This would be basically Google transforming itself into a personal propaganda tool that designed to affirm the personal believes of each user, therefore, amplifying them; and destroying the market place of ideas.....
That's as anti-free-speech as it gets on Google's part.
Such a thing should be deplored, if they start filtering in that manner, it would mean that Google has become evil.
The advantage of Dropbox is that is the only service to sync files on the cloud that is multi-platform, the competition is Windows, or MacOSX.
That advantage exists, because the competition did not have resources to devote to multiplatform development.
Perhaps they were devoting those resources towards developing the cryptosystem that would meet the standards
advertised by Dropbox, instead?
No they do not. As of now, they have no rights whatsoever to the mark. The point of my original post. They may have rights relatively soon, but not yet--not until they use it in commerce.
Ok... what do you think will happen if you or I start using the name "Seal Team 6" in commerce today or on Monday;
for a line of T-shirts, and maybe a 30 second Youtube video clip and 30-second for pay blurb, before Disney can?
Assuming Disney hasn't used it in commerce yet. Will they withdraw their application?
Will the PTO refuse such a large corporation with such highly paid lobbiests, and probably no qualms against pushing a little money under the table?
For some reason, I doubt that.
Both. It's a "trademark" now that they have applied. Filing the application secures their rights to the mark, even though they haven't technically been awarded the trademark registration.
That is the status is now "Trademark of Disney" but not (yet) "Registered trademark of Disney"
Short of another entity, paying a large administrative fee with the trademark office, and filing opposition paperwork,
Disney has as good as gotten the mark.
Getting a mark requires exclusive use in commerce, but Disney is all set there -- as the mark was not used
in commerce prior to their application, noone will be in a position to file opposition papers against them.
And if someone else besides Disney starts trying to use the mark in commerce after the application (but before Disney is awarded the final registration papers), it's possible they will be sued over that;
so Disney does now have "exclusive right" to the mark.
Assuming it is not found that the mark is invalid/not claimable, for example, if it is too generic (which doesn't seem to be the case 'Seal Team 6' is a unique name of a specific thing, rather than a generic name).
Can I just apply for a trademark on every combination of every possible word and get it over with? It is rediculous people are allowed to do this.
It's in theory possible, but two things: for it to be effective, you must have exclusive use of the mark in commerce, and you must defend it.
Also, there are filing fees, app fees, and ultimately trademark fees for each trademark you want, so filing for every combination could get quite expensive.
The changing usage rate between the two OS's is controlled for. FTFA: It's infection rate per 1000 machines.
Not really. Fewer machines = malware authors are targetting the riper fruit / newest trend.
Perhaps they reached saturation of XP machines infected -- the low hanging fruit gotten,
but Windows 7 machines are often new systems not yet infected - ready for the taking,
nowhere near malware saturation yet.
Per thousand machines is just indicative of how the attackers strategy shifts in
response to widespread adoption of a new OS.
Yeah, because when a single web site isn't working the first thing I do is call my ISP and ask them to go fix it.
You're posting on slashdot self-selection.
Remember...
If 1% out of 10 million customers decide to call in, that's
100,000 people.
Look, there are always some crazies that call in when $random_website is down.
You'd probably be surprised at the massive volume of calls an ISP gets from farmville players if Facebook has a 60 minute outage.
Suffice to say, the resounding answer is yes, people do that crap.
And if the ISP isn't very tolerant of them, nice, helpful, and telling them they're doing
something, they get irate, and maybe switch ISPs.
Not only will they call in, but they'll demand an immediate fix.
Even after the CSR respectfully informs them the circumstances and the ISP isn't responsible
for the outage; apparently to joe consumer every ISP has a copy of every site on the internet,
every ISP runs their copy of all websites, and if any site is broke, their ISP is to blame,
and they are deserving a month's refund for their 2 hours of not being able to access $site_that_was_down.
Also, good luck getting the customer to pay reasonable compensation for utilizing support's time
for an issue the ISP's not liable for; "cost of doing business",.
