If DirecTV is on their own network, and not going across the internet, AT&T doesn't have to pay their ISP for that traffic.
AT&T doesn't pay their ISP for traffic (unless things have really changed in that business,) AT&T likely has peering agreements with most, if not all, of their interconnections, and as a result, they don't pay to move traffic back and forth, and only pay for the care and feeding of the connection itself. AT&T might have to pay to upgrade connections or add more, but they don't pay for the traffic.
I was once on the other side of this debate. Thankfully I was set straight by expensive purchases that were unusable by the paying customer (me) but delightfully nice for the "pirate" .
I certainly purchase a lot of games, but the number of AAA games I've purchased in the last 10 years is somewhere south of 1 (unless you include Steam games, without any DRM other than what Steam provides, and even then, I tend to avoid steam games unless I absolutely can't.) The last EA game I purchased, back in the early 2000's, convinced me it just wasn't worth the hassle. I bought the shrink-wrapped game in the store (Command and Conquer Generals), attempted to install it and play it, and on first loading the game, the first five seconds of the campaign, I got the dreaded game over message and the game immediately exited. No matter what I did, it would fail. EA was no help, they blamed everything *but* the DRM in their game, and wouldn't offer a refund or any suggestions on how to get the game to work.
Eventually, looking online, I found the CDFix for the game, and was able to play it (by stripping off the DRM that was killing it.) But the effort left me with a horrible taste in my mouth, a pirate tool allowed me to play the game that I legally purchased. After that, I vowed never again, and that was the last game I purchased in shrink-wrap from a store. (Of course, until GoG game along and I ended up repurchasing most of the games from back then in DRM-free form, I had many more experiences trying to get games I had already purchased to run on newer OSs like Windows 7.)
Never been pro-piracy of games, but certainly am not into spending money for something that doesn't work.
A civil wrong that unjustly causes harm to another individual or to suffer loss by that individual which causes liability for the person causing the wrong. It is usually what you go to civil court to fight over.
The defender chosen by the accused, but paid for by the government?
That may work, though I suspect it will become just like the public defender's office currently is. There are some really awesome public defenders, but there are many examples of public defenders that don't have the best interests of their clients in mind and convince them to take a plea even when their innocent, or who sleep during court, or sell out their clients to the prosecution in order to make brownie points (see Last Week Tonight link above...) Of course, having the defender chosen by the accused would make things better overall, it could also open up more abuse. Certainly, having the system pay for the defense up until the defendant is found guilty would make the system work better...but to do that, the methods used to find the defendant guilty must be more rock-solid than it currently is. The voodoo science has got to go...I suspect the prosecutor in this case came up and told the defendant "we found drugs in your car, and we have this $2 drug test that confirmed it, and you'd be better off coping to this plea agreement than fighting it in court," when a good attorney would caution the defendant that the $2 test has a lot of false positives and they are innocent and should get their day in court to prove it (they shouldn't have to...the prosecutor should have to prove it was illegal drugs found in the car.)
Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix the problem, but I do know that the system as it exists now isn't the best it can be. It certainly makes it far more difficult for those without money.
Let me guess she assumed since she had nothing to hide that pleading guilty would somehow prove her innocent?
Good lawyers cost money. Money that most folks don't have lying around. Sometimes it is easier to take the fall and do the time, even when you are innocent, instead of dealing with the expense and the effort to prove yourself innocent (which isn't the way it should be.) It is unfortunately how the justice system has been corrupted to work, it is often easier taking the plea even though you're innocent than fighting it. If you can get the prosecutor to agree to allow you to walk with time served for a first offense, that guilty plea on a felony may not look all that bad since it gets the trouble to go away (and most of those folks are looking at a justice system already stacked against them and looking for the easiest way out.)
It wasn't just automation, it was that the source (w0rm) said it was a dump from dropbox, when in fact it was a dump from tumblr. They took the statement on face value without verification, and then automation took over.
It wouldn't have taken them that long to verify the data...simply try to feed the email addresses into the "new user registration" form and if it allows the email to be used and continues the process, the email address hasn't been used on the service. Get a bunch of these to work, and the dump isn't likely to be real.
Re: Credit history is not disproportionate based on color
It's a record of exactly what you personally have done.
Well, that or a record of what someone has done with your Social Security number, name, address, etc.
I was once denied a loan refinance because I carried too much debt. I owned a home, two cars that were paid off, and no credit card debt, but was told I owned two homes, five cars, three of which I was still paying off, and an RV which I owed a considerable amount on, and thus was living well beyond my means.
Someone at the credit agencies had added my records and my father's records (despite having different names) together and I now had all of his credit, as well as my own, under my name.
