The 'automatic' copyright you get as the author of a work when it's created is only available to 'persons'. A monkey is not (in the legal sense) a 'person', therefore it did not get the copyright so it can't sue on that basis.
I was under the impression that a court had determined that he didn't own the copyright and in that case he would have "lost" it.
This doesn't make sense. You can't 'lose' something you never had. If a court HAD determined that he didn't own the copyright, then he never had it to 'lose'.
Copyright is only 'automatic' if certain conditions are met, such as being the author of the work. If you aren't the author of a work, you didn't get the automatic copyright at creation of the work.
If they didn't redact spaces it would be easy to reconstruct the document. There are already statistical analysis algorithms that can be run if the length of redacted words is known, as the set of words of that length is (usually) known (i.e. get all words of that length from the English dictionary), and then the known words surrounding it can be analysed to produce what are the only semantically and syntactically possible words (or even phrases) that can be substituted in their place. Therefore when redacting, it's best to redact entire sentences and long phrases, including the spaces, to better obfuscate what could be put there.
I thought you were joking, so I looked it up on the tropico wiki (well, used duckduckgo and it gave me the tropico wiki...) http://tropico.wikia.com/wiki/Edict:
Ban Social Networks
Cost: $250 monthly Requirements: A Telecom HQ Effects: Bans social media like Facebook or Twitter on the island, increasing productivity by 5%. In addition, if the player is playing the game on a PC, Facebook and Twitter integration will be disabled.
The EPO (like any sovereign nation's embassy) is free to request and allow the police to enter the premises to perform its functions. e.g. the 1980 Iranian embassy siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Embassy_Siege
Re: I don't think this is quite the same sort of dispute
What it comes down to: Investors do their research before investing.
This includes taking into account things like: weather patterns, governmental impacts on your investment, government corruption, government stability, crime, phase of the moon if it's relevant to the investment, rate of return and so on.
The riskier the investment, the bigger the return IF it pays off.
There is NEVER a guarantee of an investment breaking even, let alone paying off. Even government bonds are not 100% (tho generally speaking pretty close to it, ask those people who invested in Argentinian government bonds in the 90's how safe that was ...) secure.
If you invest in a region of high instability or corruption, that should be taken into account in the investment. Whats the chance of losing it all? Whats the potential return? Does the potential return warrant the risk of losing it all? Can I afford to lose what I've invested in that country if it does go down the tubes?
Unless you have answers to all those questions, you shouldn't be investing. If the Risk vs Reward equation is not in your favour, don't invest. If you can't afford the downside (losing it all) don't invest.
You don't need corporate sovereignty rules. Either you trust the courts in the country to not be corrupt, or you do. And that should be taken into account:
"Yes I trust the courts, I trust the government, so it's a safe investment, so I only expect 5%p.a. return"; or
"No, the courts are corrupt, the government is corrupt, so I won't invest what I can't afford to lose, and since I have a good chance of losing it, if it pays off I expect a 60%p.a. return."
Why are the police allowed to investigate themselves?
If I murder someone, can't I just get my companies internal security to investigate it, and my mate who heads it to clear me and never refer it on?
I mean, that's what the police seem to be doing.
Why isn't Internal Affairs a branch of the DA's department, rather than a section within the police force? Or even better, the IA section should be a section directly under and reporting to the governing body that establishes the police department, e.g. Mayor's office for a city police force, County office for County police, Governor's office for state police.
IA shouldn't be substantially recruited from the police force they are overseeing either, IA should hire from outside police forces, e.g a city police force should hire (or second) from the state police, or even from police forces from other states entirely.
As it stands, it's a case of the watchers watching themselves.
We like to keep things vague since that way we can designate anyone we want an unlawful combatant and then torture them and treat them with cruelty because lulz.
This may give a defense against breeches of the Geneva Convention, which regulates acts related to war, where the lawful vs unlawful combatant (itself a highly dubious distinction) definition might be telling.
However it is not just the Geneva Convention that outlaws torture, there are other treaties where war, therefore status of lawful vs unlawful combatant, is irrelevant, that outlaw torture. So it might not be a 'war' crime, but it is still a crime under other, non-war related, treaties.
..or he was himself lied to by those under him, this meaning of course that he is dangerously incompetent, ...
