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LTMGTFY. Here are the top five items for a google query "Bradley Manning Torture"
http://news.change.org/stories/un-investigating-bradley-manning-torture-claims
http://news.change.org/stories/the-obama-administration-is-torturing-bradley-manning
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101215/09551812291/us-is-apparently-torturing-bradley-manning-despite-no-trial-no-conviction.shtml
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/accused_wikileaker_bradley_mannings_torture_by_isolation_20101215/

concerning the domain seizures and how they impact due process

Basically ICE assumes that since we are now dealing with the 'cyber' prefix, none of the old laws apply that don't specifically call out domain names. So your due process is largely non-existent and we just sorta make it up as we go along. I mean, a lot of the stuff gets reversed. You're actually guilty until proven innocent in our books! If you don't agree with that, it logically follows that you're a terrorist. That's your first warning.

free speech

Ah, yes, 'free speech.' Well, basically our domain seizing takes free speech, bends it over an arcade machine and violently rapes it in front of everyone. It's sort of funny because you'd think you wouldn't be able to rape anyone in public but, well, so far everyone's just been standing around and watching us so ... And I mean we're DHS so what're they gonna do anyway, right? Side note, this is your second warning for asking terrorist questions, Senator.

sovereign rule in foreign countries

Foreign countries? No no no, there are two countries in the world: United States and everybody else. Everybody else gets rules only after our rules are established. And that's strike three, mister.

That's an awful nice schedule you got there, Senator, be a shame if someone were to put you on the No Fly list! wyden.senate.gov will now redirect to DHS and ICE seals until the good Senator can prove he did not import unlicensed pandas in 1978. Terrorists like Wyden make me sick.

The ridiculous amount of tax dollars has already been spent. We've already paid for fiber to the door, we just haven't gotten it. Those that have gotten it are paying more and getting less than the telcos promised we'd get.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060131/2021240_F.shtml

the man actually reads the bills that come in front of him, and he's actually honest about why he makes a vote.

we don't get that out of other republicans and democrats, almost universally. they just toe the party vote and/or remain as anonymous (and opaque) as possible.

I'd like to see him up top (pres), but I think he needs time to build some reputable people with him. aka folks who don't whore themselves out to the most expensive lobbyist/corporation.

the man actually reads the bills that come in front of him, and he's actually honest about why he makes a vote.

we don't get that out of other republicans and democrats, almost universally. they just toe the party vote and/or remain as anonymous (and opaque) as possible.

I'd like to see him up top (pres), but I think he needs time to build some reputable people with him. aka folks who don't whore themselves out to the most expensive lobbyist/corporation.

This is about as useful as a tank of gas with no car. Especially since courts have already determined that an IP address does not identify a person, rather a machine (pc, router, etc). As evidenced in articles such as these: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=109242 ; http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/07/08/1522247/Judge-Rules-IP-Addresses-Not-Personally-Identifiable?from=rss & http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090708/1323075488.shtml I am sure there is more out there, but if we can't identify a person by IP, then why should I have to keep records of IP traffic for up to 2 years?

This is like questioning the fact that we have more than one set of automobile designs and assembly plants

On the contrary there is always need to question that fact.

Copyright, patents and trade secrets ensure that the best of breed solutions have as minimal an impact on the economy as possible. As a bonus they guarantee mediocre but different solutions are rewarded.

  We have these whole systems dedicated to ensuring that new automobiles and new plants have to be different. They are completely artificial systems to fight the natural behavior of world. Their operation is expensive and the side-effects are often wide-spread in the culture.

Oh, you thought the IP systems were designed to reward people for creativity? No, that's a funny idea but it sadly is at odds with what they actually do. The IP system of Industrialized nations rewards the status quo and sometimes enriches the already established, usually the middle-men and not the actual creators. And I use the term men loosely since most are now companies - fake people - who 'own' this stuff under the artificial monopolies created by all this paperwork. It does not matter that this is direct opposition to the justifications used to support creation of these systems in the first place.

Political parties are just a fine example of false dichotomies and oversimplifying the world. It's easier to demonize a group if you first label them. It's easier to make people stupid if you first make them into a group.

I will agree that people shouldn't complain about a dozen different editors, IM clients, music players when people don't blink at the latest FPS-on-some-custom-engine when it's just a slightly prettier clone of Doom with more guns and less blood.

So basically, you nuke one and they make twenty more in it's place.

