trigger.

    My suggestion for her is to stay in Germany and don't come back under any circumstances. Perhaps at best meet with the FBI in a nice public place in Germany, perhaps with the media nearby.

    TOR is a great idea and very useful, but it creates an incredibly complex web of legal ramifications. I think she is about to meet one of those "rams" head on.

  • On the post: AT&T Buries Language In Missouri Traffic Bill To Hinder Broadband Competition

    Whatever ( profile ), 05 May, 2016 @ 10:35am

    "The problem for AT&T is that as Google Fiber and other similar efforts have shown a light on the benefits of public/private partnerships to shore up lagging broadband markets, "

    No, Google Fiber has shown mostly that a company with gobs of free cash and nothing to do with it can spend hundreds of millions a year with absolutely not requirement for a return on investment, just to "disrupt" others.

    Go look at the most recent Google / Alphabet numbers, they lost 500-600 million (if memory serves me correctly) on their various extra projects, with Google Fiber being the majority of that loss. In any other industry, that would be akin to dumping.

  • On the post: Defense Department Screws Over FOIA Requester Repeatedly, Blames Him For 'Breaking' The FOIA Process

    Whatever ( profile ), 04 May, 2016 @ 11:15pm

    Re: Re:

    32 calls in a single day meets the standard for stalking in most places. Does the Media Cheif HAVE to answer this guys calls day in and day out?

    Answer: NOPE. He's not working for the reporter. The Media guy has a job to do and it's not answering this guys endless questions over everyone else.

    it's the perfect example of why this one guy is pretty much breaking the system. When it gets to the point that they are screening calls to avoid dealing with his endless demands, then yeah, the system is broken. Don't blame the victim, blame the abuser!

  • On the post: Encryption, Privacy & Free Speech: An April Recap

    Whatever ( profile ), 04 May, 2016 @ 04:24pm

    Re: The myth debunking link seems biased

    Also, a VPN company that tracks your activity and forwards DMCA notices to you (because they know what you are doing) isn't any more anonymous than your normal connection.

    The Golden Frog appears to be mostly a toad, or at least a toady in this case.

  • On the post: Defense Department Screws Over FOIA Requester Repeatedly, Blames Him For 'Breaking' The FOIA Process

    Whatever ( profile ), 04 May, 2016 @ 08:35pm

    "f this seems like a lot of requests from one person, it isn't. This is the way the system works. "

    Sorry, but that is a lot of requests from a single person. What it looks like from over here is someone fishing for information, and hoping to get different versions of redacted documents to try to put together some grand conspiracy - which is pretty much what he confirms.

    32 phone calls in a single day? Obsessed much?

    You have to consider the hard numbers. 415 initial requests and 54 appeals. Let's see. If each one generates even 100 responsive documents, and each one much be redacted and reviewed before being given out, you are looking at 40,000 to 50,000 pages. Now if each page takes 15 minutes to locate, review, and put in the package (and likely takes longer) you have 10,000 man hours of work. If you wanted to accomplish this on a reasonable scale (say 3 months) you would need 20-25 people working full time just to answer this guys requests. That doesn't consider management of the people, the space to put them in, and any legal verification that would have to be made to get the documents out the door.

    Do you honestly think anyone deserves to have a personal staff of 20 or 30 people looking for his conspiracy?

    FOIA requests really should work on a much more specific scale. Too large a scale, and the system fails, plain and simple, and denies other more sane requests the time to get processed.

  • On the post: Congress Has No Idea How The FCC's Cable Box Reform Plan Works, Conyers, Goodlatte Compare Effort To 'Popcorn Time'

    Whatever ( profile ), 04 May, 2016 @ 08:25pm

    It would be a great story if your context wasn't so wrong. Streaming boxes and streaming are pretty key in the game here.

    While you or I might be tech savvy enough to know the difference between legal and illegal streaming, many consumers are not. So often enough streaming boxes are sold with apps on them that permit and even encourage pirated feeds and pirated content. Moreover, retailers (especially when you get to a more "mom and pop" level) use the free access to this content as the selling point. In Asia, these boxes are very popular, and almost always sold on the pretense of lots of free movies and sports.

