So what happens when they freeze the bank account? Let's take the scenario where they say that he violated the TOU and he can't prove otherwise, what would then happen to those funds? Would they be returned to the people who donated them, kept by the bank, or some other scenario I haven't thought about?
Of course, never mind that every one else in the country and the rest of the world now has access to this info. Great to see our legal system once again keeping up with technology... and common sense...oops, wait it's not ;)
If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on a bank being behind this, under cover of all the noise over the latest release, so as not to draw any suspicion. Some large U.S. bank knows they're next on the Wikileaks release schedule in early 2011, so they're probably trying to thwart this early ;)
Sadly both he and us are the victims, though it appears that neither he nor us are victims of terrorism, but rather victims of the FBI's political tactics. What is happening as a result of such farces is far more dangerous to our country and the turn it's taking in the name of security fm boogeymen, then had a bomb actually gone off.
Given industry's (the banking sector being a big part of that) stranglehold...ah, I mean influence, on our gov't, I believe we will see all sorts of action being taken here about Wikileaks. As you might be aware, they have already announced that their next release in early 2011 will be devastating to a large U.S. bank (see Forbes interview w/Adrian, http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/an-interview-with-wikileaks-julian-assange/). It's my contention that we will see mountains being moved in our legal system to vilify and criminalize Wikileaks before this release in order to attempt to stymie it.
This may sound conspiratorial but when considering how much money might be at stake, and the behavior of our largest corporations based on risk analysis, my bet is that either a massive technology effort to take down Wikileaks will happen or his arrest or assassination are possible fates.
Great observation re: the pointlessness of shutting down Wikileaks. In a way, there's a direct corollary in what happened w/MP3 music and Napster. After shutting it down, it wasn't long until other more distributed models began to emerge. With the shutdown of each service, a new more elaborate and complex distributed model evolves and picks up from where the previous one left off.
The biggest frustration coming out of all of these Wikileaks releases has been how little attention has been paid to our gov't's frequent reprehensible behavior, versus the attention paid to Julian. It's almost funny that in midst of reading how little we can actually trust those in charge, they further ask us to trust them when they explain how dangerous these leaks are. Ironically, the only ones likely to suffer from the leaks are those members of our gov't whose lies and hypocrisy are being exposed.
Even more frustrating is that Wikileaks is only empowered because of our gov't's inability to live up to its FOIA commitments in a timely manner and the fact that the Third Estate is tripping over itself trying to be the mouthpiece for our gov't rather than the objective group representing our citizen's interests. Crazy.
When we look back in history, I believe 2010 will go down in infamy as the year our country did more to approach becoming a totalitarian state than almost any other time in history.
"Notice that nowhere in this is there any attempt to actually explain how she thought it was okay to repeatedly copy articles and photographs into a magazine while presenting them as if they had been specifically commissioned or licensed for the magazine."
Because it's not OK ;)
For as many things as can piss me off with Apple, there's plenty to like about them too. First they fought the good fight in getting $.99 tracks into iTunes (nevermind that iTunes is a closed system), and now they're pushing for 90 second tracks, also great for consumers. Love'em or hate'em, Apple has been an important partner in moving the ball forward on getting content distributed online against some very large and powerful industries and their lobbyists. Hope they can pull this latest initiative off as well.
It does appear that the quote you're referring to was taken out of context. I spoke w/some developers that work closely w/Microsoft who had just come back fm meeting w/them.
Here are two links talking about their plans w/Silverlight:
Come to think of it, the companies they really should be going after are those like ePrize and a few others in the promotions space, all of which are likely too small to make suing them worthwhile.
While I'm certainly no fan of stupid patents and of business process and software patents more generally, this patent did issue before the social gaming craze. The date of the patent is 2003, before social games and before the companies listed (w/the exception of EA) where in biz. So I don't think one can claim obviousness here since none of these folks were doing or thinking about this when this patent was sought. Having said that, I would doubt the veracity of the patent if the status quo of quality remains the high water mark ;)
As you can imagine however, Comcast is in a unique position to not care because as soon as the exodus from the cable packages to over-the-top solutions gets too large they'll just start moving to metered Internet usage (which they're trialing already in some areas, I believe). Customers will begin getting dinged just as much if not more, from the bandwidth fees.
