Yes all true but why exactly would Kaspersky give a rat's ass about whether you want the malware to become public or not? It is in their direct interest to be the first to bring these things public so why would they keep quiet unless you give them some sort of incitement to do so?
They have absolutely no obligation to listen to nor obey your wishes unless you happen to be their government(and there are laws which enable you to enforce their silence)
If it was just espionage and not sabotage they would probably just quietly fix the vulnerabilities and bury the fact that it ever happened as deep as possible, you don't want to publicly admit that critical infrastructure is that vulnerable.
Actual sabotage on the other hand would probably be an entirely different story, at least if enough people got hurt or the sabotage was widespread enough that it could not be covered up, if it can still be covered up then it is in their own interest to quietly cover up the fact that it ever happened.
Any such act IS an act of war but thats only a problem if the enemy has the capability and the will to strike back. US/Israel obviously thinks that Iran currently doesn't have the will or capability.
Besides it's typically only a problem if the aggressor is unable to credibly deny the accusations
Yes it is clearly not in the best interest of the intelligence community to be discovered with whatever plot they're currently plotting away at. On the other hand Kaspersky wants profit, being the first to report on something like this will likely gain them space in the spotlight for the moment at least which translates to profit, so it is probably not in the best interest of Kaspersky to comply with the intelligence community's need for obscurity unless they pay them enough enough(or use some less pleasant means of coercion).
Oh really, I beg to differ. The US Air Force seemed to absolutely love Stargate SG-1 despite frequent mentions, visits and plots relating directly or indirectly to Area 51.
According to the Geneva convention she is a civilian and may not be harmed either intentionally or through negligence, and as the United States is a signatory of that convention it is bound to follow it.
No you are not required to treat "enemy combatants" as legitimate army because according to the Geneva convention they are not a legitimate army. The problem is that unless you treat them as such they are civilians. The problem is that the "enemy combatants" is not clearly covered by the Geneva convention(because in 1949 the problem did not exist) while the armed forces of the United States is clearly recognized by the convention and bound to follow it(although considering the Apache-Reuters incident the US armed forces apparently don't think they need to follow the convention whenever it is inconvenient).
The official paper distributed among reporters says that there have been 164 drone strikes in the militant-dominated region of North Waziristan since 2007, killing 964 "terrorists". There were 171 al-Qaida fighters among those killed, mostly belonging to central Asian and Arab countries.
Analysts like former army general Talat Masood suggest that the rare admission by the Pakistani military about the effectiveness of drone attacks could be exploited to make the general public understand the dilemma their country is facing.
"Because on one hand the drone attacks are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and it is also a violation of international law. But at the same time, they have a certain tactical utility in the sense that Pakistan has lost control over these areas and if the American drones help in containing these forces and also killing some of the militants, specially their top leadership, then it will facilitate Pakistan's fighting against the militant forces," Masood states.
Ayesha Siddiqua is a social scientist with deep insight into Pakistani military affairs. In a country where the army is seen as the main power broker, she says the acknowledgement about drones being a useful tactic against militants is likely to help political leaders to seek legitimacy for the strikes in public discourse.
"It basically means that the political dispensation is under greater pressure, is much more answerable to the people and, therefore, they have to at least cook some stories. But in reality, the military which is not answerable to any public, it is also a party to the decision of conducting drone attacks
Observers say the Pakistani military's nod to the effectiveness of the U.S campaign could serve the interest of both countries in sending a message to critics of the drone program that they are avoiding civilian deaths and that the strikes are militarily effective.
So to recap, the Pakistani general have several reasons to misrepresent the truth and can therefore not be considered a credible source concerning the effectiveness of these drone strikes.
Besides, who where the other 793 "terrorists" killed by drones but apparently not al-Qaeda?
Bad example because unless you are a licensed weaponsmith and the person has a valid license then you are still liable because the weapon itself is illegal and will presumably be used for something illegal.
