And also, since Windows XP, Windows has come with an NTP client on by default, set to their time server. So they've been "spying" on your IP address for a long time!
TFA might have a point. But I wouldn't bother reading to find out with a bullshit summary like that. Really, prostate screening isn't worth the horrendous cost to those 999 out of 1000 people who don't have cancer. Oh yes, the one person who doesn't die of cancer is greatly outweighed by those other 999 who had to get a finger up the ass FOR NO REASON, THEY WEREN'T EVEN SICK! Won't somebody think of those poor unfortunate souls? Seriously, did Peter Griffin write the summary?
I've never got a ridiculous sales pitch. Only reasonable ones. Like, do I know about Canada's new Tax Free Savings Account laws? No, I didn't. Very helpful, that teller. Well, I think once I was asked if I want to increase my credit limit. They took "no thanks" as an answer and haven't asked since. But maybe banking is just more aggressive in the USA.
When I first turned on my Android phone, it told me that by default location services is turned off. It then asked if I wanted to turn it on, and if I did, would I also like to help Google out by contributing nearby towers and wifi networks to help improve the service. All optional, and all clearly laid out. And, you can't even argue that users feel forced, because you can still get the location-based features without allowing Google to collect the data, since the two options are separated. Additionally, it's also fine-grained and application/website specific. Even IF you enable Location Services for google websites, if a different website asks for it, you get another prompt. Similarly, each application besides the browser that wants that data will also require a prompt. (At least on my phone it does).
Now, if a manufacturer or carrier is changing the behavior from default-off to default-on, that's not Google's fault. In fact, Google might even prevent this. They have a number of manufacturer rules about user privacy and experience and that sort of thing. While they release all of their stuff open-source (eventually) so they cannot prevent a manufacturer from making such a phone, they audit phones and do not allow non-complaint handsets onto the Google Market, which has a pretty negative impact on the value of a non-compliant phone. Now, I don't know if Google prevents the data collection from being changed to on-by-default, so who knows...certainly some people have claimed to never have been asked, but I've used both an HTC Legend and a Samsung Galaxy S, and both of those defaulted to off, with a prompt during the initial setup. I suppose that maybe some carrier employees do the initial setup for you? But this question comes after you've entered your gmail account and password. So, besides being the store's fault, not Google's, why are you so concerned with privacy when you gave the minimum wage employee at the AT&T store your email address and password?
Somehow more than one Slashbot has read "aggregate data" and concluded that this means both "real-time" and "not at all aggregate". To clarify, the data that TomTom sends is something of this rough form: A list of sections of road. For each stretch of road, they have data on average speed and average traffic. Whether this is a 24 mean, or more fine grained than that they haven't said. Nevertheless, it's not individual records, its averaged over all users. The amount of traffic is an important metric. Cities routinely spend money to collect this. This is typically done by laying two wires across the road, connected to a datalogger that tracks the magnetic signal of a big chunk of metal passing over the two wires. This is fairly expensive and so they can't do it too often. This data is used to decide where to allocate city funds. Busy intersections have priority for upgrade to roundabout or traffic signal, or for building alternate routes. Cities buying access to TomTom aggregate data are then getting data they already routinely collect. The difference being they are getting it much much cheaper, and getting a more accurate picture (so long as enough people in the city own a TomTom). But the TomTom aggregate data has something that these wires cannot collect: Average speeds. Average speed can paint a decent picture of traffic patterns. If at certain times of the day the average speed is quite low, that is indicative of congestion. And that's what TomTom themselves use it for, for routing around congested roads. (While a GPS route might estimate time based on speed limits, TomTom can do so based on predictive models constructed using aggregate data, or even real time data). Again, cities also collect this data, though not as much. In fact, after a relative got hit by a speeding car at a crosswalk, my grandpa took it upon himself to take a notebook and a clicker to count the number of people speeding through the school zone by his house. He diligently reported his counts to the police every month. While I'm sure many people considered him a busybody (especially the police), I don't think it's reasonable to consider him a spy who was robbing anybody of their freedom.
