And once again, Slashdot lowers itself to the level of the Nationa Enquirer with titalating rumor and inuendo. And this is "News for Nerds"? Oh yes, Slashdot shit-canned that moniker. Probably because it is no longer factually true.
OH! Wait! There's a reference to an electric car! OK, I'm sorry, I'm totally wrong. Great "scoop", Mr. "Editor" Soulskill...
There is a big difference between an allegation and a rumor. A rumor generally arises without an attributed source. An allegation just means whoever is reporting it doesn't want to put their name in the ring as saying it is true (i.e. they don't want to get sued for defamation).
When the rumor is about a billionaire, many people ESPECIALLY don't want to get sued for defamation, because the billionaire can easily sue.
If there is a systemic issue of attorneys not being security-aware and not protecting their data and the data of their clients, how can we expect them to be able to argue before the courts and help create proper, forward-looking precedents?
Many will not. Good attorneys, however, learn a great deal about a topic before they argue it, and that (ideally) includes both reviewing basic reference material and discussions with an expert or two.
No, they're just mostly worthless. Attorneys in some states have ethical duties to delete confidential material they receive by accident, or to notify the sender, or to take other actions. The disclaimers can be useful if (1) they are in a state where their obligation to destroy received material only accrues when they are told to do so, or (2) to show a judge that they didn't do what they were bound to do and they knew they should have, because (a) not only is it in the state ethics rules but (b) it actually TELLS THEM to destroy it.
So, what's the point of using HTTPS to send private information if it's leaked right back through plain-text on port 25
A locked front door and an open back door is better than two open doors. Although yes, they should lock the back door. What we really need is industry-standard secure-ish email.
It is worth noting that despite the difficulty garnering a majority, this was a case with particularly good reasons to expect patent invalidation. First, it is conceptually similar to the hedging risk patent struck down in Bilski--i.e. in broad brushstrokes, the closest thing to it that the Federal Circuit would have thought about first was struck down. Second, and the real crux of it, is that the computer just wasn't that important. Third, although not addressed by the concurring opinion, it was about as obvious as one can imagine.
The bad news is Supreme Court Precedent mostly supports the idea that they can search email without a warrant. There was an old case that says the phone numbers you call on your telephone have to be communicated to the phone company, and therefore you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in them. A reasonable expectation of privacy is required to have the warrant requirement apply.
The justices in that case grew up in an age when there were party telephone lines were still common--you could literally pick up your phone and you would hear your neighbor's phone conversation. They distinguished between different houses on the same phone line by the number of times the telephone would ring. To a justice who grew up being able to hear a neighbor's phone call, the intrusion would seem small.
The good news is that some of the newer justices have expressed a possible willingness to revisit some of that old case law; they are concerned about the erosion of privacy and the idea of a mosaic of non-private information perhaps revealing private information. While the justices are generally pro-prosecution (because most of them were prosecutors), they are also nine intelligent people who grasp at least some of the implications for privacy that exist in a data-driven world.
The other news is that even if email is not protected by the fourth amendment, it can be protected by Congress. Congress, however, tends not to do anything. (I think the most relevant legislation is from the early 80s or 90s--the Stored Communications Act, maybe?)
Also the one thing VC's really want is data to back up your claims of sales. What market research have you done, Who will buy this product? How many will buy the product? Is it a need, want or nice to have? What are your costs? Is there customer support involved? Is the a mass market or niche market? How will people find your product?
But do not say "if we only capture 1% of giant market X we'll be rich!" Make your case using real numbers. Read books on how to do this. And once you've learned how to do it, relax while doing it: be yourself, but as yourself make the projections. There's a lot on the line, so have fun with it, geek out on it, and do a damn fine job. Like you would coding.
(1) The team is most important. Have you assembled a team with the necessary experience to convert an idea into a successful product. VCs mostly invest in people, not so much ideas. Ideas are plentiful, people that can ***deliver*** are not.