IANAL
No that is something entirely different because the MPAA agents didn't break into anyone's house, they were invited in, albeit under false pretense but lying was not illegal last time I looked(except under very specific circumstances), as long as they don't pretend to be cops or other licensed government representative etc they will be fine.
So let me restate this, they did NOT break into any houses, they did NOT steal any property, all they did was claim to be interested in buying a house and were thus invited in and then they looked around.
While I don't like the behavior I fail to see how it is different from hiring a PI to stalk your spouse because you suspect that they're cheating and that is legal and have been legal for quite a while.
Yes someone pointed it out a bit further down as well, my bad.
Though Google does have a subsidiary incorporated in Ireland and funnel most of their profit through it because of the low corporate tax.
I think it's most likely that the Commission looked somewhat into the matter and found that it is likely that Google is up to something that is not completely in line with regulations but that it's not so major that it requires immediate direct intervention. The Commission would probably never to have to intervene and that everyone followed the law and as such prefers to give Google a chance to come clean and change it's ways rather than initiate a costly and time consuming legal process. Like Confucius said, do not use a cannon to kill a mosquito.
No, this is just a preliminary investigation, if it proceeds and finds the Google is indeed breaking any rules those will be revealed and the Commission will start a legal process against Google.
This is more of a "Hey Google, "some people"(those Microsoft dudes we fined for $1.4b a few years back) are complaining that you are breaking our laws. We have decided to investigate whether this is true or not, in the interest of everybody involved(this is in your best interest because if you cooperate we will give you the chance to stop breaking our laws rather than drag you to court over it.) please cooperate with our investigation.
In case you should decide not to cooperate with this investigation there will be one anyway and we will drag you to court over anything we find, please remember that this can quite possibly cost you billions of euros if you are breaking any of our laws."
You seem to think that the EU Commission is biased against foreign countries which is a really old(and faulty) caveat that has repeatedly been disproved because the Commission regularly brings these type of cases against European companies as well, the biggest find ever handed out by the Commission was to an European corporation(Siemens I think it was).
That is just another case of the EU and US having extremely different views on how corporations are supposed to operate as well as what is and what is not an acceptable behavior.
Yes the internet is obviously opt-in but that is not reason to not punish online behavior that the society sees as wrong and EU clearly believes that this behaviour might be wrong.
Yes they want to limit how Google can monetize their data because that action harms their business.
Google has become so ubiquitous that it pretty much is infrastructure these days and as such EU requires it to be neutral, I see nothing wrong with that.
Ok my bad, but the purpose of incorporating is typically to take advantage of the lower corporate tax so Google probably funnels much of their profits through that subsidiary and those funds can then be subject to seizure if Google repeatedly breaks EU law.
Yes if implemented properly juries can be a barrier against tyrannical laws but since the SCOTUS thinks that a trial judge should have no obligation to inform a jury of their right to nullify laws and if Wikipedia is to be believed then it is common practice for a judge to remove a juror if they believe that the juror is aware of the power of nullification(if true then how can this be allowed to persist in a system that is designed with the sole purpose to prevent such things?). When this is the system it is actually much much worse than a non jury system because it practically removes that barrier function and introduce alot of flaws that is often contrary to a fair and impartial ruling, for example the jury will typically have little to no education and therefore lack insight neccessary to render a fair and impartial ruling based on the facts and not the facts as presented by lawyers.
Given such limitations I feel that the system with a panel of judges is better, because if the public disagrees with a jury sentence the system can just blame it on the incompetence of the jurors or that the lawyers managed to trick them, if the ruling is rendered by a panel of judges their only defense/explanation is that the law demands the verdict and thus pressure can be put on the system to change those laws.
If a jury system is to be functional and fulfill it's purpose of the jurors must be well informed about their rights, duties and obligations as well as they should receive a fair compensation for the loss of income due to serving as a juror and they must be allowed to ask leading questions and allowed to seek information to better allow them to render a fair and impartial ruling. The jury as a silent and uninformed interpreter of facts is fundamentally flawed and provides no protection from tyrannical laws and in no way guarantees a fair and impartial ruling.
