Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 11 Mar 2019 @ 2:33pm
It isn't just the city of Revere
"...The Subject Vehicle and The Subject Vehicle was retitled through the Massachusetts Department of Transportation with HONDA’s lien not recorded on said title."
The state er commonwealth had a hand in these nefarious actions as well.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 11 Mar 2019 @ 7:59am
Re: Re: Re:
"People who claim human filtering should happen should first go build"...a database of all copyright eligible material, divided into under current copyright and public domain, so that it could be compared with anything uploaded.
With that fix, there might be a way to build a filtering systems, human or digital, but the needed armies of humans to deal with the bugs and errors and malicious uses of this system would still be extraordinary, and likely financially torturous to any independent creator. Then there are the questions of who is the 'fair dealing' arbiter, and who decides when three notes, or a few words, or video of a sunset taken at the same location at different times by different people is actual infringement.
It will certainly pay to become a lawyer in the EU, as they are creating a massive need for people to argue both sides of what will become a huge wave of cases.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2019 @ 6:14pm
Re: Re:
"And this decision came from one of the most copyright-friendly judges ever."
It was a unanimous decision, so...
You can blame your copyright enforcers for sounding the alert to Justice Ginsburg and derailing your own gravy train."
Did they speak to the rest of the court as well?
Techdirt's position has always been that infringement is not a good thing, but that in light of overreach by, not creators, but by legacy copyright holders, understandable. The difference between taking a copy of a file, and trying to sell the copy of that file is a big one. The legacy industry tries to obfuscate that difference, and that might just be illegal. That concept was not covered in this decision.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2019 @ 5:53pm
Re: 'Why WOULD we listen to him, he's clearly unqualified to spe
Looking childishly petulant doesn't seem to be and issue with Wray, or any of the others pushing for weakening encryption. They have an agenda, and nothing any of us say will change that agenda. That they have alternatives isn't part of their perspective. Ease of work, work they shouldn't have access to re: the 4th Amendment, is.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2019 @ 5:48pm
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: gun safety
Any society where it is permissible to have private conversations, even over the Internet. As it here is in the US, and some other sovereignty's.
The FBI, as well as other law enforcement agencies, have the option to conduct their investigations in the same manner as before the existence of the Internet. Those methods were effective before (and it is a certainty that communications that were not privy to law enforcement took place) and could be now. That they choose not to is not our problem, it is theirs.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2019 @ 5:24pm
Re: Re:
"Facebook and others can do better and have to do better."
The problem then is that Facebook and 'others' become the defacto arbiters of what is right or wrong. Personally I don't want them to be the arbiters of what is right or wrong.
So far as the conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine quackery, I would suggest that members of Facebook and 'other' step up and communicate. If there are more of them than you, then one needs to speak longer, and more forthrightly, and with more provable, quantifiable, qualitative facts, with links to sources. They, in the end, will not be able to keep up with that. Yes it is a lot of work, and not being a member of Facebook or 'others' I don't know how the systems operate, but I do know that while you may not change the minds of the incoherent, the message of supported honesty does get through.
We tolerate the incoherent to some degree here on Techdirt. We let them speak, but have the option to flag their posts, which minimizes them though still readable (well, depending on how coherent or incoherent they are at any given time) and also have the option to feed their zealotry or not, and too often we feed rather than not.
That would leave the argument you want to have with Facebook and 'others' is how to come up with a system that, with some similarity to Techdirt, allows all to speak, but gives options that to, let us say downgrade, those posts that cannot, or will not produce any verifiable facts to support their conclusions. Because he said, is not sufficient without 'his' credentials and some accredited work in the field, or something similar.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2019 @ 6:57am
Re: Re: Re:
There is still the problem of either legacy copyright industries, or other bad actors, claiming copyright over some independents' creation. The way things are now, the independent is at a disadvantage (at least financially) in fighting such claims. I am not sure how Article 13 is supposed to cure this, but I doubt it will as the point of the NGO's pushing for it have their cash flow in mind, and nothing else.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 6 Mar 2019 @ 6:43am
Re:
I wonder if we could get them into a coliseum type environment for that event. We could let a few lions loose for those left standing. It would be a great show, and I am sure profitable. The biggest issue with the above proposal is how to keep it out of Big Copyrights™ hands.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 5 Mar 2019 @ 4:41pm
Re: Re:
There are some. Private Internet Access, for example, does not keep logs by policy, and the FBI has tested this. I am not affiliated with the company, but have been a satisfied customer for a number of years. They have 3329+ Servers in 33 Countries so getting around geo blocks is possible, though I don't use it that way. I did try to call my bank via Skype once and had difficulty communicating with the costumer service rep, but got them to tell me they were in the Philippines. I reconnected via a server in Hong Kong and had a nice conversation with those folks.