Right. That's what clobbered Craigslist. Crowdsourced "flagging" vs. Craigslist Auto Poster: Auto Poster wins.

Craiglist tried email verification. They tried phone verification. They tried CAPCHAs. Nothing worked. Google Places uses the same techniques. Google tried postcard verification, and there are at least three known schemes for getting around that.

If they're privately owned, why do they bitch at the government for money? Here's just one example.

I'm aware that article covers multiple countries, but it's rare nowadays for an ISP to be truly considered 100% privately owned...or at the very least, privately funded.

Nike can jam it, AFAIC, but if you read the comments attached to TFA you might have seen this comment from Jim D'Addario...

Jim D'Addario, Jan 19th, 2011 @ 6:10am

You really should visit and talk to some companies that are living this experience. There is no way to file a legal law suit in every instance someone is stealing my D'Addario Strings trademark. We are family owned business in the USA with sales of $150 million. Sounds big, and rich and all that!!! However last year we spent $750,000 on legal battles and got nowhere. We would be bankrupt trying to protect the 1000 jobs that we provide here in the USA. We are not General Motors, IBM or NIke. The scale is not there.

If we were allowed legitimate access to the Chinese market and the Chinese were not counterfeiting our product we would be able to create 200 to 500 more jobs in the USA.

Don't paint everyone with a broad stroke of the brush. Telling the companies on the list to work harder is an insult. We work as hard as we possibly can already (its 5:30 AM where i am right now and dont stop working until 6:30 PM.

I have personally visited stores in four Chinese cities to see 7 out of 10 sets of my brand of strings are fake. The packaging is perfect, right down to the American flat and the words "Printed and Made in USA". The strings are shxt.

I wonder how that would make you feel if you started a brand name from nothing in 1974 and built it to the largest in the world only to watch people completely rip it off.

So your suggestioin to me is to work harder and sue everyone? I may as well close up or cash out and watch the 1000 jobs evaporate. Or better, maybe i should move the factory to China and destroy another 1000 US jobs?

Go on Alibaba.com and witness the hundreds of thousands of fake product listings. There is nothing on the site that is real or legitimate. At some point the government has to take some kind of police action. This is not just a civil matter, there are criminal (grand larceny) implications here.

I agree there should be due process before a site is shut down. I dont know what that process should be, but when threre is clear evidence submitted to a government agency that a site is selling fake merchandise the government should have some authority to put a URL on hold until they can defend themselves. Let the theives absorb the burden of defending themselves, don't expect the legitimate folks to foot the bill.

How is possible for the public to ask the legitimate manufacturers to bear the role of the government and police every instance of fraud with a law suit? It would be tens of millions of $$$ a year.

Learn more before developing such strong views and 'black listing' good people.

Jim D'Addario - CEO D'Addario and Company

Perhaps you should do some research before you judge. From the comments on the Tech Dirt article (TFA), a comment by Jim D'Addario...

I personally wouldn't allow this action to deter me from using D'Addario strings. Their interest in this document is simply trying to limit the rampant counterfeiting of their product.

By the way, you might find this article interesting...

It's worth noting that while Nike supports stronger anti-counterfeiting laws (natch), they wrote Senator Wyden asking him not to break the internet. From the letter:

"The Internet is too important to our economy and to advancing American values to be inappropriately regulated and censored under the guise of protecting IP"

Going public means having to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. Compliance is an entire industry unto itself, so the law of unintended consequences happens:

• Small companies can't afford to go public... so they don't. The IPO market is strangled, and Thee Little Guy is no longer regulated because he no longer exists.
• Large companies can comply... if they want to. SarbOx is expensive enough that a scheme like this is actually profitable in comparison. The Big Guy is no longer regulated, because he has an army of lawyers to smuggle his shares out of the country in their rectums.

Without SarbOx, something this complicated and dangerously-close-to-illegal would just be stupid, and Facebook would be publicly traded, with all the oversight that entailed. But, maybe all that extra regulation everyone's dodging already prevented a second Enron~

What should have happened is, the MafiAA corps should have been forcibly disbanded, assets sold, and all singers and songwriters released from their slave-labor contracts.

The double upside there is that we could get rid of the MafiAA companies and destroy the Payola system that still strangleholds music radio today. Maybe we'd have some real radio stations that would do things like play local artists, new acts simply because they like the sound, or even spin entire albums now and again.