Anyways, TomTom didn't really do anything wrong. Giving this data, properly aggregated, is harmless to the users who contributed to it. And actually, its quite helpful to them, as it saves the city tax payer money by giving them a cheaper and more accurate and complete source of traffic data. The drawback is that the average speed metric gives a nice map of choice speed trap locations. TomTom (apparently) didn't intend or anticipate this use. If they're truly apologetic it's a very quick fix: They can simply truncate the average speed metric. Say, if the average is higher than, I don't know, 1 or 2 KPH under the limit, just use that value as the average. So, if the limit is 40, return 38 regardless of whether the actual average was 38, or 45, or 50. This maintains the full utility of the metric as a measure of congestion, and eliminates the potential for use setting up speed traps. Which is unfortunate. In an ideal world, stretches of roadway that have an average speed 10 KPS over the limit, but which do not have a lot of accidents, are roads where the limit is too low, NOT roads where you should ambush people who are (statistically) driving safely. Sadly, it's more cost-effective to do the latter, as opposed to actually using the data to improve a city's roadways. Reprinting signs costs cash, but giving tickets generates cash!
Oh, and when I say they did nothing wrong, this is obviously assuming a lack of sinister intent or incompetence. Theoretically aggregate data is private. Knowing that X TomTom users per hour drive down road Y doesn't tell you anything that's private. Assuming X is large. For X=1, that tells you quite a lot, especially if that stretch of X=1 can be followed all the way to a residential address. While I have no way to know for sure, my HOPE is that TomTom also knows this fundamenta
I don't know about everywhere, but at least in Montreal you can get a ticket for not locking your car. Car theft is a huge problem and it costs the police a lot of money to handle the thousands of cases they deal with. So, if you leave your car unlocked on a public street, you can get a large ticket. Mind you, you also aren't allowed to turn right on a red light, those zany Quebecois.
You missed the part where he chased her and her partner down after the show, cornered them, and at one point smashed her glasses into pieces. It wasn't a joke, because he stalked her and continued to call her a raging dyke cunt and threaten her with death for her dykish ways, and attacked her. See, he was making dyke jokes and she booed him. His fine was not for the jokes but for the hour or more of harassment because she didn't like them. He wasn't even on fucking stage, he attacked her out of hate and prejudice. And if you think harassing people and smashing their property into pieces is free speech, you should post your address so people can harass you and smash up your car. Free speech, by not letting us know this vital information, you are denying our fundamental right to attack you!
He was arrested 10 months ago and the USA is refusing to disclose the evidence, not even acknowledging requests. They want him extradited based on secret charges over sealed and classified evidence.
The simple solution to prevent the arrest would have been to not commit a crime.
The only way you could know he actually did do it is if you hacked into his system and saw the evidence. Expect to be arrested on 100,000 counts of hacking into a computer system (each bit you saw counts as a separate bit of information you stole without authorization).
If you'd RTFA, he was arrested in Canada on a court order from the USA based on non-existance evidence provided by Cisco. Only Cisco denies it, they claim the judge issued the warrant on his own with no involvement from them whatosoever. In any event, the judge is not permitting anybody to see the evidence. So, right now there is a hearing going on deciding whether or not to just shred the fucking thing and let him go. Meanwhile, this guy has been living in a hotel for 10 months. Because he can't leave the country until it's dealt with, but he doesn't LIVE THERE. And the USA is screaming "arrest him arrest him arrest him" but has sealed the evidence and is stonewalling the Canadian courts when they request it. For ten months. Obviously there isn't anything at all. But of course, you know better than the USA and Canadian courts, you know there's real evidence because you're 100% sure the only way anybody could write code for Cisco hardware is because they stole it. Extremely bad news for FOSS that can run on Cisco hardware, isn't it...
Epsilon said the breach was only names and email addresses, with the exception of a few clients who had member balances or other minor data included in their mailings (such as member points, where some sale flyers will tell you how many points you have to spend on these cool savings). CITI itself said the breach was only names and email addresses. So your conspiracy theory is that they are both lying, and the breach included credit card numbers. But, since both companies involved insist that they have checked and concluded it was only the mailing list, you must be getting your info from the other side! So, are you the hacker himself? Or are you just friends with the guys who stole this data?
Most antivirus programs flag all keygens as trojans. The fact that they don't do anything doesn't matter at all. See previous Slashdot article where AV detection = proof of keylogger;)
"No difference in mean BMDs and BMCs between groups was found." So, they have their study and their control group. They looked at bone densities in their hips. The average hip density between both groups is statistically identical. But, in the right-handed cellphone user group, the right hip is 1.2% less dense than the left hip, while for the control group made up of mixed-handed people of a different age, the distribution is more even, but still not perfectly even. They conclude that cellphone radiation weakens bone mineralization. But according to the abstract, there was no difference in mineralization, it was just distributed differently.
