The problem is that they AREN'T really doing their jobs, and they are not really supporting the agency's mission either. They're doing a much lazier task that just externally looks similar to doing their job. And they've probably been doing that long enough that even those at the top don't remember what their actual job was supposed to be.
Actually doing their job would require balancing the enforcement actions against the privacy and civil rights concerns, and obeying the spirit of the law rather than finding loopholes. They clearly aren't bothering with that part.
All true more or less, but HIPAA is a bit more than just not publishing the information. The first part is that you shouldn't even have the information unless you absolutely need it. You're a doctor, you see your neighbor coming in to your clinic, but if they aren't your patient you are not allowed to go look up their file regardless of what you do (or don't do) with that information. The second part is that you don't share that information yourself, which ought to be obvious enough. And the third part is that you actively protect that information. Encrypt it, shred it, lock the shredded documents in a padlocked trash can, don't let random people walk around the office, don't take a photo of the office holiday party just on the risk that it might have some information visible in the background. Just because you aren't the one sharing it doesn't mean you aren't the one responsible for it being shared.
So, if Joe Blow the paparazzi is standing in the clinic's parking lot photographing everyone who comes in...there's a fairly strong argument that the clinic security/staff needs to go tell him to leave or have him arrested for trespassing. It's a bit less clear if he's standing on a public street with a big zoom lens, although if they want to play it safe they may want to consider putting up a barrier or awning or something. HIPAA does require you to take reasonable precautions against incidental disclosure, not just intentional leaks. They can't arrest him for trying to take pictures, because that's not illegal. They do have to try to prevent him from taking pictures of anything confidential anyway, as they have a duty to protect that information. If they're spending so much time trying to block him that they aren't able to actually help the person, then I could see an argument that his actions were illegal interference. But in order to reach that point you probably need some reasonable belief that he's actually trying to photograph confidential medical information, rather than just photographing public employees at work in a public place -- there's no duty to protect against the latter.
The cops are legally allowed to stand there and watch while someone stabs you to death -- this has been upheld by the courts more than once -- but you expect a court to rule that they are required to intervene when the perp is one of their own? Never gonna happen...
I dunno, I do see a bit of a conflict here. I write software for pharmacies, so I've got access to a lot of production data about peoples' prescriptions and get the HIPPA training every few months and all of that. Part of that is not sharing information and not looking at anything we don't absolutely need to look at. But part of it is also preventing other people from getting access to this information -- not letting random people into the building, not leaving documents on the printer, shredding stuff and disposing of any information into special padlocked boxes.
The photographer has no legal requirement to protect that information, but the cops and EMTs do. But what exactly does that mean in a public area? If the EMTs need to discuss about this patient...do they go in the ambulance and close the doors? Do they do their best to huddle and whisper? Or should the cops be pushing everyone back far enough that the EMTs don't have to worry about it? Not saying the cop's actions are reasonable in this specific case, but I don't think it's fair to say there's absolutely no HIPAA concerns either.
That's a common misconception. Their job is not to stop crimes, their job is not to protect people from unlawful activity, their job -- as described by our courts on many occasions -- is to enforce the will of the state. The state has no interest in having some of their employees arresting another of their employees, so that really is not their job.
I'd guess most of these people are ripping from YouTube...that's certainly the only kind of "stream ripping" that I've seen in the past decade. You go to a website, you paste in the YouTube URL, and it gives you back an MP3. Even if you have a paid streaming service, it's probably far easier to download the track from YouTube rather than trying to rip from the paid service.
If you're gonna complain that someone didn't read the complete article, you could at least have the decency to read their complete comment. I can tell that you clearly didn't, or you would have noticed where I directly referenced content from the very last paragraph of the article -- yet for some reason you claim I never read that far. How about you try to actually respond to the points made next time rather than just picking a random insult out of a hat?
Yeah, let's make access to public records "free" in the same way as Google search -- funded by selling off the personal information of everyone who ever visits the site. No possible way for THAT to go wrong, right?