Of course, we should probably reinstitute the media ownership limits. In 1995 there were over 5000 independent radio station companies, by 1997 five companies controlled 95% of the radio market.

'Cause leaking is always double-plus good.

Indeed. There are arguments for as well as against.

I take the sentiment back.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110107/10153912573/intel-claims-drmd-chip-is-not-drm-its-just-copy-protection.shtml

As someone up in the discussion mentioned, it may have something other than TPM.

What the hell Intel?

What the heck are you babbling about? Do you have the slightest idea?

I believe he's babbling about this. Sandy Bridge will have DRM in it (though they don't call it that for some weird reason), and Sandy Bridge is directly related to Ivy Bridge, so therefore it could possibly inherit the DRM features of Sandy Bridge.

Disclaimer: I am a total n00b when it comes to discussing processor architectures, so I could be wrong about something.

I find it ironic that the first thing your search returns is a link discussing another instance of police finding spousal murder evidence in a search history 3 years ago:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070313/214910.shtml

Of course, that was a woman killing her husband, so we definitely need to rehash it on Slashdot now that the genders are reversed.

anon not to undo mods, but that's not entirely true.

"So far, Wikileaks has published approximately nothing that is shocking or surprising or that reveals unlawful activity."

You only think that because apparently you are relying on most of the mainstream media reporting of the diplomatic cables, who have downplayed the significance of the leaks. Consider the following:

Diplomat covering up the pimping of Afghan boys (aged 13ish) for anal sex by a US taxpayer funded company DynCorp.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101208/00221812176/so-wikileaks-is-evil-releasing-documents-dyncorp-gets-pass-pimping-young-boys-to-afghan-cops.shtml
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/12/wikileaks_texas_company_helped.php

As if I need to go on after that. Clinton ordered spying on other UN officials, including obtaining frequent flier number and biometric data. (And Wikileaks is responsible for spying?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-spying-un

And then there is the very fact that much of the 'secrets' that were classified were done so illegally.

If you don't realize it by now, then you have made up your mind regardless of evidence. Do your own research if you are interested, but I doubt you are.

For the others who wonder how there are people like parent who apparently blindly defend wrongdoing (such as government abuses, racism etc), there is actually a growing body of research into this phenomenon. It's called system justification theory, and essentially it describes the conscious and unconscious tendencies to protect and bolster the status quo, even to one's own disadvantage (i.e. the black and/or gay Republican who can't see that his comrades implicitly or explicitly hate him). Basically, people like parent feel so comforted by the status quo, and they implicitly fear change even for the better, that they defend the status quo when it otherwise appears to make no sense.

Read for yourselves: [pdf]
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/jost/Jost,%20Banaji,%20&%20Nosek%20(2004)%20A%20Decade%20of%20System%20Justificati.pdf

for song writers to create children's songs as free marketing material, license them CC or free for school usage

If GEMA is anything like ASCAP or BMI, it won't matter. They will just insist on paying for licensing anyways even if it's original content or permitted reproduction.

And yet I got a contractless 'pay-as-you-go' flip phone for $10 five years ago

If it was a TracFone or one of their ilk then while it was contractless, it was still locked - So that's not a fair comparison. TracFones are locked because they're subsidized based on the *expected* future revenue from the purchase of airtime.

See more -

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080714/0053011666.shtml

I see no reason to listen to a socialist who wants to censor the net.

Falcon

Here is a better link for that piece of proposed legislation that clearly shows that it hasn't even come up for a vote yet. The "vote" you, techdirt and cnet are reporting about merely brings the bill out of committee and to the Senate floor...nothing more.

I believe the constitution mentions the citizens of the US should have freedom and general welfare

Freedom yes, but requiring people to buy health insurance denies freedom. And "general welfare" does not mean what you think it does. The USA's Founding Fathers set out exactly what the federal government can do, the Constitution of the USA says exactly that. And nowhere in it will anybody find socialized medicine in it. Hell neither health nor medicine can be found in it anywhere, and as Thomas Jefferson said "a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

Capitalism isn't freedom.

But free markets and free trade is freedom. Franken wants to limit both, he supports fining people for not buying insurance and he supports censoring the net.

think many people think Capitalism has something to do with freedom, when, in fact, in capitalism wealth (and therefore power) is concentrated into ever fewer hands.