And, n=24 is not high enough to call a 1.2% difference "statistically significant". That's just bogus. Anyways, my wife and I both lean to our left. And so do her parents and sisters. Not a lot, but about 1-2%. I'd be surprised if that didn't translate into an unevenness in our hip bone densities. We're all right handed, too. Now, I just complained about their low n, so I can't conclude anything from my anecdote...but maybe we favor the leg opposite our dominant hand? If you have more weight on it, you can more easily pivot to bring your right side forward to do something. And, they only studied people who wear a cellphone on their right hip. Isn't that going to be right handed people? Who quite possibly put more weight on their left hip? And if the control group had some left handed people in it, even if there was only 1 or 2, that would totally skew the averages.
That's not just part of the installation process, it's part of the launch process. If you have no internet access, you can't play Mass Effect 2, for example. I'm assuming DA2 is the same way (but after the brutal ass rape DRM in ME2, why would I ever even think of buying another Bioware shitpile ever again?)
If the game had already been installed, he could presumably continue playing.
If it's anything like Mass Effect 2, then DA2 connects and authenticates each time you launch, not just at install. If it had already been installed, he probably still would be locked out.
Recording in public is 100% legal in all jurisdiction
Completely false. Public recording is, in general, illegal in all of the USA. Some states are 1-party, meaning that you can record a conversation if you have permission from at least one of the two members of that conversation. Other states (like the one in TFA) requires permission from all parties to the conversation. That means to record a police officer, you need his permission first. Nowhere in the states can you record in public without permission from anybody at all. That's always illegal.
In the age of the Sega Master System and the NES, both Sega and Nintendo tried to use "drm" to lock out third-party developers, so only Sega/Nintendo games would be able to run on the respective hardware. Developers didn't like this, so they bypassed it. Both companies sued these "hacker" "pirate" developers. In both cases, the cases were thrown out with prejudice, but not before the judges verbally tore Sega/Nintendo a new one. One judge said if they ever hear a peep from Sega again on the issue, they will invalidate their trademark on Sega. (Sega's lock-in technique was to have the console check to see if the first 4 bytes of the ROM were "SEGA" and then sue for Trademark violations).
Not that much later, even watching a video about installing software not signed by the cartel can get you arrested and thrown in prison for a decade or longer. Obviously something has changed. But you're right, it's not the courts that were bought and "convinced" to change their minds. Installing third-party software was made illegal by the DMCA. It was politicians who were bought. And for how much? It's all public, just look at how much Sony and Microsoft and Apple and Nintendo (etc.) have paid to various politicians, with the "understanding" that if they don't get the laws they want, those payments will stop. This is not a bribe because the money comes before the "request", I guess, or something. I'm sure a politician can explain why it's not a bribe.
On the other hand, the DMCA has exceptions for breaking DRM for the purpose of third-party compatibility, so maybe the OP was right, judges just might have been paid off to ignore such exceptions and enforce vendor lock-in, outlawing jailbreaking. This is bad news for people who jailbreak iPhones, too, as it shows that even explicit exceptions to the law can be ignored if you just throw enough money at the legal system.
That "fun and games" will end up with you shot to death. You know that, right? A SWAT team will shotgun your door without announcing themselves. Oops, you jumped up in surprise, that's an aggressive move, blam blam blam, 6 officers with automatic weapons unload their clips into your chest. Police investigation into the shooting finds no wrong doing on behalf of their own officers, case closed. Not even news worthy.
Actually, outsiders are hated and despised. If any of the wiki admins finds out that YOU have been encouraging people to contribute, expect a lifetime ban.
The onus is on you to explain why a person working alone should have less rights than if they were still working alone, but bought a corporate charter from the government. If I buy airtime to tell malicious lies about a politician, I can be sued. If I buy a corporation, I can say the corporation told me to say those things. Now I am immune from suit. The corporation gets sued, it goes bankrupt. But it's not me, we are wholly independent people. So, I am fine.
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And also, since Windows XP, Windows has come with an NTP client on by default, set to their time server. So they've been "spying" on your IP address for a long time!