A similar bothersome artifact is website hosting customers calling the
hosting service provider, claiming it's an emergency, to complain that their 'site is broken',
or e-mail isn't working, and they want an immediate fix + refund + repair instructions;
when the issue is their ISP connection is broken, or their ISP just started blocking port 25.
In any case, they lack the skills, apparently to investigate/research what's happening,
and immediately jump to accusatory blame of random providers, hoping yelling, cursing,
and strong words, to whomever they don't have to spend an hour on hold to reach,
will just make everything fix itself.
Bonus points for cl00bies that call the emergency number of hosting providers at 3am on $1/month
e-mail supported bulk hosting accounts to complain about ISP or user-inflicted issues such as broken software,
issues that result from virus on computer, corrupt preference files, blue screen when opening mail client/booting computer, or plain inoperative mail client software, and demand the hosting provider treat as emergency and walk them through fixing their personal issue (without the user paying extra for 'computer repair' / 'personal assistance'
not covered by $1/month bulk e-mail or web hosting agreement).
But yes, a huge portion of the car accidents do happen at intersections, and that's a good reason not to go there until most of the other areas have been dealt with, even if imperfectly.
So they could make a self-driving car that requires human intervention at intersections.
E.g. At X feet, the human gets a warning "approaching intersection"
If they don't push the button to take manual control, their vehicle will slow down
bring itself to a safe stop, before the intersection, and await human intervention,
until the vehicle is back on a highway/place where there are no nearby i-sections.
I would not feel safe with self driving cars on the road...yet.
Google's still a private company, and their word alone that these cars are safe does not a satisfied citizen make. Let these cars be thoroughly tested by both a government entity and a private third party before they be allowed on the road.
I'm in favor of testing, but not the government forcing it.
What the government should do is allow it, but add a stipulation, for now:
(1) There must be an awake licensed driver in the vehicle at all times, while it is operating,
prepared to take over operation of the vehicle in an emergency, or if the atomaton should fail.
(2) That driver must be in the front left position of the car. They must have full manual controls available
to override the automaton at will.
(3) That driver must be fully capable of taking control of the vehicle at all times -- they must be awake, not under the adverse influence of alcohol, any chemical or controlled substance, carefully observing the road from front, rear, and instrument panels showing detailed data about operation of the vehicle.
(4) If the backup driver should fail to be prepared; e.g. Drunk. They receive the typical citation that drivers of normal cars would receive.
(5) If the vehicle should be involved in an accident, and that vehicle was the cause of the accident,
that driver will be legally responsible.
First of all.. the liability is tremendous; Google must be extremely confident in the safety of their vehicles compared to human drivers, to even consider this.
Second.... normal vehicles themselves aren't thoroughly tested by the government.
Manufacturers and independent third parties perform their own testing and report on the crash safety of vehicles.
Leaving ordinary people unable to afford to flush their toilets, and rich people with lush, green lawns.
Only if the implementation isn't that smart.
They can scale cost by individual usage.
In other words... your price per gallon of water increases with the number gallons YOUR property uses from the water service.
Should be: $0.02/gallon for the first 20 gallons used a day.
$0.03/gallon for the next 15 gallons used that day.
$0.04/gallon for the next 10 gallons used that day
$0.08/gallon + $0.01*(TotalGallons - 45)^2 + $0.02*(MAX(0,TotalGallons - 60))^2 + $0.04*(MAX(0,TotalGallons-80)) for the next 100 gallons used that day.
Example bills 1 month (30 days):
20 gallons used every day: $0.02 * 20 * 30 = $12/month.
35 gallons used every day: $0.02 * 20 * 30 + $0.03 * 15 * 30 = $25.50/month
Last I checked you don't get to 'opt-out' of the emergency broadcast system on your TV/Radio on YOUR television.
Yes, you do. It's called watch cable-only networks instead of broadcast TV, or pop a DVD in.
You don't get out to opt-out interruptions of local Radio/TV programming, because the broadcaster
has to stop using their community leased spectrum for entertainment purposes and broadcast the message
instead, but you can change the channel at will.