How about another approach- Google can do whatever Google wants with their search engine website. It's *their* website. "Google intentionally abusing their position"...they EARNED that position by making a search engine that the whole world uses. They're not doing anything illegal by promoting their own services...that is the point.
The coalition of nations known as EU has as sovereign nations the right to make laws as they see fit within their borders, that right trumps Google's concerning everything within the borders of EU and EU legislation as presented in "Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union" makes certain business practices illegal
"Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the common market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the common market insofar as it may affect trade between Member States."
for example:
(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions such as forbidding AdWords users to show their ads with other distributors. (b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers
(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage for example promoting their own services ahead of the competitors (d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts." such as forbidding AdWords users to show their ads with other distributors.
It's very simple really. the member states of the EU has agreed on what should pass as law within EU as is their right as sovereign nations and anyone who wish to do business in the EU has to obey those laws, furthermore Google has chosen to incorporate itself in Ireland which puts them firmly under the rule of Irish and EU legislation to an even greater extent than just doing business within EU's borders. Google can choose to incorporate someplace else and not do business in the EU market but considering the size of that market that clearly is not an option.
The competitors do want their sites to be tracked, after all they want their sites high on Google search etc.(which is part of the complaint).
What they don't want is for Google to start their own very similar service, "steal" the competitors data, implement said data in their own service and present that service higher in any relevant search.
Another thing is that as Google clearly has a dominant market position and as such has extra obligations in EU antitrust legislation and an "opt-out" standard such as robots.txt might not be enough to protect Google in relevant cases where they might need the users express permission and a failure to opt-out does not equal express permission.
Besides robots.txt does not work when you want Google to index something for the purpose of Google search but not in Google maps or other services for example.
In EU antitrust legislation a company doesn't even have to have >50% market share to be covered by the antitrust legislation, the company only needs to have a dominant position within the market or a substantial part of the market . To date the lowest market share that has been found to be "dominant" is 39.7%.
The lack of a jury is just as much a difference in style of law. In the European system the courts cannot judge the law, they merely enforce it, and they argue that this function is better fulfilled by competent(hopefully) and trained professionals rather than some random person picked off the street.
Juries makes sense when they are empowered not to just decide on guilt or but also whether the law is fair, but from what seems to be the norm in the US today judges routinely strip juries of that power.(at least it seems that way according to the information that makes it across the Atlantic)
Since Google is incorporated in Ireland(which is a member state) the Council can technically seize all of Google if they persist.
So yes very much I doubt Google is stupid enough to hope the problem goes away if they ignore EU.
I have a feeling that if it was a French or Danish firm, we wouldn't see half this amount of noise from the EU throne.
This old caveat again, the fact still remains that the biggest fine EU has handed out so far was against an European company(Siemens I think)
And well if I remember correctly Google is incorporated in Ireland(because of the low corporate tax) so I guess technically Google is an European company...
Considering the sort of actual real privacy rubbish that say Facebook, or Apple engage in, I'm perplexed why they don't hit the headlines as much.
I don't know that Apple or Facebook is considered large enough in a specific market to be covered by the antitrust legislation, that is possibly why. But the European Council is preparing legislation that forbids Facebook to sharing user information with advertisers etc, without the users express permission.
The Council is apparently also investigating whether Facebook's facial recognition system is contradictory to EU privacy legislation.
Personally I think it's good that there is at least one Governmental organization that doesn't instantly roll over whenever big corps complain.
What for? When the episode is readily available worldwide a few hours after airing in the US there is no point to regional sub-forums etc.
It is not the viewers that needs to adapt to the corporate overlords, it is the corporations that needs to adapt to their customers if they still want to have a market, if they don't the viewers will find alternate routes as is readily apparent by this discussion.
Why bother? I will also get the DVD when it's released here in Sweden but in the meantime I will pirate the episode when it's released in the US because I rarely ever watch TV so I don't have a DVR and I can't be arsed to sync my private life with the airing schedule and as far as I know there is no legal streaming service that releases the episodes in a timely manner.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes all true but why exactly would Kaspersky give a rat's ass about whether you want the malware to become public or not? It is in their direct interest to be the first to bring these things public so why would they keep quiet unless you give them some sort of incitement to do so?