Seriously, can you try to spend at least five seconds THINKING about these arguments before you make them? Sounds like you put just as much thought into this as the courts did in their arguments. Probably less actually -- crafting their level of BS surely takes some work.
Unlimited access accounts could have similar problems...Google pays for unlimited access, then posts them for free, profiting by data-mining the documents and advertising on the pages. Pretty soon nobody else is paying for that service because they just get it from Google, and the subscriber counts drop, meaning costs rise, and pretty soon you've effectively just privatized the whole thing and outsourced it to a private company with very little regulation as to how that information is used or presented. Do you really want public records to be data mined to the greatest extent possible and delivered covered with advertisements? I'd say it's far better to just let it be paid for by taxes directly.
Re: Re-advertise when I can actually buy it please?
...although I'm still debating whether or not I should even want to remember it since you're apparently in bed with those scumbags. And also considering that there are many posts here on Techdirt about how exclusivity deals are generally a bad idea...and yet apparently now that you're the one publishing content, suddenly they're a great idea, huh?
I hope you re-advertise this once you end the Amazon exclusive agreement. Those jerks have ripped me off and taken my money without actually delivering the product far too many times. So, I'd like to read this, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I am buying it from Amazon. Probably wouldn't arrive even if I did. So I hope when that idiotic exclusivity deal ends you'll advertise it again, otherwise I probably won't remember....
In every case that I've seen, sales tax is only applied to "luxury" items, the same way income tax generally only applies to above poverty level income. So someone who spends their entire paycheck on rent and groceries likely isn't paying a dime in sales tax.
But sales tax benefits the rich in a different way. The poor spend more than they save and end up in debt; the rich save more than they spend and end up with a nice bank balance. So ignoring the typical exceptions, the poor would pay sales tax on their complete income or more, while the rich would almost never pay sales tax on anything close to their complete income. Considering investments as a "sale" would correct some of that imbalance, but you'll never get rid of all of it.
Is this for sale anywhere other than Amazon? Those jerks have ripped me off one too many times, and I have zero confidence that ANYTHING will actually arrive if I order from them...half the listings are scams and customer service couldn't care less as long as they've got your money. I'd like to buy the book, but not if it's only sold on Amazon...
Uh...how is the fact that the investment started before the policy actually took effect proof that the two weren't related?
That would seem like typical investment strategy. You invest before the thing you expect to bring in a ton of profits goes into effect, so that you are already there to reap the rewards once it does. Expecting that investment would tick up only after the rules were fully in effect seems like expecting investments in a stock to increase after that stock has just hit a five year high. Outside of some extremely rare circumstances, anyone who invests at that point is probably a fool who's likely to lose their money.
Don't get me wrong, Pai is a crook and the repeal of net neutrality is awful...which is exactly why I'm bothered by what seems to be such a poor argument against it!It might be a decent argument if that investment started before the plan to repeal was even announced, but even then it's possible that some of those investors were betting that it would soon become a priority for whatever reason (either inside channels or just looking at who Pai is.)
I'm not billion dollar investor though so maybe I'm missing something?
I kinda don't see how the focus could be anything BUT cable service.
It certainly can't be about getting paid for streams -- all they have to do is negotiate their Netflix contract so they get paid per view. If for some reason they agreed to be paid per account instead of paid per stream, paid per device, or paid a flat rate...and they did that on a service where they KNOW accounts are regularly shared...then they created the problem intentionally. Probably just so they could push this "solution".
But if they can make streaming less convenient, maybe they can push a few people back to cable. College students who were sharing their parents' passwords might instead use the free campus cable connections, and the universities will keep paying for those rather than seeing the increase in streaming as a reason to cut those costs. Or people who have cable already, but still occasionally use a friend's Netflix for movies might decide to get a cable movie package or use their video on demand instead. Shared accounts are free advertising -- for the competition. And they want to leverage one arm of their corporation (content production) in order to protect another (cable services) by reducing the free advertising for their competition (Netflix).
