Slashdot Mirror
Lawyer Puts $10k Bounty on Blogger's Identity
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Raymond Niro of Niro Scavone Haller & Niro is fighting back against criticism from the Patent Troll Tracker blog by offering a $10,000 bounty for the identity of the person behind it. He thinks the blogger might work for Microsoft, Intel, or has connections to a 'serial infringer' and that could 'color' what they say."
This reminds me of the time Richard Stallman offered a half eaten french fry and all the change he could find in all the couches of MIT's student commons area for the identity of an Anonymous Coward on Slashdot that called him a "tree hugging bearded hippie."
My work here is dung.
Well we at least know it's not a nigger. Niggers aren't smart enough to write patents, unless it's a new crack/fried chicken recipe.
Yeah, well I'll pay $20,000 to whoever can track this bloodsucking lawyer down and "terminate" his legal practice.
Truth is a defense for libel. So long as the blogger in question has not made any actual false statements, and has couched all opinions as such, rather than as facts--then he should STFU and GBTW.
But then, if he's a patent troll, he's rather defined as "not being able to STFU and do something useful," now, is he?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
So, instead of meth junkies and fake Navy SEALs hunting the target, we'll have Jolt junkies and fake uber hackers?
CowboyNeal. Isn't that the answer to everything around here?
(Attention lawyers: I'm _kidding_! Put the subpoena down!)
I'm Spartacus!
It's not even been a week since The smartphone was patented , and now we've got people wanting to sue for criticising patent trolls. I thought America was the "land of the free". Oh wait, it is, if you've got millions of dollars in your pocket and a lot of lawyers.
What's saddening is that this stuff never makes it to the mainstream media.
Don't mind the extra X. Alex
Money please.
Swi
p.s. Patent trolls still suck fat nut.
Find some random guy i thailand, cut a deal with him to admit it's him.
Laugh at said lawyer.
Untill he realises it and offers another 10k bounty for your identity.
http://trolltracker.blogspot.com/ *slashdot effect activate*
Thanks! I hadn't heard of this blog before, but now that the $10k bounty has been offered, I know about it. Great publicity!
A position isn't false, or wrong, because its proponent fails to consistently act in accordance with said position.
"Is he an employee with Intel or Microsoft? Does he have a connection with serial infringers? I think that would color what he has to say."
This is douchebag lawyer speak for "companies that spend money researching, developing and selling products." Unlike his clients who think up obvious ideas and rush to file a patent, without ever doing a bit of work. It's scumbags like this that exacerbate the terrible state of our patent system. I for one can't wait until there's real reform and this guy's out of business.
$10,000 please.
I would hope an attorney of Mr. Niro's stature and experience would realize he has no right nor legal recourse against this anonymous blogger. I suspect that had the blogger written anything libelous, Mr. Niro would have already brought suit.
Since Mr. Niro has not brought legal proceedings against this blogger, I can only quote the next best legal authority on this matter:
Ha, Ha!
I posted it. I'll email you an address where you can send the check to.
You know who else thought that a position isn't false, or wrong, because its proponent fails to consistently act in accordance with said position? That's right!
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
African Americans invented the gas mask, the traffic signal, the street mailbox, control unit for heart pacemakers, the carbon filament for Edison's first lightbulb, peanut butter and potato chips. Oh, and to be computer-related, an African-American at IBM led the design teams for the ISA bus and the first 1 GHz CPU.
Where's my 10K?
Possibility #1: A rival patent troll who is exposing (to an outsider) what is actually common practice among patent attornies. In this scenario it's no different from McD's vs. BK, Coke vs. Pepsi, or any political campaign trail. Except that, as the article states Niro's position (and I tend to agree), that unless someone is working for a massive regime change in the government then posting anonymously is nothing more than veil of plausibility deniability for deliberately harassing and defaming someone.
A right to free speech is not necessarily a right to anonymity, and anonymity has very few true legitimate uses. While I staunchly request that the government abide by its limited roles (which it doesn't, nevermind that for a moment), I do mostly believe in "if you're doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide."
Possibility #2: A rival patent attorney who sees Niro's clients as spending resources on litigating current patents rather than retaining his services to accumulate new ones. Same analysis applies.
Possibility #3: A jealous family member of one of Niro or one of Niro's partners who wants to see them go down in flames. Same analysis applies.
In a perfect world the government would play within the rules. In a perfect world, if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. It's quite easy to see that the only real usefulness of anonymity is to criticize an organized power-wielding entity (eg. government). Using anonymity to attack someone is no better than maliciously spreading rumors--even if there is any grain of truth to them.