At no point is the government in control of your TV; they are just replacing publicly
transmitted entertainment messages with publicly transmitted emergency messages,
which is quite acceptable.
If your TV was being used for something more important like a private video conference,
a crucial presentation in front of a multi-million$$ client, government interruption there
for a presidential message would be equally unacceptable.
Believe it or not... you do have a right to be left alone, if you want to be left alone.
You can always watch the presidential message later.
If you were in immediate danger, the fire department would have cut the power, and be evacuating
the building anyways.
Also, your conversations on plain old telephone lines have never in the past been
interrupted to play some emergency message.
Living near a moderate-speed line (200km/h conventional trains go past) almost all of the noise seems to be wind, not wheels, but ICVWBW.
What they ought to do is make hardened airtight train cars, and propel them with mag-lift through tunnels,
but remove air from the tunnels -- make them a near-vacuum, so there would be no wind or friction.
The messages need to be digitally signed or we are going to get spam claiming to be from the president.
You think digital signing of messages will stop that?
I already sometimes get spam "claiming" to be from the president or from/sanctioned by some other gov't official, and they didn't even have to implement this chip system for me to get that spam.
Emergency warnings seem to be one of the few areas that the government don't have a history of screwing up, so I'll grudgingly give them the benefit of the doubt here.
I disagree. The government has failed to give warnings when they should, or as soon as they should.
A fear pervades bureaucrat offices of 'causing a panic'.
Oftentimes the warnings are too little too late.
For example... after Usama's death... it took, what, a week before a presidential alert was issued?
Take Katrina... there was no "emergency alert" activation, until mandatory evacuation orders were already being issued.
When they could have alerted people much sooner without any fear of a false positive.
Touch screens that "bulge" out at arbitrary places where 'haptic buttons' are placed.
That are pressure sensitive, and that you can feel going down when you push them.
Friction alone is not much feedback.
We also need to know when we've pushed a button.
Besides the shoot itself (1 hour), he also has to set up and take down equipment
20 minutes. Approximately 1 hours setup+travel time + 1 hour shoot time = 2 hours
developing the pictures (not using a computer that develops an entire roll at the same exposure setting like Walgreens, I assume)
Digital imaging. Printing and Sorting, DVD making, Outsourced to company that deals in bulk; or ran-off in-house color laser printer, if sufficient volume.
Possible opportunity to upsell to customer on type of paper and printing process.
Automatic exposure controls; except for the "20 pro edited ones"; for those 2 minutes per picture -- again, chance to upsell on more exhaustive touch-up work.
reviewing the pictures with the customer, and taking the orders for reprints and having them made...
Reprints not included in the £29.
Reprints = additional welcome business; well worth the hour spent to review prints with customer.
4 hours does not make a full day's work, when most professionals work 10 hours or more a day
it's basically an interest-free loan to groupon for two years which is still a pretty good deal for them.
Well.. that wouldn't be a very novel business model.
The business model of getting interest-free loans from your customer has been honed down to an art;
it's called selling them insurance.
This is in fact Groupon's business model. You pay for nothing, they keep the money.
Wait... if you never submit the voucher, doesn't that mean it becomes unclaimed property after the
consumer has not communicated in writing with Groupon for 2 years, and subject to the buyer's state's escheatment laws, Groupon required by law to return the abandoned property (cash) after the state mandated period?
Basically, the same law that requires retailers to cancel unused gift cards/gift certificates and hand over the money backing them to the state after their dormant period.
Just because it's electronic goods doesn't make it exempt; There was even a thing about
a state looking at going after domain name registrars, for not handing over "abandoned" domain names.
Groupon typically recommends that businesses set some sort of a limit on the number of coupons available
The screenshot in the article says "Sold Out" "301 bought"
Now is 300 1-hour photo shoots really a year's work?
Even if 4 hours of work are required for a 1-hour photo shoot
that's 1200 / 8 = 150 8-hour days.
Last I checked there were 261 work days in a year..
So I would put this deal at approximately 60% of a year.
Now all this might be free, but the outcome may not be that bad.
The question is if the £29 deal will be all that the client buys.