UNLESS he's told those under him to not tell him the whole truth in situations where he WANTS to be able to deny knowing stuff, i.e. plausible deniability...that's good management in the eyes of the civil service, just ask Sir Humphrey Appleby!
It's not so much the spreadsheet that's the issue, it's how people are using it. If the data was imported in the correct way it wouldn't have been an issue. However, most of the people doing this sort of data analysis (geneticists, biologists, economists) aren't Computer Science people, therefore they may not even be aware that this type of issue can occur.
It's the same as climate scientists stating "If you aren't a climate scientist, you have no authority to comment on our work." But the problem is, most of climate science (computer modelling, statistical analysis) isn't "Climate" Science, it's a mix of Computer Science (programming for computer modelling), Fluid Dynamics (also for computer modelling, you've got to accurately model fluid dynamics to have an accurate atmospheric model), Statistical analysis (all the climate chronologies that are done are based on Statistics) and so on.
When a non-Computer Scientist programs an advanced model, without input from a physicist/Engineer (for fluid dynamics), and picks and uses statistical methods without an in-depth knowledge of statistics to know which method to use when, you are going to have problems.
However, all these users (Climate Scientists, Biologist, Engineer and what have you) go: "Wonderful, I don't need all these specialists (Computer Scientist, programmer, Engineer, Climate Scientist, Biologist), I can just use an off the shelf spreadsheet, whip up a few formulas in it, and presto!".
A Computer Scientist might go: "I'll just write my own program to do this climate modelling thing, I've got a fluid dynamics text book, I'll just read that and implement it in code." The code may be beautiful, concise, with the formula's implemented flawlessly...until a fluid dynamics specialist looks at it and goes "why did you use that formula/paradigm there? That's a rather exotic case, superheated plasmas, it's not very good when you are modelling a layer of air that's at -45C..."
Of course, if you don't have an in-depth knowledge of spreadsheets (hell, a civil servant who lives, breathes, finance and the spreadsheets that are daily created probably knows how to use a spreadsheet program better than a 'scientist', whether that's an Engineer, Computer Scientist, Economist, Climate Scientist what have you), or Fluid Dynamics, or programming or Computer Science, then you'll probably end up with a balls-up.
Unless you have expertise in the other field, you should engage an expert in that field to at least advise on what you are doing. If a Biologist needs to manipulate a lot of genes with a computer...consult a computer scientist on the best way to do what you want done, and have them implement it for you if necessary...and if the implementation requires expertise from another field, say fluid dynamics, then the computer scientist should probably consult a fluid dynamacist, or statistician or whatever else is necessary.
Because prior to a recent change (2012?) in US patent law, it was the date of invention of the patent, not date of filing, that is used as the 'priority' date.
Therefore if something laid in a musty cupboard for 10 years, and someone else re-invents it and lodges a patent, the original inventor could dust off their invention and lodge their patent claim (even tho someone else has just lodged theirs) and 'back-date' it to 10 years ago.
With the recent change in US patent law (it was after 2009), the US has joined most of the rest of the world (for better or worse, it is debateable) where it is the date of lodgement rather than the date of invention that is used for priority.
can you imagine if cars didn't have license plates? What would the roads be like?
Maybe they'd put more traffic police on the streets to, you know, catch people breaking the road rules rather than implicitly encouraging breaking the rules to rack up speeding/red light revenue?
Besides, I know the chance of me being caught RIGHT NOW doing an illegal u-turn, changing lane on a deserted road without indicating, stopping at a red light at 3am then going through it while it's still red, and so on is pretty slim even WITH number plates....
When there is traffic around and it would be dangerous to do that u-turn (whether legal or not), change lanes without indicating, or going through a light (whether red, yellow or green), then I use my common sense and DON'T DO IT.
Independent Claim 1) Obtain radiation sensing equipment that can detect radiation in the 380nm to 750nm (400THz to 789THz) range, hereafter to be referred to as the MIOS (Mark I Ocular Sensor) (related patent xxx,xxx,xx1).
Independent Claim 2) Obtain the Intergrated Ephemeral Externally Encumbered (IEEE) database that classifies all Critical Access By eLEctricity (CABLE) devices (related patent xxx,xxx,xx2).
Dependent Claim 1) Use the MIOS to catalog all attached CABLEs to the Classified Obscure Material Plus Unnecessary Terrestrial Extraneous Resources (COMPUTER) device.