In my case the VPN is generated on a router that is then connected to my ISP's router, so the encryption happens before the ISP sees the packets. You could also use one of their apps, available for several operating systems, and get the encryption done on your computer. I opted for the router method to off load the encrypt/decrypt process to a different CPU.
There are some websites that block connections from VPN's, and when I need to connect to them I just turn the VPN off, do what I need to, then turn it back on again.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 4 Mar 2019 @ 7:49am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Forget
That's right, it covers takedowns, purportedly for copyright reasons, but we know it has been used for other more malicious reasons. Nor does section 230 cover defamation. There is no reason that any website should know, or have to know if some user posts defamatory content, that is until a court determines that the content is actual defamation and orders the content taken down.
You know what covers defamation? Defamation and libel laws. Go figure.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 4 Mar 2019 @ 7:17am
Re: Come on Starlink!
The latency will change the way conversations work, at least once people become accustomed to it, and that might not only be difficult, but it might take a long time.
Gamer's won't be able to use the system, at least not for games, as reacting to other players in split seconds is crucial for some games. Now if games were developed to incorporate latency in the game play, at least some gamer's might use the system.
Sites like Techdirt that are fairly static, or not interactive in a time sensitive manner, won't be affected, but some sites where filling out forms have timeouts could cause some serious problems.
I am all for the competitive aspects of such a system, but latency is a problem that won't go away easily, if at all.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 2 Mar 2019 @ 10:44am
Re: Re: has never used (or even heard of) a website
I have heard the same thing. I suppose the justification (by those in the Patent Office) is that if it hasn't been previously patented there is no possibility that prior art could exist. The absolute arrogance of such a position is astounding. To believe that their system of patents is so absolutely perfect that they could not possibly have missed the creation of anything without going through their obtuse process.
As others have argued here, some folks think security through obscurity is a good idea and use trade secrets rather than patents to protect their IP. Then there are other possibilities as well, such as something entirely different was performing the same function but no one ever applied for a patent on that function.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 1 Mar 2019 @ 7:23pm
The courts are a long way from the answer, what is the short way
Unfortunately the Supreme Court seems to have little ability to enforce its ruling unless a similar case is granted Certiorari, and then they seem only to be able to remand, though in some instances rebuke the offending court, sometimes in very certain terms. The ruling in Alice thus appears to be superficial, at least to the Patent Office, unless someone brings a case that relates and then reaches the Supreme Court.
Given the Supreme Courts reticence to workload (significantly reduced in recent decades, I could not find the link), and the number of cases submitted, and the number of cases actually granted Certiorari, it certainly appears that it will be some time before anything is done about the issues presented in the above article. That is unless the pertinent people in the Executive act, and in the interest of the people, rather than in the interest of...well how to characterize them is difficult, they might be friends or they might just be business participants. Hard to say, either is bad.
That the Patent Office is either ignoring or obfuscating the Alice decision seems to be a violation of law, regardless if they have the approval of higher ups. Just following orders hasn't worked since the Nuremberg trials, especially if those orders were illegal. Not that I would expect the DoJ, who should be on this like a tiger on a deer, to do anything, as they have much more important things to do. What were those again?
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 1 Mar 2019 @ 6:15pm
Re:
If by mobilizing citizens with the facts actually turns into consumer and legacy media industries behavior, then you might have a point. Getting the legacy media industries to provide content at a reasonable price is the issue. It will take some time, but the current silo'd method of distribution will likely fail, in the end, even though it is clear that they want the Internet to be broadcast only, and on their terms.
They (the legacy media industries) are, well I won't say happy, but are satiated (at least partly) with the current situation. But how long will consumers put up with having to subscribe with 3 or 5 or 10 different silos to get the mix they want? How long will it take (with another few years of cord cutting) for the legacy media industries to understand that we want one reasonable payment, without bogus add-on charges, to see what we want while at the same time have access to everything available? And, at that, we probably want some competition in that area. What the value added is between competitors that offer everything is something the marketing people should be working on now.
The thing is, if I am not a part of your silo, and you produce something I might want to see, my choice is subscribe or do without. At some point my budget says do without, or use the euphemistic 'pirate' option. But that leaves money on the table. They could satisfy me, and get my money if they weren't so, let us say, margin oriented. They could be more traffic oriented and, down the road, if the gross margins aren't producing enough, try upping the prices because they want to make multi million dollar blockbusters with lots of explosions and wrecked new model cars rather than something less expensive but at least entertaining. That might or might now work. Some folks like the explosions and wrecked new model cars, other might be more interested in a believable story line with a complex climax and some really good acting and direction.