TFA might have a point. But I wouldn't bother reading to find out with a bullshit summary like that. Really, prostate screening isn't worth the horrendous cost to those 999 out of 1000 people who don't have cancer. Oh yes, the one person who doesn't die of cancer is greatly outweighed by those other 999 who had to get a finger up the ass FOR NO REASON, THEY WEREN'T EVEN SICK! Won't somebody think of those poor unfortunate souls? Seriously, did Peter Griffin write the summary?
I've never got a ridiculous sales pitch. Only reasonable ones. Like, do I know about Canada's new Tax Free Savings Account laws? No, I didn't. Very helpful, that teller. Well, I think once I was asked if I want to increase my credit limit. They took "no thanks" as an answer and haven't asked since. But maybe banking is just more aggressive in the USA.
When I first turned on my Android phone, it told me that by default location services is turned off. It then asked if I wanted to turn it on, and if I did, would I also like to help Google out by contributing nearby towers and wifi networks to help improve the service. All optional, and all clearly laid out. And, you can't even argue that users feel forced, because you can still get the location-based features without allowing Google to collect the data, since the two options are separated. Additionally, it's also fine-grained and application/website specific. Even IF you enable Location Services for google websites, if a different website asks for it, you get another prompt. Similarly, each application besides the browser that wants that data will also require a prompt. (At least on my phone it does).
Now, if a manufacturer or carrier is changing the behavior from default-off to default-on, that's not Google's fault. In fact, Google might even prevent this. They have a number of manufacturer rules about user privacy and experience and that sort of thing. While they release all of their stuff open-source (eventually) so they cannot prevent a manufacturer from making such a phone, they audit phones and do not allow non-complaint handsets onto the Google Market, which has a pretty negative impact on the value of a non-compliant phone. Now, I don't know if Google prevents the data collection from being changed to on-by-default, so who knows...certainly some people have claimed to never have been asked, but I've used both an HTC Legend and a Samsung Galaxy S, and both of those defaulted to off, with a prompt during the initial setup. I suppose that maybe some carrier employees do the initial setup for you? But this question comes after you've entered your gmail account and password. So, besides being the store's fault, not Google's, why are you so concerned with privacy when you gave the minimum wage employee at the AT&T store your email address and password?
Somehow more than one Slashbot has read "aggregate data" and concluded that this means both "real-time" and "not at all aggregate". To clarify, the data that TomTom sends is something of this rough form: A list of sections of road. For each stretch of road, they have data on average speed and average traffic. Whether this is a 24 mean, or more fine grained than that they haven't said. Nevertheless, it's not individual records, its averaged over all users. The amount of traffic is an important metric. Cities routinely spend money to collect this. This is typically done by laying two wires across the road, connected to a datalogger that tracks the magnetic signal of a big chunk of metal passing over the two wires. This is fairly expensive and so they can't do it too often. This data is used to decide where to allocate city funds. Busy intersections have priority for upgrade to roundabout or traffic signal, or for building alternate routes. Cities buying access to TomTom aggregate data are then getting data they already routinely collect. The difference being they are getting it much much cheaper, and getting a more accurate picture (so long as enough people in the city own a TomTom). But the TomTom aggregate data has something that these wires cannot collect: Average speeds. Average speed can paint a decent picture of traffic patterns. If at certain times of the day the average speed is quite low, that is indicative of congestion. And that's what TomTom themselves use it for, for routing around congested roads. (While a GPS route might estimate time based on speed limits, TomTom can do so based on predictive models constructed using aggregate data, or even real time data). Again, cities also collect this data, though not as much. In fact, after a relative got hit by a speeding car at a crosswalk, my grandpa took it upon himself to take a notebook and a clicker to count the number of people speeding through the school zone by his house. He diligently reported his counts to the police every month. While I'm sure many people considered him a busybody (especially the police), I don't think it's reasonable to consider him a spy who was robbing anybody of their freedom.
