It would seem rather obvious that a high turnover rate would be expected with this kind of work. As people continue to be exposed to this kind of material, one would imagine that 1) most people would begin to suffer mental and psychological trauma, and 2) a subset of people would actually enjoy it. The salary is perhaps less of an issue than the costs associated with the mental health care costs that those in the first group are likely to incur - or as in this case, the impact of self-mediciation spilling into the workplace. Given these aspects, it's also perhaps not surprising that they are all contractors, and can be routinely swapped out.
It's their own fault for artificially inflating prices based on the route rather than the costs incurred. Travelling from Munich to Brussels for example often costs as much as an overseas flight, while the same route with a layover in Brussels and a termination in Amsterdam costs 1/4 the price. If they wish to gouge people based on what they think someone is willing to pay, it is no surprise that people find workarounds.
They have already tried tactics like refusing to let you board your return flight if you didn't complete all the legs on the outbound, which is now also being challenged in court.
The really worrying thing is that they initially attempted to defend the partnership and it took 2 whole months and excessive public ridicule for any internal decision makers to realize that a partnership with a counterfeit brand might not be a great idea.
Citation needed. Huawei spends a lot on its own R&D and files more patents than many other telecommunication companies, in many different IP jurisdictions. While it is true that they started out this way, the rhetoric fails to apply when there simply isn't anyone left to copy from.
The value of the patent is only a small factor in the overall price of managing an IP portfolio. For each of these you will still need to pay recurring maintenance fees, which are priced at the size of the filing entity, rather than the size of the current owner (the economics would be quite different if the patent trolls could get away with paying the heavily discounted micro entity fees). Given that most patent trolls leverage IP that they don't need to pay a premium on in the first place, most of these are already past the 7.5 year window ($3600 per patent) and will incur high costs at the 11.5 year one ($7400). So even if you were to acquire these at $2 for the lot, you would still end up owing close to $500k in maintenance fees in a very short period of time, which you would need some way to cover (e.g. through licensing fees) for the business model to work - not to mention the cash you would need for protracted legal fees working up to a license agreement.
Just in case you weren't caught out in the first data breach, you now have the opportunity of providing personal data through the enquiry form for a subsequent breach.
Following up on the links from the article, it's clear that the professor in charge only went out and informed those who accepted the pull requests more than 10 months after the fact of the situation, under the guise of "full disclosure" (and these are of course for links he has only linked directly, we have no information about the failed pull requests). While one of the areas they wished to focus on was inherent discrimination against bots, he appears to have missed the point that automation, while able to provide simple fixes to obvious problems (predominately in error handling flows), they have a terrible track record of understanding nuance or interaction subtleties during run-time. Coccinelle went through a lot of this with the Linux Kernel as well and is something that ultimately received a great deal of acceptance as it matured - although in this case, patches were generated automatically and submitted by humans. I wonder then what the objective of this research is, to show that software developers are sceptical of contributions from automated tools that follow semantic rules more than logical reasoning, or that by hiding behind a fake identity representative of a demographic that is more likely to submit trivial changes you are able to hoodwink the developers into accepting your submissions? Both get an ethics fail, and it's not clear that there's anything even novel to show for it.
Microsoft also joined the LOT Network prior to the OIN, which also provides a non-assertion mechanism for transferred IP, in general. The SFC response in either of these cases is disappointing, to say the least. While the points they raise are valid, I would expect a more collaborative approach in the case this does indeed mark a change in Microsoft policy, and to build on that at a later stage to try and address the points raised. Many of the top contributing organisations to Linux (and the kernel, especially) today have a long history of aggression against open source - while others have been open source friendly, and ultimately became hostile - even years before the SFC existed.
More garbage forced on end-users with no way to disable - it's almost as if they failed to learn anything from Buzz. Looking forward to the impending death of Hangouts in whatever rebadged form it takes next. Google should really just stick to the basics - and I say this as a long-time Google Apps for Your Domain customer, where it is at least possible to shut most of these semi-aborted features off.
While it's entertaining to see a lot of half-baked anti-EU rhetoric being posted in response to yesterday's completely unrelated vote, it's also worth pointing out that the opposition parties are, for the most part, the same parties that also objected to the Convention on Cluster Munitions - making their current position on autonomous weapon systems rather unsurprising.
It's fascinating to see the vast majority of people siding with Verizon and blaming the Fire Department for poor planning. I would imagine a similar level of outrage would be directed at the fire department if it were found to be using public money on overpriced data plans that were sized for projected worst-case data consumption rather than actual month-on-month consumption - together with accusations that all the firefighters are doing is streaming Netflix, as people can't imagine any other legitimate need for the amount of data consumed. In a normal functioning society, I would expect the fire department to pay a competitive rate that reflects their standard consumption patterns in line with reasonable public expenditure, with the caveat that in the case this is exceeded for a legitimate public safety purpose (e.g. an emergency response), the amount overshot would be subject to its own costing mechanism and invoiced after the fact, rather than allowing a lapse in service to put lives at risk.