No it's you who are mistaken. That is not capitalism, what you describe is corporatism and the corporate aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of. Or as El Duce, Mussolini, said Fascism is corporatism.

Falcon

It may not be to you but it is to me. Anything that limits what I can do even if I am not harming another person is bad. Forcing me to pay for health insurance I don't want, is bad. Censoring the internet, like Al Franken voted to do is bad. Okay, okay I know that censorship isn't a socialist idea but it's still bad. Forcing me to pay someone else's health care costs is socialistic. As is single-payer health insurance.

Falcon

I don't think he's a buffoon, but, you're right, it is a shame that people tune him out. Maybe those who tune him out should take this opportunity to rethink their position on the guy. So few politicians are willing to defend net neutrality it's really nice to see someone buck that trend.

I see no reason to listen to a socialist who wants to censor the net. That is listen other than to fight against him.

Falcon

The guy can make a good arguments without resorting to shouting or out right ignoring the public.

As senator Al Franken not only ignored the majority of voters, who opposed health-care insurance reform, he ignored the Constitution of the USA too.

TFA makes some good points and breaks down "Net Neutrality" to the lay person who just wants to use the internet. You should try reading it.

I did, and I questioned what he said, did you? He says the FCC already has the power to regulate the internet but he provides no references to back up his statement. Courts have already ruled the FCC does not have those powers.

Not only that but Al Franken voted to censor the net.

Falcon

My apologies, I assumed /.ers would be relatively familiar with this idea. Sources should have been provided and I'll also retract 'studies' for articles. Also note that knock-off is different than counterfeit; I'm not saying the latter is helpful, just the former.

http://www.techdirt.com/ for general stuff on this topic.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0909/p09s01-coop.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/business/05scene.html?ex=1333425600&en=bfb7593c76d8b819&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faking-it This one is interesting as it provides a guilty conscience aspect that eventually would have people buying the brand names to feel better about themselves.

I think the basic point is that people who knowingly buy knock-offs were never going to be initial purchasers of the brand name goods. But they would buy them once the price became palatable to them. No sale was 'lost' by

I despise Al Franken, but on this issue, it appears that this *Comedian* certainly has a better grasp on this issue than the *Experts* at the FCC.

Since Al Franken voted to censor the Internet, I don't think he has any better grasp on what true "Net Neutrality" is than anyone else in government.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101118/10291211924/the-19-senators-who-voted-to-censor-the-internet.shtml

While I get that one of the biggest ways to discredit a politician is to dig up their old voting records and point out some heavy hypocrisy, I don't understand why it's not acceptable for a politician to change his mind. He voted to censor the Internet in the past, but now he's petitioning to prevent such a thing... I see this as nothing but a good thing. There is a difference between this, and him saying "I'm going to vote X on Prop 1234" and then voting Y on prop 1234. That's lying about his intentions. This is a change of heart.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101118/10291211924/the-19-senators-who-voted-to-censor-the-internet.shtml

it's because SEO have figured out how to game your results

Yes. What hasn't penetrated to Google yet is that it's much easier to game "local" results than organic results. Until Google merged "local" results into web search, few in the SEO world bothered paying attention to "local". Few users even realized that Google Maps was a "local" search engine. On October 27, 2010, Google merged the "local" results from the Maps search engine into web search, and put the "local" results above the organic results. This put Google's local search squarely in the sights of the black-hat SEO community.

Within a month, the black hats had pwned Google. They even boast about it. See "Dominating Google Maps - The Most Effective Spam Ever And What You Can Learn From It", which is about how to put phony entries into Google's "local" search and dominate the local search results.

Google's approach to "local" has two fundamental problems. First, they're relying too much on what companies say about themselves to find the companies. That's why it's so easy to inject phony business locations into Google. Google has tried phone verification, email verification, and postcard verification. All have been defeated by spammers, much as they were in Craiglist spamming.

Second, recommendations in "local" are easy to fake, because local businesses don't have very many recommendations each. Link spamming required hundreds or thousands of links; recommendation spamming requires only tens of recommendations. There are programs and services for doing this in bulk.

To check this out, try looking up "Locksmith", "Carpet cleaning", "Plumber", or "Divorce attorney", preceded by the name of a major US city.

Bing is even worse. Bing seems to be totally undefended against bogus business locations. Search Bing for "New York locksmith". All 5 "places" results are from the same business, which doesn't really have all those locations.

