I'll bet the geeks who run Spamhaus and made the decision to abandon their defense of the suit are some of the shithouse lawyers who post here on a regular basis.
It never ceases to amaze me how so many ostensibly intelligent people can be so effing bloody stupid when it comes to courts and the legal system. It's obvious that many/.ers learn most if not all of what they think they know about the court system from watching cop shows.
"While this is a massive reduction in the fine . . . "
It's not a fine at all, it's an award of damages. Fines are imposed in criminal matters, this is a civil matter.
Sad and scary precedent.
It isn't. It's precisely what happens when you don't defend yourself in a lawsuit: The plaintiff automatically wins. A defaulting defendant is deemed to have admitted the truth of all of the plaintiff's allegations and the court is bound to follow that. Spamhaus' attorney committed malpractice by advising them not to defend themselves. After all, if the lawsuit is as "frivolous" as they claim it is, then getting it dismissed shouldn't be a problem, no?
In this case, however, there wasn't a reason. Spamhaus has no US operations and as such no US assets to touch.
Wrong again. Countries often recognise judgments from other foreign countries. e360 could rather easily register this judgment in the UK and pursue Spamhaus' assets there.
If somebody sues me in a foreign country that I never intend to visit, the odds of me spending any money or effort to fight the lawsuit are somewhere between zero and none.
Basically if a company gets sued in a country they don't do business in, they just don't have to care.
See above re: registering foreign judgments in other countries.
And this gem from gun nut Firethorn (177587):
Since most countries won't extradite or hold penalties for stuff that isn't illegal in their home country, they'll essentially have to get Spamhaus retried in Britain.
Extradition only applies in criminal matters. You fail. You're obviously a gundamentalist, the kind that puts the "gun" before "da mental."
rtb61 (674572) writes:
Many countries have loser pays law for civil suits, the US does not.
Those who file frivolous law suits should be made to pay the full costs
U.S. courts routinely impose sanctions on parties for advancing frivolous claims or defenses. Google "Civil Rule 11" and you'll see what I mean.
(every time they loose it is by definition a frivolous case).
Not true. A claim or defense can look like a slam dunk early on, but over time can become less so. At that point, that party is obliged to have a "come to Jesus" talk with their client and hope the other side will agree to a reasonable settlement.
In you are not in the US and your country does have loser pays laws, then you would be a bloody idiot to show up in the US to fight a civil case.
Repeat after me: Courts often allow foreign judgments to be registered and enforced.
by Rabid Anti Spammer (1834994) writes: Lindfart wanted the spamhaus.org domain - which was registered in the USA.
Well, here you go: Spamhaus had assets to protect in the U.S. and defaulted anyway. Wow. Their lawyer should be given a medal.
Second issue in point, and a second mistake to make if you don't consult a lawyer. There is this little treaty with the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and most of Europe, known as the 'cross border enforcement treaty'.
Wrong. There is no such treaty between all of those countries. You're referring to the Brussels Convention which applies between certain EU members only.
From a scientific standpoint, the beginning and the end of the argument is this: Acupuncture posits that (1) energies within the body travel (2) along certain routes and (3) can be redirected using needles with the effect of (4) curing or treating human disease. There is exactly zero evidence to support any of these, charitably, very farfetched claims.
Skeptics very accurately point out that the placebo effect is very powerful and is not fully understood. However, more than that explains why acupuncture doesn't go the way of bloodletting, trepination or any of a hundred other quackeries over the centuries. Confirmation bias is a big one. A patient has just paid big bucks to a TCM practitioner and desperately wants to believe that the treatment will work. Of course, if the treatment doesn't work, the patient is a fool and wasted his money. No one wants to be thought of as a fool even by himself, so the patient will believe the treatment worked and his/her imagination will fill in the gaps.
Another aspect to this is good old fashioned Western (particularly American) racism, ignorance and cultural imperialism. Since the "medicine" is coming from an almond-eyed gentleman with darker skin, a thick accent and with office decor written in strange foreign characters, it's "different" and "exotic," so by extension it has to be "cool" and thus must be effective.
Finally, there's a much simpler aspect. A sick person who feels like traditional medicine has failed him/her visits a TCM practitioner. Generally speaking, said TCM practitioner is a kindly gent with a grandfatherly demeanour who looks and sounds like Mr. Miyagi (see above re: "exotic"). Said gent listens to the patient unhurriedly and may genuinely want to help and may genuinely believes that what he has to offer will help. Anyone would feel somewhat better in that situation and that temporary relief is enough to make people want to come back for more and to shell out more of their money.