Parent is dead on. You really need to have an excellent team, and because you're seeking financing that excellent team has to have the resumes to prove their excellence. Find someone who has actually brought one or more products like yours to market and bring them on board. It may cost a lot, but it greatly increases your chances, both of success and of getting investors on-board.
China's reputation in this area is such (and well-earned) that they are the presumptively guilty party. "Innocent until proven guilty" does not apply to nation-states that routinely engage in operations of type X when an operation of type X occurs.
Yes, it could be Iran or North Korea, but the IP is Chinese, as are most of the IPs from attacks that China originates, so China is a reasonable suspect.
Rape where the victim is white gets more severe punishments than where the victim is black. Black defendants in Washington, D.C. are much more likely to be exonerated (through jury nullification) than white defendants. NYPD Stop-and-frisks are around 2.3 million for blacks but 450K for whites. Pot use is higher among whites while pot arrests are higher among blacks. These are a few easily quantifiable bits of data. You also get the white "privilege" (horrible name for it) factor, i.e. you basically get treated with slightly more respect by default if you're white.
Race is (most likely) irrelevant here; the local police and school are taking grossly immoral actions for which they should be fired, but that has to do with raising children, not race. (The two are correlated, because there are usually better schools in more affluent neighborhoods where there are fewer minorities, but that does not make race the cause of the idiocy.)
It is a breach of professionalism, and enough that a client should almost always fire you, but there's a huge gap between that and making it impossible for you to work in the field ever again. Like the difference between your boss firing you and the entire industry collectively deciding you can't do any work, even tech support for your mother.
He should be disbarred for giving lawyers a bad name (yes, that's possible...)
Should someone who sends a snarky email to their boss once never be able to work with computers again?
Disbarring is taking away someone's profession, and a good part of the value of their entire education. A single stupid decision, other than perhaps something like intentionally stealing from clients, should almost never result in disbarment.
If you actively block (using a powered radio-frequency transmitter) in the USA, you are in violation of FCC regulations.
Actually, it is a violation of federal law, not federal regulations--or at least not only federal regulations.
More concretely, 47 U.S.C. section 333, prohibits willful and malicious interference with licensed stations and was originally designed because of the rise in amateur communications that interfered with police and fire frequencies, according to the Congressional Committee report.
In addition, there is another provision in the Communications Act that prohibits the termination of a common carrier's service without permission from the FCC (and in some cases notification to the Department of Defense).
There is also a section of the act that applies specifically to commercial mobile carriers and provides a third law you are arguably violating.
Finally, if you are a government agent, there are lots of first amendment issues.
So now prosecutorial misconduct that would get any civilian prosecutor disbarred is going to indefinitely delay the release of any prisoners who happen to be innocent.
Wow. Only in America... err... Cuba.
No, it's not really prosecutorial misconduct. (At least the email thing isn't.) It's more a question of technical incompetence. Prosecutorial misconduct would imply they were doing it deliberately in order to get the emails; the disclosed searches, at least, were *disclosed*--the attorneys acted ethically when they were told the IT guys had done overbroad searches.
Finding countries to take certain of them is a problem. The big problem, though (the real bar to closing Guantanamo) is the people who we know are guilty but can't legally prove are guilty because the evidence of their guilt was obtained unconstitutionally.
As a result, we have a class of people who are effectively permanent detainees.
American society is also, in general, far more civil than the New York subway system.
(Although it's better than it was.)
And yes, the New York Times is not the Wall Street Journal. The former is more middle-class, non-wealthy, or liberal; the latter is more upper-middle-class, wealthy, or Republican. Neither of them seems entirely self-aware about this in terms of the bias in their prose, although both know their demographic. Are you seriously saying that news sources in other countries (e.g., the BBC) are not biased toward a particular range of views?
But they were all financed by people with more money than you. Without those people, the person in China would not have built the keyboard because there would have been no job for him. The boats would not have existed. The delivery guy... well, he's government.
