And then there's another hidden tidbit that was the lead in some of the press coverage: that "Americans favor more regulation of internet sites." Regulation of what and how? Well, again, this study fails completely in that it never actually says. The only bit on regulation is the following:
Seventy-nine percent of Americans strongly or somewhat agree that major internet companies should be subject to the same rules and regulations as newspapers and broadcast news stations are. Twenty percent strongly or somewhat disagree.
This also falls under the problem of surveys not educating people about the questions they're asking. Who can name what regulations newspapers and broadcast news stations follow?
I bet if you ran a poll that asked "Should we have harsher penalties for rapists and child molesters" that most people would answer yes, because answering no or I don't know would be telling the person conducting poll that you side with rapists and child molesters.
But of course the problem is what's a 'harsher' penalty you're agreeing to? And what's the current penalty for those crimes? Are you agreeing that we should have the death penalty for those crimes if you answer yes to those questions? Who knows, because the question never said so. It lets us fill in our own definition and make outrageous claims like "90% of Americans support the death penalty for child rapists" when most people answer yes to this.
It should be called having the judge throw out all convictions secured in cases where this was illegally recorded and handed over to prosecution.
Prosecutors and law enforcement have to be punished with the threat of their convictions (and plea bargains) being overturned, otherwise they'll just keep doing this crap again and again knowing there's no risk to it. That's why the SCOTUS overturned one person's murder conviction and let him go free when the courts let the jury go home and watch evening news coverage of their high profile trial (coverage which was very negative towards the defendant).
Censoring articles on the Internet about censorship? What articles? I don't see any such articles anywhere on Google, so therefore they must not exist.
Guess it's just your word against 100% reliable politicians who we know would never ever lie to us, or try to censor the truth with poorly written legislation.
And the worst part is a bunch of sites still don't allow CorrectHorseBatteryStaple as a password because of it violating those password rules. Which makes requiring password switches every so many days even worse for all the reasons this comic highlights.
I've heard stories of workplaces with this policy.
A lot of employees did one of two things to remember their constantly changing passwords:
Wrote their passwords down and left it somewhere on their desk. (this is referred to as the 3 feet rule, where if you throw a bunch of arbitrary password rules on that make it hard to remember your password users will leave their written down password within 3 feet of their desk chair)
Used passwords like "Summer2018!", "Spring2018!" to make it easy to remember.
Hackers hold similar conventions for hacking all the different OS's, and award prizes for the first person to hack each of them.
Microsoft, Apple, and other major OS makers pay close attention to those events for security vulnerabilities to patch.
If tech companies pay attention to such events to improve their products, and think they reflect the real world enough to pay attention to, why wouldn't voting machines?
Technically, it might somehow violate CFAA because of how ridiculously broad it's written so that violating the TOS on a website is 'hacking'. No doubt this also covers violating a license agreement. (Buying a voting machine however would not violate said law like the manufacturers alleged in the story).
Except Google doesn't just blindly de-list anything anyone submits a DMCA for.
There's been stories on Techdirt before about nonsense DMCA's that Google ignores (including DMCA's on the IP holder's own website, for infringing upon their own IP).
I think Google has implied years ago that only half of the DMCA's they get are valid.
... I don't know much about how owning crypto currency actually works, but wouldn't they still need the password to access said currency?
Couldn't they just change their password on the accounts (such as with a password manager) to make the SIM's useless (assuming they change the passwords in time)?
Or better yet, couldn't they require two factor authentication or something like that to access the Bitcoins?
Because the cost of a few dozen songs is far less then the cost of a lawsuit 99.9999% of those people won't be filing lawsuits.
That's what the cell phone company that won a SCOTUS ruling on the subject was counting on when they falsely advertised 'free' phones, and then charged people over $30 for that phone on their monthly phone bill (the bill were state taxes they didn't mention weren't covered in their 'free' phone).
The US justice system, letting people legally defined as slaves under the 13th amendment file a class action lawsuit?
LOL, look at this poor innocent person who believes that class action lawsuits are still possible after the SCOTUS and Federal Government made them virtually nonexistent.