The trouble with this, of course, is that people will continually seek the temporary succor provided by the quacks while delaying or avoiding those who can actually treat the underlying problem. This can cause the underlying problem, particularly something like cancer, to move from the treatable stages to the untreatable.
to tell us that if we just repeal all of those pesky workers' rights laws that corporations will, out of the goodness of their hearts, afford their workers such unaffordable luxuries as unpaid days off, an eight-hour day, overtime pay, a (gasp!) minimum wage, etc.
to say that we shouldn't have "intrusive" net neutrality regs and should "let the market decide" instead.
How's it working out for you guys? What are you going to do when the "free" market, dominated by a few huge players, decides to throttle or block traffic outside of their network? Switch to one of the other huge players that does the same damn thing? This is doubly true given that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people and that said huge players don't have to open up their networks.
So, I put the question to you: Where's this "free" and "open" "competitive" market you guys keep droning on about?
No nation on this planet can go up against the current US armed forces 1v1.
Vietstan and Vietraq come to mind. America hasn't been able to force a decision in either of those places and if Sen. McCain is to be believed, won't be able to for the next 100 years.
Although in this case, the project manager of Bob was Melinda French--now known as Mrs. Bill Gates.
In other words, she stayed in on her back. Normally that dismal a failure causes a project manager to be shown the door, but because of who she was sleeping it, she could do no wrong.
Caltech scientists have already engineered stem cells into B cells that produce HIV-fighting antibodies -- and an NIH researcher engineered T cells that recognize tumors which has already had promising clinical trials again skin cancer.
Now, say again please, all after your oh-so-tired anti-government rants?
HP used to be a great innovator, doubly so with subsidiary Agilent Technologies. Now it's reduced to selling printer ink that, mL for mL, costs more than vintage Dom.
Worse, Motorola has gone from tech innovator to maker of consumer cell handsets. Now, well behind Apple, Blackberry and even Nokia, it has been reduced to a patent troll.
Make the record companies prove up their damages just like any other litigant would have to. And by "prove up their damages," I mean offer evidence to show exactly how many downloads of a song equals a lost sale. Hint: It's not 1:1. Let's say it's 100:1, so ($0.50/100) * 24 = $0.12 in damages. In this situation, an award of $1.20 would be ten times actual damages, the outer end of what the Supreme Court has said is acceptable for punitive damages. Even if the ratio is 10:1, damages 10x actuals only nets Big Content a $12 award.
More appropriately, the judicial system needs to realize that lawsuits between corporations and individuals are not disputes between equals and should not be treated as such. Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen any time soon with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that corporations have the same rights to political speech that natural persons do.
Jamie Hyneman: "This is turning out to be a lot more work than we thought, but we bought an SSME and gosh darnit, we're going to get it into pieces. When in doubt, C4!"
Google to China: "Either you do something about these attacks, or we're going to start by taking our ball and going home. If you still don't do something, we're going to tell your population about all the bad shit you do and you won't be in power much longer."
In other words, the Chinese government is about to learn who's really in charge, and it ain't them.
The solution, of course, is to repeal all labour laws, all antitrust laws and to outlaw unions. Oh, and repeal all restrictions on importing foreign labour. That way, employers, out of the goodness of their hearts, will be nicer and agree to pay more money and provide more benefits.
Women in computing do the same thing that women in medicine, law and lots of other fields do: Graduate, work for a few years, hook up with a guy and start popping out kids. At that point, they work part-time if at all and all of their education is for naught. That makes them even less apt to stay up all night for those coding marathons.
First, turning off the ignition switch physically opens the circuit between the car's electrical system and fuel/ignition systems. This would have either deprived the engine of fuel by cutting off the fuel pump or of spark by disabling the ignition system. Either way, the car stops.
Second, I don't see why he couldn't have thrown it into a lower gear to slow down or into neutral or even park to stop. American carmakers aren't known for their technological innovations at the best of times. SUVs are their way of selling old-tech gas guzzlers for beaucoup bucks (50%-plus profit margin) so that Cialis-using men can convince themselves they don't actually have mushroom dicks. That being the case, I find it very hard to believe that it was equipped with a s00p3r l33t tranny with a computer control that somehow made it impossible to do any of those things. And being able to shift the transmission into neutral is a safety feature designed to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
Lots of things about this story just don't add up.
Whatever the police may tell you, their only interest is getting as many people arrested as possible. You shold never initiate a contact with law enforcement unless absolutely necessary, or you'll just make yourself the focus of their attention.
About a year later, FBI agents showed up at his family's home. The family agreed to let agents examine the computer, and at first, they couldn't find anything.
The mistake of a lifetime for this unfortunate young man. The answer to that question should have been, "not just no, but FUCK NO."
If they ask for consent to search, it means they likely don't have probable cause for a search and probably can't get a warrant.
