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80059689
comment
byharlows_monkeys
nuary 06, 2016 @01:49PM
(#51250309)
Attached to: Entering the Age of Body-Worn Police Cameras
The privacy issues go far beyond no-knock raids. In many jurisdictions police are routinely dispatched when an ambulance is called. If they have body cameras, they will capture all kinds of intimate things that most people would want to keep private.
75682357
comment
byharlows_monkeys
st 25, 2015 @11:56PM
(#50393079)
Attached to: California Bill Would Dramatically Limit Commercial Drones
FedEx and UPS manage to deliver packages to me by truck without driving over any property without permission. Why is it supposedly so hard for drones to do so without flying over property without permission? Just follow the same route UPS or FedEx would use.
In fact, it should be easier for the drones since they will be allowed over property without permission if they are 350 feet up. FedEx and UPS trucks do not have that option.
75682239
comment
byharlows_monkeys
st 25, 2015 @11:52PM
(#50393071)
Attached to: California Bill Would Dramatically Limit Commercial Drones
that's very Libertarian of you, endorsing even more government regulations. "Cognitive dissonance" in operation?
Uhm...using state authority to enforce private property rights is one of the few things most schools of libertarianism agree is a legitimate use of state power.
74497995
comment
byharlows_monkeys
ly 15, 2015 @06:27PM
(#50120799)
Attached to: US House Committee Approves Anti-GMO Labeling Law
I have no objection to the science of GMO. It is the business of GMO that I do not trust.
The difference between conventional hybrids and GMOs is that the the set of plants and animals that can be obtained by the former over any given time frame is a tiny subset of those that can be obtained by the latter. GMO gives food producers a great increase in power, and as a great philosopher once observed, "With great power comes great responsibility". I don't think the current food companies have the necessary responsibility.
With conventional hybrids, they are more limited in what they can do, and it can take longer to achieve a given desired organism. These limitations give us a chance to make sure that they are not misusing their power.
72139755
comment
byharlows_monkeys
l 21, 2015 @07:41PM
(#49524589)
Attached to: 'Aaron's Law' Introduced To Curb Overzealous Prosecutions For Computer Crimes
He was charged with 35 years, so you don't know what he would have received. That's what the prosecutor wanted.
The prosecutor wanted somewhere between a couple months or so (the amount they offered for a plea bargain) and a few years (the amount they were going to ask for if it went to trial).
72139677
comment
byharlows_monkeys
l 21, 2015 @07:38PM
(#49524567)
Attached to: 'Aaron's Law' Introduced To Curb Overzealous Prosecutions For Computer Crimes
You're a fucking moron. How does "access without authorization" warrant a 35 year sentence?
I can't believe that after all these years there are still people who believe that Swartz faced a 35 year sentence. He did not. The algorithm the DoJ uses to get a number to trumpet in a press release ignores the rules of sentencing, and in all but the simplest of cases gives a wildly inflated number. There are two main factors that the press release algorithm ignores.
First, there is a range of possible sentences for a given crime. Where a particular instance falls on that range depends on the severity of that instance. To get the maximum, you have to have done a lot of damage, be a repeat offender, and so on. The prosecutors in the indictment were not alleging the various factors necessary to push Swartz up to the high end on any of the counts.
For the press release, they do not consider this. So if a crime might result in 1 year for someone who caused under $5k damages, and 10 years for someone who caused over $100k in damages, they will count it as 10 years in the press release, even if they are only alleging that the defendant caused $1k damages.
Second, federal crimes are divided into groups, and when one particular act leads to multiple charges from the same group, you will only be sentenced for one crime from the group even if convicted for all of them.
In the press release, they just add up the maximum sentences for each charge, completely ignoring the grouping.
69450527
comment
byharlows_monkeys
ary 20, 2015 @08:03PM
(#48861705)
Attached to: FBI Seeks To Legally Hack You If You're Connected To TOR Or a VPN
The author is confused. See this discussion on HN where a lawyer or two explain what is actually going on.
Basically, nothing is changing concerning the substantive requirements for a warrant. All that is changing is which judges can issue a warrant after the police have satisfied all the requirements of the Constitution and of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Suppose a crime took place in district X, using a computer in district Y. Before, the police would have to go to a judge in district Y. After the change, they will be able to go to a judge in district X if and only if something like TOR or VPN was used that prevents them from determining Y.
65877107
comment
byharlows_monkeys
ber 28, 2014 @03:34PM
(#48254971)
Attached to: Can Ello Legally Promise To Remain Ad-Free?