Ask yourselves: If the blogger would shed their anonymity, what do they stand to gain? They profess to want no popularity for themselves. Wouldn't it be easy enough for them to refuse any gifts or interviews if there were to be any popularity? Of course it would. The "I'm posting anonymously because I'm completely selfless" is a coverup, and one so thin that anyone with any measure of life experience should be able to see through.
Unless Niro's law firm represents a group of known gangsters, killers, and extortionists. I didn't see any mention of homicide or brutal beatings in TFA, so I must assume it's just run of the mill backstabbing.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
http://www.nndb.com/people/391/000032295/
Kevin Smith on Prince
The blogger could write them a letter disclosing his own identity, cash in the $10k himself, and when they publish the letter sue them for infringing upon his copyright on the letter.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Someone else can collect the reward and split it with me.
Make it $20k, and I'll reveal my identity myself.
-Anonymous Blogger
Dammit, they took out the joke link to the case of the counterfeit corn flakes :-(
Can I have the $10,000 now?
If I mirror his blog, can I turn myself in for the $10,000?
According to his wikipedia article and its references that is an urban legend. A blood transfusion actually would have worsened his problems because he had numerous internal injuries.
What did likely kill him was the lack of sleep he had due to his profession (causing him to fall asleep at the wheel). Unfortunately that's still a problem for doctors and interns to this day. I have a friend who is a doctor and he works over 80 hours every week (at Duke, the hospital they would have ideally had gone to if it wasn't 30 miles away from the crash site).
"He thinks the blogger might work for Microsoft, Intel, or has connections to a 'serial infringer' and that could 'color' what they say."
In other words:
"He thinks he might be able to extort a large sum of money out of the blogger's law firm, or at the very least, shut down his blog after being inundated with paperwork from a blood-sucking lawyer who can't stand up to criticism."
The identity of the blogger will lead to accusations and lawsuits, and the legal fees for the blogger will dwarf $10k. And the threat will shut down the criticism, which is the point. The identity of the blogger should be worth a lot more to Niro, say $100k. And then let the blogger win by revealing his identity.
can i have my money now?
Go to questionable startup rate your prof^H^H^H^Hlawyer and pull up their list of IP and Patent lawyers. Send "registered" emails from separate accounts for each name on the list. Then, if he should ever determine the identity, chances are it's on the list, and whoever sent the email will have a good claim on the money. That is provided, of course, said mouthpiece doesn't accuse the snitch of participating in a conspiracy to do exactly that. So the flipside is that if we spam the address with false positives, either the real stoolie will have little hope of making any money off of it, or we get in on the action.
I'm just speaking hypothetically, of course. I'm pretty sure someone else holds a patent on this sort of spam, and the lawyer involved has set an elaborate trap for an infringement suit.
I really don't see the problem, do you? I'm certain it will all be legal, so there's nothing to worry about. No. Really.
I'm Troll Tracker, and so's my wife!
Dammit, someone beat me to it. Oh well!
Those stories and Andy Rooney tonight on "60 Minutes".
"I am Sparticus!"
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
And just call for Niro's head?
Someone hates these cans.
Someone should start a free ideas site where people can post all their trivial ideas when they come up with them. Posting them there, you could agree, they can be used forever for any non commercial use, or for commercial use providing a set % to the original person with the idea. If the world had an easy to post/easy to search repository of ideas, it should make showing prior art easy and make getting these patent troll patents thrown out a piece of cake.
..Neal
Cowboy Neal I love you and your family very much. You've always been there for me and sent tons of customers my way. However, I live in a small house. It's right by the beach and I have everything I want for the most part, but gas for helicopters isn't cheap. I hope we can still call each other on the phone all of the time.
"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."
I'd out myself, and be $10,000 richer.
1. Criticize Mr. Niro with an anonymous blog
3 ????
4. Profit!
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Vigilantism is not only necessary, it is justified. We need to seek out the personal information of this lawyer, his entire firm, and the President and board of directors of the companies that employ them. Publish their names, home addresses, any phone numbers that can be found, their license plate numbers, the names of their family members, the schools their children attend. Everything. This is War, ladies and gentlemen. Of a more dire and extreme sort than any in history. Only by securing true strategic objectives can the enemy be worn down. We must destroy not just his willingness, but his ability to fight. Destroy the ability of those who drive the conflict to live their lives in the most basic way and victory is assured.
We, the greater whole of society, are everywhere. We surround them. We can destroy them. All that is required is the will.
It's me. I'll take a personal check.
I've already uncovered the identity of this mysterious blogger, and caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. Here's the evidence:
The Desperado
Looks like he isn't going down without a fight, though...