NEVER NEVER NEVER give consent to a police search. Ever.
NEVER NEVER NEVER talk to the police voluntarily. Ever.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll bet the geeks who run Spamhaus and made the decision to abandon their defense of the suit are some of the shithouse lawyers who post here on a regular basis.
It never ceases to amaze me how so many ostensibly intelligent people can be so effing bloody stupid when it comes to courts and the legal system. It's obvious that many /.ers learn most if not all of what they think they know about the court system from watching cop shows.
It's not a fine at all, it's an award of damages. Fines are imposed in criminal matters, this is a civil matter.
It isn't. It's precisely what happens when you don't defend yourself in a lawsuit: The plaintiff automatically wins. A defaulting defendant is deemed to have admitted the truth of all of the plaintiff's allegations and the court is bound to follow that. Spamhaus' attorney committed malpractice by advising them not to defend themselves. After all, if the lawsuit is as "frivolous" as they claim it is, then getting it dismissed shouldn't be a problem, no?
Wrong again. Countries often recognise judgments from other foreign countries. e360 could rather easily register this judgment in the UK and pursue Spamhaus' assets there.
See above re: registering foreign judgments in other countries.
And this gem from gun nut Firethorn (177587):
Extradition only applies in criminal matters. You fail. You're obviously a gundamentalist, the kind that puts the "gun" before "da mental."
rtb61 (674572) writes:
Those who file frivolous law suits should be made to pay the full costs
U.S. courts routinely impose sanctions on parties for advancing frivolous claims or defenses. Google "Civil Rule 11" and you'll see what I mean.
Not true. A claim or defense can look like a slam dunk early on, but over time can become less so. At that point, that party is obliged to have a "come to Jesus" talk with their client and hope the other side will agree to a reasonable settlement.
Repeat after me: Courts often allow foreign judgments to be registered and enforced.
Well, here you go: Spamhaus had assets to protect in the U.S. and defaulted anyway. Wow. Their lawyer should be given a medal.
Wrong. There is no such treaty between all of those countries. You're referring to the Brussels Convention which applies between certain EU members only.
From a scientific standpoint, the beginning and the end of the argument is this: Acupuncture posits that (1) energies within the body travel (2) along certain routes and (3) can be redirected using needles with the effect of (4) curing or treating human disease. There is exactly zero evidence to support any of these, charitably, very farfetched claims.
Skeptics very accurately point out that the placebo effect is very powerful and is not fully understood. However, more than that explains why acupuncture doesn't go the way of bloodletting, trepination or any of a hundred other quackeries over the centuries. Confirmation bias is a big one. A patient has just paid big bucks to a TCM practitioner and desperately wants to believe that the treatment will work. Of course, if the treatment doesn't work, the patient is a fool and wasted his money. No one wants to be thought of as a fool even by himself, so the patient will believe the treatment worked and his/her imagination will fill in the gaps.
Another aspect to this is good old fashioned Western (particularly American) racism, ignorance and cultural imperialism. Since the "medicine" is coming from an almond-eyed gentleman with darker skin, a thick accent and with office decor written in strange foreign characters, it's "different" and "exotic," so by extension it has to be "cool" and thus must be effective.
Finally, there's a much simpler aspect. A sick person who feels like traditional medicine has failed him/her visits a TCM practitioner. Generally speaking, said TCM practitioner is a kindly gent with a grandfatherly demeanour who looks and sounds like Mr. Miyagi (see above re: "exotic"). Said gent listens to the patient unhurriedly and may genuinely want to help and may genuinely believes that what he has to offer will help. Anyone would feel somewhat better in that situation and that temporary relief is enough to make people want to come back for more and to shell out more of their money.
The trouble with this, of course, is that people will continually seek the temporary succor provided by the quacks while delaying or avoiding those who can actually treat the underlying problem. This can cause the underlying problem, particularly something like cancer, to move from the treatable stages to the untreatable.
to tell us that if we just repeal all of those pesky workers' rights laws that corporations will, out of the goodness of their hearts, afford their workers such unaffordable luxuries as unpaid days off, an eight-hour day, overtime pay, a (gasp!) minimum wage, etc.
to say that we shouldn't have "intrusive" net neutrality regs and should "let the market decide" instead.
How's it working out for you guys? What are you going to do when the "free" market, dominated by a few huge players, decides to throttle or block traffic outside of their network? Switch to one of the other huge players that does the same damn thing? This is doubly true given that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people and that said huge players don't have to open up their networks.
So, I put the question to you: Where's this "free" and "open" "competitive" market you guys keep droning on about?
No nation on this planet can go up against the current US armed forces 1v1.