If they buy more, then it could be well worth it.
Also, there are bound to be conditions or aspects of the deal, product, or service
offered for that price that are not spelled out in the Groupon offer.
There's bound to be some place for the photographer to insert additional conditions
that would make the deal at least break-even
For example, schedule, delivery time frame, additional fees, such as shipping.
And assuming he used one of a decent length that is not a concern
And assuming you used a Lastpass master password of a decent length,
it's not a concern that someone will be able to brute-force the encryption on the RSA 2048-bit key
to get the private key required to decrypt Lastpass' AES256 encrypted blob.
I'd be shocked if the US authorities could make a software vendor (or FOSS maintainer) modify code under court order.
They don't have to. The feds can hire assembly programmers to patch binaries themselves.
If they want to monitor a subject, they'll get an order that allows them to covertly break in, plant the
modified binary on the target's computer, and leave; taking measures to ensure the subject won't
be aware the FBI had visited their place.
Personally, I store my encrypted files inside a version control system and use that to keep multiple systems in sync. Which solves the "keeping multiple systems up to date" problem, unless it's a system where you can't do version control.
So, if someone compromises your version control system, or one of your computers, they could grab the encrypted file.
And maybe the encrypted GPG secret key file.
Then it's just a matter of brute forcing the GPG passphrase...
Slashdot Mirror
This would be basically Google transforming itself into a personal propaganda tool that designed to affirm the personal believes of each user, therefore, amplifying them; and destroying the market place of ideas.....
That's as anti-free-speech as it gets on Google's part. Such a thing should be deplored, if they start filtering in that manner, it would mean that Google has become evil.
The advantage of Dropbox is that is the only service to sync files on the cloud that is multi-platform, the competition is Windows, or MacOSX.
That advantage exists, because the competition did not have resources to devote to multiplatform development. Perhaps they were devoting those resources towards developing the cryptosystem that would meet the standards advertised by Dropbox, instead?
No they do not. As of now, they have no rights whatsoever to the mark. The point of my original post. They may have rights relatively soon, but not yet--not until they use it in commerce.
Ok... what do you think will happen if you or I start using the name "Seal Team 6" in commerce today or on Monday; for a line of T-shirts, and maybe a 30 second Youtube video clip and 30-second for pay blurb, before Disney can?
Assuming Disney hasn't used it in commerce yet. Will they withdraw their application? Will the PTO refuse such a large corporation with such highly paid lobbiests, and probably no qualms against pushing a little money under the table? For some reason, I doubt that.
Well, which is it?
Both. It's a "trademark" now that they have applied. Filing the application secures their rights to the mark, even though they haven't technically been awarded the trademark registration.
That is the status is now "Trademark of Disney" but not (yet) "Registered trademark of Disney"
Short of another entity, paying a large administrative fee with the trademark office, and filing opposition paperwork, Disney has as good as gotten the mark.
Getting a mark requires exclusive use in commerce, but Disney is all set there -- as the mark was not used in commerce prior to their application, noone will be in a position to file opposition papers against them.
And if someone else besides Disney starts trying to use the mark in commerce after the application (but before Disney is awarded the final registration papers), it's possible they will be sued over that; so Disney does now have "exclusive right" to the mark.
Assuming it is not found that the mark is invalid/not claimable, for example, if it is too generic (which doesn't seem to be the case 'Seal Team 6' is a unique name of a specific thing, rather than a generic name).
Can I just apply for a trademark on every combination of every possible word and get it over with? It is rediculous people are allowed to do this.
It's in theory possible, but two things: for it to be effective, you must have exclusive use of the mark in commerce, and you must defend it. Also, there are filing fees, app fees, and ultimately trademark fees for each trademark you want, so filing for every combination could get quite expensive.
The changing usage rate between the two OS's is controlled for. FTFA: It's infection rate per 1000 machines.
Not really. Fewer machines = malware authors are targetting the riper fruit / newest trend. Perhaps they reached saturation of XP machines infected -- the low hanging fruit gotten, but Windows 7 machines are often new systems not yet infected - ready for the taking, nowhere near malware saturation yet.