    Consumers offered the choice between "pay for your content" and "get the same content FREE!" will choose the free option without knowing why it's free.

    Now, the second part of your assertions that is wrong is this:

    ". In fact, having more open set top boxes not ensconced by the cable industry's walled garden approach will present consumers with access to more legitimate streaming content sources than ever before. That's what the cable industry is actually worried about. "

    Legitimate streaming source (ie, paid membership / pay per view) is not a negative for them. When you consider that many of the big cable / sat players are also the content producers and profit from these arrangements, the negative factor isn't there as you suggest. Legal streaming as a source doesn't worry anyone, it's in fact a good mix of the business model that allows people to act like they cut the cord, pay more for higher speed internet access. and then pay monthly fees to access the content anyway.

    The real issue is putting questionable or even totally illegal sources on an equal footing and equal appearance to the legal offering.

    Imagine (for smokers) if your local store had two displays, one with the brand you smoke for sale with taxes paid and all the rest, and next to it a similar untaxed version (perhaps made with floor sweepings instead) for half the price. Unless explained, the consummer is likely to choose the cheaper option, unless they are clearly aware. Equal footing means equal product as far as the consumer can tell.

    The proof? 12 million plus people have signed up for Hulu. The "cut the cord" by paying the man more directly. The owners overall aren't displeased.

  • On the post: Lawsuit: CBP Took $240,000 From Man And Refused To Respond To His Forfeiture Challenge Until It Had Already Processed It

    Whatever ( profile ), 04 May, 2016 @ 04:53pm

    Yet, for all of this, nobody can explain why this guy was driving around with a quarter of a million dollars in cash in his car.

    Let's just say the police were not wrong to be suspicious. No sane person does what this guy was doing, unless they don't want anyone to know that they have that much cash and what they are using it for.

  • On the post: Brazil Has To Pause Adoption Of Broadband Usage Caps After Consumers Revolt

    Whatever ( profile ), 04 May, 2016 @ 04:29pm

    Brazil is pretty simple: This means that the broadband companies didn't pay a big enough bribe. Other than that, it means very little, because Brazil isn't about the people.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't Commission Also Wants To Fix Patent Laws Down Under

    Whatever ( profile ), 03 May, 2016 @ 09:56am

    Re:

    You just hate it when I'm right... sucks to be you.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't Commission Also Wants To Fix Patent Laws Down Under

    Whatever ( profile ), 03 May, 2016 @ 09:55am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I think you need to Google Karen Chester to read some of her other "nuggets". Let's just say she swallowed a full dose of the techdirt koolaid.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't Commission Also Wants To Fix Patent Laws Down Under

    Whatever ( profile ), 02 May, 2016 @ 08:20pm

    Re: Re:

    There is no adhom. The authors have a clear anticopyright and antiIP slant, they have come out against anything and everything copryight, from GEO IP to copyright terms and so on. The documents they produce look like Techdirt 101, as it they just took notes off the site and turn them into graphics. It's pretty lame.

    "If TD ever mentioned something ever it must be wrong.."

    I never said that, stop building strawmen. TD often slants things to their preferred view, taking random bits of information and factoids and generating the classic truthiness. Claiming that a 5% drop in wiki searches is absolute proof of chilling effects is classic! Pumping up a couple of anti-copyright crusaders who happen to have landed on an Australian government commission is pretty classic too, especially when the content reads like Mike wrote it (can you say consultant? Smells like it!).

    So no, TD isn't always wrong - they just tell it slant.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't Commission: Copyright Is Copywrong; Hurting The Public And Needs To Be Fixed

    Whatever ( profile ), 02 May, 2016 @ 07:15pm

    Re: Re:

    Nope, just in the same manner you don't swallow slanted pro-copyright stuff, I don't swallow the slanted anti-copryight stuff. The authors of this interim report are as one sided as possible, it's unlikely they considered anything other than their own pre-formed opinions in making the report. It's pretty sad actually.

  • On the post: The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified

    Whatever ( profile ), 02 May, 2016 @ 04:36pm

    Re: Re: Re: The "Chilling Effect..."

