They removed the Adult Services section after negotiations will attorneys general.
Later, Congress passed FOSTA, making web sites criminally liable if prostitutes post an ad. Under that threat of criminal liability, Craigslist took down the personals section, because some escorts had posted ads under Personals.
The story the other day was the Amazon was making cheap switches. Plenty of companies make cheap switches. Several make decent switches. That's not Cisco's market. Cisco sells IOS, and now IOS XR. A panel of ethernet jacks is a commodity that doesn't compete with what Cisco does.
Actually they have a strict definition of what is peanut butter and what isn't. In the store, next to the peanut butter, you'll see cheaper "peanut spread". This is because the nutritional value of peanut butter is well known (high protein along with sugar, which is fine for growing kids), while the nutritional value of the cheaper peanut spread may be very different.
The Connecticut attorney general, joined by attorneys general of 39 other states, was attempting to press charges against Craigslist, and subpoenaed their records. Craigslist "voluntarily" took the section down in exchange for not having to fight charges in 40 states.
I'm sure you know the difference between stupid and ignorant, or uniformed. A stupid person can't learn, an uninformed person hasn't learned yet. A smart person is someone who can learn new things.
can be and are used without copyright permission (in a way that doesn't infringe on their trademark), when they're given a link to the law and to example cases, can learn something new. "Ah that's interesting, they can't be copyrighted, eh? Learn something new everyday", they might say.
A stupid person is one would is incapable of learning. Particularly sad is when one is incapable by choice, because they refuse to learn, thinking that they can "look smart" by denying the facts presented to them. Of course, they don't actually look smart, they demonstrate the worst kind of stupid - intentional ignorance. They would have shown intelligence by saying "oh that's interesting, thanks".
What IS true is that a perfectly logical security system, trying to determine whether a login attempt is legit, would start out with the knowledge there is a 90% chance it's not legit, before considering any other factors. Until we have evidence that it IS legit, it's probably not. That's called a prior probability. That has some interesting implications.
Fortunately, there are some pretty straightforward metrics to identify legit and bogus attempts with high success rates when the metrics are combined correctly.
I periodically analyzed samples, a few hundred thousand here, a few there. The cracker sites and forums have lists that are commonly used, and there are a few common tools they which generate different permutations.
I owned the company that built the login system which was used by most of the successful porn sites (as well as other sites), so I had opportunity to analyze many millions of attempts. 90% or higher seems about right.
Sorry, it turns out your guess is wrong. There are several tests that must be met in order for an image to be copyright eligible. One of those tests is the threshold of originality. If you draw a typical stick figure, you can't copyright it because it'll look pretty much like every other stick figure. Production of the the image must require creativity, and must in some way reflect the personality of the artist - if pretty much everyone would draw about in about the same way, it can't be protected. Another is a specific exemption of stylized text. An image which consists solely of cool text cannot be copyrighted in the US. It may be a trademark, or possibly eligible for a design patent, but any image of text is explicitly not eligible for copyright. The wording may be, if the words are sufficient to sufficient to comprise a significant creative work. That's separate issue.
For logos specifically, the logos of Best Western, Skyy vodka, and Sony have all been held not coyprightable.
The logos are trademarks, not copyrighted. The photographer may not use those trademarks as the insignia for his football team, which is unrelated to the Patriots.
As an example, the Mozzilla foundation can name their email software Thunderbird. Chevy can't name a sedan Thunderbird, because that would infringe on Ford's trademark using Thunderbird to brand a car. I can also write about a Ford Thunderbird, or photograph one.
As to Brady's likeness, you can't use it without permission for an _exploitive_purpose_. You'd need his permission to put his face on a football and sell it, where the photo implies that Brady endorses your brand of (under inflated?) football. You CAN use a pic of Brady in a news story about Brady or the Patriots. There is a lot of gray area there and state laws vary.
An example would be GOP Senator John McCain. He was elected over and over again for more than 30 years. He 's said some pretty bad things about Trump, and certainly doesn't tow the party line.