And he had no issues buying cars or refinancing loans because he had perfect credit. Luckily a call to the agencies, and a lawyer, fixed all the issues (eventually.)
There are just way too many screw-ups on the part of the credit reporting agencies to believe that it is a record of anything you have done.
I tried SlingTV for a year after cutting the cord. It was a cheaper plan but it was the same problem: having to watch things on the TV companies time schedule and not mine.
With the exception of baseball (yey for the Sling "Alternative Plan",) I rarely watch SlingTV on their schedule, since most of the channels have VOD capability. I think I've watched Game of Thrones once when it was scheduled, most of the time I go in, find what I want to watch on their VOD menus, and then move on. Even if the channel doesn't have their entire catalog available as VOD, they tend to have the programs played throughout the day, and sometimes the week, available from the menu.
The only thing I can't do with sling is watch the baseball game on my phone...darn blackout restrictions!
They have you locked in no matter what. If you want to watch, say - HGTV, via a Roku or some other 3rd party box, there's a little note on the channel that says "Cable (or satellite) subscription required". ***sigh***
Realize it helps Dish's numbers, but Sling has HGTV and many of the other foodporn/houseporn channels as part of their default streaming plan.
Re: Wired Blocks Those Use Use Tracking Cookie Blockers
Wired gives me the same "Here's the thing about ad blockers" page when I try visiting their site.
What is funny is that at least until recently (I haven't checked in the last couple weeks, they may have changed it,) blocking Javascript prevents their (Wired) "Here's the thing about ad blockers" page. If you block javascript on their page, you don't get the warning and can read the page unhindered (but nothing on the site works much so don't expect links or other content to work.) At least you can read their content. I don't know if Forbes works the same way.
I've pretty much avoided Wired and Forbes, but with the block of the Wired javascript, if I accidentally click on one of their links, I can at least read the content that brought me there.
Ignoring for the moment that the massive conflict of interest should mean that any property/cash seized should go into a general fund(might I suggest education?), not the pockets of those making the seizures/thefts...
There is only one tiny flaw in this. Lottery funds (at least in California) and many of the bonds for education were promised for Education, but the legislators just paid less to education instead since they were already covered by the lottery and by bonds. I suspect this would go the same way...legislators would allow the funds to go to education, but then would shift funds that would have gone to education back to law enforcement or other pet projects. The conflict of interest would still exist, but would be shifted to make it even less transparent to the voter / victim.
How much cheaper would SlingTV be if ESPN wasn't part of the default package?
Sling is ~$20/mo for base channels, which include ESPN/ESPN2. I don't watch either channel, and would love the opportunity to drop both. They could move the ESPN channels to the Sports Extra lineup...since if you like sports, you'll likely buy the sports extra lineup for $5/mo anyway. My guess is that if they dropped ESPN, or better, went a la carte and just charged you for what you wanted, the price would be less for their customers who didn't want ESPN, who could spend that money on channels they did want.
I realize that Sling is Cable-Lite, I went cold turkey for years off of cable, but found myself coming back just for a few channels I really liked...really wish they had Discovery, but they could make it even more cable lite by going a la carte, which is why it will never happen.
You still have to be a cable subscriber, but that barrier is probably going to fall soon.
I still struggle to see why this is a thing...if you are a cable subscriber (other than being away from your TV,) why wouldn't you just turn on the cable, switch to Fox, and watch the game.
I am not a cable subscriber, thus a reason to want MLB.tv. Hopefully they drop the cable subscriber requirement soon.
I am a season ticket holder of my home team, and would love to be able to watch the games not played at home (as the current blockout covers both at home games of the home team, as well as away games for the home team.)
So basically people paid $160 for a product that doesn't actually work, and as an extra they're being threatened that if they try and fix it themselves and gain access to content that they paid for they'll lose the $160, get charged another $100, be kicked off the service and potentially face legal problems.
Seems to me like this is a situation where short-term greed works, despite killing any future long-term goals. At least when Hulu stopped working on my devices, they didn't take my money and then charge me a early-termination fee for stopping my subscription. They acknowledged the fact that I had tried to work with them for six months, refunded the payments for all six months worth of testing, and allowed me to walk away. (Now that I have a Roku 4, I should have a device capable of working with their service, and should check them out again.) Other companies (Sling, Netflix, etc.) do similar. Seems to me that this contract is entirely unconscionable, and the only goal is to charge people not to deliver anything, and hope that they are too stupid to care.
