If I ran a comparable service that took payment only in stocks, (of the Stock Market variety,) no judge would buy an argument that because stocks aren't money, the service was not engaged in money laundering. Bitcoins, being a highly speculative investment instrument, are no different. Beans and sex are completely different.
I'm still a little troubled by the possible implications of this -- and even how it might be read back towards cases like the ridiculous lawsuit against Tor we were just discussing. Overall, though, it seems clear that the court isn't going to let Ulbricht off easy.
Tor is one thing, but it easily meets the Betamax test: it has substantial non-nefarious uses.
As near as I can tell from what's been reported, Silk Road did not.
A close friend of mine is of native (Central American) descent, and it's interesting to hear some of the history he knows.
Most Native Americans, including almost all of the ones oppressed by the US government during the 18th and 19th centuries, were nothing like that. The horrific blood sacrifices were an Aztec thing. They were also known as the Mexica, and they tended to live south of the modern-day border. They were just as vicious and steeped in culturally-ingrained evil as modern-day Islamic extremists, and the European immigrants did both the Americas and the world in general a definite service by wiping them out.
But a lot of needless harm was done to peaceful people as well. It's important to remember that the inhabitants of the pre-Colombian Americas were just as diverse in every way as the inhabitants of Europe, and if they hadn't drawn a seriously unfavorable ball in the genetic lottery when it comes to disease tolerance, the last five hundred years would have looked very, very different.
With one crucial difference. For as scary as the Dirty Commies were, the USSR always maintained that their military, up to and including their nuclear arsenal, existed for defensive purposes, and declassified documents after the fall of the USSR shows that they were actually telling the truth on that one. They never had any intention of hurting the US if the US didn't hurt them first. Paranoids like McCarthy didn't believe it, but it turned out to be true. Russia has a long history of being invaded by foreign powers and doing whatever was necessary to drive them away, culminating in the Third Reich's invasion in World War II, and they mostly just wanted to be left alone.
The enemy today is very different in that one crucial aspect. We have both loudly-declared and widely-published goals to bring about the fall of secular Western democracy, and a well-established history of aggressive, non-defensive acts that are intended to further this purpose. So it's not very productive to compare them to the USSR, when both their words and their deeds show them to be the exact opposite.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wow! This comment is dumber than usual...
By their fruits ye shall know them.
Can you point to anyplace in the world where Islam is strong and violent extremism is not? Can you point to anyplace where Christianity, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or any other major world religion is strong that has severe systemic problems with violent extremism?
As for something specific in Islam, you can start here: its acceptance of polygyny means that many less successful men will end up without a mate, and coupled with the promise that martyrs for Islam will end up with plenty of desirable companionship in Paradise, the end results are rather predictable from a sociological perspective.
Do not connect critical resources to the internet.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
Because (if it was secure, at least) there are incredible benefits to having those critical resources be connected. Remote monitoring and administration, for example.
Last I heard, Germany never highly influential Jewish leaders declaring jihads and fatwas against them, and murderous Jewish fanatics attempting to carry them out.
Taylor is nominally a country singer, but her music is, at the very least, heavily influenced by pop styles. When I see something like this I wonder, does she even know what "pop" means? (Hint: it's short for a three-syllable word that's pretty close to the exact opposite of "rare".)
I usually drain the battery of my phone while waiting for a flight (playing games)
I usually make sure it's plugged in to my laptop while doing anything like that. Having my phone drained would be a horrible thing for me, because that means I can't turn it back on when we land to check for messages. :P
I don't know about the LAPD specifically, but a lot of police departments have an official policy of not hiring very intelligent officers (as in literally if you score above a certain amount on an IQ test--and sometimes the cutoff is below 100--you don't get the job) because smart people might end up doing something dangerous like thinking for themselves rather than following orders.
Godwin's Law is about silly comparisons. ("What, you don't agree that the Mariners are the best team of all time? What are you, some sort of Nazi?") If those numbers are accurate, this would appear to be one of those rare cases where the comparison actually makes sense.
The question, then, is how correct are his figures?