There are quite a few Republicans whose views and understanding of the issues go well beyond the "us vs them" you get from Bill Maher and many liberal figures.
We're that not true, Hillary most certainly wouldn't have relinquished her home mail server, would she.
I think where the prosecution screwed up is in asking for the password, which is not evidence. They should have instead asked for "the text messages you sent in the last 24 hours to Jose Jones", which are evidence.
I'd be shocked if a company that's basic premise is operating an unlawful taxi company does unlawful things.
I don't know about their hiring practices, but I wouldn't apply for a job at Uber without expecting that they'll probably not be following regulations. That's kinda their thing, not following regulations. They think the rules don't apply to them - that's what defines Uber as a company.
That's certainly an example of how it's more flexible. On the other hand, menus allow an inexperienced user to keep exploring until they find what they're looking for (assuming the function exists). Combining small programs means you kinda have to learn what the building-blocks are and figure out how to combine them.
One big app with all the functions built into menus is probably the right choice for the UI of an ATM. To withdraw money you'd rather have a wizard than type commands. That works well when there are a limited number of options (withdrawal, deposit, check balance) and the user uses it infrequently. On the other hand, on a system you use all day, every day, it's worthwhile learning some commands and how to combine them to do whatever you want.
If you have stolen cash, laundering it starts with the cash. If you are in possession of a stolen bank account, or stolen credit card number, you want to turn that credit card number into money. You can't necessarily go make a withdrawal from a bank account because they'll want to see ID, but you can use a bank account to pay for something online without ID.
I've done some pretty significant databases, both for government agencies and private sector. You can keep hard-coding SQL right into your PHP, mixed in with your UI code, if you want to.
If you prefer your systems be able to be portable between not only different RDMSs, but even just different UI modules working on the same data, look at how Moodle does it, for example. Moodle works with many different database systems. Moodle modules (application code) calls functions like "lookup_student". They don't hardcode a select statement everywhere that the logic or UI needs data. In turn, "lookup_student" calls âget_db_record()". It's get _db_record() that differs a bit between MySql, posgres, MS-sql, etc.
> Not that I particularly care about the Unix way, but it is arguably more "philosophically" correct
I suppose the UNIX way works really well for some things and the Windows way works well for some things.
The UNIX way scales very nicely from IOT to supercomputers h all, or almost all, supercomputers use Linux or another *nix. Most corporate desktops use Windows. So it seems they each have a niche or two.
The thing is, if you want to do things the Windows way, to have a 2GB or 4GB piece of software that has a thousand different functions, there is an operating system designed for people who like the Windows way. That OS is called Windows. Microsoft makes plenty of applications, such as MS Office, that have hundreds or thousands of different functions buried three levels deep in menus and two levels of dialog boxes. That's how Windows programmers and users like things to be done.
On UNIX, we have wc, which is separate from sort, from grep, from cat, from cut. If you want to count how many entries have the word "Slashdot" in them, on Unix you pipe grep (search) into wc (count). One program searches, a different program counts. That's the UNIX way. We don't build a separate program for "count how many URLs are from Slashdot", we combine the two small existing tools with a pipe.
If you want a system where you have to download a "count how many of the URLs are from Slashdot" program, you want Windows. That's not how *nix works.
>They have no way of knowing if there is evidence on the phone.
According to the warrant, the judge find they DO have probable cause to believe there is evidence on the phone. I don't know what their probable cause it, but if the defendant said "my dealer texted me saying to meet him at Denny's to get the weed", that would be probable cause to believe such a text message is on the phone.
> If the prosecution wants the contents of the... Thatâ(TM)s their prerogative to do if they have the resources.
If they have probable cause. Without probable cause, they shouldn't be searching it.
I think you contradict yourself when you say "they have no way of knowing there is evidence on the phone... they can search it". Constitutionally, they need to show that specific evidence will likely be found before they may search (absent permission from the owner).
> They cannot force you to provide evidence against yourself.