"Also, has he considered if students can't share their parents passwords, they will find alternative sources of entertainment, and never become future subscribers."
My guess is he's hoping the alternative sources of entertainment will be cable, since Charter is a cable company. My former university, PSU, provides cable connections in every dorm room, free for all students, and apparently that now includes online streaming through the campus wifi as well. There's also options to upgrade with premium packages. So if the students can't stream, maybe they'll just use the cable line that's already set up and stay hooked on cable for a few extra years.
YUP! As I posted above, the "they aren't paying for it" argument is utter nonsense. The content providers are getting paid however their contract with the streaming provider says they'll get paid. If they negotiate to get paid for every stream, they get paid for every stream, and shared passwords don't matter. If they negotiate a flat rate, they get paid a flat rate, and shared passwords don't matter. The only way it would affect their profits is if they've specifically accepted a contract where they get paid per account while knowing that those accounts can be shared. So either it's not a problem that actually exists, or it's a problem that they created by themselves.
They keep saying it's about the money and about people streaming for "free", but it seems pretty clear that this can't be the real issue. It's about control, and it's about trying to get people off of competing streaming platforms. They know shared passwords are free advertising, and that's exactly what they want to avoid, because it's advertising for Netflix not for Spectrum.
And all of those costs are going to be based on Netflix's costs for content as negotiated in various deals with content providers. So are companies actually making deals with Netflix where Netflix pays based on the number of accounts who have watched something? Or are they paying based on the number of times a particular item is viewed? Or is it a flat rate fee?
The only way people sharing passwords is costing the content providers money is if the content providers negotiated a very specific deal which prevents them from being paid for that, when they already know how these services operate.
I'm thinking this isn't about the money, it's an attempt to make streaming have less of a convenience advantage over cable.
And, much like the self-hosted website, the idea that nobody can stop you from speaking from your soapbox has never been more than a myth. Even US federal agents have been arrested for standing on a soapbox reading the US Declaration of Independence. Didn't matter who they were, didn't matter what they were saying, all that was important was that they were speaking and the government didn't want them to.
If the government doesn't like what you say, they WILL stop you, and none of your rights will prevent it. The only way to prevent that is to jam enough bodies into the machine that you break it.
"Agreed, they just block the whole thing and management at social media can not stop it."
There's no technical measure the social media's management could use. There are many social/economic/political measures available, which would not be available to some random self-hosted Wordpress site.
It's not like we've never seen anyone attempt to block these sites entirely. I can't recall any that were actually successful long-term though. Usually it only last a day or two before they're forced to remove the block.
On the post: Working With The Private Sector And Hundreds Of Law Enforcement Agencies, ICE Has Assembled A Massive Surveillance Network
Re: Re: Re:
The problem is that they AREN'T really doing their jobs, and they are not really supporting the agency's mission either. They're doing a much lazier task that just externally looks similar to doing their job. And they've probably been doing that long enough that even those at the top don't remember what their actual job was supposed to be.
Actually doing their job would require balancing the enforcement actions against the privacy and civil rights concerns, and obeying the spirit of the law rather than finding loopholes. They clearly aren't bothering with that part.
On the post: Appeals Court Denies Qualified Immunity For Transit Cop Who Arrested A Journalist For Taking Pictures Of EMS Personnel
Re: Re: so...
All true more or less, but HIPAA is a bit more than just not publishing the information. The first part is that you shouldn't even have the information unless you absolutely need it. You're a doctor, you see your neighbor coming in to your clinic, but if they aren't your patient you are not allowed to go look up their file regardless of what you do (or don't do) with that information. The second part is that you don't share that information yourself, which ought to be obvious enough. And the third part is that you actively protect that information. Encrypt it, shred it, lock the shredded documents in a padlocked trash can, don't let random people walk around the office, don't take a photo of the office holiday party just on the risk that it might have some information visible in the background. Just because you aren't the one sharing it doesn't mean you aren't the one responsible for it being shared.