We need people with money to provide capital, because the alternative is government with money to provide capital, and that tends to work worse. We also need people to come up with business ideas which make money, and that creates jobs, and we reward and incentivize those people by giving them more capital.
The problem comes when (1) the sole focus is on the wealth generated, (2) the poor do not have enough to live, and (3) the divide between rich and poor is so great that (a) the poor no longer have a chance to better their lot and (b) the rich are no longer safe.
I have massive respect for those who serve their country.
Why?
No, seriously, why? It's like a third rail, or a vestige of the almost tribal (and at least nationalistic) notion that one of the most honorable or hottest things a guy can do is fight.
Some service members are worthy of great respect, because they do a great job and are willing to sacrifice themselves for something that is larger than they are, having actively made that decision on their own, rather than merely being taught that their country is great. But that is a rare person. Kind of like how you have people who spend their lives in service to others, working to make the world a better place, whether in nonprofits or commerce.
More people are there because they saw it as the best alternative, or a way to make some money, or they didn't see any alternative because it had always been expected of them. It's quite respectable to use it to get out of a bad neighborhood, to turn your life around or keep it from going bad.
But it's not respectable just by default, because you're trained to fight, kill people, and get shot at. In fact, if anything, that's the opposite of respectable, with the exception that some of the lessons along the way (good hygiene habits, sometimes discipline) can be respectable.
You are training to kill when someone points. That doesn't make you automatically good. It makes you a killer.
Slashdot Mirror
Until China starts to face real responses?
Why do you think they are not facing them now?
And once again, Slashdot lowers itself to the level of the Nationa Enquirer with titalating rumor and inuendo. And this is "News for Nerds"? Oh yes, Slashdot shit-canned that moniker. Probably because it is no longer factually true.
OH! Wait! There's a reference to an electric car! OK, I'm sorry, I'm totally wrong. Great "scoop", Mr. "Editor" Soulskill...
There is a big difference between an allegation and a rumor. A rumor generally arises without an attributed source. An allegation just means whoever is reporting it doesn't want to put their name in the ring as saying it is true (i.e. they don't want to get sued for defamation).
When the rumor is about a billionaire, many people ESPECIALLY don't want to get sued for defamation, because the billionaire can easily sue.
If there is a systemic issue of attorneys not being security-aware and not protecting their data and the data of their clients, how can we expect them to be able to argue before the courts and help create proper, forward-looking precedents?
Many will not. Good attorneys, however, learn a great deal about a topic before they argue it, and that (ideally) includes both reviewing basic reference material and discussions with an expert or two.
Those disclaimers are worthless!
No, they're just mostly worthless. Attorneys in some states have ethical duties to delete confidential material they receive by accident, or to notify the sender, or to take other actions. The disclaimers can be useful if (1) they are in a state where their obligation to destroy received material only accrues when they are told to do so, or (2) to show a judge that they didn't do what they were bound to do and they knew they should have, because (a) not only is it in the state ethics rules but (b) it actually TELLS THEM to destroy it.
For example.
So, what's the point of using HTTPS to send private information if it's leaked right back through plain-text on port 25
A locked front door and an open back door is better than two open doors. Although yes, they should lock the back door. What we really need is industry-standard secure-ish email.
lawmakers are turning up the heat on the Obama administration
lobbyists are turning up the heat on Congress.
Fixed that for you.
Hint: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000076 [AT&T profile at opensecrets]
It is worth noting that despite the difficulty garnering a majority, this was a case with particularly good reasons to expect patent invalidation. First, it is conceptually similar to the hedging risk patent struck down in Bilski--i.e. in broad brushstrokes, the closest thing to it that the Federal Circuit would have thought about first was struck down. Second, and the real crux of it, is that the computer just wasn't that important. Third, although not addressed by the concurring opinion, it was about as obvious as one can imagine.