Dependent Claim 2) In conjunction with the MIOS and IEEE database, classify the CABLEs as to their purpose.
Dependent Claim 3) Using the classifications from Dependent Claim 2, identify all CABLE devices that are electrically connected to a Switching With Incoherent Technology Can't Hypothesize (SWITCH) device.
Dependent Claim 4) Use the Hard Analytical No-nonsense Dextrous (HAND) device (related patent xxx,xxx,xx3) to remove the CABLEs' ability to relay electricity between the COMPUTER and the SWITCH identified in Dependent Claim 3.
The deceased is, well, deceased, so do they have any privacy rights? If it's a violation of the deceased privacy rights, then they are the harmed party, therefore let's see the deceased file the claim then.
I can see no violations of the plaintiff's privacy: they are not subjects of the photos; the photo's don't reveal any private information of the plaintiff's, unless in the background we can see the plaintiffs' WiFi password written on the wall?
So if the choice is to go away from the US company, the other next obvious choice outside the US is the Chinese company. Is it any better?
Abso-fscking-lutely it is.
I'd rather an adversarial, foreign government "over there" who has no impact on my day-to-day life to have that sort of data on me.
First, it is their job to spy on their foreigners, i.e. me.
Second, unless I'm in some sensitive post that they could leverage to gain advantage from, then they won't give a flock about me.
Third, they have no impact on my day-to-day life.
Fourth, being foreigners to them, they are unlikely to ever take a personal interest in me, it's highly unlikely I could be dating one of their ex's, or got into a drunken brawl with their brother, or stepped on their foot in the elevator or some such.
Fifthly, what they are doing is illegal in my country, so I can take legal measures to deal with it. It's not likely any local ISP will receive an NSL from the Chinese to say "You can't talk about this backdoor we've installed in your backbone."
However, with respect to my own local/national government,it is NOT their job to spy on their own citizenry. Since they could be my neighbour, or we could have attended the same school, same clubs or some sort of other social interaction, the chances of some moron taking a personal interest in me is exponentially higher. Maybe I AM dating their ex. Maybe I did step on their foot. So now they have all this data that in their hands, does matter.
Maybe the local government is short of funds? So it starts trawling speed camera's (that record and store ALL vehicles passing them, not just ones speeding), APNR records from police cars, street cameras, cell phone location information trying to find misdemeanour crimes (hey, he passed this speed camera at 10:05am, and his cell phone location puts him 70 miles away at 11am, no way he could have got that far without speeding!) they can generate revenue from. Hell, in the UK there have been reports of RIPA powers (supposedly for terrorists) to find people who let their dogs poop on the sidewalk. I doubt the Chinese could be bothered to use data collected on foreigners for that sort of thing.
The government CAN give the local ISP an NSL to say "you can't reveal this backdoor we've put in your backbone". Measures that might be legal to stop the Chinese hacking/eavesdropping on me might be illegal against the local government, if it's not they can make it illegal by passing laws.
The local government has rule over my day-to-day life. They can make it hard for me if I do something they don't like, that they found by spying on me, but isn't actually illegal. Say the government culture was to hate people who use spray tan. Because they can see me order spray tan online, order a spray-tan machine, and the cameras pervading our cities show me as dark coloured now when 2 years ago I was sickly-pale white. OMG he's using a spray-tan machine. Flag the IRS to audit him. Flag the police to always pull him over and harrass him. Target him for 'enhanced' searches by the TSA at the airport.
All things a foreign government with the same information/culture couldn't do, even if I had offended some random moron from that nation who has a personal vendetta against me.
I would think the recent Supreme court decision that found that a warrant was needed to search a cell phone (which I believe includes taking a data dump/copy of the contents) should cover this.
The NSA backbone search is not limited to metadata, which is the equivalent of taking pictures of the outside of envelopes. The searches are searching the content of the email for their keywords, which is the equivalent of opening the letters, copying the contents, then resealing them again and sending them on.
NSA say that they also 'seize' (in their definition of seize) emails about targeted persons.
You cannot tell if an email is about a third party unless you "open the mail and read its contents".
