So, fun fact about the social media moderation bill. "Social media corporations" are companies that have over 20 million "account holders". "Account holders" are Utah residents with an account. There are *checks Wikipedia* 3.2 million residents of Utah.
So, the argument is that the "narrow" tailoring here is such that it only applies to websites, not users, if that site is "primarily" engaged in streaming unlicensed copyright-covered works, has no significant purpose other than that, **or** intentionally markets itself as such.
Though I'm pretty sure any legitimate illicit site will hit all three, it's entirely possible that prosecutors will happily target innocent sites using only the middle prong.
For some reason, [Elsevier] seems to think it has a right to a profit margin of 35-40% arising from its role as a gatekeeper to the papers that the public has paid for.
It does have that right, because we gave it to them. Theoretically, they in return act as a gatekeeper against non-rigorous or fraudulent papers via peer review, and a distributor at a scale beyond what an individual institution can handle. Except, y'know, they're not gatekeeping and with the advent of the Internet anyone can distribute at massive scale.
So... why do we keep giving them that right, exactly?
W3W doesn't even have a monopoly. There's a competing service, What 3 F***s, that works just as well, has a much more appropriate vocabulary for emergencies, has a fractal pattern so you can choose an arbitrary level of precision, and is open source so people can expand and innovate.
I might know how they came up with such a large number for so few still-possessed devices. Let's tweak the premise slightly and then fill in some of the blanks...
"Last year, the FBI was unable to [immediately] access investigation-related content on more than 7,700 devices..."
... but they obtained access to the iCloud/Google Drive accounts and the backups just came through.
... but the suspect used the same PIN on a less secure device.
... but they convinced her she'd get a reduced sentence if she told them the password.
... but they got the data from a co-conspirator's device.
... but the data they were interested in they got from $telco instead.
... but it wasn't actually* an FBI investigation; they were just holding a device for the local police.
* ... but Harris just came out with a new cracking device and it's super awesome* but they can't tell you about it :shh:.
Judge Chhabria also disputed Comcast's claim that users technically agree to pay these fees by agreeing to the Comcast subscriber agreement, which only references "permitted fees and cost recovery charges," and not these additional surcharges Comcast appears to have hallucinated out of whole cloth:
That's not what the judge said, only that this isn't the right time to deal with those issues.
Motion to Dismiss: The case needs to go away because there is something procedurally or facially wrong with it. ← The judge is ruling here.
Motion for Summary Judgement: The case needs to go away because even if what the other guy says is 100% true I'm still okay. ← The judge said that whether the plaintiffs agreed to the contract should be determined here.
Judgement on Merits: The case needs to go away because I'm right and the other guy's wrong. ← The judge implied that whether the contract lets Comcast pile on the charges should be determined here.
I would really, really love for a judge to rule that those fees are barred, since that would open the door to all sorts of legal fun for them, but that's not what Judge Chhabria ruled yet. We'll just have to keep waiting.
And Justice Thomas murdered five and a half pages saying that that's what he would say if he could. Sadly, he realized he couldn't:
Unfortunately, petitioner raises her due process arguments for the first time in this Court. As a result, the
Texas Court of Appeals lacked the opportunity to address
them in the first instance.
The court can't rule on appeal on issues that no prior court has addressed, so they have to wait until another case makes it way up to them, one that argues this from the start.
> But as is often the case when trade agreements are used to expand copyright law, the agreement only exported the U.S.’ extreme criminal penalties; it didn’t export our broad fair use provisions.
Don't worry, it's a *trade* agreement. We've been exporting our extreme criminal penalties, so soon we'll be *importing* restrictions on fair use. The USTR will be ecstatic about having that kind of balance...
Let's look at what the media companies are giving up by making this request:
Google News/Bing News links
"Smart snippets" in organic Google/Bing/Yahoo searches
Twitter/Facebook cards
Skype/iMessage cards
Cortana/Siri/Google Now integration
Link previews in GMail/Outlook.com/Yahoo Mail
Pretty much everything else that uses the Open Graph metadata they enthusiastically provide
In short, everything that makes people want to click the link, or helps them discover that those articles exist. I wonder how they'll feel when they have to tell their advertisers that "social media engagement" is down 80-90%...
... every single one of the 4,148 federal wiretap requests was granted in 2015.
The picture is just as bleak when you look at the whole decade + 1. Out of 30,694 warrants, only 8 were denied. That's less than ¾ of a warrant per year, or about 0.02 percent.