All sides of the equation must be looked at. In the end, it will come down to the consumer. The sooner the legacy media industries start to consider the consumer rather than their production budget, the sooner this will come to a more satisfactory conclusion, for both sides.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 1 Mar 2019 @ 5:34pm
Re: Re: Doesn’t the phone belong to T-mobile?
What I want to know is what other evidence did they have to convict Adkinson and others? Owning a cellphone that just happens to be within the cell-towers range at the time of some crime might be an indicator, but it is not conclusive of behavior. He could have been at the extreme opposite end of the cell-towers reach, in both instances.
Unless there are multiple cell-towers involved, thus 'triangulating' a certain position, the cell-tower cannot pinpoint a location. Unless you believe what you see on TV. Even then, the cell-tower cannot determine what activity the holder, not the owner, of the cell phone might be up to.
I do hope they had a lot more than the cell-tower dumps for a conviction.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 1 Mar 2019 @ 12:55pm
Re:
I have heard that some Broadway productions send their works on the road. Sometimes before the Broadway appearance for, oh let's call it a beta test, and sometimes after the Broadway run. Still, seeing that this is a different play, albeit with the same name, I cannot see any actual harm, unless John from Pudunk doesn't comprehend the difference between written by Christopher Sergel (date) and written by Aaron Sorkin (date).
On the post: Auto Finance Company Sues Massachusetts City Over Its Unconstitutional Sale Of Seized Vehicles
It isn't just the city of Revere
The state er commonwealth had a hand in these nefarious actions as well.
On the post: Disaster In The Making: Article 13 Puts User Rights At A Disadvantage To Corporate Greed
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Unfortunately the EU's demands are worse. They want all nails to be left handed as well.
On the post: Disaster In The Making: Article 13 Puts User Rights At A Disadvantage To Corporate Greed
Re: Re: Re:
"People who claim human filtering should happen should first go build"...a database of all copyright eligible material, divided into under current copyright and public domain, so that it could be compared with anything uploaded.
With that fix, there might be a way to build a filtering systems, human or digital, but the needed armies of humans to deal with the bugs and errors and malicious uses of this system would still be extraordinary, and likely financially torturous to any independent creator. Then there are the questions of who is the 'fair dealing' arbiter, and who decides when three notes, or a few words, or video of a sunset taken at the same location at different times by different people is actual infringement.
It will certainly pay to become a lawyer in the EU, as they are creating a massive need for people to argue both sides of what will become a huge wave of cases.
On the post: Supreme Court Says Of Course You Need To Register Your Copyright Before You Can Sue; Copyright Trolls & Hollywood Freak Out
Re: Re:
It was a unanimous decision, so...
Did they speak to the rest of the court as well?
Techdirt's position has always been that infringement is not a good thing, but that in light of overreach by, not creators, but by legacy copyright holders, understandable. The difference between taking a copy of a file, and trying to sell the copy of that file is a big one. The legacy industry tries to obfuscate that difference, and that might just be illegal. That concept was not covered in this decision.
On the post: FBI Director Chris Wray Needs To Shut The Fuck Up About Encryption
Re: 'Why WOULD we listen to him, he's clearly unqualified to spe
Looking childishly petulant doesn't seem to be and issue with Wray, or any of the others pushing for weakening encryption. They have an agenda, and nothing any of us say will change that agenda. That they have alternatives isn't part of their perspective. Ease of work, work they shouldn't have access to re: the 4th Amendment, is.
On the post: FBI Director Chris Wray Needs To Shut The Fuck Up About Encryption
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: gun safety
Any society where it is permissible to have private conversations, even over the Internet. As it here is in the US, and some other sovereignty's.
The FBI, as well as other law enforcement agencies, have the option to conduct their investigations in the same manner as before the existence of the Internet. Those methods were effective before (and it is a certainty that communications that were not privy to law enforcement took place) and could be now. That they choose not to is not our problem, it is theirs.
On the post: Yes, Actually, There Is A Lot Of Good News In Zuckerberg's New Plans For Facebook
Re: Re:
The problem then is that Facebook and 'others' become the defacto arbiters of what is right or wrong. Personally I don't want them to be the arbiters of what is right or wrong.