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
If the blogger was really suave, he'd reveal his identity to the lawyer and then ask for the 10k. What would they do then? Seems like they'd come out looking like fools.
The blogger should just collect the reward himself...
:P
or barring that, tons of people should claim the reward, so that the signal to noise ratio drives this guy back into his hole
http://blog.slaingod.com
The biggest flaw with the current civil litigation system is that punitive damages have become as much about making the winning plaintiff rich, as its original purpose to chastise the defendant.
The simple solution is a plaintiff is only entitled to actual damages and make all punitive damages awarded to the government. This gets the punitive portion back to it's original purpose punish the loser to protect the public. It also forces the plaintiff to demonstrate they have been materially impacted to get actual damages, so just sitting on a patent doing nothing won't net you any money.
True it won't stop all patent trolls who will try to inflate actual damages, but it will reduce the number because the sky high rewards won't be there.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
These days, a good attorney is a good defense, not the truth. You can have all the truth on your side, but if you cannot afford a good lawyer, proper procedures will not be followed (because you do not know them), and the judge will think you are wrong.
In our times, it is money, not the truth, that shall set you free.
... and so did my wife!
http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?script=mp_brian/
I hate to steal karma, but there's a comment on PTT's blog that was so insightful that I felt it serves as useful food for thought. It was a comment left last thursday by one using the pen name "ipreactionary", all credit goes to him:
[http://trolltracker.blogspot.com/2008/01/j-carl-cooper-and-technology-licensing.html]:
"As a practicing patent attorney with a large corporation, I can see why PTT and other commentators might want not to divulge their name. His anonymity works for me, because the subject of our interest shouldn't be who PTT is, but rather whether the US patent system is functioning effectively and fairly. And PTT's remarks on patent predators aren't any less germane because the sharks are identified by name, and he/she isn't. Forget that it's Niro (or Acacia, or whoever) that PTT comments on, and focus on the fact that they and others are manipulating an imperfect system to the detriment of both the system and its participants.
BTW, there are those who might defend the abuses written of here as nothing more than "arbitrage". I don't agree. Arbitrage smooths out market irregularities caused by assymetrical information or unbalanced supply and demand. It is ethical, and even helpful, where a market is efficient and the market rules are clear and fairly enforced. The swamp of legal, political, technical and economic uncertainties that trolls are rooting around in (and helping muddy up) is more like an armed prospectors' land-grab than what the patent system set out to be: A reward of exclusivity in return for the useful sharing of information. Vigorous enforcement of patents on trivial or useless "inventions", by contingency-fee opportunists, doesn't make them any less trivial and useless. And bundling or accumulating them under shell corporations, the better to leverage them against companies for whom the expected value of a loss at trial (however unlikely) exceeds the price of a settlement, does nothing to better the "market" for IP. It doesn't promote adoption or commercialisation of technology. It doesn't raise capital in support of yet more innovation. It doesn't improve the function of the patent system. It's extortion, pure and simple.
This isn't an abstract, theoretical discussion. It won't be long before Congress, made up of individuals who understand neither the purpose nor the functioning of the US patent system, begins to tinker with it as if it were a tax code with which additional revenues could be extracted and assets could be more equitably redistributed. Trolls cheapen the patent system in a way that makes legislative erosion even more likely. The abuses PTT writes about call the patent monopoly and its proponents into disrepute, and thereby weaken the rights appropriately reserved under other patents to those who really have made a technical contribution to society. As far as I'm concerned, PTT can call the trolls by name. The moneys they've extracted from productive members of society should be enough consolation for them.
Blog on, PTT!
"
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Sounds to me like yet another exercise in Bulverism. Rather than actually try to argue with your opponent on the merits, you fantasize some motive on the part of your opponent, and assert that that motive must be throwing your opponent's reasoning off. You saw the same thing with SCO insisting that Groklaw must be being paid by IBM. Actually, this reasoning is irrelevant. Even if the opposition actually is motivated by the fantasy motive, their reasoning could still be correct. You find out if their reasoning is correct by examining it logically, not by speculating about their psychology.
So when are you leaving?
Oh, right: you're not.
Mr. A said B.
Mr. A is biased, therefore B is false.
Whether or not Mr. A is biased or not does not affect the truth of B. B is either true or false, and the truth of B is completely independent of the alleged bias of Mr. A.
Or to state it bluntly:
If the blogger speaks the truth, then why does it matter who the blogger really is?
I am Spartacus.
Gimme my ten grand, punk!
I hear voices, and they don't like you
...b**ch!