And that someone will likely not be found, as the State Department appears to be uninterested in investigating this any further.
If the only evidence is a sticky note saying "plz cut per b(6)", how can they investigate that? At least they're going to try to be more accountable in the future, or so they say.
What Rightscorp did at their own computers has zero bearing on the DMCA notices that Cox stupidly ignored.
First, Cox wasn't stupid to ignore them. Would you spew wrong, legally-threatening garbage to your customers just because some moron with dollar signs in his eyes says so?
Second, it's very relevant to the case at hand. Or have you forgotten about the unclean hands doctrine?
you can head here to comment on the NPRM at the FCC website. You can also file a comment in the Federal Register, but need to do so before midnight, September 8.
Umm, no, you can't. By some mysterious coincidence, the FCC has taken their docketing, comment filing, et cetera, Web apps offline until 8AM, September 8.
Oh, and while I have you here...
Our rules do permit radios to be approved as Software Defined Radios (SDRs) where the compliance is ensured based on having secure software which cannot be modified. The (FCC's) position is that versions of this open source software can be used as long as they do not add the functionality to modify the underlying operating characteristics of the RF parameters.
It looks like that statement says they're cool with things like OpenBTS and Osmocom, which use software-defined radios to emulate cell towers, and other similar projects. But most consumer-grade WiFi base stations aren't commonly considered software-defined radios and aren't submitted for approval under SDR rules.
> The court could simply order them to not use a camera-enabled phone for a number of months, which is no different to what most parents would do.
No, the court couldn't. If the charges are sustained, they're a Class X felony, comparable with murder. The absolute minimum even a juvenile court could give is five years probation, plus lifetime sex offender registration -- including the parts about "no contact with anyone under 18" (goodbye school, friends, maybe even family!) and "no residing close to (a number of different places)" (hello apartment in the middle of nowhere!)
It's time to ask CloudFlare to rekey your SSL certificate. Your private key uses the SHA-1 algorithm which, though not insecure yet, is on a steep deprecation path. Last October Chrome started marking such sites with a yellow alert symbol (similar to that used when loading JS from an insecure site), and in February Firefox followed suit. The cert is set to expire on Oct 15, which -- even if it wasn't expiring -- is the last day Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera would connect at all, with IE blocking access the following year.
New certificates use SHA-2, which is based on a similar algorithm but uses much longer key fingerprints, and is therefore much harder to break.
On the post: Utah Legislature Wraps Up Session By Passing Two Unconstitutional Internet Bills
So, fun fact about the social media moderation bill. "Social media corporations" are companies that have over 20 million "account holders". "Account holders" are Utah residents with an account. There are *checks Wikipedia* 3.2 million residents of Utah.
There are no social media corporations.
On the post: Tillis Release Details Of His Felony Streaming Bill; A Weird Gift To Hollywood At The Expense Of Taxpayers
Correction
Though I'm pretty sure any legitimate illicit site will hit all three, it's entirely possible that prosecutors will happily target innocent sites using only the middle prong.
On the post: Content Moderation Case Study: Facebook Nudity Filter Blocks Historical Content And News Reports About The Error (June 2020)
* gets out magnifying glass for the embedded tweet *
* gets frustrated at the blurriness as it isn't a tweet *
* finds actual tweet *
https://twitter.com/earleyedition/status/1272400149952655360
On the post: Elsevier Gets Sci-Hub And LibGen Blocked In Austria, Thereby Promoting The Use Of VPNs And Tor In The Country
It does have that right, because we gave it to them. Theoretically, they in return act as a gatekeeper against non-rigorous or fraudulent papers via peer review, and a distributor at a scale beyond what an individual institution can handle. Except, y'know, they're not gatekeeping and with the advent of the Internet anyone can distribute at massive scale.
So... why do we keep giving them that right, exactly?
On the post: What3words Is A Clever Way Of Communicating Position Very Simply, But Do We Really Want To Create A Monopoly For Location Look-ups?
W3W doesn't even have a monopoly. There's a competing service, What 3 F***s, that works just as well, has a much more appropriate vocabulary for emergencies, has a fractal pattern so you can choose an arbitrary level of precision, and is open source so people can expand and innovate.
On the post: FBI Admits It's Been Using A Highly-Inflated Number Of Locked Devices To Push Its 'Going Dark' Narrative
I might know how they came up with such a large number for so few still-possessed devices. Let's tweak the premise slightly and then fill in some of the blanks...