So far as the conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine quackery, I would suggest that members of Facebook and 'other' step up and communicate. If there are more of them than you, then one needs to speak longer, and more forthrightly, and with more provable, quantifiable, qualitative facts, with links to sources. They, in the end, will not be able to keep up with that. Yes it is a lot of work, and not being a member of Facebook or 'others' I don't know how the systems operate, but I do know that while you may not change the minds of the incoherent, the message of supported honesty does get through.
We tolerate the incoherent to some degree here on Techdirt. We let them speak, but have the option to flag their posts, which minimizes them though still readable (well, depending on how coherent or incoherent they are at any given time) and also have the option to feed their zealotry or not, and too often we feed rather than not.
That would leave the argument you want to have with Facebook and 'others' is how to come up with a system that, with some similarity to Techdirt, allows all to speak, but gives options that to, let us say downgrade, those posts that cannot, or will not produce any verifiable facts to support their conclusions. Because he said, is not sufficient without 'his' credentials and some accredited work in the field, or something similar.
On the post: CBP Put A Bunch Of Journalists, Immigration Lawyers, And Activists On A Secret Watchlist
Re:
In your demented version, what is the purpose of The Fourth Estate?
On the post: FBI Director Chris Wray Needs To Shut The Fuck Up About Encryption
Re: Good-bye credibility
How sure are you that they didn't invite him for the laugh factor?
On the post: Major Labels Split On Support For Article 13; As Music Publishers Whine That They Can't Make Money From Parodies
Re: Re: Re:
There is still the problem of either legacy copyright industries, or other bad actors, claiming copyright over some independents' creation. The way things are now, the independent is at a disadvantage (at least financially) in fighting such claims. I am not sure how Article 13 is supposed to cure this, but I doubt it will as the point of the NGO's pushing for it have their cash flow in mind, and nothing else.
On the post: Clash Of EU's Poorly Thought Out Laws: German Data Protection Commissioner Warns That Article 13 Might Violate GDPR
Re:
I wonder if we could get them into a coliseum type environment for that event. We could let a few lions loose for those left standing. It would be a great show, and I am sure profitable. The biggest issue with the above proposal is how to keep it out of Big Copyrights™ hands.
On the post: VPNs Are No Privacy Panacea, And Finding An Ethical Operator Is A Comical Shitshow
Re: Re:
There are some. Private Internet Access, for example, does not keep logs by policy, and the FBI has tested this. I am not affiliated with the company, but have been a satisfied customer for a number of years. They have 3329+ Servers in 33 Countries so getting around geo blocks is possible, though I don't use it that way. I did try to call my bank via Skype once and had difficulty communicating with the costumer service rep, but got them to tell me they were in the Philippines. I reconnected via a server in Hong Kong and had a nice conversation with those folks.
In my case the VPN is generated on a router that is then connected to my ISP's router, so the encryption happens before the ISP sees the packets. You could also use one of their apps, available for several operating systems, and get the encryption done on your computer. I opted for the router method to off load the encrypt/decrypt process to a different CPU.
There are some websites that block connections from VPN's, and when I need to connect to them I just turn the VPN off, do what I need to, then turn it back on again.
On the post: Australia Threatening Over 100 Journalists For Accurately Reporting On Cardinal Pell's Sex Abuse Trial
Re: Re: Re: Re: Forget
That's right, it covers takedowns, purportedly for copyright reasons, but we know it has been used for other more malicious reasons. Nor does section 230 cover defamation. There is no reason that any website should know, or have to know if some user posts defamatory content, that is until a court determines that the content is actual defamation and orders the content taken down.
You know what covers defamation? Defamation and libel laws. Go figure.
On the post: US Telcos Teeter Toward Bankruptcy As Comcast's Broadband Monopoly Grows
Re: Come on Starlink!
The latency will change the way conversations work, at least once people become accustomed to it, and that might not only be difficult, but it might take a long time.
Gamer's won't be able to use the system, at least not for games, as reacting to other players in split seconds is crucial for some games. Now if games were developed to incorporate latency in the game play, at least some gamer's might use the system.
Sites like Techdirt that are fairly static, or not interactive in a time sensitive manner, won't be affected, but some sites where filling out forms have timeouts could cause some serious problems.
I am all for the competitive aspects of such a system, but latency is a problem that won't go away easily, if at all.
On the post: Australia Threatening Over 100 Journalists For Accurately Reporting On Cardinal Pell's Sex Abuse Trial
Re: Re: Forget
Of course not, because that is what the DMCA is for.
Now would having your obsession with Section 230 surgically removed be fatal?
On the post: Stupid Patent Of The Month: Veripath Patents Following Privacy Laws
Re: Re: has never used (or even heard of) a website
I have heard the same thing. I suppose the justification (by those in the Patent Office) is that if it hasn't been previously patented there is no possibility that prior art could exist. The absolute arrogance of such a position is astounding. To believe that their system of patents is so absolutely perfect that they could not possibly have missed the creation of anything without going through their obtuse process.