His number is (312) 236-0733. Call him and give him theories. I think everyone should.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
...he isn't accusing him of libel. RTFA. And no, I'm not going to sit here and explain to you why he wants the guy's identity, you are just going to have click on the link and READ THE F****** ARTICLE! Its not particularly long, it shouldn't be that hard to read it. And don't give me any "You must be new here" responses. I know /.ers have a habit of writing before reading, but thats not something to be proud of.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
..if the blogger reveals himself, does he get $10,000?
We could make our own JPEG! But it stands for Jaundiced People against the Extortion of GPH.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't believe in imaginary property either, but I do believe in $10,000. ....I'll take the case!
I believe this is the right time to say, I am Spartacus!
It was me!
Prove me wrong.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
Wait a minute! You sound suspiciously like this Anonymous character that's been harassing people over at the Church of Sci.
Except, of course, that your spelling and grammar are good, and your argument is actually cogent.
And you didn't post anonymously...
However, as IANAL. this is only the opinion of an ordinary citizen.
*sigh* there are days when I feel that we really do need to scrap the system and start over with the basics.
anyway, my point: the real root cause for this story is greed, pure and simple.
> Niro, Jabba, Hutt & Niro
Thank you. Really, thank you.
IANAL, but the US Supreme Court says that the Constitution protects anonymous speech--the case is MacIntyre vs. Ohio State Election Commission. As an attorney, Niro damned well should know that fact. Given that, his conduct is utterly reprehensible.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
Clearly, patents are a legal liability for your company. For other programmers, they enable them to make a career based on the only great idea they're going to have in their lives. So we can't just abandon software patents as others are suggesting.
To a certain extent, your company can defend your coding that might infringe on a frivolous patent based on the non-obviousness (it must not be an obvious invention to an ordinary person in that field) requirement for a patent. If lawyers show up claiming your spontaneously coding infringes on their client's patent, you can use a black-box reverse-engineering demonstration by contract coders to show that the original patent fails the non-obviousness requirement. But what if your code was an inspired bit of cleverness that was shared by someone else who decided to patent it? Well, that's the threat that makes me agree with you that the current software patent system is woefully inadequate because it punishes innovation.
Good luck with your start-up!
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
He iz me. Please make the check payable to my loverly wife. While you (mr lawyer) spend the next 5 years or so trying to prove Iz did something or not, or whatever your panties are up about, the wife will take a spa day or three and I'll sip sticky sweet liquor by the pool. No, really. Arrest me already. No, I didn't RTFS, Iz have no idea what this is all about - just want the bounty.
I am Spartacus
I am Spartacus
and so on.....
No wait, wait...it's me, it's me...now where can I go to get the reward???
and so is my wife.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
This time, I'll keep it polite...
...my dog.
And now everyone on the Internet knows it.
I go by the passport method. If the person holds a passport in question for the region, or their parents hold passports from that region and they could easily naturalize themselves to that region, then they can call themselves that prefix.
To this day some companies and schools use this stupid heritage question, instead of actually asking if your skin produces a little more melanin, or a different form of melanin, then the majority of the attendants/employees. Even then, I still do not understand why we give hiring preferences towards individuals based on skin tone. I mean I could understand if I were to hire an individual for long hours in an intense UV environment, then I would probably choose someone with more dark melanin, as there would be a lower chance of that individual developing skin legions. Thats about it, now I think about it. Is there any other reason to chose someone over another based on skin colour I cannot think of?
I mean America is a melting pot. Eventually we will all melt together.
I think the questions should be based entirely on income. Giving the poor a greater chance to get started. More chances to those starting out.
The second someone says "race", I cringe. There is no race. Everyone is about as different to the person next to them, regardless on where their family came from. We are all human. To segment the population is to say there is something different with them.
Personally? If I have five applicants for a research position, or filing, or anything that does not require someone smarmy to manipulate others, and one has asperger syndrome, he/she gets the job. Hard worker, obsessed about completing the job, doesn't care about money more then the work. And less likely to have personnel conflict impeding the work. High tendency to be very loyal. Hates change. They are inherently the perfect employee. I personally think all people with AS are superior to all others in every regard. I don't care about the colour of their skin, just the brain in their head.
It is common knowledge that both the host of the website and the e-mail address of the Troll Tracker have low-wage employees, performing routine office work. It is also common knowledge that they are most likely to have access to the registrant's identity, but that making that identity available to this patent troll is illegal. The bounty, therefore, constitutes enticement to an illegal action. IANAL, and I think I could convince a judge that the bounty is illegal. Who is the DA in that jurisdiction and why isn't he upholding the rights of citizens to our privacy, and to be free of undue search and seizure by corrupt lawyers? Fire him.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
well 10k got me to thinking and I did a little home detective research. I've got a pretty solid idea of who it is...anyone think Niro would ever pony up?