Per thousand machines is just indicative of how the attackers strategy shifts in response to widespread adoption of a new OS.
Yeah, because when a single web site isn't working the first thing I do is call my ISP and ask them to go fix it.
You're posting on slashdot self-selection. Remember... If 1% out of 10 million customers decide to call in, that's 100,000 people.
Look, there are always some crazies that call in when $random_website is down. You'd probably be surprised at the massive volume of calls an ISP gets from farmville players if Facebook has a 60 minute outage.
Suffice to say, the resounding answer is yes, people do that crap. And if the ISP isn't very tolerant of them, nice, helpful, and telling them they're doing something, they get irate, and maybe switch ISPs.
Not only will they call in, but they'll demand an immediate fix. Even after the CSR respectfully informs them the circumstances and the ISP isn't responsible for the outage; apparently to joe consumer every ISP has a copy of every site on the internet, every ISP runs their copy of all websites, and if any site is broke, their ISP is to blame, and they are deserving a month's refund for their 2 hours of not being able to access $site_that_was_down.
Also, good luck getting the customer to pay reasonable compensation for utilizing support's time for an issue the ISP's not liable for; "cost of doing business",.
A similar bothersome artifact is website hosting customers calling the hosting service provider, claiming it's an emergency, to complain that their 'site is broken', or e-mail isn't working, and they want an immediate fix + refund + repair instructions; when the issue is their ISP connection is broken, or their ISP just started blocking port 25.
In any case, they lack the skills, apparently to investigate/research what's happening, and immediately jump to accusatory blame of random providers, hoping yelling, cursing, and strong words, to whomever they don't have to spend an hour on hold to reach, will just make everything fix itself.
Bonus points for cl00bies that call the emergency number of hosting providers at 3am on $1/month e-mail supported bulk hosting accounts to complain about ISP or user-inflicted issues such as broken software, issues that result from virus on computer, corrupt preference files, blue screen when opening mail client/booting computer, or plain inoperative mail client software, and demand the hosting provider treat as emergency and walk them through fixing their personal issue (without the user paying extra for 'computer repair' / 'personal assistance' not covered by $1/month bulk e-mail or web hosting agreement).
But yes, a huge portion of the car accidents do happen at intersections, and that's a good reason not to go there until most of the other areas have been dealt with, even if imperfectly.
So they could make a self-driving car that requires human intervention at intersections.
E.g. At X feet, the human gets a warning "approaching intersection"
If they don't push the button to take manual control, their vehicle will slow down bring itself to a safe stop, before the intersection, and await human intervention, until the vehicle is back on a highway/place where there are no nearby i-sections.
I would not feel safe with self driving cars on the road...yet.
Google's still a private company, and their word alone that these cars are safe does not a satisfied citizen make. Let these cars be thoroughly tested by both a government entity and a private third party before they be allowed on the road.
I'm in favor of testing, but not the government forcing it.
What the government should do is allow it, but add a stipulation, for now: (1) There must be an awake licensed driver in the vehicle at all times, while it is operating, prepared to take over operation of the vehicle in an emergency, or if the atomaton should fail.
(2) That driver must be in the front left position of the car. They must have full manual controls available to override the automaton at will.
(3) That driver must be fully capable of taking control of the vehicle at all times -- they must be awake, not under the adverse influence of alcohol, any chemical or controlled substance, carefully observing the road from front, rear, and instrument panels showing detailed data about operation of the vehicle.
(4) If the backup driver should fail to be prepared; e.g. Drunk. They receive the typical citation that drivers of normal cars would receive.
(5) If the vehicle should be involved in an accident, and that vehicle was the cause of the accident, that driver will be legally responsible.
First of all.. the liability is tremendous; Google must be extremely confident in the safety of their vehicles compared to human drivers, to even consider this.
Second.... normal vehicles themselves aren't thoroughly tested by the government. Manufacturers and independent third parties perform their own testing and report on the crash safety of vehicles.
Not if the stories are true.
They don't have to be true to avoid being libel.