They have absolutely no obligation to listen to nor obey your wishes unless you happen to be their government(and there are laws which enable you to enforce their silence)
If it was just espionage and not sabotage they would probably just quietly fix the vulnerabilities and bury the fact that it ever happened as deep as possible, you don't want to publicly admit that critical infrastructure is that vulnerable. Actual sabotage on the other hand would probably be an entirely different story, at least if enough people got hurt or the sabotage was widespread enough that it could not be covered up, if it can still be covered up then it is in their own interest to quietly cover up the fact that it ever happened.
Any such act IS an act of war but thats only a problem if the enemy has the capability and the will to strike back. US/Israel obviously thinks that Iran currently doesn't have the will or capability.
Besides it's typically only a problem if the aggressor is unable to credibly deny the accusations
Yes it is clearly not in the best interest of the intelligence community to be discovered with whatever plot they're currently plotting away at. On the other hand Kaspersky wants profit, being the first to report on something like this will likely gain them space in the spotlight for the moment at least which translates to profit, so it is probably not in the best interest of Kaspersky to comply with the intelligence community's need for obscurity unless they pay them enough enough(or use some less pleasant means of coercion).
tada
Oh really, I beg to differ. The US Air Force seemed to absolutely love Stargate SG-1 despite frequent mentions, visits and plots relating directly or indirectly to Area 51.
According to the Geneva convention she is a civilian and may not be harmed either intentionally or through negligence, and as the United States is a signatory of that convention it is bound to follow it.
No you are not required to treat "enemy combatants" as legitimate army because according to the Geneva convention they are not a legitimate army. The problem is that unless you treat them as such they are civilians. The problem is that the "enemy combatants" is not clearly covered by the Geneva convention(because in 1949 the problem did not exist) while the armed forces of the United States is clearly recognized by the convention and bound to follow it(although considering the Apache-Reuters incident the US armed forces apparently don't think they need to follow the convention whenever it is inconvenient).
The official paper distributed among reporters says that there have been 164 drone strikes in the militant-dominated region of North Waziristan since 2007, killing 964 "terrorists". There were 171 al-Qaida fighters among those killed, mostly belonging to central Asian and Arab countries.
Analysts like former army general Talat Masood suggest that the rare admission by the Pakistani military about the effectiveness of drone attacks could be exploited to make the general public understand the dilemma their country is facing. "Because on one hand the drone attacks are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and it is also a violation of international law. But at the same time, they have a certain tactical utility in the sense that Pakistan has lost control over these areas and if the American drones help in containing these forces and also killing some of the militants, specially their top leadership, then it will facilitate Pakistan's fighting against the militant forces," Masood states.
Ayesha Siddiqua is a social scientist with deep insight into Pakistani military affairs. In a country where the army is seen as the main power broker, she says the acknowledgement about drones being a useful tactic against militants is likely to help political leaders to seek legitimacy for the strikes in public discourse.
"It basically means that the political dispensation is under greater pressure, is much more answerable to the people and, therefore, they have to at least cook some stories. But in reality, the military which is not answerable to any public, it is also a party to the decision of conducting drone attacks
Observers say the Pakistani military's nod to the effectiveness of the U.S campaign could serve the interest of both countries in sending a message to critics of the drone program that they are avoiding civilian deaths and that the strikes are militarily effective.
So to recap, the Pakistani general have several reasons to misrepresent the truth and can therefore not be considered a credible source concerning the effectiveness of these drone strikes.
Besides, who where the other 793 "terrorists" killed by drones but apparently not al-Qaeda?
Bad example because unless you are a licensed weaponsmith and the person has a valid license then you are still liable because the weapon itself is illegal and will presumably be used for something illegal.