Not quite true. They cannot force you to TESTIFY as a WITNESS against yourself. They CAN force you to hand over evidence you have in your possession.
For example, suppose a bank illegally opened accounts for "customers" who never asked for them. The bank has records showing when the accounts were set up, by whom. The bank can be forced to hand over those pre-existing records.
Suppose it were a crime to be negligent (not careful) in allowing classified information to be released on to unauthorized networks. Suppose someone was "grossly negligent", er I mean "extremely careless" in sending classified information to a computer in their basement. They CAN be forced to turn over that computer. In fact, once they become aware of investigation, intentionally destroying the evidence by "wiping" the computer is a separate crime.
When someone is ordered to turn over evidence in the form of documents, of course they aren't allowed to encrypt the documents first, or glue them all together with super glue, or otherwise mess with the ability to examine the evidence.
>The contents of the phone are evidence.
And you must turn over evidence. You can't be required to produce new testimony against yourself, you can be ordered to turn over evidence.
It's a sticky area when the evidence is stored in an encrypted form. I don't know that there is a well-defined rule or that we can make any rule that we'll be glad for in all situations. After a legitimate search warrant is issued bases on probable cause, should Trump and Clinton be allowed to hide all the evidence of their crimes by encrypting their hard drives and refusing to unlock them, no matter what the circumstances? I don't know that they should. I do know I don't want cops going through my phone, even with probable cause.
I tend toward a kind of middle ground - a court could order Trump / Clinton to "hand over all of the text messages you have from Glenn Simpson during 2016". That allows the specifically evidence to come out, without having police rifling through somebody's phone, looking at unrelated information. An officer of the court could observe to see that the person is producing all of the requested, relevant text messages.
> Since the police had a search warrant, I am not sure there is a constitutional argument to be made.
It seems to me the warrant changes the argument a bit vs not having a warrant.
First, one can argue if the warrant was Constitutional. The Constitution doesn't say "no unreasonable search and seizure - unless you have a warrant". A warrant which purports to authorize an unreasonable search is unconstitutional and therefore void. One could certainly argue that the search is unreasonable, which voids the warrant.
The Constitution does say "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause". Was probable cause shown that the phones contain evidence of a crime? If not, the warrant is unconstitutional.
Suppose the warrant and search are themselves constitutional. Then you run into the fifth amendment issue forcing the person to reveal the password. It has been ruled that where ownership of the device is disputed, revealing the password would be tantamount to testifying that the defendant owns the device. The fifth amendment applies and the defendant can not be forced to reveal the password, if the phone may not be his.
Suppose it's agreed that the phone is his. One CAN be forced to hand over documents in your possession. That's evidence, not testimony. Had the court ordered him to hand over the contents of the phone, rather than the password, that would probably be constitutional. Where the defendant can turn over unencrypted copies, it can be argued that he can be forced to do so.
The 5th says you can't be forced to give testimony against yourself. Testimony is spoken evidence. Evidence is things you'd present to the judge or jury to demonstrate guilt or innocence. Is the password spoken evidence, testimony? Probably the password isn't evidence; you wouldn't show the jury the password. Rather, it's something that is needed in order to decrypt the evidence. If it's not evidence, it's not spoken evidence - not testimony. If you aren't asking the defendant to testify as a witness against himself, the 5th amendment protection doesn't seem to apply. I *want* a right to not reveal my password, but thinking through existing law, if the search is reasonable and there is probable cause, I don't see any such protection in existing law.
Of course if the search is unreasonable, or if there is not probable cause, the search itself is unconstitutional.
The comparison GP made was between a hosts file that's too long and one that's right-sized, containing the names that you'll actually encounter, with some frequency. A smaller list can be searched faster than a larger list.
It's the same as any caching scenario - you want the cache to be just big enough to hold the frequently accessed items. Too large makes the cache unnecessarily slow, too small means some frequently-used items aren't in it. There is an optimum size which is neither too small nor too large.