As others have argued here, some folks think security through obscurity is a good idea and use trade secrets rather than patents to protect their IP. Then there are other possibilities as well, such as something entirely different was performing the same function but no one ever applied for a patent on that function.
On the post: Stupid Patent Of The Month: Veripath Patents Following Privacy Laws
The courts are a long way from the answer, what is the short way
Unfortunately the Supreme Court seems to have little ability to enforce its ruling unless a similar case is granted Certiorari, and then they seem only to be able to remand, though in some instances rebuke the offending court, sometimes in very certain terms. The ruling in Alice thus appears to be superficial, at least to the Patent Office, unless someone brings a case that relates and then reaches the Supreme Court.
Given the Supreme Courts reticence to workload (significantly reduced in recent decades, I could not find the link), and the number of cases submitted, and the number of cases actually granted Certiorari, it certainly appears that it will be some time before anything is done about the issues presented in the above article. That is unless the pertinent people in the Executive act, and in the interest of the people, rather than in the interest of...well how to characterize them is difficult, they might be friends or they might just be business participants. Hard to say, either is bad.
That the Patent Office is either ignoring or obfuscating the Alice decision seems to be a violation of law, regardless if they have the approval of higher ups. Just following orders hasn't worked since the Nuremberg trials, especially if those orders were illegal. Not that I would expect the DoJ, who should be on this like a tiger on a deer, to do anything, as they have much more important things to do. What were those again?
On the post: NZ Study Yet Again Concludes That Piracy Is A Function Of Price And Ease Of Access
Re:
If by mobilizing citizens with the facts actually turns into consumer and legacy media industries behavior, then you might have a point. Getting the legacy media industries to provide content at a reasonable price is the issue. It will take some time, but the current silo'd method of distribution will likely fail, in the end, even though it is clear that they want the Internet to be broadcast only, and on their terms.
They (the legacy media industries) are, well I won't say happy, but are satiated (at least partly) with the current situation. But how long will consumers put up with having to subscribe with 3 or 5 or 10 different silos to get the mix they want? How long will it take (with another few years of cord cutting) for the legacy media industries to understand that we want one reasonable payment, without bogus add-on charges, to see what we want while at the same time have access to everything available? And, at that, we probably want some competition in that area. What the value added is between competitors that offer everything is something the marketing people should be working on now.
The thing is, if I am not a part of your silo, and you produce something I might want to see, my choice is subscribe or do without. At some point my budget says do without, or use the euphemistic 'pirate' option. But that leaves money on the table. They could satisfy me, and get my money if they weren't so, let us say, margin oriented. They could be more traffic oriented and, down the road, if the gross margins aren't producing enough, try upping the prices because they want to make multi million dollar blockbusters with lots of explosions and wrecked new model cars rather than something less expensive but at least entertaining. That might or might now work. Some folks like the explosions and wrecked new model cars, other might be more interested in a believable story line with a complex climax and some really good acting and direction.
All sides of the equation must be looked at. In the end, it will come down to the consumer. The sooner the legacy media industries start to consider the consumer rather than their production budget, the sooner this will come to a more satisfactory conclusion, for both sides.
On the post: Seventh Circuit Ignores Two Supreme Court Decisions To Hand Out Bad Precedent On Cell Site Location Info
Re: Re: Doesn’t the phone belong to T-mobile?
What I want to know is what other evidence did they have to convict Adkinson and others? Owning a cellphone that just happens to be within the cell-towers range at the time of some crime might be an indicator, but it is not conclusive of behavior. He could have been at the extreme opposite end of the cell-towers reach, in both instances.
Unless there are multiple cell-towers involved, thus 'triangulating' a certain position, the cell-tower cannot pinpoint a location. Unless you believe what you see on TV. Even then, the cell-tower cannot determine what activity the holder, not the owner, of the cell phone might be up to.
I do hope they had a lot more than the cell-tower dumps for a conviction.
On the post: Producer Scott Rudin Going Around Killing Off Licensed Community Theater Shows Of To Kill A Mockingbird
Re:
I have heard that some Broadway productions send their works on the road. Sometimes before the Broadway appearance for, oh let's call it a beta test, and sometimes after the Broadway run. Still, seeing that this is a different play, albeit with the same name, I cannot see any actual harm, unless John from Pudunk doesn't comprehend the difference between written by Christopher Sergel (date) and written by Aaron Sorkin (date).
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