So, if Joe Blow the paparazzi is standing in the clinic's parking lot photographing everyone who comes in...there's a fairly strong argument that the clinic security/staff needs to go tell him to leave or have him arrested for trespassing. It's a bit less clear if he's standing on a public street with a big zoom lens, although if they want to play it safe they may want to consider putting up a barrier or awning or something. HIPAA does require you to take reasonable precautions against incidental disclosure, not just intentional leaks. They can't arrest him for trying to take pictures, because that's not illegal. They do have to try to prevent him from taking pictures of anything confidential anyway, as they have a duty to protect that information. If they're spending so much time trying to block him that they aren't able to actually help the person, then I could see an argument that his actions were illegal interference. But in order to reach that point you probably need some reasonable belief that he's actually trying to photograph confidential medical information, rather than just photographing public employees at work in a public place -- there's no duty to protect against the latter.
On the post: Appeals Court Denies Qualified Immunity For Transit Cop Who Arrested A Journalist For Taking Pictures Of EMS Personnel
Re: Officer Cannon should also be reprimanded
The cops are legally allowed to stand there and watch while someone stabs you to death -- this has been upheld by the courts more than once -- but you expect a court to rule that they are required to intervene when the perp is one of their own? Never gonna happen...
On the post: Appeals Court Denies Qualified Immunity For Transit Cop Who Arrested A Journalist For Taking Pictures Of EMS Personnel
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I dunno, I do see a bit of a conflict here. I write software for pharmacies, so I've got access to a lot of production data about peoples' prescriptions and get the HIPPA training every few months and all of that. Part of that is not sharing information and not looking at anything we don't absolutely need to look at. But part of it is also preventing other people from getting access to this information -- not letting random people into the building, not leaving documents on the printer, shredding stuff and disposing of any information into special padlocked boxes.
The photographer has no legal requirement to protect that information, but the cops and EMTs do. But what exactly does that mean in a public area? If the EMTs need to discuss about this patient...do they go in the ambulance and close the doors? Do they do their best to huddle and whisper? Or should the cops be pushing everyone back far enough that the EMTs don't have to worry about it? Not saying the cop's actions are reasonable in this specific case, but I don't think it's fair to say there's absolutely no HIPAA concerns either.
On the post: Appeals Court Denies Qualified Immunity For Transit Cop Who Arrested A Journalist For Taking Pictures Of EMS Personnel
Re:
That's a common misconception. Their job is not to stop crimes, their job is not to protect people from unlawful activity, their job -- as described by our courts on many occasions -- is to enforce the will of the state. The state has no interest in having some of their employees arresting another of their employees, so that really is not their job.
On the post: Music Piracy Continues To Drop Dramatically, But The Industry Hates To Admit That Because It Ruins The Narrative
Re:
I'd guess most of these people are ripping from YouTube...that's certainly the only kind of "stream ripping" that I've seen in the past decade. You go to a website, you paste in the YouTube URL, and it gives you back an MP3. Even if you have a paid streaming service, it's probably far easier to download the track from YouTube rather than trying to rip from the paid service.
On the post: US Courts Rep Ignores Everything About The Internet, Says PACER Access Can Never Be Free Because It Costs Money To Operate
Re: No, not like them at all
If you're gonna complain that someone didn't read the complete article, you could at least have the decency to read their complete comment. I can tell that you clearly didn't, or you would have noticed where I directly referenced content from the very last paragraph of the article -- yet for some reason you claim I never read that far. How about you try to actually respond to the points made next time rather than just picking a random insult out of a hat?
On the post: US Courts Rep Ignores Everything About The Internet, Says PACER Access Can Never Be Free Because It Costs Money To Operate
"Free" like Google?
Yeah, let's make access to public records "free" in the same way as Google search -- funded by selling off the personal information of everyone who ever visits the site. No possible way for THAT to go wrong, right?
Seriously, can you try to spend at least five seconds THINKING about these arguments before you make them? Sounds like you put just as much thought into this as the courts did in their arguments. Probably less actually -- crafting their level of BS surely takes some work.