"Last year, the FBI was unable to [immediately] access investigation-related content on more than 7,700 devices..." ... but they obtained access to the iCloud/Google Drive accounts and the backups just came through. ... but the suspect used the same PIN on a less secure device. ... but they convinced her she'd get a reduced sentence if she told them the password. ... but they got the data from a co-conspirator's device. ... but the data they were interested in they got from $telco instead. ... but it wasn't actually* an FBI investigation; they were just holding a device for the local police. * ... but Harris just came out with a new cracking device and it's super awesome* but they can't tell you about it :shh:.
On the post: Comcast Tries, Fails To Kill Lawsuit Over Its Hidden, Bogus Fees
Reading Comprehension
That's not what the judge said, only that this isn't the right time to deal with those issues.
I would really, really love for a judge to rule that those fees are barred, since that would open the door to all sorts of legal fun for them, but that's not what Judge Chhabria ruled yet. We'll just have to keep waiting.
On the post: Supreme Court Sees Criminal Asset Forfeiture Can Be Abused Too; Almost Does Something About It
Re: A cheap pass on an easy case
And Justice Thomas murdered five and a half pages saying that that's what he would say if he could. Sadly, he realized he couldn't:
The court can't rule on appeal on issues that no prior court has addressed, so they have to wait until another case makes it way up to them, one that argues this from the start.
On the post: Colombian Grad Student Finally Cleared Of Criminal Charges For Posting Academic Article Online
Don't worry, it's a *trade* agreement. We've been exporting our extreme criminal penalties, so soon we'll be *importing* restrictions on fair use. The USTR will be ecstatic about having that kind of balance...
On the post: The Weird Antitrust Questions Of A Google Chrome Ad Blocker
Antitrust didn't seem to be an issue back in 2002, when Netscape implemented popup ad blocking but exempted their own sites, including (hilariously) their own homepage.
On the post: European News Publishers Still Believe They Have The Right To Make Google Pay For Sending Traffic Their Way
Let's look at what the media companies are giving up by making this request:
In short, everything that makes people want to click the link, or helps them discover that those articles exist. I wonder how they'll feel when they have to tell their advertisers that "social media engagement" is down 80-90%...
On the post: The Selfie-Taking Monkey Who Has No Idea He Has Lawyers Has Appealed His Copyright Lawsuit
Re: Forget the monkey
On the post: 2015 Wiretap Report Doesn't Have Much To Say About Encryption, But Does Show Feds Run Into Zero Judicial Opposition
The picture is just as bleak when you look at the whole decade + 1. Out of 30,694 warrants, only 8 were denied. That's less than ¾ of a warrant per year, or about 0.02 percent.
On the post: State Dept. Press Briefing Video Had Tough Fox News Questioning Excised, Streisand Effect Takes Over
If the only evidence is a sticky note saying "plz cut per b(6)", how can they investigate that? At least they're going to try to be more accountable in the future, or so they say.
On the post: Cox Points Out That Rightscorp Is Either A Mass Infringer Itself... Or Admits That Downloading Songs Can Be Fair Use
Re:
Second, it's very relevant to the case at hand. Or have you forgotten about the unclean hands doctrine?
On the post: No, The FCC Is Not (Intentionally) Trying To Kill Third-Party Wi-Fi Router Firmware
Oh, and while I have you here...It looks like that statement says they're cool with things like OpenBTS and Osmocom, which use software-defined radios to emulate cell towers, and other similar projects. But most consumer-grade WiFi base stations aren't commonly considered software-defined radios and aren't submitted for approval under SDR rules.
On the post: DailyDirt: Braiiins... And Brain Implants
On the post: Police Chief Unable To Simply Do Nothing Over Reported Teen Sexting, Brings Child Porn Charges Against Four Minors
Re: Re: Re:
No, the court couldn't. If the charges are sustained, they're a Class X felony, comparable with murder. The absolute minimum even a juvenile court could give is five years probation, plus lifetime sex offender registration -- including the parts about "no contact with anyone under 18" (goodbye school, friends, maybe even family!) and "no residing close to (a number of different places)" (hello apartment in the middle of nowhere!)
On the post: Techdirt Is Now 100% SSL
SHA-1
New certificates use SHA-2, which is based on a similar algorithm but uses much longer key fingerprints, and is therefore much harder to break.
On the post: EA's Latest Attempt To Destroy SimCity Franchise: Micropayments For Hammers And Nails And Supplies
Oh wait, I'm silly! EA doesn't learn!
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