Anyways, TomTom didn't really do anything wrong. Giving this data, properly aggregated, is harmless to the users who contributed to it. And actually, its quite helpful to them, as it saves the city tax payer money by giving them a cheaper and more accurate and complete source of traffic data. The drawback is that the average speed metric gives a nice map of choice speed trap locations. TomTom (apparently) didn't intend or anticipate this use. If they're truly apologetic it's a very quick fix: They can simply truncate the average speed metric. Say, if the average is higher than, I don't know, 1 or 2 KPH under the limit, just use that value as the average. So, if the limit is 40, return 38 regardless of whether the actual average was 38, or 45, or 50. This maintains the full utility of the metric as a measure of congestion, and eliminates the potential for use setting up speed traps. Which is unfortunate. In an ideal world, stretches of roadway that have an average speed 10 KPS over the limit, but which do not have a lot of accidents, are roads where the limit is too low, NOT roads where you should ambush people who are (statistically) driving safely. Sadly, it's more cost-effective to do the latter, as opposed to actually using the data to improve a city's roadways. Reprinting signs costs cash, but giving tickets generates cash!
Oh, and when I say they did nothing wrong, this is obviously assuming a lack of sinister intent or incompetence. Theoretically aggregate data is private. Knowing that X TomTom users per hour drive down road Y doesn't tell you anything that's private. Assuming X is large. For X=1, that tells you quite a lot, especially if that stretch of X=1 can be followed all the way to a residential address. While I have no way to know for sure, my HOPE is that TomTom also knows this fundamenta
The system might be cheap, but I can't imagine how much a Wii remote with a built-in HD capacitive touchscreen will cost.
I don't know about everywhere, but at least in Montreal you can get a ticket for not locking your car. Car theft is a huge problem and it costs the police a lot of money to handle the thousands of cases they deal with. So, if you leave your car unlocked on a public street, you can get a large ticket. Mind you, you also aren't allowed to turn right on a red light, those zany Quebecois.
You missed the part where he chased her and her partner down after the show, cornered them, and at one point smashed her glasses into pieces. It wasn't a joke, because he stalked her and continued to call her a raging dyke cunt and threaten her with death for her dykish ways, and attacked her. See, he was making dyke jokes and she booed him. His fine was not for the jokes but for the hour or more of harassment because she didn't like them. He wasn't even on fucking stage, he attacked her out of hate and prejudice. And if you think harassing people and smashing their property into pieces is free speech, you should post your address so people can harass you and smash up your car. Free speech, by not letting us know this vital information, you are denying our fundamental right to attack you!
He was arrested 10 months ago and the USA is refusing to disclose the evidence, not even acknowledging requests. They want him extradited based on secret charges over sealed and classified evidence.
The only way you could know he actually did do it is if you hacked into his system and saw the evidence. Expect to be arrested on 100,000 counts of hacking into a computer system (each bit you saw counts as a separate bit of information you stole without authorization).
If you'd RTFA, he was arrested in Canada on a court order from the USA based on non-existance evidence provided by Cisco. Only Cisco denies it, they claim the judge issued the warrant on his own with no involvement from them whatosoever. In any event, the judge is not permitting anybody to see the evidence. So, right now there is a hearing going on deciding whether or not to just shred the fucking thing and let him go. Meanwhile, this guy has been living in a hotel for 10 months. Because he can't leave the country until it's dealt with, but he doesn't LIVE THERE. And the USA is screaming "arrest him arrest him arrest him" but has sealed the evidence and is stonewalling the Canadian courts when they request it. For ten months. Obviously there isn't anything at all. But of course, you know better than the USA and Canadian courts, you know there's real evidence because you're 100% sure the only way anybody could write code for Cisco hardware is because they stole it. Extremely bad news for FOSS that can run on Cisco hardware, isn't it...
Good point, only the people behind this already did the math, and 392MW is the averaged value, not the peak output.
Epsilon said the breach was only names and email addresses, with the exception of a few clients who had member balances or other minor data included in their mailings (such as member points, where some sale flyers will tell you how many points you have to spend on these cool savings). CITI itself said the breach was only names and email addresses. So your conspiracy theory is that they are both lying, and the breach included credit card numbers. But, since both companies involved insist that they have checked and concluded it was only the mailing list, you must be getting your info from the other side! So, are you the hacker himself? Or are you just friends with the guys who stole this data?
Most antivirus programs flag all keygens as trojans. The fact that they don't do anything doesn't matter at all. See previous Slashdot article where AV detection = proof of keylogger ;)
"Rip. Mix. Burn." Don't you watch TV? That was an Apple ad.
Man, if you view first contact with new alien civilizations as a common, humdrum occurrence, I'd hate to see what you think IS unusual.