Then again, the same is true with MLB.tv right now...the only reason I'd suggest anyone buy MLB.tv is if they are interested in watching the team from somewhere else, and don't care about the few times that that team happens to play the home team. Unless that has changed recently, which I don't believe it has, watching your home team is still unavailable. I know people who bought MLB.tv only to find out they couldn't watch the team they wanted to.
Stupid laws about the internet have no partisan bias.
South Park said it best, "Won't someone think of the children?" Every bad law usually has someone, somewhere, saying this to get it passed. I remember at the time, that some of the major ISPs viewed 230 as being a godsend, while others saw it as the end of the world. I wonder how many of those who thought it was the end of the world still think that (although it probably was, since CompuServe and Prodigy don't really exist any more.)
Dogs have been the best security system since the dawn of man, and they're in no danger of becoming obsolete.
Unfortunately, dogs have a fatal design flaw in that they are alive and like to eat. A zombie dog would be a safer bet, since they wouldn't be interested in the steak laced with strychnine. An added benefit is their love of human brains.
In all seriousness though, dogs are far more expensive than a cheap doorbell, which is why they tend to not have as much of an acceptance rate, plus attackers can easily trap the dog in a closet with a steak and go about their nefarious activities.
(They do it to other folks who haven't even been charged with a crime, why not this case?)
Probably because other folks don't have the honorary "INC", "LLC" or "Corporation" at then end of their name. This is, after all, not someone transporting a "large" amount of money in their personal vehicle or in their carry on or checked luggage.
We live in a semi-rural area, with 80 year old copper lines, as our only option. The DSL coverage is spotty, particularly when it rains, the phone just goes away when it rains,
I live in an urban area, and my option is cable (capped, though far less restrictive, but which keeps getting more and more expensive,) DSL (which isn't broadband,) or expensive and capped cell coverage. Sure wish there was a little competition.
Please, enlighten us all as to Comcast runs their network so that we can discuss this correctly in future instances.
What NAC do they use? Do they use a commercial provisioning system or a roll-your-own? Who supplies their DHCP, TFTP, and CMTS hardware/software?
This is the internet. People spouting off stuff they know nothing about is about as common as other people showing up and saying that someone else doesn't know what they are talking about without providing anything of substance to the discussion.
On the post: What Net Neutrality? While The FCC Naps, AT&T Now Exempting DirecTV Content From Wireless Usage Caps
Re: Re:
AT&T doesn't pay their ISP for traffic (unless things have really changed in that business,) AT&T likely has peering agreements with most, if not all, of their interconnections, and as a result, they don't pay to move traffic back and forth, and only pay for the care and feeding of the connection itself. AT&T might have to pay to upgrade connections or add more, but they don't pay for the traffic.
On the post: DRM: Still Hurting Paying Customers The Most
Re: Re: Re:
I certainly purchase a lot of games, but the number of AAA games I've purchased in the last 10 years is somewhere south of 1 (unless you include Steam games, without any DRM other than what Steam provides, and even then, I tend to avoid steam games unless I absolutely can't.) The last EA game I purchased, back in the early 2000's, convinced me it just wasn't worth the hassle. I bought the shrink-wrapped game in the store (Command and Conquer Generals), attempted to install it and play it, and on first loading the game, the first five seconds of the campaign, I got the dreaded game over message and the game immediately exited. No matter what I did, it would fail. EA was no help, they blamed everything *but* the DRM in their game, and wouldn't offer a refund or any suggestions on how to get the game to work.
Eventually, looking online, I found the CDFix for the game, and was able to play it (by stripping off the DRM that was killing it.) But the effort left me with a horrible taste in my mouth, a pirate tool allowed me to play the game that I legally purchased. After that, I vowed never again, and that was the last game I purchased in shrink-wrap from a store. (Of course, until GoG game along and I ended up repurchasing most of the games from back then in DRM-free form, I had many more experiences trying to get games I had already purchased to run on newer OSs like Windows 7.)
Never been pro-piracy of games, but certainly am not into spending money for something that doesn't work.
On the post: How California's Identity Fraud Law Has Been Interpreted To Criminalize Defamation, Publicity Rights Violations And More
Re: Re:
A civil wrong that unjustly causes harm to another individual or to suffer loss by that individual which causes liability for the person causing the wrong. It is usually what you go to civil court to fight over.