Considering that several of US government misconducts reported on those and previous leaks resulted in the killing of hundreds to millons innocent people elsewhere (plus harming, tortured, prived of freedom, etc) letting that pass and killing the messenger will mean that even more innocent people will die. And that should weight more than soldiers, missions and security doing things that probably US citizens would not approve (like i.e. this kind of things)

It started with the first commenter on the TechDirt article who "corrected" Mike Masnick. It turns out that Mike was correct and the poster inadvertently caused all kinds of problems for EasyDNS.

So, in order to punish those that did not support Wikileaks, the attackers effectively took out a DNS, thus denying access to Wikileaks.

There's something on the end of my foot!!! Shoot it!!!

It started with the first commenter on the TechDirt article who "corrected" Mike Masnick. It turns out that Mike was correct and the poster inadvertently caused all kinds of problems for EasyDNS.

Reminds me of an article I saw on Techdirt the other day pointing out that Visa and Mastercard were getting all high and mighty about morality in regards to Wikileaks but happily fielding transactions for sites like the KKK.

Actually, there is the world of haute-couture where designs are not protected by copyright, trademarks, patent, etc... Therefore, they have to invent new things every year.

Not for long:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101201/13215912083/senate-judiciary-committee-moves-forward-fashion-copyright.shtml

I don't want my work to be copied and people to 'take advantage' of me....Someone cure my CD?

Well, ultimately only you can cure you, but I'll suggest some points to ponder.
This idea that people copying your work somehow takes advantage of you is a concept sold to us by middle-men without talents of their own. They successfully marketed the idea that people owed you compensation if they had thoughts inspired by your thoughts. They successfully created a sense of entitlement in the common person; a sense that if someone is able to make use of one of your ideas that they owed you compensation.
. But this isn't true, and isn't possible in practice. Generically, all human knowledge is built on that which came before and it is the ability to build on other works or combine works in new ways that allows for progress. All people share ideas daily with others, and do so without compensation. And this is natural, and how we have evolved for thousands of years. Taken to it's logical conclusion, telling someone to go to the movies is "your idea" and if they make use of it, they owe you compensation. That is absurd, and hence ultimately unworkable. So we try and make artificial boundaries; laws where some actions/ideas are "protected" and other are not. And these laws are then arbitrarily applied to different scenarios by judges. The resulting mess is what we call IP today. And it's not going to get better until it is abandoned.
Ultimately this is a business model question: is monopoly protection the best way to generate ideas? In economics, a monopoly is (universally?) a bad idea. Monopoly leads to monopoly rents, with less incentive to innovate. What monopoly rents are good for is the profits of those that hold the monopoly rights.

So, in answer to your question I would suggest that you worry less about people copying your work, and concentrate on how you can take advantage of the free copying to make you money. In no version of the foreseeable future will it get harder to copy digital or digitizable works - (in fact with 3d printers coming, this will extend to physical goods...) -- so any attempt to make money by restricting copying is a losing battle.

One of the best blogs on this topic. It is a must-read for anyone interested in making money via abundance instead of artificial scarcity.

Bullshit. the MPAA and RIAA, better known as the MafiAA, are a bunch of crooked thieves who defraud the real artists regularly.

Like So. Or perhaps see here. Or this one.

The government doesn't protect you for shit. It ought to be busy busting up the MPAA and RIAA as illegal monopolies, but it does nothing.

Bullshit. the MPAA and RIAA, better known as the MafiAA, are a bunch of crooked thieves who defraud the real artists regularly.

Like So. Or perhaps see here. Or this one.

The government doesn't protect you for shit. It ought to be busy busting up the MPAA and RIAA as illegal monopolies, but it does nothing.

... the one saying that Level 3's claims are complete bullshit and they have nothing to do with net neutrality

Here it is

This is the fundamental problem with "crowdsourcing" reviews. Where the number of reviewers is large compared to the number of items being reviewed, as with movies, it works fine. Where the ratio is small, it doesn't. It's far too easy to game the system. There are automated tools for that.

This problem has become worse since the October 27th change to Google, when Google Places/Maps results were merged into web search. This made "local" results much more prominent. Look at the first screen of Google search results for a local product or service. Most of what you see are Google Places results, maps, or ads. The organic results are so far down they don't matter.