Unlimited access accounts could have similar problems...Google pays for unlimited access, then posts them for free, profiting by data-mining the documents and advertising on the pages. Pretty soon nobody else is paying for that service because they just get it from Google, and the subscriber counts drop, meaning costs rise, and pretty soon you've effectively just privatized the whole thing and outsourced it to a private company with very little regulation as to how that information is used or presented. Do you really want public records to be data mined to the greatest extent possible and delivered covered with advertisements? I'd say it's far better to just let it be paid for by taxes directly.
On the post: Welcome To Working Futures: 14 Speculative Fiction Stories About The Future Of Work
Re: Re-advertise when I can actually buy it please?
...although I'm still debating whether or not I should even want to remember it since you're apparently in bed with those scumbags. And also considering that there are many posts here on Techdirt about how exclusivity deals are generally a bad idea...and yet apparently now that you're the one publishing content, suddenly they're a great idea, huh?
On the post: Welcome To Working Futures: 14 Speculative Fiction Stories About The Future Of Work
Re-advertise when I can actually buy it please?
I hope you re-advertise this once you end the Amazon exclusive agreement. Those jerks have ripped me off and taken my money without actually delivering the product far too many times. So, I'd like to read this, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I am buying it from Amazon. Probably wouldn't arrive even if I did. So I hope when that idiotic exclusivity deal ends you'll advertise it again, otherwise I probably won't remember....
On the post: Hidden Fees Mean US Cable & Broadband Bills Can Be 45% Higher Than Advertised
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sales taxes
In every case that I've seen, sales tax is only applied to "luxury" items, the same way income tax generally only applies to above poverty level income. So someone who spends their entire paycheck on rent and groceries likely isn't paying a dime in sales tax.
But sales tax benefits the rich in a different way. The poor spend more than they save and end up in debt; the rich save more than they spend and end up with a nice bank balance. So ignoring the typical exceptions, the poor would pay sales tax on their complete income or more, while the rich would almost never pay sales tax on anything close to their complete income. Considering investments as a "sale" would correct some of that imbalance, but you'll never get rid of all of it.
On the post: Working Futures, An Anthology Of Speculative Fiction About The Future Of Work
Any other vendors?
Is this for sale anywhere other than Amazon? Those jerks have ripped me off one too many times, and I have zero confidence that ANYTHING will actually arrive if I order from them...half the listings are scams and customer service couldn't care less as long as they've got your money. I'd like to buy the book, but not if it's only sold on Amazon...
On the post: Massive Study Proves Once And For All That No, Net Neutrality Did Not Hurt Broadband Investment
So the investors did what you would expect?
Uh...how is the fact that the investment started before the policy actually took effect proof that the two weren't related?
That would seem like typical investment strategy. You invest before the thing you expect to bring in a ton of profits goes into effect, so that you are already there to reap the rewards once it does. Expecting that investment would tick up only after the rules were fully in effect seems like expecting investments in a stock to increase after that stock has just hit a five year high. Outside of some extremely rare circumstances, anyone who invests at that point is probably a fool who's likely to lose their money.
Don't get me wrong, Pai is a crook and the repeal of net neutrality is awful...which is exactly why I'm bothered by what seems to be such a poor argument against it!It might be a decent argument if that investment started before the plan to repeal was even announced, but even then it's possible that some of those investors were betting that it would soon become a priority for whatever reason (either inside channels or just looking at who Pai is.)
I'm not billion dollar investor though so maybe I'm missing something?
On the post: Cable Giant Spectrum On Quest To Outlaw 'Insane' Streaming Password Sharing
Re: Re: One more reason
I kinda don't see how the focus could be anything BUT cable service.
It certainly can't be about getting paid for streams -- all they have to do is negotiate their Netflix contract so they get paid per view. If for some reason they agreed to be paid per account instead of paid per stream, paid per device, or paid a flat rate...and they did that on a service where they KNOW accounts are regularly shared...then they created the problem intentionally. Probably just so they could push this "solution".
