PrometheeFeu 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: No That Won't Backfire At All: Questionable Story About Obama's Daughter Disappears From The Web

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 11:46pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I take your point, but that's hardly conclusive.

  • On the post: No That Won't Backfire At All: Questionable Story About Obama's Daughter Disappears From The Web

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 11:40pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Thank you very much for your concern for my well-being, but my heart and breathing rates are within normal parameters. As for the significance of taxpayer money, while larger amounts are more problematic and may indeed raise my heart-rate, I disapprove on principle of people who reach into my pocket whether they take a tenth of a penny or $1,000. I disapprove of it even more when they are using my money for the personal gratification of themselves, their friends and family. So, sure, I'm liable to throw tantrums and freak out (aka, write a couple comments on a website) when I hear about people stealing my money.

    I'm not sure exactly how many agents it is appropriate to spend on the President's kids and wife. But I would say 25 is definitely excessive. I would tend to say 3-5 is about as much as is acceptable. Having known the children of a number of executives in dangerous countries who got along just fine with that number, (of people with much less training than secret service agents I might add) I would say that's good enough for the president's kids if you keep them out of particularly dangerous areas.

  • On the post: No That Won't Backfire At All: Questionable Story About Obama's Daughter Disappears From The Web

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 11:03pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    [citation needed]

  • On the post: No That Won't Backfire At All: Questionable Story About Obama's Daughter Disappears From The Web

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 09:48pm

    Re: Re:

    She gets 25 Secret Service agents on her at all times when in the US? Security is about balancing protective measures with risk avoidance, making a cost-benefit analysis. Let's say that Obama's kids wanted to tour the front-line in Afghanistan and that doing that safely would require a company of marines and constant air support. Everyone would understand that the right thing to do would be for the girls to not go and spend all that tax-payer money.

    Here, it's the same thing on a smaller scale. They can either put the girl in a dangerous situation and fly over 25 agents, or they can keep her in DC with her normal staff which is probably much smaller. (and at the very least does not need to fly there) The responsible thing to do is for Obama to explain to his kids that no, it's not his money to spend and that he can't justify having the American people's money finance such an expensive security apparatus just so his kids can go visit Mexico. But of course, he instead lets his kid go and makes us pay for it. Excuse me if I find that unacceptable.

    And if people have done that in the past, that is no excuse. It is plainly unacceptable for Presidents to be so cavalier with tax-payer money.

  • On the post: No That Won't Backfire At All: Questionable Story About Obama's Daughter Disappears From The Web

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 08:35pm

    Let's see, the President is spending our tax dollars to outfit his kid with a 25-person escort to Mexico and pointing it out is a "low blow"? If she can't be made safe with a reasonable escort (1-2 people tops), maybe she should stay in the White House or daddy could use his salary to pay the bill. I don't see why I as a tax payer should pay for her field trip.

  • On the post: FBI Turns Off About 3,000 GPS Devices Following Supreme Court Ruling

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2012 @ 02:14pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    As much as it is possible (and even plausible) that they went on fishing expeditions, I'm betting those GPS devices are expensive to acquire, maintain, install and then monitor, so I'm hesitant to say that FBI agents dipped into their budget willy-nilly. No impossible, but I'm willing to grant them some benefit of the doubt.

  • On the post: FBI Turns Off About 3,000 GPS Devices Following Supreme Court Ruling

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 01 Mar, 2012 @ 06:23pm

    Re: Re:

    Well, as much as I am suspicious of law enforcement, I don't think they actually thought this was illegal. The reasoning in Jones is fairly novel (in modern 4th Amendment jurisprudence) and so I would forgive an FBI agent who thought that this is no different than beepers which SCOTUS had said was not a search.

    So they thought they were going through the proper channels. The real problem as I see it is that people in law enforcement are a bit too eager to believe that they can do things which makes everyone else raise an eyebrow.

  • On the post: FBI Turns Off About 3,000 GPS Devices Following Supreme Court Ruling

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 01 Mar, 2012 @ 06:19pm

    Re: Re:

    Well, to be fair, they used to think the Constitution did not require them to get a warrant. (Still doesn't necessarily. There are many cases where a search can be made without a warrant.) So if you think what you are doing is within the bounds of the 4th Amendment and that no warrant is needed, it would be a waste to spend resources on getting a warrant.

    Of course, that is part of the problem. The culture in law enforcement should be to seek judicial review whenever there is a grey area rather than only doing so when you are sure it is absolutely necessary.

    I'm just saying, it's not necessarily all nefarious.

  • On the post: ICE Considered One Of The Worst Places To Work In The Federal Government

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2012 @ 02:05pm

    Re:

    I know... Slowly but surely we are winning. People who work for ICE and the TSA should feel terrible.

