The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 13 Aug 2012 @ 9:07am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I could make the same argument for windowing, outrageous royalties for streaming content, and any number of other insane practices by the media industry. They insist nobody should be allowed to induce infringement except them.
Also, if that's the real reason they don't want to do it it shows that they're afraid that this has a real future.
Yeah, media companies have quite the history of going batshit over things that aren't real threats. Witness the histrionics over piracy when the real problem there is their UI sucks harder than that of most pirate sites.
This has got to be the weakest excuse for abuse of monopoly powers to stifle competition I've seen in ages. Even worse than Microsoft and the UEFI fiasco.
The Judiciary is there to strike down laws that are unconstitutional or are in direct conflict with other laws. It isn't there to pat Congress's hand and say "there there, we'll fix it" when they half-ass it and forget to put in an important part of a law. Believe me, you really don't want to give an unelected body the power to arbitrarily add things to the law.
It is the big bad bully who made them take it down though. Otherwise it wouldn't be taken down. Cthulu forbid they should actually take responsibility for their actions.
As for the users, the uploaders might be violating copyright law but the viewers are not. So, they get the apology. Making a copy of a copyrighted work may be a civil offense but receiving or viewing one is as legal as breathing.
The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 26 Jul 2012 @ 9:42am
Re: Re: It's a very odd situation
It doesn't at all bother you that telling a small number of people something gets you in trouble but telling everyone is peachy?
The person who gives classified info to one reporter (or company/govt/etc...): prosecuted. The reporter who gives it to world+dog: cheered. It's the same information. The only difference is the scope of distribution. Less distribution = more punishment just does not make sense unless their goal is to have no secrets.
The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 26 Jul 2012 @ 8:05am
It's a very odd situation
If you give one entity state secrets, you're a spy and the punishment can get as nasty as execution. If you just shout the same secrets to the entire world, you're a journalist and may wind up with a Pulitzer. Something about that is decidedly screwed up no matter what your feelings are about the specifics.
The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 9:01pm
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Does it somehow magically remove the block or provide a different experience of inaccessibility?
Yes. I'd have about 1-2 seconds of pun-level amusement at the IETF's wiseassery first, rather than just going straight to calling the ones man-in-the-middle-ing me cockbiting fucktards.
It's like having to eat a shit sandwich and being told you can have it with or without bacon. Might as well take the bacon.
The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 5:50pm
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Once or twice for critical events, sure. Every time media publishers are being asshats? Nah. Way too many of their users don't care and would be more pissed off at service being regularly degraded.
The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 5:37pm
Re: Re: Re: Easy to go elsewhere?
How about "There is no issue, you just haven't spent the requisite few minutes to learn how."? This is largely a solved problem. Even for the average user. For those with even a little basic perl under their belts, it hasn't been a common issue in over a decade.
The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 21 Jul 2012 @ 1:17am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I didn't say there wasn't a way to check them, just that nobody ever does. It costs money to verify digital petitions. A lot more than it does to verify that most of the signatures on a page were written by different people or at least a competent forger. So, yeah, they're never checked. Which makes them just as relevant as a petition generated by a perl script scraping a phone book.
Digital voting? I've seen government systems security. It's a joke. To be fair though, it's not really any worse than the near complete lack of verification for physical balloting. It would just be a lot quicker and cheaper to do on the Internet.
Think about it. How many votes could one of the smaller botnets submit if they had a list of registered voters (extremely insecure btw) for eight or ten major cities? Yeah, essentially all of them, and before the actual voters even had their first cup of coffee down. Yes, e-voting is entirely unworkable at the moment.
If you were talking simple digital voting machines? You haven't worked with enough computerized devices to be taken seriously. They are computers so they DO have bugs. They also WILL fail at the worst possible time. And they are not up to even ATM level of security.
It truly amazes me that a lot of the same people who say DRM is unworkable because it will always be cracked will jump right on the computerized voting bandwagon. Me, I'm a paranoid as hell security guy and know that neither will ever work and the consequences for a cracked game are nothing compared to a cracked election. Then again: Ave! Bossa nova, similis bossa seneca!
The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 20 Jul 2012 @ 11:52pm
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I've signed plenty of online petitions and even the ones at whitehouse.gov don't have any personally identifiable information on me. I use other people's names and addresses because I get plenty of junkmail and political robocalls already.
Also, nobody checks them.
Ever.
They don't care enough to bother. Who would? Ninety-thousand signatures is too small to pay attention to even if every single one were valid. There are a quarter of a billion Internet users in the US and there are no communication limitations between people like there were a few decades ago. Information spreads damned fast. Ninty-thousand is saying that 0.03% of the affected population gave enough of a damn to click away from lolcats long enough to sign a petition.
The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 20 Jul 2012 @ 8:52pm
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True, they're generally less reliable than online polls. Most petitions will let you sign multiple times without so much as checking the IP address. Even Slashdot makes a cursory attempt to only let you vote once.