There are substitutes for consideration. The magic words used to hand wave away a need for traditional consideration are "promissory estoppel" or "detrimental reliance".
I think a bigger problem for the $1000 trick would be that a court might see that as effectively a liquidated damages clause, and find it invalid because it was not chosen as a rough approximation of the actual damages likely to befall the user if Ello started running ads.
65837099
comment
byharlows_monkeys
er 27, 2014 @04:06PM
(#48245345)
Attached to: Black Swan Author: Genetically Modified Organisms Risk Global Ruin
What is the difference between selective breeding and genetic modification?... nothing.
Wrong. Genetic modification allows for a greater range of modification in a shorter time than can be achieved with selective breeding.
As Ben Parker wisely noted many years ago, "With great power comes great responsibility". Does our current food industry collectively have the great responsibility to wisely handle the great power of GMO? They have pretty clearly demonstrated that they do not.
65074495
comment
byharlows_monkeys
ember 30, 2014 @10:22PM
(#48032845)
Attached to: Grooveshark Found Guilty of Massive Copyright Infringement
He also said, "If you have CDs, MP3s or any other music that could conceivably be converted to MP3s at the office, please bring them in".
64632421
comment
byharlows_monkeys
mber 19, 2014 @08:53AM
(#47944889)
Attached to: Apple Will No Longer Unlock Most iPhones, iPads For Police
The energy argument only applies to brute forcing using irreversible computing. If you compute reversibly you can do any computation in arbitrarily small energy.
61277133
comment
byharlows_monkeys
17, 2014 @05:04PM
(#47258397)
Attached to: U.S. Democrats Propose Legislation To Ban Internet Fast Lanes
He was a cable lobbyist (sort of--he was head of the largest cable trade association, and that association did do lobbying among other things) 30 years ago, when cable was the underdog trying to provide an alternative to the big broadcasters, and there was no such thing as a cable ISP because the public internet did not exist yet.
He worked for the wireless trade group 10 years ago.
Also in there he founded or was a heavy investor in several companies that were more on the content provider side of things, and would be hurt by a lack of net neutrality. There is no evidence that he is any more influenced by his very old (and irrelevant to internet) cable association or his more recent but still old wireless association than by his association with those other companies that were on the content side of things.
52559425
comment
byharlows_monkeys
ber 01, 2013 @11:54PM
(#45309017)
Attached to: Why Amazon Fights State Sales Tax, But Supports It Nationally
Suppose I live in a state with a low sales tax and travel to one with a higher rate. I pay with a credit card, just as I would if I were at home making a payment to an online reseller. Do I get charged my home-state tax rate? NO.
It depends on the states. If you are a resident of Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, American Samoa, Alberta, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, or the Yukon Territory and you are visiting Washington, you are not charged sales tax on tangible personal property, digital goods, and digital codes purchased in Washington if they are for use outside Washington. You show the merchant picture ID that shows your address, and they ring up the sale without sales tax.
52559305
comment
byharlows_monkeys
ber 01, 2013 @11:45PM
(#45308989)
Attached to: Why Amazon Fights State Sales Tax, But Supports It Nationally
I never bought anything from Amazon, simply because they want to charge me the additional 27% VAT of my own country, while on the Internet they should charge none and I'd pay it at the customs when it arrives. If I paid them, would they return the tax money to our government later? I don't think so.
Yes, they would turn the tax money over to your government.
51774683
comment
byharlows_monkeys
ober 10, 2013 @03:08AM
(#45089123)
Attached to: Azerbaijan Election Results Released Before Voting Had Even Started
I'm in IT myself, and I know how difficult it is to come up with good test-data for your testing...so what's better than production data?
I'm not saying it is so, but it could very well be that the testers have loaded into it this years candidates, made up some likely result, and run the software to see that it works...
And apparently it did! ;)
Yup. Generally people doing election-related software have to test with data that is as similar to what will be in the live election as possible, including names of candidates and parties. See this comment in the HN discussion of this, from a developer of election reporting software that has been used in the US and other countries, for details on why and how this sort of thing can happen.
In fact, this same thing happened in the US in the 2012 Illinois Republican primary. The reporting company providing the data to many news organizations accidentally marked the test feed as live for a couple hours the day before the election, and a couple of TV station websites, which were set up to automatically publish updates from the live feed, published this.
The problem in the present case is that it took place in Azerbaijan, which has a long history of widespread corruption and election fraud. It is quite believable that someone has in fact pre-generated the actual election results, and those accidentally got pushed early.
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