Re "how slow a DNS request is", DNS over the internet is fairly slow. DNS on your network is a lot faster, which is why routers have provide a DNS cache. Faster still is a local DNS caching server on the same machine. Faster than that is not looking up the name at all by blacklisting it in-browser, such as by using a browser extension.
It's not about storage space, in this case. It's about searching through 20,000 lines several times each time you load a page. Suppose a page calls resources from five different domains. The system then has to go through those 20,000 lines five times before it can start loading the page.
With that many entries, it's about time to instead run named in a caching configuration (the default for some distributions), except add the blacklisted entries. Alternatively, put the blacklist in a browser extension so it never even asks the system to look up the name, and then try to connect to 127.0.0.2 or whatever you point it at.
Not quite. Wacovia didn't have enough cash or borrowing ability to be able to allow customer withdrawals. The FDIC decided on a Saturday that they would seize Wacovia, taking the assets into receivership, if they didn't have a buyer by 8AM Monday morning. So Wacovia was essentially dead before Wells got involved.
In the second quarter of 2008, Wacovia reported a $8.9 billion loss. Shortly after, the day after WAMU, there was a run on Wacovia, with customers withdrawing over $5 billion in a single day, a Friday. Wacovia would not be able to open again Monday as the existing entity. The FDIC was able to recruit Citigroup to take over Wacovia over the weekend, providing enough cash for Wacovia to be able to open its doors Monday morning. Then Walls Fargo came in.
So no, Wacovia was an empty shell, an utterly failed bank, when Wells Fargo bought the brand and branches. It very much did not take over Wells.
Your opinions are just about as well informed as the "facts" you've based them on.
Slashdot Mirror
They removed the Adult Services section after negotiations will attorneys general.
Later, Congress passed FOSTA, making web sites criminally liable if prostitutes post an ad. Under that threat of criminal liability, Craigslist took down the personals section, because some escorts had posted ads under Personals.
The story the other day was the Amazon was making cheap switches. Plenty of companies make cheap switches. Several make decent switches. That's not Cisco's market. Cisco sells IOS, and now IOS XR. A panel of ethernet jacks is a commodity that doesn't compete with what Cisco does.
That's funny.
Actually they have a strict definition of what is peanut butter and what isn't. In the store, next to the peanut butter, you'll see cheaper "peanut spread". This is because the nutritional value of peanut butter is well known (high protein along with sugar, which is fine for growing kids), while the nutritional value of the cheaper peanut spread may be very different.
64 drops ought to be enough for anybody
- BG
Yes, we all need a 2mm phone with no bezel, to out in our inch-thick OtterBox which provides a 1/2 inch bezel.
The Connecticut attorney general, joined by attorneys general of 39 other states, was attempting to press charges against Craigslist, and subpoenaed their records. Craigslist "voluntarily" took the section down in exchange for not having to fight charges in 40 states.
I'm sure you know the difference between stupid and ignorant, or uniformed. A stupid person can't learn, an uninformed person hasn't learned yet. A smart person is someone who can learn new things.
A smart person, when it's pointed out that team logos:
https://goo.gl/images/7JBrwu
And the NFL logo:
https://goo.gl/images/YSS5fB
can be and are used without copyright permission (in a way that doesn't infringe on their trademark), when they're given a link to the law and to example cases, can learn something new. "Ah that's interesting, they can't be copyrighted, eh? Learn something new everyday", they might say.
A stupid person is one would is incapable of learning.
Particularly sad is when one is incapable by choice, because they refuse to learn, thinking that they can "look smart" by denying the facts presented to them. Of course, they don't actually look smart, they demonstrate the worst kind of stupid - intentional ignorance. They would have shown intelligence by saying "oh that's interesting, thanks".
That's funny.
What IS true is that a perfectly logical security system, trying to determine whether a login attempt is legit, would start out with the knowledge there is a 90% chance it's not legit, before considering any other factors. Until we have evidence that it IS legit, it's probably not. That's called a prior probability. That has some interesting implications.