IANAL
No that is something entirely different because the MPAA agents didn't break into anyone's house, they were invited in, albeit under false pretense but lying was not illegal last time I looked(except under very specific circumstances), as long as they don't pretend to be cops or other licensed government representative etc they will be fine.
So let me restate this, they did NOT break into any houses, they did NOT steal any property, all they did was claim to be interested in buying a house and were thus invited in and then they looked around.
While I don't like the behavior I fail to see how it is different from hiring a PI to stalk your spouse because you suspect that they're cheating and that is legal and have been legal for quite a while.
Yes someone pointed it out a bit further down as well, my bad.
Though Google does have a subsidiary incorporated in Ireland and funnel most of their profit through it because of the low corporate tax.
I think it's most likely that the Commission looked somewhat into the matter and found that it is likely that Google is up to something that is not completely in line with regulations but that it's not so major that it requires immediate direct intervention. The Commission would probably never to have to intervene and that everyone followed the law and as such prefers to give Google a chance to come clean and change it's ways rather than initiate a costly and time consuming legal process. Like Confucius said, do not use a cannon to kill a mosquito.
No, this is just a preliminary investigation, if it proceeds and finds the Google is indeed breaking any rules those will be revealed and the Commission will start a legal process against Google.
This is more of a "Hey Google, "some people"(those Microsoft dudes we fined for $1.4b a few years back) are complaining that you are breaking our laws. We have decided to investigate whether this is true or not, in the interest of everybody involved(this is in your best interest because if you cooperate we will give you the chance to stop breaking our laws rather than drag you to court over it.) please cooperate with our investigation. In case you should decide not to cooperate with this investigation there will be one anyway and we will drag you to court over anything we find, please remember that this can quite possibly cost you billions of euros if you are breaking any of our laws."
You seem to think that the EU Commission is biased against foreign countries which is a really old(and faulty) caveat that has repeatedly been disproved because the Commission regularly brings these type of cases against European companies as well, the biggest find ever handed out by the Commission was to an European corporation(Siemens I think it was). That is just another case of the EU and US having extremely different views on how corporations are supposed to operate as well as what is and what is not an acceptable behavior.
Yes the internet is obviously opt-in but that is not reason to not punish online behavior that the society sees as wrong and EU clearly believes that this behaviour might be wrong.
Yes they want to limit how Google can monetize their data because that action harms their business. Google has become so ubiquitous that it pretty much is infrastructure these days and as such EU requires it to be neutral, I see nothing wrong with that.
Ok my bad, but the purpose of incorporating is typically to take advantage of the lower corporate tax so Google probably funnels much of their profits through that subsidiary and those funds can then be subject to seizure if Google repeatedly breaks EU law.
Yes if implemented properly juries can be a barrier against tyrannical laws but since the SCOTUS thinks that a trial judge should have no obligation to inform a jury of their right to nullify laws and if Wikipedia is to be believed then it is common practice for a judge to remove a juror if they believe that the juror is aware of the power of nullification(if true then how can this be allowed to persist in a system that is designed with the sole purpose to prevent such things?). When this is the system it is actually much much worse than a non jury system because it practically removes that barrier function and introduce alot of flaws that is often contrary to a fair and impartial ruling, for example the jury will typically have little to no education and therefore lack insight neccessary to render a fair and impartial ruling based on the facts and not the facts as presented by lawyers.
Given such limitations I feel that the system with a panel of judges is better, because if the public disagrees with a jury sentence the system can just blame it on the incompetence of the jurors or that the lawyers managed to trick them, if the ruling is rendered by a panel of judges their only defense/explanation is that the law demands the verdict and thus pressure can be put on the system to change those laws.
If a jury system is to be functional and fulfill it's purpose of the jurors must be well informed about their rights, duties and obligations as well as they should receive a fair compensation for the loss of income due to serving as a juror and they must be allowed to ask leading questions and allowed to seek information to better allow them to render a fair and impartial ruling. The jury as a silent and uninformed interpreter of facts is fundamentally flawed and provides no protection from tyrannical laws and in no way guarantees a fair and impartial ruling.