He probably wanted to get rid of it because someone told him the program was called "Obama Phones".
This is literally why conservatives on social media turned against it a few years ago and started making a fuss about the program. Because of a Youtube video of a poor person who used the subsidy for their cell phone calling it an 'Obama Phone', even though Reagan started the program.
The problem is the national corporations just have local news run a bunch of national news. Just look at Sinclair's 'Must Run' of Trump and conservative propaganda.
It literally gives a national company the power to push a political agenda mascaraing as a local issue.
For example, what if a national company decided to bury all the stories on police brutality because they like the police. Or the opposite, hype up or even make up stories of police misbehavior to demonize them across the country in local news.
That's why there's rules in place to limit ownership of local media.
It's because 'local' news isn't really 'local' if it's all owned and operated by by one giant corporation, which often dictates the kind of content that gets aired.
Better yet, there should be a special prosecutor for indicting and prosecuting police officers.
We have special prosecutors for investigating and prosecuting members of the President's administration because of clear conflicts of interest (the DOJ is a part of the President's administration, and led by their appointees), we should do the same for bringing bad police officers and departments to justice.
Prosecutors often have clear conflicts of interest prosecuting cops because they need the cops testimony in plenty of other cases they're prosecuting to secure a conviction. A great way to lose their testimony/cooperation in those cases is to prosecute the cops. Even if the cop still cooperates with you, it provides a field day for the defense by damaging the cop's credibility, especially if the cop was caught lying to cover up their crimes.
On the post: Today In Useless Surveys: Some People Want Internet Companies To Stop Filtering News And Some Don't.
This also falls under the problem of surveys not educating people about the questions they're asking. Who can name what regulations newspapers and broadcast news stations follow?
I bet if you ran a poll that asked "Should we have harsher penalties for rapists and child molesters" that most people would answer yes, because answering no or I don't know would be telling the person conducting poll that you side with rapists and child molesters.
But of course the problem is what's a 'harsher' penalty you're agreeing to? And what's the current penalty for those crimes? Are you agreeing that we should have the death penalty for those crimes if you answer yes to those questions? Who knows, because the question never said so. It lets us fill in our own definition and make outrageous claims like "90% of Americans support the death penalty for child rapists" when most people answer yes to this.
On the post: Another Prison Phone Service Caught Recording Privileged Conversations And Passing Them On To Law Enforcement
Re:
Prosecutors and law enforcement have to be punished with the threat of their convictions (and plea bargains) being overturned, otherwise they'll just keep doing this crap again and again knowing there's no risk to it. That's why the SCOTUS overturned one person's murder conviction and let him go free when the courts let the jury go home and watch evening news coverage of their high profile trial (coverage which was very negative towards the defendant).
On the post: FBI Tried To Get Google To Turn Over Identifying Info On Hundreds Of Phone Owners
Re: from the sensationalism dept.
That 0.17 square miles becomes a ton of innocent people just walking or driving by.
On the post: Automated Filter Removed Parliament Member's Article Warning About Censorship By Automated Filters
Re:
On the post: Automated Filter Removed Parliament Member's Article Warning About Censorship By Automated Filters
Guess it's just your word against 100% reliable politicians who we know would never ever lie to us, or try to censor the truth with poorly written legislation.
On the post: NJ Courts Impose Ridiculous Password Policy 'To Comply With NIST' That Does Exactly What NIST Says Not To Do
Re: Joisey is DOOMED!
You should read this famous XKCD comic on password strength
And the worst part is a bunch of sites still don't allow CorrectHorseBatteryStaple as a password because of it violating those password rules. Which makes requiring password switches every so many days even worse for all the reasons this comic highlights.
On the post: NJ Courts Impose Ridiculous Password Policy 'To Comply With NIST' That Does Exactly What NIST Says Not To Do
Re: Same Policy
I've heard stories of workplaces with this policy.