In fact, you cannot even tell the subject, or the To: or From: an email without "opening" it. The IP header of an email contains only meta data about the packet itself, from IP, to IP, checksum, size of header, size of payload etc. It doesn't contain any information on an email such as To:, From: Subject: . In a letter analogy, all it really contains is the from and to street addresses, maybe some waybill information: weight, size. No names of people, no subject, nothing else.
The payload of an IP packet itself contains another envelope (TCP, UDP, RTP etc) who's header/meta-data information doesn't even contain the email From:, To: Subject: let alone body of an email. The headers of these envelopes contain more detailed meta-data, but again no To:, From:, Subject: or Body: data. In a TCP header it'd be from port, to port, sequence number, window size etc. In a letter analogy, this would be equivalent to an apartment number (the IP packet header had the street address), how many separate envelopes were sent, the number within that which this is (1st, 2nd, 3rd ...).
You'd have to delve into the payload, "open the letter", of the TCP packet to find out information such as To: From:, Subject:. And since, as far as the TCP packet is concerned, the payload is just a long string, you have to open the entire packet, have access to the entire payload including the body to get the From:, To:, Subject: information. Email headers are not separate from the Body data stream, unlike an IP or TCP packet header is. There is no fixed location email header field that says "the first 80 bytes are headers, the rest is body, so just get the first 80 bytes and all you'll have is header information, From:, To:, Subject: fields".
In the letter analogy, to copy the From:, To:, Subject: "meta-data", this is like opening the letter, grabbing the page and copying the standard (formal writing style) From: information on the top right-hand side of the page, the To: information on the left side but a bit lower down than the From information, then the Subject line immediately below that, and then promising to not copy the rest of the first page, honest, you can believe me. I give you my word I won't copy the whole page, or any of the other pages, really.
But Oops, if I am permitted to get mail about a target then I have to copy and read ALL the pages to determine whether it's about one of my targets.
Not to mention that, since I'm also allowed to keep encrypted email (because, you know, using encryption is suspicious), I have to "Open the email and read it" in order to determine if it's encrypted.
On the post: Australia's Attorney General Says Metadata Collection Won't Track Your Web Surfing, Just The Web Addresses You Visit (Huh?)
Re: Re:
They don't make numpty's Queens Counsels, and he has a Bachelor of Civil Law from Oxford, and according to wikipedia: He is pretty bright.
So he's not dumb, he's merely dealing in an area (Internet, networking in general) outside his expertise.
No, it makes him a luddite...
On the post: Photographer Still Insisting He Holds Copyright On Photo By A Monkey, Hints At Possibly Suing Wikimedia
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Photographer Still Insisting He Holds Copyright On Photo By A Monkey, Hints At Possibly Suing Wikimedia
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
This doesn't make sense. You can't 'lose' something you never had. If a court HAD determined that he didn't own the copyright, then he never had it to 'lose'.
Copyright is only 'automatic' if certain conditions are met, such as being the author of the work. If you aren't the author of a work, you didn't get the automatic copyright at creation of the work.
On the post: Senators Slam White House For CIA Torture Report Redactions That Make It 'Incomprehensible'
Re: LIES!
On the post: Tropico 5 Game Hits A Little Too Close To Home For Newly-Minted Thai Military Junta
Re: Game mechanics
On the post: Welcome to Eponia, Europe's New Rogue State?
Re:
On the post: Corporate Sovereignty Tribunal Makes $50 Billion Award Against Russia
Re: I don't think this is quite the same sort of dispute
This includes taking into account things like: weather patterns, governmental impacts on your investment, government corruption, government stability, crime, phase of the moon if it's relevant to the investment, rate of return and so on.
The riskier the investment, the bigger the return IF it pays off.
There is NEVER a guarantee of an investment breaking even, let alone paying off. Even government bonds are not 100% (tho generally speaking pretty close to it, ask those people who invested in Argentinian government bonds in the 90's how safe that was ...) secure.
If you invest in a region of high instability or corruption, that should be taken into account in the investment. Whats the chance of losing it all? Whats the potential return? Does the potential return warrant the risk of losing it all? Can I afford to lose what I've invested in that country if it does go down the tubes?
Unless you have answers to all those questions, you shouldn't be investing. If the Risk vs Reward equation is not in your favour, don't invest. If you can't afford the downside (losing it all) don't invest.