On the post: Field Drug Tests: The $2 Tool That Can Destroy Lives
Re: Re: Re:
That may work, though I suspect it will become just like the public defender's office currently is. There are some really awesome public defenders, but there are many examples of public defenders that don't have the best interests of their clients in mind and convince them to take a plea even when their innocent, or who sleep during court, or sell out their clients to the prosecution in order to make brownie points (see Last Week Tonight link above...) Of course, having the defender chosen by the accused would make things better overall, it could also open up more abuse. Certainly, having the system pay for the defense up until the defendant is found guilty would make the system work better...but to do that, the methods used to find the defendant guilty must be more rock-solid than it currently is. The voodoo science has got to go...I suspect the prosecutor in this case came up and told the defendant "we found drugs in your car, and we have this $2 drug test that confirmed it, and you'd be better off coping to this plea agreement than fighting it in court," when a good attorney would caution the defendant that the $2 test has a lot of false positives and they are innocent and should get their day in court to prove it (they shouldn't have to...the prosecutor should have to prove it was illegal drugs found in the car.)
Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix the problem, but I do know that the system as it exists now isn't the best it can be. It certainly makes it far more difficult for those without money.
On the post: Field Drug Tests: The $2 Tool That Can Destroy Lives
Re:
Good lawyers cost money. Money that most folks don't have lying around. Sometimes it is easier to take the fall and do the time, even when you are innocent, instead of dealing with the expense and the effort to prove yourself innocent (which isn't the way it should be.) It is unfortunately how the justice system has been corrupted to work, it is often easier taking the plea even though you're innocent than fighting it. If you can get the prosecutor to agree to allow you to walk with time served for a first offense, that guilty plea on a felony may not look all that bad since it gets the trouble to go away (and most of those folks are looking at a justice system already stacked against them and looking for the easiest way out.)
Jon Oliver's take...
On the post: Bad Intel And Zero Verification Leads To LifeLock Naming Wrong Company In Suspected Security Breach
Re: Re:
It wouldn't have taken them that long to verify the data...simply try to feed the email addresses into the "new user registration" form and if it allows the email to be used and continues the process, the email address hasn't been used on the service. Get a bunch of these to work, and the dump isn't likely to be real.
On the post: Cable Company Admits It Gives Poor Credit Score Customers -- Even Worse Customer Service
Re: Credit history is not disproportionate based on color
Well, that or a record of what someone has done with your Social Security number, name, address, etc.
I was once denied a loan refinance because I carried too much debt. I owned a home, two cars that were paid off, and no credit card debt, but was told I owned two homes, five cars, three of which I was still paying off, and an RV which I owed a considerable amount on, and thus was living well beyond my means.
Someone at the credit agencies had added my records and my father's records (despite having different names) together and I now had all of his credit, as well as my own, under my name.
And he had no issues buying cars or refinancing loans because he had perfect credit. Luckily a call to the agencies, and a lawyer, fixed all the issues (eventually.)
There are just way too many screw-ups on the part of the credit reporting agencies to believe that it is a record of anything you have done.
On the post: Once Again With Feeling: Cord Cutting Is Not A 'Myth'
Re:
With the exception of baseball (yey for the Sling "Alternative Plan",) I rarely watch SlingTV on their schedule, since most of the channels have VOD capability. I think I've watched Game of Thrones once when it was scheduled, most of the time I go in, find what I want to watch on their VOD menus, and then move on. Even if the channel doesn't have their entire catalog available as VOD, they tend to have the programs played throughout the day, and sometimes the week, available from the menu.
The only thing I can't do with sling is watch the baseball game on my phone...darn blackout restrictions!
On the post: Once Again With Feeling: Cord Cutting Is Not A 'Myth'
Re: Re: Would cut, but cannot figure how to
Realize it helps Dish's numbers, but Sling has HGTV and many of the other foodporn/houseporn channels as part of their default streaming plan.
Roku handles sling just fine.
On the post: Reddit's Technology Subreddit Ponders Banning Wired & Forbes For Blocking Adblock Users
Re: Wired Blocks Those Use Use Tracking Cookie Blockers
What is funny is that at least until recently (I haven't checked in the last couple weeks, they may have changed it,) blocking Javascript prevents their (Wired) "Here's the thing about ad blockers" page. If you block javascript on their page, you don't get the warning and can read the page unhindered (but nothing on the site works much so don't expect links or other content to work.) At least you can read their content. I don't know if Forbes works the same way.
I've pretty much avoided Wired and Forbes, but with the block of the Wired javascript, if I accidentally click on one of their links, I can at least read the content that brought me there.
On the post: Rep. Issa Calls Out Civil Asset Forfeiture As Letting 'Cops Go Treasure Hunting'
Re: It's really not that difficult
There is only one tiny flaw in this. Lottery funds (at least in California) and many of the bonds for education were promised for Education, but the legislators just paid less to education instead since they were already covered by the lottery and by bonds. I suspect this would go the same way...legislators would allow the funds to go to education, but then would shift funds that would have gone to education back to law enforcement or other pet projects. The conflict of interest would still exist, but would be shifted to make it even less transparent to the voter / victim.