A lot of employees did one of two things to remember their constantly changing passwords:
Wrote their passwords down and left it somewhere on their desk. (this is referred to as the 3 feet rule, where if you throw a bunch of arbitrary password rules on that make it hard to remember your password users will leave their written down password within 3 feet of their desk chair)
On the post: Voting Machine Vendors, Election Officials Continue To Look Ridiculous, As Kids Hack Voting Machines In Minutes
Re: Re: Re:
Microsoft, Apple, and other major OS makers pay close attention to those events for security vulnerabilities to patch.
If tech companies pay attention to such events to improve their products, and think they reflect the real world enough to pay attention to, why wouldn't voting machines?
On the post: Voting Machine Vendors, Election Officials Continue To Look Ridiculous, As Kids Hack Voting Machines In Minutes
Re:
On the post: Voting Machine Vendors, Election Officials Continue To Look Ridiculous, As Kids Hack Voting Machines In Minutes
Re: That's fair
- Every useless politician.
On the post: Automated 'Content Protection' System Sends Wave Of Bogus DMCA Notice Targeting Legitimate URLs
Re:
There's been stories on Techdirt before about nonsense DMCA's that Google ignores (including DMCA's on the IP holder's own website, for infringing upon their own IP).
I think Google has implied years ago that only half of the DMCA's they get are valid.
On the post: AT&T Sued After SIM Hijacker Steals $24 Million in Customer's Cryptocurrency
Couldn't they just change their password on the accounts (such as with a password manager) to make the SIM's useless (assuming they change the passwords in time)?
Or better yet, couldn't they require two factor authentication or something like that to access the Bitcoins?
On the post: Prisons Switch Device Providers; Render $11.3 Million Of Inmate-Purchased Music Worthless
Re: Re: Re:
That's what the cell phone company that won a SCOTUS ruling on the subject was counting on when they falsely advertised 'free' phones, and then charged people over $30 for that phone on their monthly phone bill (the bill were state taxes they didn't mention weren't covered in their 'free' phone).
On the post: Prisons Switch Device Providers; Render $11.3 Million Of Inmate-Purchased Music Worthless
Re:
LOL, look at this poor innocent person who believes that class action lawsuits are still possible after the SCOTUS and Federal Government made them virtually nonexistent.
On the post: Court Rejects Ajit Pai's Bid To Reduce Broadband Subsidies For Tribal Areas
This is literally why conservatives on social media turned against it a few years ago and started making a fuss about the program. Because of a Youtube video of a poor person who used the subsidy for their cell phone calling it an 'Obama Phone', even though Reagan started the program.
On the post: Australian Gov't Floats New Batch Of Compelled Access Legislation With An Eye On Encryption
Re:
It's sad that I generally struggle to think of a country that isn't sliding backwards and closer towards a dictatorship these days.
On the post: Ajit Pai Does Something Right, Will Reform Stupid Utility Pole Rules To Speed Up Fiber Deployment
Re: Re:
It'll never happen, that's why Net Neutrality is necessary. Except it should be a part of utility regulations for ISPs.
On the post: Tribune Kills Merger, Sues Sinclair For Its 'Unnecessarily Aggressive' Merger Sales Pitch
Re: Re: Re:
It literally gives a national company the power to push a political agenda mascaraing as a local issue.
For example, what if a national company decided to bury all the stories on police brutality because they like the police. Or the opposite, hype up or even make up stories of police misbehavior to demonize them across the country in local news.
That's why there's rules in place to limit ownership of local media.
On the post: Tribune Kills Merger, Sues Sinclair For Its 'Unnecessarily Aggressive' Merger Sales Pitch
Re:
On the post: Cops Go To Wrong House, Kill Innocent Man, Receive A Free Pass From Local Grand Jury
Re: Re: One Way Street
We have special prosecutors for investigating and prosecuting members of the President's administration because of clear conflicts of interest (the DOJ is a part of the President's administration, and led by their appointees), we should do the same for bringing bad police officers and departments to justice.
Prosecutors often have clear conflicts of interest prosecuting cops because they need the cops testimony in plenty of other cases they're prosecuting to secure a conviction. A great way to lose their testimony/cooperation in those cases is to prosecute the cops. Even if the cop still cooperates with you, it provides a field day for the defense by damaging the cop's credibility, especially if the cop was caught lying to cover up their crimes.
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