You don't need corporate sovereignty rules. Either you trust the courts in the country to not be corrupt, or you do. And that should be taken into account:
"Yes I trust the courts, I trust the government, so it's a safe investment, so I only expect 5%p.a. return"; or
"No, the courts are corrupt, the government is corrupt, so I won't invest what I can't afford to lose, and since I have a good chance of losing it, if it pays off I expect a 60%p.a. return."
On the post: Corporate Sovereignty Tribunal Makes $50 Billion Award Against Russia
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Yeah Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union was extremely corrupt.."
err 2nd try:
"Yeah Russia since the dissolution the Tsarist regime was extremely corrupt.."
3rd try:
"Yeah Russia in the later years of Tsarist regime was extremely corrupt..."
Bah:
"Yeah Russia has always been extremely corrupt..."
On the post: Internal Affairs Departments, District Attorneys' Offices Helping Keep Bad Cops From Being Held Accountable
Why are the police allowed to investigate themselves?
I mean, that's what the police seem to be doing.
Why isn't Internal Affairs a branch of the DA's department, rather than a section within the police force? Or even better, the IA section should be a section directly under and reporting to the governing body that establishes the police department, e.g. Mayor's office for a city police force, County office for County police, Governor's office for state police.
IA shouldn't be substantially recruited from the police force they are overseeing either, IA should hire from outside police forces, e.g a city police force should hire (or second) from the state police, or even from police forces from other states entirely.
As it stands, it's a case of the watchers watching themselves.
On the post: President Obama Claims CIA Torture Was Okay Because People Were Scared And The CIA Is A 'Tough Job'
Re: Wartime
However it is not just the Geneva Convention that outlaws torture, there are other treaties where war, therefore status of lawful vs unlawful combatant, is irrelevant, that outlaw torture. So it might not be a 'war' crime, but it is still a crime under other, non-war related, treaties.
On the post: CIA Spying On The Senate Went Much Further Than Originally Reported
Re: Re:
On the post: Using Spreadsheets In Bioinformatics Can Corrupt Data, Changing Gene Names Into Dates
Re: So instead of spreadsheets...
It's the same as climate scientists stating "If you aren't a climate scientist, you have no authority to comment on our work." But the problem is, most of climate science (computer modelling, statistical analysis) isn't "Climate" Science, it's a mix of Computer Science (programming for computer modelling), Fluid Dynamics (also for computer modelling, you've got to accurately model fluid dynamics to have an accurate atmospheric model), Statistical analysis (all the climate chronologies that are done are based on Statistics) and so on.
When a non-Computer Scientist programs an advanced model, without input from a physicist/Engineer (for fluid dynamics), and picks and uses statistical methods without an in-depth knowledge of statistics to know which method to use when, you are going to have problems.
However, all these users (Climate Scientists, Biologist, Engineer and what have you) go: "Wonderful, I don't need all these specialists (Computer Scientist, programmer, Engineer, Climate Scientist, Biologist), I can just use an off the shelf spreadsheet, whip up a few formulas in it, and presto!".
A Computer Scientist might go: "I'll just write my own program to do this climate modelling thing, I've got a fluid dynamics text book, I'll just read that and implement it in code." The code may be beautiful, concise, with the formula's implemented flawlessly...until a fluid dynamics specialist looks at it and goes "why did you use that formula/paradigm there? That's a rather exotic case, superheated plasmas, it's not very good when you are modelling a layer of air that's at -45C..."
Of course, if you don't have an in-depth knowledge of spreadsheets (hell, a civil servant who lives, breathes, finance and the spreadsheets that are daily created probably knows how to use a spreadsheet program better than a 'scientist', whether that's an Engineer, Computer Scientist, Economist, Climate Scientist what have you), or Fluid Dynamics, or programming or Computer Science, then you'll probably end up with a balls-up.
Unless you have expertise in the other field, you should engage an expert in that field to at least advise on what you are doing. If a Biologist needs to manipulate a lot of genes with a computer...consult a computer scientist on the best way to do what you want done, and have them implement it for you if necessary...and if the implementation requires expertise from another field, say fluid dynamics, then the computer scientist should probably consult a fluid dynamacist, or statistician or whatever else is necessary.
