zboot 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (53) comment rss

  • On the post: Cops Sent Warrant To Facebook To Dig Up Dirt On Woman Whose Boyfriend They Had Just Killed

    zboot ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2017 @ 11:37am

    Re:

    "Quinton Gates, a black 18 year old gang member in Chicago approached a rival on a South Side porch last month and shot 11 times, killing a 19 year old man. Quinton is black."

    vs

    "Everything anyone has ever said about staying safe while interacting with the police is wrong."

    I'm not sure how the first implies the second is wrong. That a black 18yo gang member in Chicago killed someone, does not mean I'm going to be safe with police if only I "comply".

  • On the post: Should Tumblr Be Forced To Reveal 500 People Who Reblogged A Sex Tape?

    zboot ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2017 @ 03:50pm

    Re:

    Except, is there an easy way to actually "like" or "favorite" something on tumblr?

    It seems like "reblogging" is an easy way to do this and given the ease of doing so, why would you "like" or "favorite" something that could disappear when you could easily preserve it so what you like doesn't go away when the host dies?

    I bookmark links to product pages for stuff I find interesting. And about once a year, go through culling links which are now dead. Then I found a site that essentially makes copies of product images and summarizes what it does - so I bookmark that site, rather than the underlying product page because those links are less likely to go away.

    Preserving information on it's own is a thing that many people value and does not necessarily imply some additional level of support or promotion.

  • On the post: TV Cord Cutting Poised To Smash Records During Second Quarter

    zboot ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2017 @ 08:41am

    Re:

    "Is it me or there seems to be an alignment issue with this article?"

    I had the alignment issue until I updated my version of Chrome.

  • On the post: Strike Three: Lexmark Can't Use Patents, Trademarks Or Copyright To Block Third Party Ink Cartridges

    zboot ( profile ), 30 May, 2017 @ 12:42pm

    Re:

    I don't see this increasing public "support" in the way the manufacturers want, which is more money. Your suggestions dilute the market. Sure, there may be competition on printers, but the big manufacturers aren't losing sleep to crap third party printers. So, increased competition there doesn't change anything for them. Not that I expect there will be much innovation in consumer printers anyway - they're going the way of digital cameras.

    Having printer carts that work everywhere just increases the good competition they already have from refills - they'd lose money since it'll be pretty hard to innovate on ink to the point where I'd prefer $$$ Lexmark black to $ ebay black.

  • On the post: DHS, TSA To Make Boarding A Plane Even More Of A Pain In The Ass

    zboot ( profile ), 30 May, 2017 @ 12:24pm

    “I was telling [Fox host] Steve [Doocy] on the way in here, if he knew what I knew about terrorism, he’d never leave the house in the morning,” Kelly said on “Fox & Friends.”

    To be fair, he may not be spreading fear wholesale. It could be what he "knows" is of a credible threat to Steve Doocy.

  • On the post: No, The Wall St. Bull Sculptor Doesn't 'Have A Point'

    zboot ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2017 @ 01:41pm

    Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 18th, 2017 @ 11:08am

    This comment is a copy of another earlier. It is commentary on the original argument, suggesting that since this was a derivative work, the OP should no longer respond since we've taken away his reason for creating comments.

  • On the post: Ransomware Attack Left DC Police Surveillance Blind Shortly Before The Innauguration

    zboot ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2017 @ 03:48pm

    Re: I have a question:

    I mean, if a ransomware program is intended to collect money, whether it be electronic transfer or bitcoin or whatever, surely the programs can be disassembled and the location the money's being sent to located?

    Given that the code isn't transferring the money, how would disassembling it show you where money is being sent? I think you don't understand how electronic transfers or bitcoin works.

  • On the post: Ransomware Attack Left DC Police Surveillance Blind Shortly Before The Innauguration

    zboot ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2017 @ 03:42pm

    Locked inside rooms?

    Hotel rooms can be locked/unlocked from the inside. You can't lock someone inside a hotel room any more than you can be locked inside your own house.

  • On the post: Our Humanity

    zboot ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2017 @ 10:54am

    Re: Re: Re: Well...

    Saying that "My expression of X may seem out of place to you, but it is motivated by my humanity and forces me to discard appearances or decorum and complaints that I shouldn't say this here just show us where your priorities are" isn't the same as saying "disagreeing with me means your are in-human".

    Trying to silence someone speaking out about a humanitarian issue, because it will get in the way of your enjoyment of tech issues, at a blog which you were not forced to read and where you don't expend any effort to write - that is callous and perhaps inhuman.

    So, if what you are saying is "shut up Mike about this issue and get back to tech blogging", then yes, you might be in-human. And if you're saying that the reason Trump won is because in-human people were called out on it, then, while that sucks, it doesn't change anything.

    But, if you are saying that someone thinks disagreeing with Mike on this particular makes you in-human, that is different and I've not yet read anything that suggests other points of view may not have validity or come from a different view or priority of humanity. And if you are saying that Trump was elected because people ignored the very real, though different, expressions of humanity of their fellow citizens, then, you'd be right but confusing since that's a good thing - assuming Trump is what's required to improve how we interact with our fellow citizens.

  • On the post: Court Tells Nursing Home Company That Law Firm's Ads Targeting It Are Not A Form Of Trademark Infringement

    zboot ( profile ), 12 Dec, 2016 @ 08:44am

    I wonder

    If this will embolden someone to actually say "superbowl" in an ad?