Fortunately, there are some pretty straightforward metrics to identify legit and bogus attempts with high success rates when the metrics are combined correctly.
I periodically analyzed samples, a few hundred thousand here, a few there. The cracker sites and forums have lists that are commonly used, and there are a few common tools they which generate different permutations.
I owned the company that built the login system which was used by most of the successful porn sites (as well as other sites), so I had opportunity to analyze many millions of attempts. 90% or higher seems about right.
Sorry, it turns out your guess is wrong. There are several tests that must be met in order for an image to be copyright eligible. One of those tests is the threshold of originality.
If you draw a typical stick figure, you can't copyright it because it'll look pretty much like every other stick figure. Production of the the image must require creativity, and must in some way reflect the personality of the artist - if pretty much everyone would draw about in about the same way, it can't be protected. Another is a specific exemption of stylized text. An image which consists solely of cool text cannot be copyrighted in the US. It may be a trademark, or possibly eligible for a design patent, but any image of text is explicitly not eligible for copyright. The wording may be, if the words are sufficient to sufficient to comprise a significant creative work. That's separate issue.
For logos specifically, the logos of Best Western, Skyy vodka, and Sony have all been held not coyprightable.
See
House Report No. 94-1476
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits Inc.
The logos are trademarks, not copyrighted.
The photographer may not use those trademarks as the insignia for his football team, which is unrelated to the Patriots.
As an example, the Mozzilla foundation can name their email software Thunderbird. Chevy can't name a sedan Thunderbird, because that would infringe on Ford's trademark using Thunderbird to brand a car. I can also write about a Ford Thunderbird, or photograph one.
As to Brady's likeness, you can't use it without permission for an _exploitive_purpose_. You'd need his permission to put his face on a football and sell it, where the photo implies that Brady endorses your brand of (under inflated?) football. You CAN use a pic of Brady in a news story about Brady or the Patriots. There is a lot of gray area there and state laws vary.
It's well-established law that one can be ordered to turn over evidence. Certain items on the phone are evidence.
The password is not evidence, it's a tool for getting evidence.
An example would be GOP Senator John McCain. He was elected over and over again for more than 30 years. He 's said some pretty bad things about Trump, and certainly doesn't tow the party line.
There are quite a few Republicans whose views and understanding of the issues go well beyond the "us vs them" you get from Bill Maher and many liberal figures.
> How is this any different than jailing someone who is suspected of murder until they disclose the location of the dead body
If they can prove you HAVE a dead body (or unlawful email server) that is evidence, they CAN jail you until you turn it over.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/ru...
We're that not true, Hillary most certainly wouldn't have relinquished her home mail server, would she.
I think where the prosecution screwed up is in asking for the password, which is not evidence. They should have instead asked for "the text messages you sent in the last 24 hours to Jose Jones", which are evidence.
I'd be shocked if a company that's basic premise is operating an unlawful taxi company does unlawful things.
I don't know about their hiring practices, but I wouldn't apply for a job at Uber without expecting that they'll probably not be following regulations. That's kinda their thing, not following regulations. They think the rules don't apply to them - that's what defines Uber as a company.
That's certainly an example of how it's more flexible.
On the other hand, menus allow an inexperienced user to keep exploring until they find what they're looking for (assuming the function exists). Combining small programs means you kinda have to learn what the building-blocks are and figure out how to combine them.
One big app with all the functions built into menus is probably the right choice for the UI of an ATM. To withdraw money you'd rather have a wizard than type commands. That works well when there are a limited number of options (withdrawal, deposit, check balance) and the user uses it infrequently. On the other hand, on a system you use all day, every day, it's worthwhile learning some commands and how to combine them to do whatever you want.
If you have stolen cash, laundering it starts with the cash.
If you are in possession of a stolen bank account, or stolen credit card number, you want to turn that credit card number into money. You can't necessarily go make a withdrawal from a bank account because they'll want to see ID, but you can use a bank account to pay for something online without ID.
I've done some pretty significant databases, both for government agencies and private sector. You can keep hard-coding SQL right into your PHP, mixed in with your UI code, if you want to.