When you're a celebrity It's adios reality You can act just like a fool People think you're cool Just 'cause you're on TV I can throw a major fit When my latte isn't just how I like it When they say I've gone insane I'll blame it on the fame And the pressures that go with Being a celebrity. -- Brad Paisley, Celebrity
The 1970s, that's how. If you look at the history, that's when intellectual property rights started their long trek towards complete insanity that culminated in the 1998 passage of the DMCA.
These aren't DMCA takedowns, but they're still built upon the foundation laid by the DMCA, which established the basic principle that content can be removed by an extrajudicial process involving an accusation alone, and then the person posting the content is considered guilty until proven innocent. The DMCA lies at the root of everything bad about digital copyright in the modern age, and every newer abuse we've seen enacted or proposed builds upon it.
When a weed grows in your garden, there are two ways to get rid of it. You can cut it off at the ground, and it's gone... until it pops up again. Or you can rip it out by the roots, and then it's gone. The only way to truly fix copyright abuse is to rip it out by the roots: repeal and reverse the DMCA. Restore the sacred legal principles of Due Process and the Presumption of Innocence. Outlaw the use of DRM in any form for any reason. Make it crystal clear that the rights of people, not copyright owners, come first, and no one has any right whatsoever to infringe upon them until they have been proven guilty in a court of law.
Only when we've managed to accomplish this will we make any meaningful progress against copyright abuse. But as long as the root's still in the ground the same weed keeps popping up. We cut off SOPA and PIPA, and now we've got it growing right back as the TPP. Looks like we've just about managed to kill that one, but it'll grow back again soon enough (and it really didn't take long, did it?) unless we rip it out by the roots!
Give an unaccountable entity that can't be voted out if they give bad decisions the power to control through economic force (or threat thereof) and expect it to act in any way responsibly?
On the post: Judge Not Impressed By Ross Ulbricht's 'But Bitcoin Isn't Money' Defense
Re: Money
If I ran a comparable service that took payment only in stocks, (of the Stock Market variety,) no judge would buy an argument that because stocks aren't money, the service was not engaged in money laundering. Bitcoins, being a highly speculative investment instrument, are no different. Beans and sex are completely different.
On the post: Judge Not Impressed By Ross Ulbricht's 'But Bitcoin Isn't Money' Defense
Tor is one thing, but it easily meets the Betamax test: it has substantial non-nefarious uses.
As near as I can tell from what's been reported, Silk Road did not.
On the post: FBI Directly Spying On Prominent Muslim-American Politicians, Lawyers And Civil Rights Activists
Re: Re:
Most Native Americans, including almost all of the ones oppressed by the US government during the 18th and 19th centuries, were nothing like that. The horrific blood sacrifices were an Aztec thing. They were also known as the Mexica, and they tended to live south of the modern-day border. They were just as vicious and steeped in culturally-ingrained evil as modern-day Islamic extremists, and the European immigrants did both the Americas and the world in general a definite service by wiping them out.
But a lot of needless harm was done to peaceful people as well. It's important to remember that the inhabitants of the pre-Colombian Americas were just as diverse in every way as the inhabitants of Europe, and if they hadn't drawn a seriously unfavorable ball in the genetic lottery when it comes to disease tolerance, the last five hundred years would have looked very, very different.
On the post: James Clapper Issues Non-Denial Denial Of Greenwald's Story About Surveillance Of Muslim-Americans
With one crucial difference. For as scary as the Dirty Commies were, the USSR always maintained that their military, up to and including their nuclear arsenal, existed for defensive purposes, and declassified documents after the fall of the USSR shows that they were actually telling the truth on that one. They never had any intention of hurting the US if the US didn't hurt them first. Paranoids like McCarthy didn't believe it, but it turned out to be true. Russia has a long history of being invaded by foreign powers and doing whatever was necessary to drive them away, culminating in the Third Reich's invasion in World War II, and they mostly just wanted to be left alone.
The enemy today is very different in that one crucial aspect. We have both loudly-declared and widely-published goals to bring about the fall of secular Western democracy, and a well-established history of aggressive, non-defensive acts that are intended to further this purpose. So it's not very productive to compare them to the USSR, when both their words and their deeds show them to be the exact opposite.