  • On the post: CBC Threatens Podcast Apps For Letting People Listen To CBC Podcasts

    zboot ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2016 @ 01:09pm

    Another question

    So, if I create a website with terms of use that forbid anyone from reading any document on my website titled "Top Secret", and I place a prominent link on every page to said "Top Secret" document, along with text somewhere on the page that says "clicking links on this site constitutes acceptance of the TOS", can I then sue everyone who reads the publicly linked unprotected document?

  • On the post: CBC Threatens Podcast Apps For Letting People Listen To CBC Podcasts

    zboot ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2016 @ 01:03pm

    Hmm

    So, what would be the non-commercial way to use a third party device/app to listen to the podcasts? Does CBC make their own free computers, phones, internet service? Free podcast apps? Otherwise, to satisfy my desire to listen to their podcast, someone somewhere is making money.

  • On the post: Thai Government Demands Popular Chat App Reveal Any Time Any User Insults The King

    zboot ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2016 @ 04:46pm

    I'm guessing it (request that requests go through an official channel) is a neat way to funnel requests through a single source where sequesters can be told "sorry" by someone with legal authority over them.

    Now, instead of every single police office, government agency, etc all making requests and threats when they don't get fulfilled, just one single agency acts as gatekeeper for requests and threats.

  • On the post: FBI Director: We Need More Data On Police Shootings So Law Enforcement Can 'Change The Narrative'

    zboot ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2016 @ 07:35am

    Not bad apples

    They are in fact "bad apples". These are bad apples that show us there is something rotten with our criminal justice system.

    There seems of late an active forgetfulness of where the term "bad apples" comes from. Kinda like what ultimately happened with "uncle tom". I wonder if I'm going to see the complete change within my lifetime.

  • On the post: Details Of Charges Against Backpage Execs For 'Pimping' Look Totally Bogus

    zboot ( profile ), 07 Oct, 2016 @ 09:17am

    Re: Material Contribution ...

    Backpage filters out certain terms, as you can see from reading this article. I don't know what "alteration" to ads you mean, but I suspect at one point, Backpage filtered/replaced/removed "banned" words without notifying the user (CL used to do this).

    So, from the POV of an eager prosecutor, this is backpage altering ads to hide their explicit nature. This is likely why they now just reject the post and force the user to remove the offending terms themselves.

  • On the post: Daily Deal: Radix '.tech' Domain

    zboot ( profile ), 28 Jul, 2016 @ 03:32pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Caveat emptor

    .tech ranks pretty well based on your link.

  • On the post: Pam Geller Sues The US Gov't Because Facebook Blocked Her Page; Says CDA 230 Violates First Amendment

    zboot ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2016 @ 12:54pm

    Re: At what point does Facebook go too far?

    The only people concerned are those who apparently didn't know that Facebook always had this power. Since day one.

    Facebook is not a phone company. If Facebook "disconnects" you, you can still communicate with your friends and family. You can still post things online in a forum you completely control with the same level of effort you spent creating your Facebook account.

    Even phone companies today are not the Bells of yesteryear. If AT&T blacklists me, I can use T-Mobile, or Sprint, or Verizon. It's not like I'd be completely cut out from being able to communicate with anyone.

    Your analogy does not apply.

  • On the post: Pam Geller Sues The US Gov't Because Facebook Blocked Her Page; Says CDA 230 Violates First Amendment

    zboot ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2016 @ 12:48pm

    Re:

    Hey advocate, can you describe another example of a "social necessity" that's currently provided by private companies but has the kind of first amendment protections claimed here?

    Your advocacy attempts to make this into "this is an example of something else that's protected by the first amendment" but conveniently fails to explain what that other thing is...like I'll just take your word for it or something.

  • On the post: Illinois Court Says State's Cyberstalking Law Is Unconstitutional

    zboot ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2016 @ 01:25pm

    Re:

    I think you're misunderstanding intent.

    One doesn't need empathy to know that smashing someone's face with a hammer will cause them harm.

    The law is saying, you can't criminalize something simply because it made someone feel bad, an actual crime needs to occur. That's the "intent" that's to be proved - that the person actually did something wrong.

    Waving at someone is not necessarily a crime or wrong. You feeling harassed doesn't automatically turn waving into stalking. The intent you prove that turns the waving into stalking is demonstrating that unwanted letters were sent to you, your private home address/phone numbers are found and the person showed up there, they talked to your friends about where you work, then they showed up and waved. Now you've got intent that the waving was criminal (stalking) regardless of how empathetic the stalker may be.

  • On the post: Lessons From The Downfall Of A $150M Crowdfunded Experiment In Decentralized Governance

    zboot ( profile ), 29 Jun, 2016 @ 01:53pm

    Re: Re: That's why contracts aren't written in code

    You misunderstood my meta-code portion.

    Contracts now are written in a language whose goal is to eliminate the ambiguities introduced by natural language. Where someone attempts to exploit ambiguity discovered after the contract has gone into effect, it's usually resolved by having to go back and determine what both parties understood the contract to mean at the time they signed it.

    What these smart contracts are trying to solve are:
    1. Using a language that a computer can evaluate and so you don't need a judge or arbitration or lawyers to determine whether one party is in breach.
    2. Not allowing for new behavior which while technically allowed under the language of the contract when signed materially differs from what both parties agreed to.
    3. Having to completely enumerate everything individually allowed (or disallowed).

    They failure is with #2 and #3. The meta-code idea is a first pass at addressing #2 at the expense of throwing #3 in the trash.

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