  • On the post: EFF Condemns Google For Circumventing Safari Privacy Protections

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2012 @ 01:09am

    From what I've read, this sounds like an honest mistake. Most likely, some QA guy tried the functionality in Safari saw that it didn't work and sent a bug to the developer saying: "The feature is broken in Safari. Fix it!" The developer looked at what Safari was doing, and said: "Hm... Safari is acting weird. Stupid non-standard browser behavior. As though IE wasn't enough of a pain in the neck!" Then he wrote some code that made the feature work and forgot about it.

    I seriously doubt anyone actually though this Safari behavior was a feature not a bug. If you develop for the web, a ridiculous amount of time is spent working around individual browser quirks. You rarely actually sit down and think: "Well maybe it's a feature that our application won't work in a major but quirky web browser out of the box."

  • On the post: Would The US Extradite UK Blogger For Linking To Works In The Public Domain In Other Countries?

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2012 @ 06:20am

    I'm a little confused. Let's say I go to Canada and legally purchase a copy of 1984 that has been made without paying any royalties and then fly into the US. What is my copyright violation? As I understand it, it's illegal to copy, perform, etc in the US. But I did none of these things in the US. It was all done in a country where it was perfectly legal for me to do those things and then came into the US. Am I missing something?

  • On the post: Senator Ron Wyden's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2012 @ 09:22am

    So... If a Senator becomes Techdirt Favorite Posts of the Week author, does that mean all of us who did one these posts before are now Senators? Don't answer that question, I'm pretty sure I like my fantasy better than reality...

  • On the post: Judge Says Americans Can Be Forced To Decrypt Laptops

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 11:07pm

    Re: Re: Re: well, shit

    Nobody is saying that they may examine her thoughts! We are saying that she has to hand over evidence which is in her possession when an impartial arbiter has determined that there is probable cause that the evidence is relevant to a case where she may have violated the rights of another individual. That's it. What's wrong with that?

  • On the post: Judge Says Americans Can Be Forced To Decrypt Laptops

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 11:04pm

    Re: Re: Re: No way in hell

    What evil? They have her on tape admitting to the presence of the evidence on her hard-drive. All they are saying is: give us that thing we know you have. Her mind is not being violated.

  • On the post: Judge Says Americans Can Be Forced To Decrypt Laptops

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 10:59pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: No way in hell

    No they are not. They are ordering her to hand over evidence that she has admitted to be in her possession. This is no different than saying: "Open this safe which you said contains evidence."

  • On the post: Judge Says Americans Can Be Forced To Decrypt Laptops

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 10:50pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    They have that woman on tape admitting there is evidence on her hard-drive. What more do you want?

  • On the post: Judge Says Americans Can Be Forced To Decrypt Laptops

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 10:43pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Actually no. I don't believe the state has any right to any papers at all. I do however believe that people have a right to not be defrauded and that that right must be balanced against people's right to privacy. The 4th amendment, the probable cause requirement and independent courts arbitrate between the two. That's their job and here, they did it well.

  • On the post: Judge Says Americans Can Be Forced To Decrypt Laptops

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2012 @ 11:25pm

    Re: well, shit

    Fascism? Isn't that a bit of an exageration for a court finding that they can force you to produce evidence even if that evidence is encrypted rather than buried or locked up or whatever?

  • On the post: Judge Says Americans Can Be Forced To Decrypt Laptops

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2012 @ 11:10pm

    Re: No way in hell

    Can you please explain to us which ones of your rights are being violated? Is it your right to ignore a narrowly drafted warrant for evidence based upon a finding of probable cause by an impartial judge? Would you complain as much if instead of being encrypted the data was printed out and in a safe? What's the difference?

  • On the post: Judge Says Americans Can Be Forced To Decrypt Laptops

    PrometheeFeu ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2012 @ 10:59pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Wow, I love the hyperbole. Nobody is searching that woman's mind. That woman is simply ordered to produce the evidence that she admitted to storing on her hard drive the same way she might be ordered to produce evidence stored in a locked box or hidden under floorboards. For that order to be lawfully issued, the prosecution had to demonstrate that they had "probable cause" (a direct quotation from the 4th amendment if you believe it) to believe that there was evidence on the hard drive. They did so by having her on tape admitting to that fact. If she doesn't like that outcome, she can file an appeal and then request certiorari from SCOTUS.

    But as it stands, the information stored in her mind is not requested which means her rights under the 5th Amendment are being respected. And just to be sure, the prosecution agreed that they could not bring the fact that she was capable of decrypting the drive as evidence against her.

    What were you expecting? That if you store a piece of evidence in an envelope they can force you to hand it over, but if you encrypt it they can't? That would be an absurd result.

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