But if they can make streaming less convenient, maybe they can push a few people back to cable. College students who were sharing their parents' passwords might instead use the free campus cable connections, and the universities will keep paying for those rather than seeing the increase in streaming as a reason to cut those costs. Or people who have cable already, but still occasionally use a friend's Netflix for movies might decide to get a cable movie package or use their video on demand instead. Shared accounts are free advertising -- for the competition. And they want to leverage one arm of their corporation (content production) in order to protect another (cable services) by reducing the free advertising for their competition (Netflix).
On the post: Cable Giant Spectrum On Quest To Outlaw 'Insane' Streaming Password Sharing
Re:
"Also, has he considered if students can't share their parents passwords, they will find alternative sources of entertainment, and never become future subscribers."
My guess is he's hoping the alternative sources of entertainment will be cable, since Charter is a cable company. My former university, PSU, provides cable connections in every dorm room, free for all students, and apparently that now includes online streaming through the campus wifi as well. There's also options to upgrade with premium packages. So if the students can't stream, maybe they'll just use the cable line that's already set up and stay hooked on cable for a few extra years.
On the post: Cable Giant Spectrum On Quest To Outlaw 'Insane' Streaming Password Sharing
Re:
YUP! As I posted above, the "they aren't paying for it" argument is utter nonsense. The content providers are getting paid however their contract with the streaming provider says they'll get paid. If they negotiate to get paid for every stream, they get paid for every stream, and shared passwords don't matter. If they negotiate a flat rate, they get paid a flat rate, and shared passwords don't matter. The only way it would affect their profits is if they've specifically accepted a contract where they get paid per account while knowing that those accounts can be shared. So either it's not a problem that actually exists, or it's a problem that they created by themselves.
They keep saying it's about the money and about people streaming for "free", but it seems pretty clear that this can't be the real issue. It's about control, and it's about trying to get people off of competing streaming platforms. They know shared passwords are free advertising, and that's exactly what they want to avoid, because it's advertising for Netflix not for Spectrum.
On the post: Cable Giant Spectrum On Quest To Outlaw 'Insane' Streaming Password Sharing
Re: Re: Not stealing shit
And all of those costs are going to be based on Netflix's costs for content as negotiated in various deals with content providers. So are companies actually making deals with Netflix where Netflix pays based on the number of accounts who have watched something? Or are they paying based on the number of times a particular item is viewed? Or is it a flat rate fee?
The only way people sharing passwords is costing the content providers money is if the content providers negotiated a very specific deal which prevents them from being paid for that, when they already know how these services operate.
I'm thinking this isn't about the money, it's an attempt to make streaming have less of a convenience advantage over cable.
On the post: Cable Giant Spectrum On Quest To Outlaw 'Insane' Streaming Password Sharing
Re: Re:
People in authority will have no problem affording the $200/month "unlimited guest" package which disables the cameras and spyware.
On the post: Content Moderation At Scale Especially Doesn't Work When You Hide All The Rules
Re: Re: Re:
And, much like the self-hosted website, the idea that nobody can stop you from speaking from your soapbox has never been more than a myth. Even US federal agents have been arrested for standing on a soapbox reading the US Declaration of Independence. Didn't matter who they were, didn't matter what they were saying, all that was important was that they were speaking and the government didn't want them to.
http://www.libcom.org/history/1909-missoula-free-speech-fight
If the government doesn't like what you say, they WILL stop you, and none of your rights will prevent it. The only way to prevent that is to jam enough bodies into the machine that you break it.
On the post: Content Moderation At Scale Especially Doesn't Work When You Hide All The Rules
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Agreed, they just block the whole thing and management at social media can not stop it."
There's no technical measure the social media's management could use. There are many social/economic/political measures available, which would not be available to some random self-hosted Wordpress site.
It's not like we've never seen anyone attempt to block these sites entirely. I can't recall any that were actually successful long-term though. Usually it only last a day or two before they're forced to remove the block.
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