The bad news is Supreme Court Precedent mostly supports the idea that they can search email without a warrant. There was an old case that says the phone numbers you call on your telephone have to be communicated to the phone company, and therefore you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in them. A reasonable expectation of privacy is required to have the warrant requirement apply.
The justices in that case grew up in an age when there were party telephone lines were still common--you could literally pick up your phone and you would hear your neighbor's phone conversation. They distinguished between different houses on the same phone line by the number of times the telephone would ring. To a justice who grew up being able to hear a neighbor's phone call, the intrusion would seem small.
The good news is that some of the newer justices have expressed a possible willingness to revisit some of that old case law; they are concerned about the erosion of privacy and the idea of a mosaic of non-private information perhaps revealing private information. While the justices are generally pro-prosecution (because most of them were prosecutors), they are also nine intelligent people who grasp at least some of the implications for privacy that exist in a data-driven world.
The other news is that even if email is not protected by the fourth amendment, it can be protected by Congress. Congress, however, tends not to do anything. (I think the most relevant legislation is from the early 80s or 90s--the Stored Communications Act, maybe?)
But if you'd drop-shipping from a third-party within the state, I'm not sure that that's still true.
The text of the legislation specifically provides that organizations doing this are not exempted. The people who draft bills are not (usually) morons.
Also the one thing VC's really want is data to back up your claims of sales. What market research have you done, Who will buy this product? How many will buy the product? Is it a need, want or nice to have? What are your costs? Is there customer support involved? Is the a mass market or niche market? How will people find your product?
But do not say "if we only capture 1% of giant market X we'll be rich!" Make your case using real numbers. Read books on how to do this. And once you've learned how to do it, relax while doing it: be yourself, but as yourself make the projections. There's a lot on the line, so have fun with it, geek out on it, and do a damn fine job. Like you would coding.
(1) The team is most important. Have you assembled a team with the necessary experience to convert an idea into a successful product. VCs mostly invest in people, not so much ideas. Ideas are plentiful, people that can ***deliver*** are not.
Parent is dead on. You really need to have an excellent team, and because you're seeking financing that excellent team has to have the resumes to prove their excellence. Find someone who has actually brought one or more products like yours to market and bring them on board. It may cost a lot, but it greatly increases your chances, both of success and of getting investors on-board.
So the "compromise" could be lots of data collected but only kept for a short time (weeks, not years).
Or requiring a warrant to access the data.
China's reputation in this area is such (and well-earned) that they are the presumptively guilty party. "Innocent until proven guilty" does not apply to nation-states that routinely engage in operations of type X when an operation of type X occurs.
Yes, it could be Iran or North Korea, but the IP is Chinese, as are most of the IPs from attacks that China originates, so China is a reasonable suspect.
Rape where the victim is white gets more severe punishments than where the victim is black. Black defendants in Washington, D.C. are much more likely to be exonerated (through jury nullification) than white defendants. NYPD Stop-and-frisks are around 2.3 million for blacks but 450K for whites. Pot use is higher among whites while pot arrests are higher among blacks. These are a few easily quantifiable bits of data. You also get the white "privilege" (horrible name for it) factor, i.e. you basically get treated with slightly more respect by default if you're white.
Race is (most likely) irrelevant here; the local police and school are taking grossly immoral actions for which they should be fired, but that has to do with raising children, not race. (The two are correlated, because there are usually better schools in more affluent neighborhoods where there are fewer minorities, but that does not make race the cause of the idiocy.)
It is a breach of professionalism, and enough that a client should almost always fire you, but there's a huge gap between that and making it impossible for you to work in the field ever again. Like the difference between your boss firing you and the entire industry collectively deciding you can't do any work, even tech support for your mother.
He should be disbarred for giving lawyers a bad name (yes, that's possible...)
Should someone who sends a snarky email to their boss once never be able to work with computers again?