Vietstan and Vietraq come to mind. America hasn't been able to force a decision in either of those places and if Sen. McCain is to be believed, won't be able to for the next 100 years.
Protection Against Threats Real, Imagined or Theoretical.
And....if you lose, you're responsible for all of their costs - including reasonable travel and expenses for their lawyer.
In America, not true at all. In other common law jurisdictions, not necessarily true in small claims court.
This decision was released on January 29th. I'm sorry, but after almost three months, it ceases to be "stuff that matters."
In other words, she stayed in on her back. Normally that dismal a failure causes a project manager to be shown the door, but because of who she was sleeping it, she could do no wrong.
Looks like vigourous enforcement of antitrust laws that have real teeth in them has finally brought the mighty Microsoft to its knees.
By contrast, America adopted the losertarian "let-the-market-decide" theology.
Hmm . . . guess which one works to, you know, actually promote things like competition and a truly free and open market?
From TFA:
Now, say again please, all after your oh-so-tired anti-government rants?
All 4,691 of them.
has been reduced to a shadow of its former self.
HP used to be a great innovator, doubly so with subsidiary Agilent Technologies. Now it's reduced to selling printer ink that, mL for mL, costs more than vintage Dom.
Worse, Motorola has gone from tech innovator to maker of consumer cell handsets. Now, well behind Apple, Blackberry and even Nokia, it has been reduced to a patent troll.
It's sad. It really is.
Make the record companies prove up their damages just like any other litigant would have to. And by "prove up their damages," I mean offer evidence to show exactly how many downloads of a song equals a lost sale. Hint: It's not 1:1. Let's say it's 100:1, so ($0.50/100) * 24 = $0.12 in damages. In this situation, an award of $1.20 would be ten times actual damages, the outer end of what the Supreme Court has said is acceptable for punitive damages. Even if the ratio is 10:1, damages 10x actuals only nets Big Content a $12 award.
More appropriately, the judicial system needs to realize that lawsuits between corporations and individuals are not disputes between equals and should not be treated as such. Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen any time soon with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that corporations have the same rights to political speech that natural persons do.
(sigh)
Jamie Hyneman: "This is turning out to be a lot more work than we thought, but we bought an SSME and gosh darnit, we're going to get it into pieces. When in doubt, C4!"
Excuse me, sir. Geek card, please.
Google to China: "Either you do something about these attacks, or we're going to start by taking our ball and going home. If you still don't do something, we're going to tell your population about all the bad shit you do and you won't be in power much longer."
In other words, the Chinese government is about to learn who's really in charge, and it ain't them.
The solution, of course, is to repeal all labour laws, all antitrust laws and to outlaw unions. Oh, and repeal all restrictions on importing foreign labour. That way, employers, out of the goodness of their hearts, will be nicer and agree to pay more money and provide more benefits.
Makes perfect sense to me too.
Old as the hills.
The Duke boys will have to rely much more on Cooter now.
The General Lee was a Dodge Charger (well, many Dodge Chargers).
Even the Duke boys knew better than to drive a GM product.
Women in computing do the same thing that women in medicine, law and lots of other fields do: Graduate, work for a few years, hook up with a guy and start popping out kids. At that point, they work part-time if at all and all of their education is for naught. That makes them even less apt to stay up all night for those coding marathons.
First, turning off the ignition switch physically opens the circuit between the car's electrical system and fuel/ignition systems. This would have either deprived the engine of fuel by cutting off the fuel pump or of spark by disabling the ignition system. Either way, the car stops.
Second, I don't see why he couldn't have thrown it into a lower gear to slow down or into neutral or even park to stop. American carmakers aren't known for their technological innovations at the best of times. SUVs are their way of selling old-tech gas guzzlers for beaucoup bucks (50%-plus profit margin) so that Cialis-using men can convince themselves they don't actually have mushroom dicks. That being the case, I find it very hard to believe that it was equipped with a s00p3r l33t tranny with a computer control that somehow made it impossible to do any of those things. And being able to shift the transmission into neutral is a safety feature designed to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
Lots of things about this story just don't add up.
Whatever the police may tell you, their only interest is getting as many people arrested as possible. You shold never initiate a contact with law enforcement unless absolutely necessary, or you'll just make yourself the focus of their attention.
This is especially true considering that there's a lot of money to be made locking people up.
About a year later, FBI agents showed up at his family's home. The family agreed to let agents examine the computer, and at first, they couldn't find anything.
The mistake of a lifetime for this unfortunate young man. The answer to that question should have been, "not just no, but FUCK NO."
If they ask for consent to search, it means they likely don't have probable cause for a search and probably can't get a warrant.
NEVER NEVER NEVER give consent to a police search. Ever.
NEVER NEVER NEVER talk to the police voluntarily. Ever.