"No difference in mean BMDs and BMCs between groups was found." So, they have their study and their control group. They looked at bone densities in their hips. The average hip density between both groups is statistically identical. But, in the right-handed cellphone user group, the right hip is 1.2% less dense than the left hip, while for the control group made up of mixed-handed people of a different age, the distribution is more even, but still not perfectly even. They conclude that cellphone radiation weakens bone mineralization. But according to the abstract, there was no difference in mineralization, it was just distributed differently.
And, n=24 is not high enough to call a 1.2% difference "statistically significant". That's just bogus. Anyways, my wife and I both lean to our left. And so do her parents and sisters. Not a lot, but about 1-2%. I'd be surprised if that didn't translate into an unevenness in our hip bone densities. We're all right handed, too. Now, I just complained about their low n, so I can't conclude anything from my anecdote...but maybe we favor the leg opposite our dominant hand? If you have more weight on it, you can more easily pivot to bring your right side forward to do something. And, they only studied people who wear a cellphone on their right hip. Isn't that going to be right handed people? Who quite possibly put more weight on their left hip? And if the control group had some left handed people in it, even if there was only 1 or 2, that would totally skew the averages.
That's not just part of the installation process, it's part of the launch process. If you have no internet access, you can't play Mass Effect 2, for example. I'm assuming DA2 is the same way (but after the brutal ass rape DRM in ME2, why would I ever even think of buying another Bioware shitpile ever again?)
If it's anything like Mass Effect 2, then DA2 connects and authenticates each time you launch, not just at install. If it had already been installed, he probably still would be locked out.
"All of these ministries"? I only see one named. Sure, you copy & pasted it 3.25 times, but it's the same name each time.
Completely false. Public recording is, in general, illegal in all of the USA. Some states are 1-party, meaning that you can record a conversation if you have permission from at least one of the two members of that conversation. Other states (like the one in TFA) requires permission from all parties to the conversation. That means to record a police officer, you need his permission first. Nowhere in the states can you record in public without permission from anybody at all. That's always illegal.
In the age of the Sega Master System and the NES, both Sega and Nintendo tried to use "drm" to lock out third-party developers, so only Sega/Nintendo games would be able to run on the respective hardware. Developers didn't like this, so they bypassed it. Both companies sued these "hacker" "pirate" developers. In both cases, the cases were thrown out with prejudice, but not before the judges verbally tore Sega/Nintendo a new one. One judge said if they ever hear a peep from Sega again on the issue, they will invalidate their trademark on Sega. (Sega's lock-in technique was to have the console check to see if the first 4 bytes of the ROM were "SEGA" and then sue for Trademark violations).
Not that much later, even watching a video about installing software not signed by the cartel can get you arrested and thrown in prison for a decade or longer. Obviously something has changed. But you're right, it's not the courts that were bought and "convinced" to change their minds. Installing third-party software was made illegal by the DMCA. It was politicians who were bought. And for how much? It's all public, just look at how much Sony and Microsoft and Apple and Nintendo (etc.) have paid to various politicians, with the "understanding" that if they don't get the laws they want, those payments will stop. This is not a bribe because the money comes before the "request", I guess, or something. I'm sure a politician can explain why it's not a bribe.
On the other hand, the DMCA has exceptions for breaking DRM for the purpose of third-party compatibility, so maybe the OP was right, judges just might have been paid off to ignore such exceptions and enforce vendor lock-in, outlawing jailbreaking. This is bad news for people who jailbreak iPhones, too, as it shows that even explicit exceptions to the law can be ignored if you just throw enough money at the legal system.
That "fun and games" will end up with you shot to death. You know that, right? A SWAT team will shotgun your door without announcing themselves. Oops, you jumped up in surprise, that's an aggressive move, blam blam blam, 6 officers with automatic weapons unload their clips into your chest. Police investigation into the shooting finds no wrong doing on behalf of their own officers, case closed. Not even news worthy.
Actually, it was a friend of his that made the comment. He is guilty by association.
Actually, outsiders are hated and despised. If any of the wiki admins finds out that YOU have been encouraging people to contribute, expect a lifetime ban.
The onus is on you to explain why a person working alone should have less rights than if they were still working alone, but bought a corporate charter from the government. If I buy airtime to tell malicious lies about a politician, I can be sued. If I buy a corporation, I can say the corporation told me to say those things. Now I am immune from suit. The corporation gets sued, it goes bankrupt. But it's not me, we are wholly independent people. So, I am fine.