Disbarring is taking away someone's profession, and a good part of the value of their entire education. A single stupid decision, other than perhaps something like intentionally stealing from clients, should almost never result in disbarment.
What happen if this "bomber" were found not guilty?
He THREW A BOMB at police. He will be found guilty.
If you actively block (using a powered radio-frequency transmitter) in the USA, you are in violation of FCC regulations.
Actually, it is a violation of federal law, not federal regulations--or at least not only federal regulations.
More concretely, 47 U.S.C. section 333, prohibits willful and malicious interference with licensed stations and was originally designed because of the rise in amateur communications that interfered with police and fire frequencies, according to the Congressional Committee report.
In addition, there is another provision in the Communications Act that prohibits the termination of a common carrier's service without permission from the FCC (and in some cases notification to the Department of Defense).
There is also a section of the act that applies specifically to commercial mobile carriers and provides a third law you are arguably violating.
Finally, if you are a government agent, there are lots of first amendment issues.
If you regulate an industry, ALL must do it.
Not very familiar with the services section of craigslist or the spousal-support taxless gray market cash economy, I see.
So now prosecutorial misconduct that would get any civilian prosecutor disbarred is going to indefinitely delay the release of any prisoners who happen to be innocent.
Wow. Only in America... err... Cuba.
No, it's not really prosecutorial misconduct. (At least the email thing isn't.) It's more a question of technical incompetence. Prosecutorial misconduct would imply they were doing it deliberately in order to get the emails; the disclosed searches, at least, were *disclosed*--the attorneys acted ethically when they were told the IT guys had done overbroad searches.
Finding countries to take certain of them is a problem. The big problem, though (the real bar to closing Guantanamo) is the people who we know are guilty but can't legally prove are guilty because the evidence of their guilt was obtained unconstitutionally.
As a result, we have a class of people who are effectively permanent detainees.
Swedish society is far more civil.
American society is also, in general, far more civil than the New York subway system.
(Although it's better than it was.)
And yes, the New York Times is not the Wall Street Journal. The former is more middle-class, non-wealthy, or liberal; the latter is more upper-middle-class, wealthy, or Republican. Neither of them seems entirely self-aware about this in terms of the bias in their prose, although both know their demographic. Are you seriously saying that news sources in other countries (e.g., the BBC) are not biased toward a particular range of views?
But they were all financed by people with more money than you. Without those people, the person in China would not have built the keyboard because there would have been no job for him. The boats would not have existed. The delivery guy... well, he's government.
We need people with money to provide capital, because the alternative is government with money to provide capital, and that tends to work worse. We also need people to come up with business ideas which make money, and that creates jobs, and we reward and incentivize those people by giving them more capital.
The problem comes when (1) the sole focus is on the wealth generated, (2) the poor do not have enough to live, and (3) the divide between rich and poor is so great that (a) the poor no longer have a chance to better their lot and (b) the rich are no longer safe.
I have massive respect for those who serve their country.
Why?
No, seriously, why? It's like a third rail, or a vestige of the almost tribal (and at least nationalistic) notion that one of the most honorable or hottest things a guy can do is fight.
Some service members are worthy of great respect, because they do a great job and are willing to sacrifice themselves for something that is larger than they are, having actively made that decision on their own, rather than merely being taught that their country is great. But that is a rare person. Kind of like how you have people who spend their lives in service to others, working to make the world a better place, whether in nonprofits or commerce.
More people are there because they saw it as the best alternative, or a way to make some money, or they didn't see any alternative because it had always been expected of them. It's quite respectable to use it to get out of a bad neighborhood, to turn your life around or keep it from going bad.
But it's not respectable just by default, because you're trained to fight, kill people, and get shot at. In fact, if anything, that's the opposite of respectable, with the exception that some of the lessons along the way (good hygiene habits, sometimes discipline) can be respectable.
You are training to kill when someone points. That doesn't make you automatically good. It makes you a killer.