    No, I don't say that they are illegal (or should be). I am saying that some people may not want to make such a search because it would attract attention to their activities. It would be like a policeman with a radar gun on the side of the road: The only ones who are "chilled" are those who feel they are breaking the law. Everyone else keeps going like there is nothing.

    Moreover, the drop in searches could be related to many other things. The report author used a very short period of time and a very small drop to try to prove something that isn't easily provable. Did Kim Kardashian release something that week? Did a major celeb die? Was there a major sporting event, election, earthquake, or a million other things that might have happened?

    It's a 5% drop, not suddenly the whole world avoiding a subject.

  • On the post: The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified

    Whatever ( profile ), 02 May, 2016 @ 04:26pm

    Re: Re: Re: The "Chilling Effect..."

    Yes, but this "report" doesn't point out any true chilling effect. 5% decrease could be attributed to something else being the topic of the week that people spent their time on. It really is such a small number. If the graphs were full size (IE, no bottom and top trimming) you wouldn't hardly be able to see any change at all.

    "When under suspicion you don't stop you just hold pattern unless you want to call undue attention to yourself!"

    So that is what you did. Perhaps others decides to go to ground.

    The point is that the report doesn't point out "The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified" as much as it points out that informed criminals perhaps choose not to be so obvious.

    It cuts both ways, and proves absolutely nothing, except that perhaps the Techdirt staff is a bit gullible.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't Commission Also Wants To Fix Patent Laws Down Under

    Whatever ( profile ), 02 May, 2016 @ 07:14pm

    Karen Chester and Jonathan Coppel - two people in the mix over there who write this stuff alone. Anti-copyright and anti-IP people fresh from the Techdirt school of twisted facts...

    Sort of hard to take them seriously at a certain point, their "ideas" are nothing but a rehash of everything said here. I am guessing both of them read and post here.

  • On the post: NYPD Using 'Nuisance Abatement' Law To Force Small Businesses To Install Cameras, Agree To Warrantless Searches

    Whatever ( profile ), 02 May, 2016 @ 09:45am

    Re:

    "NYPD Using 'Nuisance Abatement' Law To Convince Citizens To Lose Last Remaining Shred of Respect for The Law, Give No More Fucks Whatsoever About Continued Life or Safety Of Even One Single Cop"

    Most of the people involved stop giving fucks years ago. This isn't like some nice upstanding neighborhood with super low crime rates and sweet children who go to school, mow lawns for extra cash, and spend time with their family every evening playing board games.

    This is a city with high crime rates, insane levels of drug activity, gang activity, underage drinking, and just endless amounts of criminal activities.

    Is this the right answer> Nope. But the reasons they are doing it are real and the solutions hard to come by, unless you want to put a police officer in every licensed business in New York City.

  • On the post: The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified

    Whatever ( profile ), 02 May, 2016 @ 09:37am

    Re: The "Chilling Effect..."

    The issue however is that there are plenty of other possible explanations.

    First and foremost, what was and what was not happened before and after those dates. Not Snowden, but other issues, such as terrorist activities. Was one month more active than others?

    It's also very possible to draw the conclusion that is the Snowden leaks were the cause, then perhaps some of the drop is people who feel they might have been outed being more careful. With all of the pages, all of the names, all of the people involved, it's quite likely that Snowden's leaks may have run them to ground for a while.

    A true chilling effect would have been perhaps 50% drop off. 5% seems more like certain people being more cautious because they don't want to draw any more attention to themselves at that key moment.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't Commission: Copyright Is Copywrong; Hurting The Public And Needs To Be Fixed

    Whatever ( profile ), 02 May, 2016 @ 04:15pm

    It all seems wonderful, until you realize that this interim report was lead by Karen Chester, same commission member who says VPN users who get Netflix from the US aren't breaking copyright, and wrote a draft report against geo blocking.

    I thought it stank too much of a single anti-copyright person at work, and I was correct.

    Celebrate the "victory" of having one of the choir regurgitate your talking points. :)

  • On the post: The Cable Industry Threatens To Sue If FCC Tries To Bring Competition To Cable Set Top Boxes

    Whatever ( profile ), 01 May, 2016 @ 08:46pm

    Re: Re:

    Yet nobody forces you to use them. Cut the cord!

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