I agree with everything else though...
On the post: Disney's Iger On ESPN: We'll Disrupt When We Damn Well Feel Like It
How much cheaper would SlingTV be if ESPN wasn't part of the default package?
I realize that Sling is Cable-Lite, I went cold turkey for years off of cable, but found myself coming back just for a few channels I really liked...really wish they had Discovery, but they could make it even more cable lite by going a la carte, which is why it will never happen.
On the post: NHL Streaming Service Descends Into Blackout Hell; NHL Threatens Anyone Trying To Circumvent Blackouts
Re: Re: Stupid Customer Tax?
I still struggle to see why this is a thing...if you are a cable subscriber (other than being away from your TV,) why wouldn't you just turn on the cable, switch to Fox, and watch the game.
I am not a cable subscriber, thus a reason to want MLB.tv. Hopefully they drop the cable subscriber requirement soon.
I am a season ticket holder of my home team, and would love to be able to watch the games not played at home (as the current blockout covers both at home games of the home team, as well as away games for the home team.)
On the post: NHL Streaming Service Descends Into Blackout Hell; NHL Threatens Anyone Trying To Circumvent Blackouts
Stupid Customer Tax?
Seems to me like this is a situation where short-term greed works, despite killing any future long-term goals. At least when Hulu stopped working on my devices, they didn't take my money and then charge me a early-termination fee for stopping my subscription. They acknowledged the fact that I had tried to work with them for six months, refunded the payments for all six months worth of testing, and allowed me to walk away. (Now that I have a Roku 4, I should have a device capable of working with their service, and should check them out again.) Other companies (Sling, Netflix, etc.) do similar. Seems to me that this contract is entirely unconscionable, and the only goal is to charge people not to deliver anything, and hope that they are too stupid to care.
Then again, the same is true with MLB.tv right now...the only reason I'd suggest anyone buy MLB.tv is if they are interested in watching the team from somewhere else, and don't care about the few times that that team happens to play the home team. Unless that has changed recently, which I don't believe it has, watching your home team is still unavailable. I know people who bought MLB.tv only to find out they couldn't watch the team they wanted to.
On the post: 20 Years Ago Today: The Most Important Law On The Internet Was Signed, Almost By Accident
Re: Re: Wait a minute, this can't be right
South Park said it best, "Won't someone think of the children?" Every bad law usually has someone, somewhere, saying this to get it passed. I remember at the time, that some of the major ISPs viewed 230 as being a godsend, while others saw it as the end of the world. I wonder how many of those who thought it was the end of the world still think that (although it probably was, since CompuServe and Prodigy don't really exist any more.)
On the post: Publicity Rights For A Photobombing Horse? Owner Demands Cut Of Photo Prize
Re: Re: Re: Peta launches new copyright lawsuit in the UK.
Has anyone notified Ken White?
I think he might need to light some signal to let everyone know the ponies are coming.
On the post: Ding-Dong -- Your Easily Hacked 'Smart' Doorbell Just Gave Up Your WiFi Credentials
Re:
Unfortunately, dogs have a fatal design flaw in that they are alive and like to eat. A zombie dog would be a safer bet, since they wouldn't be interested in the steak laced with strychnine. An added benefit is their love of human brains.
In all seriousness though, dogs are far more expensive than a cheap doorbell, which is why they tend to not have as much of an acceptance rate, plus attackers can easily trap the dog in a closet with a steak and go about their nefarious activities.
On the post: Yosemite Changing The Names Of Popular Park Landmarks Following The Most Ridiculous Trademark Dispute Ever
Re: Here's a suggestion...
Probably because other folks don't have the honorary "INC", "LLC" or "Corporation" at then end of their name. This is, after all, not someone transporting a "large" amount of money in their personal vehicle or in their carry on or checked luggage.
On the post: FCC Study: We Still Suck At Bringing Quality Broadband To All Americans
Re: Broadband that sucks
I live in an urban area, and my option is cable (capped, though far less restrictive, but which keeps getting more and more expensive,) DSL (which isn't broadband,) or expensive and capped cell coverage. Sure wish there was a little competition.
On the post: Comcast Cap Blunder Highlights How Nobody Is Ensuring Broadband Meters Are Accurate
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bigger problems...
What NAC do they use? Do they use a commercial provisioning system or a roll-your-own? Who supplies their DHCP, TFTP, and CMTS hardware/software?
This is the internet. People spouting off stuff they know nothing about is about as common as other people showing up and saying that someone else doesn't know what they are talking about without providing anything of substance to the discussion.
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