On the post: Podcasting Patent Troll Realizes Podcasters Don't Make Any Money; Desperately Tries To Escape Adam Carolla Lawsuit
Re: Priority date
Therefore if something laid in a musty cupboard for 10 years, and someone else re-invents it and lodges a patent, the original inventor could dust off their invention and lodge their patent claim (even tho someone else has just lodged theirs) and 'back-date' it to 10 years ago.
With the recent change in US patent law (it was after 2009), the US has joined most of the rest of the world (for better or worse, it is debateable) where it is the date of lodgement rather than the date of invention that is used for priority.
On the post: UK Government Report Recommends Ending Online Anonymity
Re:
Maybe they'd put more traffic police on the streets to, you know, catch people breaking the road rules rather than implicitly encouraging breaking the rules to rack up speeding/red light revenue?
Besides, I know the chance of me being caught RIGHT NOW doing an illegal u-turn, changing lane on a deserted road without indicating, stopping at a red light at 3am then going through it while it's still red, and so on is pretty slim even WITH number plates....
When there is traffic around and it would be dangerous to do that u-turn (whether legal or not), change lanes without indicating, or going through a light (whether red, yellow or green), then I use my common sense and DON'T DO IT.
On the post: Keith Alexander: I'm Worth $1 Million Per Month Because I'm Patenting A Way To Stop Hackers (Which I Didn't Tell The NSA)
Re: Easy to beat
Patent number: xxx,xxx,xx4
Independent Claim 1)
Obtain radiation sensing equipment that can detect radiation in the 380nm to 750nm (400THz to 789THz) range, hereafter to be referred to as the MIOS (Mark I Ocular Sensor) (related patent xxx,xxx,xx1).
Independent Claim 2)
Obtain the Intergrated Ephemeral Externally Encumbered (IEEE) database that classifies all Critical Access By eLEctricity (CABLE) devices (related patent xxx,xxx,xx2).
Dependent Claim 1)
Use the MIOS to catalog all attached CABLEs to the Classified Obscure Material Plus Unnecessary Terrestrial Extraneous Resources (COMPUTER) device.
Dependent Claim 2)
In conjunction with the MIOS and IEEE database, classify the CABLEs as to their purpose.
Dependent Claim 3)
Using the classifications from Dependent Claim 2, identify all CABLE devices that are electrically connected to a Switching With Incoherent Technology Can't Hypothesize (SWITCH) device.
Dependent Claim 4)
Use the Hard Analytical No-nonsense Dextrous (HAND) device (related patent xxx,xxx,xx3) to remove the CABLEs' ability to relay electricity between the COMPUTER and the SWITCH identified in Dependent Claim 3.
On the post: Family Sues Over Autopsy Images Appearing In Southland Opening Montage
Re:
Privacy of whom?
The deceased is, well, deceased, so do they have any privacy rights? If it's a violation of the deceased privacy rights, then they are the harmed party, therefore let's see the deceased file the claim then.
I can see no violations of the plaintiff's privacy: they are not subjects of the photos; the photo's don't reveal any private information of the plaintiff's, unless in the background we can see the plaintiffs' WiFi password written on the wall?
On the post: Report Says Backlash From NSA's Surveillance Programs Will Cost Private Sector Billions Of Dollars
Re: Re: Re:
Abso-fscking-lutely it is.
I'd rather an adversarial, foreign government "over there" who has no impact on my day-to-day life to have that sort of data on me.
First, it is their job to spy on their foreigners, i.e. me.
Second, unless I'm in some sensitive post that they could leverage to gain advantage from, then they won't give a flock about me.
Third, they have no impact on my day-to-day life.
Fourth, being foreigners to them, they are unlikely to ever take a personal interest in me, it's highly unlikely I could be dating one of their ex's, or got into a drunken brawl with their brother, or stepped on their foot in the elevator or some such.
Fifthly, what they are doing is illegal in my country, so I can take legal measures to deal with it. It's not likely any local ISP will receive an NSL from the Chinese to say "You can't talk about this backdoor we've installed in your backbone."
However, with respect to my own local/national government,it is NOT their job to spy on their own citizenry. Since they could be my neighbour, or we could have attended the same school, same clubs or some sort of other social interaction, the chances of some moron taking a personal interest in me is exponentially higher. Maybe I AM dating their ex. Maybe I did step on their foot. So now they have all this data that in their hands, does matter.