On the post: FBI Directly Spying On Prominent Muslim-American Politicians, Lawyers And Civil Rights Activists
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wow! This comment is dumber than usual...
Can you point to anyplace in the world where Islam is strong and violent extremism is not? Can you point to anyplace where Christianity, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or any other major world religion is strong that has severe systemic problems with violent extremism?
As for something specific in Islam, you can start here: its acceptance of polygyny means that many less successful men will end up without a mate, and coupled with the promise that martyrs for Islam will end up with plenty of desirable companionship in Paradise, the end results are rather predictable from a sociological perspective.
On the post: Senate Intelligence Committee Approves Dangerous Cybersecurity Bill
Re:
Because (if it was secure, at least) there are incredible benefits to having those critical resources be connected. Remote monitoring and administration, for example.
On the post: FBI Directly Spying On Prominent Muslim-American Politicians, Lawyers And Civil Rights Activists
Re:
On the post: Taylor Swift's View Of The Future Of Music Is Actually Not That Far Off
Taylor is nominally a country singer, but her music is, at the very least, heavily influenced by pop styles. When I see something like this I wonder, does she even know what "pop" means? (Hint: it's short for a three-syllable word that's pretty close to the exact opposite of "rare".)
On the post: DHS Cites 'Credible Threat' As Reason For Forcing Travelers To The US To Hand Over Powered-Up Devices To Airport Security
Re: Re: Re:
I usually make sure it's plugged in to my laptop while doing anything like that. Having my phone drained would be a horrible thing for me, because that means I can't turn it back on when we land to check for messages. :P
On the post: Senator Lindsey Graham Doesn't Know Details Of NSA Abuse, But Sure It's Fine Because 'WE'RE AT WAR!'
On the post: LAPD Exposes Login To Data Harvesting Software During Interview With CNN
Re:
On the post: Want In-Depth Coverage Of Net Neutrality? Crowdfund Our Reporting - And Double Your Impact
On the post: Jimmy Graham Loses $5 Million In Part For Listing Himself As A Tight End On Twitter
On the post: Local Blog Outs Local Politician's Crazy But Anonymous Comments. So...Is That Okay?
Re: An example of Godwin's Law?
The question, then, is how correct are his figures?
On the post: Lindsay Lohan Moves Forward With Lawsuit Against GTAV
It's adios reality
You can act just like a fool
People think you're cool
Just 'cause you're on TV
I can throw a major fit
When my latte isn't just how I like it
When they say I've gone insane
I'll blame it on the fame
And the pressures that go with
Being a celebrity.
-- Brad Paisley, Celebrity
On the post: Author To Chobani: I Own The Word 'How'
Re:
On the post: International Service Providers Sue GCHQ For Potentially Hacking Their Networks
On the post: SoundCloud Has Given Universal Music Group The Ability To Directly Remove Content
Re: Oh it's worse than that
When a weed grows in your garden, there are two ways to get rid of it. You can cut it off at the ground, and it's gone... until it pops up again. Or you can rip it out by the roots, and then it's gone. The only way to truly fix copyright abuse is to rip it out by the roots: repeal and reverse the DMCA. Restore the sacred legal principles of Due Process and the Presumption of Innocence. Outlaw the use of DRM in any form for any reason. Make it crystal clear that the rights of people, not copyright owners, come first, and no one has any right whatsoever to infringe upon them until they have been proven guilty in a court of law.
Only when we've managed to accomplish this will we make any meaningful progress against copyright abuse. But as long as the root's still in the ground the same weed keeps popping up. We cut off SOPA and PIPA, and now we've got it growing right back as the TPP. Looks like we've just about managed to kill that one, but it'll grow back again soon enough (and it really didn't take long, did it?) unless we rip it out by the roots!
On the post: EFF Changes Position On Net Neutrality: Recognizes FCC Must Act, But Narrowly
Re: Hmmm...
Even worse idea.
On the post: EFF Changes Position On Net Neutrality: Recognizes FCC Must Act, But Narrowly
Re: Growth vs Consolidation
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