They just have to avoid sufficient provable malice or negligence rising to the level of malice for a claim of libel to succeed.
Leaving ordinary people unable to afford to flush their toilets, and rich people with lush, green lawns.
Only if the implementation isn't that smart. They can scale cost by individual usage. In other words... your price per gallon of water increases with the number gallons YOUR property uses from the water service.
Should be: $0.02/gallon for the first 20 gallons used a day.
$0.03/gallon for the next 15 gallons used that day.
$0.04/gallon for the next 10 gallons used that day
$0.08/gallon + $0.01*(TotalGallons - 45)^2 + $0.02*(MAX(0,TotalGallons - 60))^2 + $0.04*(MAX(0,TotalGallons-80)) for the next 100 gallons used that day.
Example bills 1 month (30 days):
20 gallons used every day: $0.02 * 20 * 30 = $12/month.
35 gallons used every day: $0.02 * 20 * 30 + $0.03 * 15 * 30 = $25.50/month
45 gallons used every day: $0.02 * 20 * 30 + $0.03 * 15 * 30 + $0.04 * 10 * 30 = $37.50/month
50 gallons used every day: $37.50 + ( $0.08 * (50-45) * 30 + $0.01*(50 - 45)^2 + $0.02*0 ) = $49.75/month
60 gallons used every day: $37.50 + ( $0.08 * (60-45) * 30 + $0.01*(60 - 45)^2 + $0.02*0 ) = $75.75/month
70 gallons used every day: $37.50 + ( $0.08 * (70-45) * 30 + $0.01*(70 - 45)^2 + $0.02*(70-60)^2 ) = $105.75/month
80 gallons used every day: $141.75/month
90 gallons used every day: $187.75/month
100 gallons used every day: $247.75/month
140 gallons used every day: $627.75/month
180 gallons used every day: $1,231.75/month
220 gallons used every day: $2,059.75/month
240 gallons used every day: $2,557.75/month
260 gallons used every day: $3,111.75/month
300 gallons used every day: $4,387.75/month
400 gallons used every day: $8,557.75/month
Last I checked you don't get to 'opt-out' of the emergency broadcast system on your TV/Radio on YOUR television.
Yes, you do. It's called watch cable-only networks instead of broadcast TV, or pop a DVD in. You don't get out to opt-out interruptions of local Radio/TV programming, because the broadcaster has to stop using their community leased spectrum for entertainment purposes and broadcast the message instead, but you can change the channel at will.
At no point is the government in control of your TV; they are just replacing publicly transmitted entertainment messages with publicly transmitted emergency messages, which is quite acceptable.
If your TV was being used for something more important like a private video conference, a crucial presentation in front of a multi-million$$ client, government interruption there for a presidential message would be equally unacceptable.
Believe it or not... you do have a right to be left alone, if you want to be left alone. You can always watch the presidential message later. If you were in immediate danger, the fire department would have cut the power, and be evacuating the building anyways.
Also, your conversations on plain old telephone lines have never in the past been interrupted to play some emergency message.
Living near a moderate-speed line (200km/h conventional trains go past) almost all of the noise seems to be wind, not wheels, but ICVWBW.
What they ought to do is make hardened airtight train cars, and propel them with mag-lift through tunnels, but remove air from the tunnels -- make them a near-vacuum, so there would be no wind or friction.
People will be able to opt out of receiving all but the presidential alerts."
My device, my rules.
I must be able to opt out ALL special messages I don't want to receive, including presidential alerts
The messages need to be digitally signed or we are going to get spam claiming to be from the president.
You think digital signing of messages will stop that?
I already sometimes get spam "claiming" to be from the president or from/sanctioned by some other gov't official, and they didn't even have to implement this chip system for me to get that spam.
Emergency warnings seem to be one of the few areas that the government don't have a history of screwing up, so I'll grudgingly give them the benefit of the doubt here.
I disagree. The government has failed to give warnings when they should, or as soon as they should.
A fear pervades bureaucrat offices of 'causing a panic'. Oftentimes the warnings are too little too late.