While I appreciate that Verizon does have these types of accounts available for emergency responders and public service providers, I find the attitude that it's ok to gouge them on pricing simply to toggle a throttle vs. no-throttle flag on their account absurd. On the other hand, I can't say I really understand the fire department's net neutrality position, either.
To be fair, the exact rationale for why Google is doing this has not been provided. While there is rampant speculation in the comments here, there is nothing that concretely indicates one way or another why this collection was still taking place. If it is for the e911 case as some have suggested, there are exceptions for law enforcement and emergency services built into the GDPR as well that bypass the need for the consent of the data subject - specifically Article 6(1)(c) and (d). Some member states also have opt-in/opt-out mechanisms for consent at the constitutional level that takes precedence over EU Regulation, but this is a long way off from being explored or tested in court.
Because obviously there's no point in discouraging bad behaviour by a large company unless you receive a large personal settlement, or what exactly is the argument here? I've been involved in multiple class action suits, including the IBM Deathstar debacle, and couldn't care less about the token amount of money that came out at the end, or what the involved lawyers walked away with - IBM refused to take responsibility for its own actions, and the class action was more than justified. Google doesn't exactly appear to be behaving any better, even if you don't personally value privacy. A slap on the wrist may not be much of a long-term deterrent, but it does have the benefit of shaping public opinion and setting a precedent - which has far more lasting impact than whatever trivial compensation emerges.
I'm absolutely shocked that in a large bureaucratic organisation senior management knew about and were complicit in what was going on, rather than the far more believable narrative that a single lowly engineer somehow conceived of the scheme entirely on their own and was able to secretly introduce changes (in collusion with other industry partners) into a diverse range of product lines in mass production without oversight.
To be honest, I never even considered that people accepting jobs and not showing up would be an issue - (while I speak mostly from the perspective of the German labour law, I believe this is also the case for most other European countries) both parties have an obligation once the employment contract is signed, with the employer being in their right to seek damages for every day that you do not show up and do your job, as agreed. The flip side of this is that it's also quite difficult for the employer to refuse leave requests by the employee, with a far wider range of allowable absences than what would be tolerated on the US side. I am certainly guilty of having interviewed at companies that were competitors at the same time and playing them against each other to up the offer, but I would never have signed something and then try to weasel out of it when something better comes along. On the other hand, I have also seen people take jobs they didn't necessarily want while continuing to look for better ones, and then simply quit their other job during their probation period (typically a 6 month period in which either side is able to terminate the relationship without cause). Once someone has to begin paying damages for every day they don't show up for work (or obtains sufficient awareness of this potentiality), I would imagine people would be a bit more careful about when and what they sign, and the problem would gradually correct itself.
This usually isn't that nefarious - it's more often than not that the job description was written by someone without much understanding of the law, something that happens quite frequently when you have e.g. technical hiring managers that post job descriptions without first running it past their legal or HR department, or someone who has just moved to a new country and is still getting caught up on the legal differences. Another favourite of mine is when a "native" English speaker is required, in place of a fluent one. That being said, I wouldn't want to work for a company as sloppy or demonstrably incompetent as this either. The kind of company culture that results in people making end runs around entire departments to communicate externally is also not one I would choose to be a part of.
Really? The people caught out in the Ashley Madison breach may disagree with this. Anything that makes the individual identifiable carries with it certain risks, and to this extent must be protected.
The key part of the fine provision (Article 83) is that there is an opportunity to fine €20 million (reduced from €100 million in earlier drafts) or 4% of global annual turnover (whichever is higher), for Tier 2 violations (e.g. violations of data subject rights), while this is halved for Tier 1 violations (breach of data controller/processor obligations). Given that the organisation was hacked and data leaked, they are perhaps at most guilty of negligence in their obligations as data controllers, which would imply a Tier 1-style fine. Similarly, provided they took adequate provisions to meet their obligations as data controllers, it's difficult to imagine that the higher end of the fine would be sought, either (as opposed to a more willful violation, as per Equifax). The fine would still be likely to be higher than the $700k outlined, but would never approach anything near the fantastical $420 million suggested.
Slashdot Mirror
The last thing you'd want from an ethical AI is tolerance of a diversity of viewpoints that aren't yours, clearly.