Maybe the local government is short of funds? So it starts trawling speed camera's (that record and store ALL vehicles passing them, not just ones speeding), APNR records from police cars, street cameras, cell phone location information trying to find misdemeanour crimes (hey, he passed this speed camera at 10:05am, and his cell phone location puts him 70 miles away at 11am, no way he could have got that far without speeding!) they can generate revenue from. Hell, in the UK there have been reports of RIPA powers (supposedly for terrorists) to find people who let their dogs poop on the sidewalk. I doubt the Chinese could be bothered to use data collected on foreigners for that sort of thing.
The government CAN give the local ISP an NSL to say "you can't reveal this backdoor we've put in your backbone". Measures that might be legal to stop the Chinese hacking/eavesdropping on me might be illegal against the local government, if it's not they can make it illegal by passing laws.
The local government has rule over my day-to-day life. They can make it hard for me if I do something they don't like, that they found by spying on me, but isn't actually illegal. Say the government culture was to hate people who use spray tan. Because they can see me order spray tan online, order a spray-tan machine, and the cameras pervading our cities show me as dark coloured now when 2 years ago I was sickly-pale white. OMG he's using a spray-tan machine. Flag the IRS to audit him. Flag the police to always pull him over and harrass him. Target him for 'enhanced' searches by the TSA at the airport.
All things a foreign government with the same information/culture couldn't do, even if I had offended some random moron from that nation who has a personal vendetta against me.
On the post: Germany Says It Won't Agree To CETA With Current Corporate Sovereignty Chapter
Re:
i.e. Germany being sued by a Swedish company for billions for pulling out of nuclear power.
On the post: EFF Asks Court To Declare NSA's 'Internet Backbone' Collections Unconstitutional
Re: Devil's advocate
On the post: EFF Asks Court To Declare NSA's 'Internet Backbone' Collections Unconstitutional
Re: Re: Re: Re: is it really seizure?
The NSA backbone search is not limited to metadata, which is the equivalent of taking pictures of the outside of envelopes. The searches are searching the content of the email for their keywords, which is the equivalent of opening the letters, copying the contents, then resealing them again and sending them on.
NSA say that they also 'seize' (in their definition of seize) emails about targeted persons.
You cannot tell if an email is about a third party unless you "open the mail and read its contents".
In fact, you cannot even tell the subject, or the To: or From: an email without "opening" it. The IP header of an email contains only meta data about the packet itself, from IP, to IP, checksum, size of header, size of payload etc. It doesn't contain any information on an email such as To:, From: Subject: . In a letter analogy, all it really contains is the from and to street addresses, maybe some waybill information: weight, size. No names of people, no subject, nothing else.
The payload of an IP packet itself contains another envelope (TCP, UDP, RTP etc) who's header/meta-data information doesn't even contain the email From:, To: Subject: let alone body of an email. The headers of these envelopes contain more detailed meta-data, but again no To:, From:, Subject: or Body: data. In a TCP header it'd be from port, to port, sequence number, window size etc. In a letter analogy, this would be equivalent to an apartment number (the IP packet header had the street address), how many separate envelopes were sent, the number within that which this is (1st, 2nd, 3rd ...).
You'd have to delve into the payload, "open the letter", of the TCP packet to find out information such as To: From:, Subject:. And since, as far as the TCP packet is concerned, the payload is just a long string, you have to open the entire packet, have access to the entire payload including the body to get the From:, To:, Subject: information. Email headers are not separate from the Body data stream, unlike an IP or TCP packet header is. There is no fixed location email header field that says "the first 80 bytes are headers, the rest is body, so just get the first 80 bytes and all you'll have is header information, From:, To:, Subject: fields".
In the letter analogy, to copy the From:, To:, Subject: "meta-data", this is like opening the letter, grabbing the page and copying the standard (formal writing style) From: information on the top right-hand side of the page, the To: information on the left side but a bit lower down than the From information, then the Subject line immediately below that, and then promising to not copy the rest of the first page, honest, you can believe me. I give you my word I won't copy the whole page, or any of the other pages, really.
But Oops, if I am permitted to get mail about a target then I have to copy and read ALL the pages to determine whether it's about one of my targets.
Not to mention that, since I'm also allowed to keep encrypted email (because, you know, using encryption is suspicious), I have to "Open the email and read it" in order to determine if it's encrypted.
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