For example... after Usama's death... it took, what, a week before a presidential alert was issued?
Take Katrina... there was no "emergency alert" activation, until mandatory evacuation orders were already being issued. When they could have alerted people much sooner without any fear of a false positive.
Touch screens that "bulge" out at arbitrary places where 'haptic buttons' are placed. That are pressure sensitive, and that you can feel going down when you push them.
Friction alone is not much feedback. We also need to know when we've pushed a button.
Besides the shoot itself (1 hour), he also has to set up and take down equipment
20 minutes. Approximately 1 hours setup+travel time + 1 hour shoot time = 2 hours
developing the pictures (not using a computer that develops an entire roll at the same exposure setting like Walgreens, I assume)
Digital imaging. Printing and Sorting, DVD making, Outsourced to company that deals in bulk; or ran-off in-house color laser printer, if sufficient volume. Possible opportunity to upsell to customer on type of paper and printing process. Automatic exposure controls; except for the "20 pro edited ones"; for those 2 minutes per picture -- again, chance to upsell on more exhaustive touch-up work.
reviewing the pictures with the customer, and taking the orders for reprints and having them made...
Reprints not included in the £29. Reprints = additional welcome business; well worth the hour spent to review prints with customer.
4 hours does not make a full day's work, when most professionals work 10 hours or more a day
it's basically an interest-free loan to groupon for two years which is still a pretty good deal for them.
Well.. that wouldn't be a very novel business model. The business model of getting interest-free loans from your customer has been honed down to an art; it's called selling them insurance.
This is in fact Groupon's business model. You pay for nothing, they keep the money.
Wait... if you never submit the voucher, doesn't that mean it becomes unclaimed property after the consumer has not communicated in writing with Groupon for 2 years, and subject to the buyer's state's escheatment laws, Groupon required by law to return the abandoned property (cash) after the state mandated period?
Basically, the same law that requires retailers to cancel unused gift cards/gift certificates and hand over the money backing them to the state after their dormant period.
Just because it's electronic goods doesn't make it exempt; There was even a thing about a state looking at going after domain name registrars, for not handing over "abandoned" domain names.
Groupon typically recommends that businesses set some sort of a limit on the number of coupons available
The screenshot in the article says "Sold Out" "301 bought"
Now is 300 1-hour photo shoots really a year's work?
Even if 4 hours of work are required for a 1-hour photo shoot that's 1200 / 8 = 150 8-hour days. Last I checked there were 261 work days in a year.. So I would put this deal at approximately 60% of a year.
Now all this might be free, but the outcome may not be that bad. The question is if the £29 deal will be all that the client buys. If they buy more, then it could be well worth it.
Also, there are bound to be conditions or aspects of the deal, product, or service offered for that price that are not spelled out in the Groupon offer. There's bound to be some place for the photographer to insert additional conditions that would make the deal at least break-even For example, schedule, delivery time frame, additional fees, such as shipping.
And assuming he used one of a decent length that is not a concern
And assuming you used a Lastpass master password of a decent length, it's not a concern that someone will be able to brute-force the encryption on the RSA 2048-bit key to get the private key required to decrypt Lastpass' AES256 encrypted blob.
I'd be shocked if the US authorities could make a software vendor (or FOSS maintainer) modify code under court order.
They don't have to. The feds can hire assembly programmers to patch binaries themselves. If they want to monitor a subject, they'll get an order that allows them to covertly break in, plant the modified binary on the target's computer, and leave; taking measures to ensure the subject won't be aware the FBI had visited their place.
Personally, I store my encrypted files inside a version control system and use that to keep multiple systems in sync. Which solves the "keeping multiple systems up to date" problem, unless it's a system where you can't do version control.
So, if someone compromises your version control system, or one of your computers, they could grab the encrypted file. And maybe the encrypted GPG secret key file.
Then it's just a matter of brute forcing the GPG passphrase...
Are you kidding? If Microsoft paid for every bug in Windows, they'd be bankrupt in a week!
They could adopt a policy of paying $100 each to the top 500 people each week by number of confirmed vulnerabilities.