It would seem rather obvious that a high turnover rate would be expected with this kind of work. As people continue to be exposed to this kind of material, one would imagine that 1) most people would begin to suffer mental and psychological trauma, and 2) a subset of people would actually enjoy it. The salary is perhaps less of an issue than the costs associated with the mental health care costs that those in the first group are likely to incur - or as in this case, the impact of self-mediciation spilling into the workplace. Given these aspects, it's also perhaps not surprising that they are all contractors, and can be routinely swapped out.
Now companies wishing to hamstring their competitors can resort to paying people to troll monetized videos instead of leaving fake reviews.
It's their own fault for artificially inflating prices based on the route rather than the costs incurred. Travelling from Munich to Brussels for example often costs as much as an overseas flight, while the same route with a layover in Brussels and a termination in Amsterdam costs 1/4 the price. If they wish to gouge people based on what they think someone is willing to pay, it is no surprise that people find workarounds.
They have already tried tactics like refusing to let you board your return flight if you didn't complete all the legs on the outbound, which is now also being challenged in court.
The really worrying thing is that they initially attempted to defend the partnership and it took 2 whole months and excessive public ridicule for any internal decision makers to realize that a partnership with a counterfeit brand might not be a great idea.
Citation needed. Huawei spends a lot on its own R&D and files more patents than many other telecommunication companies, in many different IP jurisdictions. While it is true that they started out this way, the rhetoric fails to apply when there simply isn't anyone left to copy from.
If these countries wanted to avoid meddling by foreign powers, they might start with throwing out the US military bases.
The value of the patent is only a small factor in the overall price of managing an IP portfolio. For each of these you will still need to pay recurring maintenance fees, which are priced at the size of the filing entity, rather than the size of the current owner (the economics would be quite different if the patent trolls could get away with paying the heavily discounted micro entity fees). Given that most patent trolls leverage IP that they don't need to pay a premium on in the first place, most of these are already past the 7.5 year window ($3600 per patent) and will incur high costs at the 11.5 year one ($7400). So even if you were to acquire these at $2 for the lot, you would still end up owing close to $500k in maintenance fees in a very short period of time, which you would need some way to cover (e.g. through licensing fees) for the business model to work - not to mention the cash you would need for protracted legal fees working up to a license agreement.
Just in case you weren't caught out in the first data breach, you now have the opportunity of providing personal data through the enquiry form for a subsequent breach.
Following up on the links from the article, it's clear that the professor in charge only went out and informed those who accepted the pull requests more than 10 months after the fact of the situation, under the guise of "full disclosure" (and these are of course for links he has only linked directly, we have no information about the failed pull requests). While one of the areas they wished to focus on was inherent discrimination against bots, he appears to have missed the point that automation, while able to provide simple fixes to obvious problems (predominately in error handling flows), they have a terrible track record of understanding nuance or interaction subtleties during run-time. Coccinelle went through a lot of this with the Linux Kernel as well and is something that ultimately received a great deal of acceptance as it matured - although in this case, patches were generated automatically and submitted by humans. I wonder then what the objective of this research is, to show that software developers are sceptical of contributions from automated tools that follow semantic rules more than logical reasoning, or that by hiding behind a fake identity representative of a demographic that is more likely to submit trivial changes you are able to hoodwink the developers into accepting your submissions? Both get an ethics fail, and it's not clear that there's anything even novel to show for it.
Microsoft also joined the LOT Network prior to the OIN, which also provides a non-assertion mechanism for transferred IP, in general. The SFC response in either of these cases is disappointing, to say the least. While the points they raise are valid, I would expect a more collaborative approach in the case this does indeed mark a change in Microsoft policy, and to build on that at a later stage to try and address the points raised. Many of the top contributing organisations to Linux (and the kernel, especially) today have a long history of aggression against open source - while others have been open source friendly, and ultimately became hostile - even years before the SFC existed.
More garbage forced on end-users with no way to disable - it's almost as if they failed to learn anything from Buzz. Looking forward to the impending death of Hangouts in whatever rebadged form it takes next. Google should really just stick to the basics - and I say this as a long-time Google Apps for Your Domain customer, where it is at least possible to shut most of these semi-aborted features off.
Must be nice to have so much free time that these are the things one worries about. Absolutely mind-boggling.
While it's entertaining to see a lot of half-baked anti-EU rhetoric being posted in response to yesterday's completely unrelated vote, it's also worth pointing out that the opposition parties are, for the most part, the same parties that also objected to the Convention on Cluster Munitions - making their current position on autonomous weapon systems rather unsurprising.
Yes, it's almost like the EU is some kind of institution comprised of other countries that it sets laws and policies for.