On the post: It's Never Enough: Both RIAA & MPAA Aren't Satisfied With Google Punishing 'Pirate' Sites
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Baldaur Regis' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
nitpick
On the post: North Face Wants Court To Spank Butt Face
Re:
On the post: Amazon Stops Processing Payments For Crowdfunding Platform For Creative Commons Books
Re:
On the post: Amazon Stops Processing Payments For Crowdfunding Platform For Creative Commons Books
Re: Re: Amazon takes the gold in asshattery
Yeah, media companies have quite the history of going batshit over things that aren't real threats. Witness the histrionics over piracy when the real problem there is their UI sucks harder than that of most pirate sites.
On the post: Amazon Stops Processing Payments For Crowdfunding Platform For Creative Commons Books
Amazon takes the gold in asshattery
On the post: Court: Feds Can Spy On Americans Without Warrants With No Legal Repurcussions
Re: Congress's problem?!?
On the post: More Anti-Youtube Whining: 'YouTube Complies With Our Takedown Requests Just To Make Us Look Bad'
Re:
As for the users, the uploaders might be violating copyright law but the viewers are not. So, they get the apology. Making a copy of a copyrighted work may be a civil offense but receiving or viewing one is as legal as breathing.
On the post: Cybersecurity Act Rejected By The Senate
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The quicker we get so corrupt and generally fucked up that the average Joe can't easily ignore it, the quicker we can do something about it.
On the post: Congress Has Lost All Perspective When It Considers Prosecuting Journalists As Spies
Re: Re: It's a very odd situation
The person who gives classified info to one reporter (or company/govt/etc...): prosecuted. The reporter who gives it to world+dog: cheered. It's the same information. The only difference is the scope of distribution. Less distribution = more punishment just does not make sense unless their goal is to have no secrets.
On the post: Congress Has Lost All Perspective When It Considers Prosecuting Journalists As Spies
It's a very odd situation
On the post: Truth In Erroring: IETF Proposal Includes New 451 Censorship Error Code
Re: Re:
Yes. I'd have about 1-2 seconds of pun-level amusement at the IETF's wiseassery first, rather than just going straight to calling the ones man-in-the-middle-ing me cockbiting fucktards.
It's like having to eat a shit sandwich and being told you can have it with or without bacon. Might as well take the bacon.
On the post: SOPA/PIPA Wakes Up Internet Giants To Realize They Need To Be More Engaged In DC
Re:
On the post: SOPA/PIPA Wakes Up Internet Giants To Realize They Need To Be More Engaged In DC
Re: Re: Re: Easy to go elsewhere?
On the post: The Internet Wins Again! Writer Gets Rapper Pitbull 'Exiled' To Alaskan Walmart
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Digital voting? I've seen government systems security. It's a joke. To be fair though, it's not really any worse than the near complete lack of verification for physical balloting. It would just be a lot quicker and cheaper to do on the Internet.
Think about it. How many votes could one of the smaller botnets submit if they had a list of registered voters (extremely insecure btw) for eight or ten major cities? Yeah, essentially all of them, and before the actual voters even had their first cup of coffee down. Yes, e-voting is entirely unworkable at the moment.
If you were talking simple digital voting machines? You haven't worked with enough computerized devices to be taken seriously. They are computers so they DO have bugs. They also WILL fail at the worst possible time. And they are not up to even ATM level of security.
It truly amazes me that a lot of the same people who say DRM is unworkable because it will always be cracked will jump right on the computerized voting bandwagon. Me, I'm a paranoid as hell security guy and know that neither will ever work and the consequences for a cracked game are nothing compared to a cracked election. Then again: Ave! Bossa nova, similis bossa seneca!
On the post: The Internet Wins Again! Writer Gets Rapper Pitbull 'Exiled' To Alaskan Walmart
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Also, nobody checks them.
Ever.
They don't care enough to bother. Who would? Ninety-thousand signatures is too small to pay attention to even if every single one were valid. There are a quarter of a billion Internet users in the US and there are no communication limitations between people like there were a few decades ago. Information spreads damned fast. Ninty-thousand is saying that 0.03% of the affected population gave enough of a damn to click away from lolcats long enough to sign a petition.
On the post: The Internet Wins Again! Writer Gets Rapper Pitbull 'Exiled' To Alaskan Walmart
Re: Re:
On the post: Senate Not Concerned About How Often NSA Spies On Americans, But Very Concerned That It Built Open Source Software To Do So
Re: Re: The Real Problem With Open Source Spy Software
On the post: Dear Lamar Smith & House Judiciary: Have You Learned Nothing From SOPA?
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On the post: Petition With 90,000 Signatures Of People Worried About TPP Hand Delivered To USTR Negotiators
Re: Re: Yes - thats it!
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