If you prefer your systems be able to be portable between not only different RDMSs, but even just different UI modules working on the same data, look at how Moodle does it, for example. Moodle works with many different database systems. Moodle modules (application code) calls functions like "lookup_student". They don't hardcode a select statement everywhere that the logic or UI needs data. In turn, "lookup_student" calls âget_db_record()". It's get _db_record() that differs a bit between MySql, posgres, MS-sql, etc.
> Not that I particularly care about the Unix way, but it is arguably more "philosophically" correct
I suppose the UNIX way works really well for some things and the Windows way works well for some things.
The UNIX way scales very nicely from IOT to supercomputers h all, or almost all, supercomputers use Linux or another *nix. Most corporate desktops use Windows. So it seems they each have a niche or two.
The thing is, if you want to do things the Windows way, to have a 2GB or 4GB piece of software that has a thousand different functions, there is an operating system designed for people who like the Windows way. That OS is called Windows. Microsoft makes plenty of applications, such as MS Office, that have hundreds or thousands of different functions buried three levels deep in menus and two levels of dialog boxes. That's how Windows programmers and users like things to be done.
On UNIX, we have wc, which is separate from sort, from grep, from cat, from cut. If you want to count how many entries have the word "Slashdot" in them, on Unix you pipe grep (search) into wc (count). One program searches, a different program counts. That's the UNIX way. We don't build a separate program for "count how many URLs are from Slashdot", we combine the two small existing tools with a pipe.
If you want a system where you have to download a "count how many of the URLs are from Slashdot" program, you want Windows. That's not how *nix works.
>They have no way of knowing if there is evidence on the phone.
According to the warrant, the judge find they DO have probable cause to believe there is evidence on the phone. I don't know what their probable cause it, but if the defendant said "my dealer texted me saying to meet him at Denny's to get the weed", that would be probable cause to believe such a text message is on the phone.
> If the prosecution wants the contents of the ... Thatâ(TM)s their prerogative to do if they have the resources.
If they have probable cause. Without probable cause, they shouldn't be searching it.
I think you contradict yourself when you say "they have no way of knowing there is evidence on the phone ... they can search it". Constitutionally, they need to show that specific evidence will likely be found before they may search (absent permission from the owner).
> They cannot force you to provide evidence against yourself.
Not quite true. They cannot force you to TESTIFY as a WITNESS against yourself. They CAN force you to hand over evidence you have in your possession.
For example, suppose a bank illegally opened accounts for "customers" who never asked for them. The bank has records showing when the accounts were set up, by whom. The bank can be forced to hand over those pre-existing records.
Suppose it were a crime to be negligent (not careful) in allowing classified information to be released on to unauthorized networks. Suppose someone was "grossly negligent", er I mean "extremely careless" in sending classified information to a computer in their basement. They CAN be forced to turn over that computer. In fact, once they become aware of investigation, intentionally destroying the evidence by "wiping" the computer is a separate crime.
When someone is ordered to turn over evidence in the form of documents, of course they aren't allowed to encrypt the documents first, or glue them all together with super glue, or otherwise mess with the ability to examine the evidence.
>The contents of the phone are evidence.
And you must turn over evidence. You can't be required to produce new testimony against yourself, you can be ordered to turn over evidence.
It's a sticky area when the evidence is stored in an encrypted form. I don't know that there is a well-defined rule or that we can make any rule that we'll be glad for in all situations. After a legitimate search warrant is issued bases on probable cause, should Trump and Clinton be allowed to hide all the evidence of their crimes by encrypting their hard drives and refusing to unlock them, no matter what the circumstances? I don't know that they should. I do know I don't want cops going through my phone, even with probable cause.
I tend toward a kind of middle ground - a court could order Trump / Clinton to "hand over all of the text messages you have from Glenn Simpson during 2016". That allows the specifically evidence to come out, without having police rifling through somebody's phone, looking at unrelated information. An officer of the court could observe to see that the person is producing all of the requested, relevant text messages.