How about another approach- Google can do whatever Google wants with their search engine website. It's *their* website. "Google intentionally abusing their position"...they EARNED that position by making a search engine that the whole world uses. They're not doing anything illegal by promoting their own services...that is the point.
The coalition of nations known as EU has as sovereign nations the right to make laws as they see fit within their borders, that right trumps Google's concerning everything within the borders of EU and EU legislation as presented in "Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union" makes certain business practices illegal
"Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the common market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the common market insofar as it may affect trade between Member States."
for example:
(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions such as forbidding AdWords users to show their ads with other distributors.
(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers
(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage for example promoting their own services ahead of the competitors
(d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts." such as forbidding AdWords users to show their ads with other distributors.
It's very simple really. the member states of the EU has agreed on what should pass as law within EU as is their right as sovereign nations and anyone who wish to do business in the EU has to obey those laws, furthermore Google has chosen to incorporate itself in Ireland which puts them firmly under the rule of Irish and EU legislation to an even greater extent than just doing business within EU's borders. Google can choose to incorporate someplace else and not do business in the EU market but considering the size of that market that clearly is not an option.
The competitors do want their sites to be tracked, after all they want their sites high on Google search etc.(which is part of the complaint).
What they don't want is for Google to start their own very similar service, "steal" the competitors data, implement said data in their own service and present that service higher in any relevant search.
Another thing is that as Google clearly has a dominant market position and as such has extra obligations in EU antitrust legislation and an "opt-out" standard such as robots.txt might not be enough to protect Google in relevant cases where they might need the users express permission and a failure to opt-out does not equal express permission.
Besides robots.txt does not work when you want Google to index something for the purpose of Google search but not in Google maps or other services for example.
In EU antitrust legislation a company doesn't even have to have >50% market share to be covered by the antitrust legislation, the company only needs to have a dominant position within the market or a substantial part of the market . To date the lowest market share that has been found to be "dominant" is 39.7%.
The lack of a jury is just as much a difference in style of law. In the European system the courts cannot judge the law, they merely enforce it, and they argue that this function is better fulfilled by competent(hopefully) and trained professionals rather than some random person picked off the street.
Juries makes sense when they are empowered not to just decide on guilt or but also whether the law is fair, but from what seems to be the norm in the US today judges routinely strip juries of that power.(at least it seems that way according to the information that makes it across the Atlantic)
Since Google is incorporated in Ireland(which is a member state) the Council can technically seize all of Google if they persist.
So yes very much I doubt Google is stupid enough to hope the problem goes away if they ignore EU.
I have a feeling that if it was a French or Danish firm, we wouldn't see half this amount of noise from the EU throne.
This old caveat again, the fact still remains that the biggest fine EU has handed out so far was against an European company(Siemens I think)
And well if I remember correctly Google is incorporated in Ireland(because of the low corporate tax) so I guess technically Google is an European company...
Considering the sort of actual real privacy rubbish that say Facebook, or Apple engage in, I'm perplexed why they don't hit the headlines as much.
I don't know that Apple or Facebook is considered large enough in a specific market to be covered by the antitrust legislation, that is possibly why. But the European Council is preparing legislation that forbids Facebook to sharing user information with advertisers etc, without the users express permission. The Council is apparently also investigating whether Facebook's facial recognition system is contradictory to EU privacy legislation.
Personally I think it's good that there is at least one Governmental organization that doesn't instantly roll over whenever big corps complain.
What for? When the episode is readily available worldwide a few hours after airing in the US there is no point to regional sub-forums etc.
It is not the viewers that needs to adapt to the corporate overlords, it is the corporations that needs to adapt to their customers if they still want to have a market, if they don't the viewers will find alternate routes as is readily apparent by this discussion.
Why bother? I will also get the DVD when it's released here in Sweden but in the meantime I will pirate the episode when it's released in the US because I rarely ever watch TV so I don't have a DVR and I can't be arsed to sync my private life with the airing schedule and as far as I know there is no legal streaming service that releases the episodes in a timely manner.