It's fascinating to see the vast majority of people siding with Verizon and blaming the Fire Department for poor planning. I would imagine a similar level of outrage would be directed at the fire department if it were found to be using public money on overpriced data plans that were sized for projected worst-case data consumption rather than actual month-on-month consumption - together with accusations that all the firefighters are doing is streaming Netflix, as people can't imagine any other legitimate need for the amount of data consumed. In a normal functioning society, I would expect the fire department to pay a competitive rate that reflects their standard consumption patterns in line with reasonable public expenditure, with the caveat that in the case this is exceeded for a legitimate public safety purpose (e.g. an emergency response), the amount overshot would be subject to its own costing mechanism and invoiced after the fact, rather than allowing a lapse in service to put lives at risk.
While I appreciate that Verizon does have these types of accounts available for emergency responders and public service providers, I find the attitude that it's ok to gouge them on pricing simply to toggle a throttle vs. no-throttle flag on their account absurd. On the other hand, I can't say I really understand the fire department's net neutrality position, either.
To be fair, the exact rationale for why Google is doing this has not been provided. While there is rampant speculation in the comments here, there is nothing that concretely indicates one way or another why this collection was still taking place. If it is for the e911 case as some have suggested, there are exceptions for law enforcement and emergency services built into the GDPR as well that bypass the need for the consent of the data subject - specifically Article 6(1)(c) and (d). Some member states also have opt-in/opt-out mechanisms for consent at the constitutional level that takes precedence over EU Regulation, but this is a long way off from being explored or tested in court.
Because obviously there's no point in discouraging bad behaviour by a large company unless you receive a large personal settlement, or what exactly is the argument here? I've been involved in multiple class action suits, including the IBM Deathstar debacle, and couldn't care less about the token amount of money that came out at the end, or what the involved lawyers walked away with - IBM refused to take responsibility for its own actions, and the class action was more than justified. Google doesn't exactly appear to be behaving any better, even if you don't personally value privacy. A slap on the wrist may not be much of a long-term deterrent, but it does have the benefit of shaping public opinion and setting a precedent - which has far more lasting impact than whatever trivial compensation emerges.
I'm absolutely shocked that in a large bureaucratic organisation senior management knew about and were complicit in what was going on, rather than the far more believable narrative that a single lowly engineer somehow conceived of the scheme entirely on their own and was able to secretly introduce changes (in collusion with other industry partners) into a diverse range of product lines in mass production without oversight.
To be honest, I never even considered that people accepting jobs and not showing up would be an issue - (while I speak mostly from the perspective of the German labour law, I believe this is also the case for most other European countries) both parties have an obligation once the employment contract is signed, with the employer being in their right to seek damages for every day that you do not show up and do your job, as agreed. The flip side of this is that it's also quite difficult for the employer to refuse leave requests by the employee, with a far wider range of allowable absences than what would be tolerated on the US side. I am certainly guilty of having interviewed at companies that were competitors at the same time and playing them against each other to up the offer, but I would never have signed something and then try to weasel out of it when something better comes along. On the other hand, I have also seen people take jobs they didn't necessarily want while continuing to look for better ones, and then simply quit their other job during their probation period (typically a 6 month period in which either side is able to terminate the relationship without cause). Once someone has to begin paying damages for every day they don't show up for work (or obtains sufficient awareness of this potentiality), I would imagine people would be a bit more careful about when and what they sign, and the problem would gradually correct itself.
Mike Rowe would beg to differ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This usually isn't that nefarious - it's more often than not that the job description was written by someone without much understanding of the law, something that happens quite frequently when you have e.g. technical hiring managers that post job descriptions without first running it past their legal or HR department, or someone who has just moved to a new country and is still getting caught up on the legal differences. Another favourite of mine is when a "native" English speaker is required, in place of a fluent one. That being said, I wouldn't want to work for a company as sloppy or demonstrably incompetent as this either. The kind of company culture that results in people making end runs around entire departments to communicate externally is also not one I would choose to be a part of.
Really? The people caught out in the Ashley Madison breach may disagree with this. Anything that makes the individual identifiable carries with it certain risks, and to this extent must be protected.
Try again: https://www.theverge.com/2017/...
The key part of the fine provision (Article 83) is that there is an opportunity to fine €20 million (reduced from €100 million in earlier drafts) or 4% of global annual turnover (whichever is higher), for Tier 2 violations (e.g. violations of data subject rights), while this is halved for Tier 1 violations (breach of data controller/processor obligations). Given that the organisation was hacked and data leaked, they are perhaps at most guilty of negligence in their obligations as data controllers, which would imply a Tier 1-style fine. Similarly, provided they took adequate provisions to meet their obligations as data controllers, it's difficult to imagine that the higher end of the fine would be sought, either (as opposed to a more willful violation, as per Equifax). The fine would still be likely to be higher than the $700k outlined, but would never approach anything near the fantastical $420 million suggested.