I fear that the reality is that w/so little choice in the marketplace, we are at their mercy one way or the other.
The newspaper industry is catching up to politicians in being the largest providers of material for comic relief. It's the industry that just keeps on giving :) You really have to wonder if a dimwitted set like the folks at this pub, are really the people that should be engaging writing the news for the rest to read ;)
On the post: Swiss Bank Finds Technicality To Freeze Wikileaks Bank Account
Swiss Bank, then MasterCard...a solution has emerged
On the post: Swiss Bank Finds Technicality To Freeze Wikileaks Bank Account
Who gets $$$
On the post: How Denial Works: Library Of Congress Blocks Wikileaks
On the post: Wikileaks Says Its Site Has Been 'Killed'
Wikileaks moves to Switzerland
On the post: Wikileaks Says Its Site Has Been 'Killed'
Wikileaks LIVES!
Main site: http://46.59.1.2/
Access to all releases: http://88.80.13.160
On the post: Wikileaks Says Its Site Has Been 'Killed'
Betting on the banks
On the post: FBI Celebrates That It Prevented FBI's Own Bomb Plot
Re: Re: FBI Portland bust
On the post: Justice Department Trying To Figure Out How To Twist US Laws To Charge Julian Assange
Re: Since Obama claims the right to kill anyone -- even you --
On the post: Justice Department Trying To Figure Out How To Twist US Laws To Charge Julian Assange
One other thing...
On the post: Justice Department Trying To Figure Out How To Twist US Laws To Charge Julian Assange
Napster, Grokster, Limewire, et. al.
The biggest frustration coming out of all of these Wikileaks releases has been how little attention has been paid to our gov't's frequent reprehensible behavior, versus the attention paid to Julian. It's almost funny that in midst of reading how little we can actually trust those in charge, they further ask us to trust them when they explain how dangerous these leaks are. Ironically, the only ones likely to suffer from the leaks are those members of our gov't whose lies and hypocrisy are being exposed.
Even more frustrating is that Wikileaks is only empowered because of our gov't's inability to live up to its FOIA commitments in a timely manner and the fact that the Third Estate is tripping over itself trying to be the mouthpiece for our gov't rather than the objective group representing our citizen's interests. Crazy.
When we look back in history, I believe 2010 will go down in infamy as the year our country did more to approach becoming a totalitarian state than almost any other time in history.
On the post: US Copyright Group Sued For Extortion, Conspiracy & Fraud
On the post: Whether Or Not The TSA Has Ever Caught A Terrorist Is Apparently A State Secret
Schneier concurs, TSA security theatre doesn't work
On the post: Cooks Source Editor Finally Responds... Makes Things Worse [Updated]
On the post: Apple Tells Labels, Unilaterally, That It's Increasing Song Previews To 90 Seconds
Love/Hate relationship w/Apple
On the post: Oh Look, Microsoft Is De-Prioritizing Silverlight
No so fast
Here are two links talking about their plans w/Silverlight:
- http://team.silverlight.net/announcement/pdc-and-silverlight/
- http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2010/11/01/silverlight-is-dead-long-live-silverlight.aspx
On the post: Oprah Sued For Copyright Infringement After Quoting A Book On TV Without Credit
Attention?
On the post: Putting 'Game Pieces' Together Online To Win Something Patented; All The Big Social Gaming Companies Sued
On the post: Putting 'Game Pieces' Together Online To Win Something Patented; All The Big Social Gaming Companies Sued
2003 Patent
On the post: Comcast Pretends That Cord Cutters Aren't Cord Cutters If They Cut Cord Because Of The Economy
Metering Internet usage
I fear that the reality is that w/so little choice in the marketplace, we are at their mercy one way or the other.
On the post: Local News Website Says You Need To Pay To Read Its Stories, Says It's Collecting Visitor IPs To Sue
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