As a result, the "black hat" SEO companies are now aggressively targeting Google's places and maps system. "Convert Offline" is quite open about this, with their article Dominating Google Maps- The Most Effective Spam Ever And What You Can Learn From It" In some ways, Google Places is more vulnerable to attack than organic search. The number of web mentions of a local business tends to be small, so the amount of phony material that has to be generated to make a business look good is also small. Each mention carries a lot of weight.

Google might lose this battle. Craigslist did. Back in 2008, Cory Doctorow wrote about "Spammers discuss breaking Craigslist verification system". It's become much worse since then. Personals were the first to go, and are now over 90% spam. Then Computer Services and Self Employment fell to the spammers. Jobs and Real Estate are under attack. Along the way, Gmail became a spam haven, especially after Jiffy Gmail Email Creator became widely used.

The fundamental design assumption of Google is that important stuff has lots of links to it. That's not a valid assumption in local search.

The issue here is more than about infringement or validity. One of the biggest problems in patent law is lack of predictability in how much a valid, infringed patent is actually worth. How much should Microsoft pay? Here, they're being ordered to pay $98 per copy of Word over a little used feature. Now, admittedly, Microsoft isn't appealing that determination due to some technical snafus (also a big controversy). But it's not like this is a meritorious result.

This article submission is pure FUD, and very misleading.

The issue at hand is Level 3 currently have a peering agreement. They send each other traffic at a 1:1 ratio, more or less. Level 3 acquired Netflix as a customer. The traffic ratio will now change to 5:1 in Level 3's favor. Anytime traffic is that out of balance, a commercial (monetary) peering arrangement is made. This has nothing to do with neutrality, or video, or netflix, or anything else. This is simply Level 3 whipping up the childlike fear of no net neutrality in hopes to gain a better peering agreement. Very Shady on their part, and very silly for anyone who gobbles it up.

http://gigaom.com/2010/11/29/level-3-comcast-in-a-cat-fight-over-online-video/

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101129/17242612047/companies-come-out-woodwork-to-claim-comcast-is-violating-net-neutrality-exaggerations-abound.shtml

using this as my source http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100330/1132478790.shtml for how many filed suits

20000 cases would be the base number of the business plan.
5% = 1000 copies sold.
or about 20K in revenue

not a bad business model.

I wonder if he has an affiliate network ....

Side note:
looking at USCG, their model highly profitable, no wonder they are doing whatever it takes to put this guy out of business

I would agree this seems fishy. However as stated in this Directive ICE has the authority to do some fairly clandestine stuff without any approval, such as registering 'fake' domains to poorly beguile terrorists, miscreants, and other groups found the oracle on high deems unworthy. I suppose this could extend to transferring DNS to a sleazy hosting outfit... however I bet this is a little bit closer to home, sleezy outfits seem to attract one another. I seriously doubt DHS and ICE have anything to do with copyright infringement despite claims to the contrary, especially considering at least of the the 'victims' seems to be up and running.

P.S, The FEDs usually fell entire forests when delivering mail informing you of tax violations, compliance violations, legal violations, and penalties. It's usually quite unambiguous.

Actually, I was understating by a factor of four because I have a crappy memory.

"...over a three year period, the RIAA spent over $64 million on this lawsuit campaign... which brought in about $1.4 million in settlement money. We're talking about getting back about 2% of the money spent."

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100713/17400810200.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101118/10291211924/the-19-senators-who-voted-to-censor-the-internet.shtml

        * Patrick J. Leahy -- Vermont
        * Herb Kohl -- Wisconsin
        * Jeff Sessions -- Alabama
        * Dianne Feinstein -- California
        * Orrin G. Hatch -- Utah
        * Russ Feingold -- Wisconsin
        * Chuck Grassley -- Iowa
        * Arlen Specter -- Pennsylvania
        * Jon Kyl -- Arizona
        * Chuck Schumer -- New York
        * Lindsey Graham -- South Carolina
        * Dick Durbin -- Illinois
        * John Cornyn -- Texas
        * Benjamin L. Cardin -- Maryland
        * Tom Coburn -- Oklahoma
        * Sheldon Whitehouse -- Rhode Island
        * Amy Klobuchar -- Minnesota
        * Al Franken -- Minnesota
        * Chris Coons -- Delaware

Funny, right after responding to all these comments I saw this article: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101118/21485811928/200-students-admit-to-cheating-exam-bigger-question-is-if-it-was-really-cheating-studying.shtml

the issue specifically is that the professor did a shit job.