> Since the police had a search warrant, I am not sure there is a constitutional argument to be made.
It seems to me the warrant changes the argument a bit vs not having a warrant.
First, one can argue if the warrant was Constitutional. The Constitution doesn't say "no unreasonable search and seizure - unless you have a warrant". A warrant which purports to authorize an unreasonable search is unconstitutional and therefore void. One could certainly argue that the search is unreasonable, which voids the warrant.
The Constitution does say "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause". Was probable cause shown that the phones contain evidence of a crime? If not, the warrant is unconstitutional.
Suppose the warrant and search are themselves constitutional. Then you run into the fifth amendment issue forcing the person to reveal the password. It has been ruled that where ownership of the device is disputed, revealing the password would be tantamount to testifying that the defendant owns the device. The fifth amendment applies and the defendant can not be forced to reveal the password, if the phone may not be his.
Suppose it's agreed that the phone is his. One CAN be forced to hand over documents in your possession. That's evidence, not testimony. Had the court ordered him to hand over the contents of the phone, rather than the password, that would probably be constitutional. Where the defendant can turn over unencrypted copies, it can be argued that he can be forced to do so.
The 5th says you can't be forced to give testimony against yourself. Testimony is spoken evidence. Evidence is things you'd present to the judge or jury to demonstrate guilt or innocence. Is the password spoken evidence, testimony? Probably the password isn't evidence; you wouldn't show the jury the password. Rather, it's something that is needed in order to decrypt the evidence. If it's not evidence, it's not spoken evidence - not testimony. If you aren't asking the defendant to testify as a witness against himself, the 5th amendment protection doesn't seem to apply. I *want* a right to not reveal my password, but thinking through existing law, if the search is reasonable and there is probable cause, I don't see any such protection in existing law.
Of course if the search is unreasonable, or if there is not probable cause, the search itself is unconstitutional.
The comparison GP made was between a hosts file that's too long and one that's right-sized, containing the names that you'll actually encounter, with some frequency. A smaller list can be searched faster than a larger list.
It's the same as any caching scenario - you want the cache to be just big enough to hold the frequently accessed items. Too large makes the cache unnecessarily slow, too small means some frequently-used items aren't in it. There is an optimum size which is neither too small nor too large.
Re "how slow a DNS request is", DNS over the internet is fairly slow. DNS on your network is a lot faster, which is why routers have provide a DNS cache. Faster still is a local DNS caching server on the same machine. Faster than that is not looking up the name at all by blacklisting it in-browser, such as by using a browser extension.
It's not about storage space, in this case. It's about searching through 20,000 lines several times each time you load a page. Suppose a page calls resources from five different domains. The system then has to go through those 20,000 lines five times before it can start loading the page.
With that many entries, it's about time to instead run named in a caching configuration (the default for some distributions), except add the blacklisted entries. Alternatively, put the blacklist in a browser extension so it never even asks the system to look up the name, and then try to connect to 127.0.0.2 or whatever you point it at.
> Wacovia basically took over Wells Fargo.
Not quite. Wacovia didn't have enough cash or borrowing ability to be able to allow customer withdrawals. The FDIC decided on a Saturday that they would seize Wacovia, taking the assets into receivership, if they didn't have a buyer by 8AM Monday morning. So Wacovia was essentially dead before Wells got involved.
In the second quarter of 2008, Wacovia reported a $8.9 billion loss. Shortly after, the day after WAMU, there was a run on Wacovia, with customers withdrawing over $5 billion in a single day, a Friday. Wacovia would not be able to open again Monday as the existing entity. The FDIC was able to recruit Citigroup to take over Wacovia over the weekend, providing enough cash for Wacovia to be able to open its doors Monday morning. Then Walls Fargo came in.
So no, Wacovia was an empty shell, an utterly failed bank, when Wells Fargo bought the brand and branches. It very much did not take over Wells.
Your opinions are just about as well informed as the "facts" you've based them on.