migi 's BestNetTech Comments

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  • On the post: DOJ Charges Officers For No Knock Warrant Lies That Led To The Killing Of Breonna Taylor

    migi ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2022 @ 04:20pm

    You're mistaken, the second group and anyone else who crossed the police barriers around the Capitol complex broke the law, they trespassed. The Capitol is secured 24 hrs a day by it's own police force for a reason, furthermore on Jan 6th both the VP and VP elect were in the building, which makes it a restricted building under the law. Officers could not give people permission for people to enter, they did not have the authority. If they did say that people had permission, it was invalid for the same reason that you might give someone your wallet if their friend is holding a knife. Of course there is a big difference between someone who assaulted LEOs vs someone who meekly wandered around. It would probably be a waste of time and resources to track down and prosecute every last person who only trespassed. But claiming the trespassers haven't committed any crimes is completely incorrect.

  • On the post: DOJ Charges Officers For No Knock Warrant Lies That Led To The Killing Of Breonna Taylor

    migi ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2022 @ 08:11am

    It's worth noting that DOJ is bringing this case despite being absolutely slammed with the cases stemming from Jan 6th. You can easily imagine a world where DOJ decided that civil rights cases were deferred for a few years (most crimes have a 5 year statute of limitations), so they could prioritise Jan 6th.

  • On the post: With The Hype Bubble Burst, Companies Try Comically Hard To Distance Themselves From NFTs

    migi ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2022 @ 06:59am

    Contrast with Minecraft

    Minecraft put out a statement a few days ago saying that NFTs aren't compatible with the spirit of Minecraft and they aren't permitted within the Minecraft client.

    "NFTs and other blockchain technologies creates digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, which does not align with Minecraft values of creative inclusion and playing together. NFTs are not inclusive of all our community and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots. The speculative pricing and investment mentality around NFTs takes the focus away from playing the game and encourages profiteering, which we think is inconsistent with the long-term joy and success of our players."
    And
    "to ensure that Minecraft players have a safe and inclusive experience, blockchain technologies are not permitted to be integrated inside our Minecraft client and server applications nor may they be utilized to create NFTs associated with any in-game content, including worlds, skins, persona items, or other mods"
    https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/minecraft-and-nfts

  • On the post: With The Hype Bubble Burst, Companies Try Comically Hard To Distance Themselves From NFTs

    migi ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2022 @ 06:49am

    Nice Flippin' Tulip

  • On the post: Netflix’s Password Sharing Crackdown Has It Sounding More And More Like Comcast

    migi ( profile ), 20 Jul, 2022 @ 07:30am

    Crunchyroll, an anime streaming service, recently announced a price cut for most (but not all) of the world. Also it looks like they are switching to local currencies rather than USD, which protects customers from bank charges for using a foreign currency. However relatively few anime are licenced by more than one platform, so if customers switch from one to the other, they lose access to different shows. https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2022/07/18-1/crunchyroll-reducing-monthly-prices-in-nearly-100-countries-territories

  • On the post: Why The GOP Wants To Break Your Spam Filter: GOP Candidate Tricked Gullible Voters Into Funding Him With Misleading Spam Emails

    migi ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2022 @ 09:25am

    I think you're right about it being a fraud problem rather than a spam problem, the emails are soliciting money on behalf of someone who doesn't receive that money. Presumably Trump and DeSantis haven't made a stink about it because they're worried people will stop responding to genuine emails. I remember there was a big stink in 2020 when Trump was rasing money via email, and used pre-filled checkboxes and word salad to hide that the donations would be monthly rather than one time. IIRC that was considered unethical rather illegal because the information was there for careful recipients to see.

  • On the post: If It’s Impossible To Compete With Google, How Come New Search Engines Keep Launching?

    migi ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2022 @ 09:24am

    Unless you're researching scams, it stands to reason that scam sites are not a good result to return, even if by other metrics they are the correct result.

  • On the post: Musk’s Attempt To Get Out Of The Twitter Deal Proceeding Exactly As Predicted; What Happens Next?

    migi ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2022 @ 09:14am

    More like Elmo: "I think you have a spider infestation" Twithouse: "We don't have an infestation, there are a few spiders, we track spider sightings and on average there's one per room, and they tend to stay out of the way in the corners" Elmo: "I've seen 2 spiders and therefore I want all your historical CCTV footage, and live access to it, and you have to include the bathrooms, also I'm going to tweet mean things about Twithouse employees for good measure"

  • On the post: Musk’s Attempt To Get Out Of The Twitter Deal Proceeding Exactly As Predicted; What Happens Next?

    migi ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2022 @ 12:33pm

    It may have a Force Maejeure (act of God) section. Likely the Russia war against Ukraine would meet that.
    That would be an interesting argument (by which I mean laughable) because the Russian invasion began in February, and Elon signed the agreement in April.
    The Fed raising borrowing rates twice (ant now talking a third time) would count as well.
    If this rule applied to the Elon/Twitter deal, it would apply to every other deal, and therefore the economy would crash every time interest rates were changed. That doesn't happen so I deduce this isn't the case.

  • On the post: Dangerous Ruling Says If Someone Goes Onto Your Openly Shared Google Drive, You Can Sue Them For Unauthorized Access

    migi ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2022 @ 04:41pm

    I am not a lawyer, but I think there are reasons to think that this is not some sort of legal disaster. Firstly it's a civil case not a criminal case, so to succeed the plaintiff does not need to reach beyond reasonable doubt, only preponderance of the evidence. Secondly this is a ruling on a motion to dismiss and as the court notes "When analyzing the sufficiency of a complaint, the well-pled factual allegations are taken as true and construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." So when the plaintiff claims that a google drive URL is the equivalent of a password and the judge thinks it's a close call, that seems likely not to pass muster later on when the judge doesn't need to view things in the light most favourable to the plaintiff, and can fully account for the defendant's arguments (If I was the defence lawyer I'd be thanking the judge for signalling an angle that he is receptive to counterarguments). Thirdly the plaintiff alleged $5000 worth of damages, which he incurred by hiring a "forensic IT team". If the defendant had accessed the drive but not done any vandalism, I don't see how the defendant would have ever incurred those costs because there would never have been a reason to hire them. I'm not sure the court got it right, but I think that this story is untimely because it's about an interim decision not the final decision. If the court (or jury) rules this way in the final decision that would be a much bigger problem.

  • On the post: White House Launches Yet Another Task Force To Try To Curb Online Abuse; But So Far It Seems Extremely One-Sided

    migi ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2022 @ 12:50pm

    I'm not sure that the number of headings on wikipedia is determinative, but my point was that the article conflated incitement and threats which are distinct things (although I'm sure if you tried you could do both at the same time).

  • On the post: White House Launches Yet Another Task Force To Try To Curb Online Abuse; But So Far It Seems Extremely One-Sided

    migi ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2022 @ 06:49pm

    There is a very, very, very narrow sliver of threatening speech — that focused on inciting imminent lawless action — that is not protected
    I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure this is wrong. You're discussing threats which means you need to look at the true threat standard, not the incitement standard. Both true threats and incitement are legally unprotected, IIRC there are 2 other categories of speech which are unprotected. Popehat addressed them recently in the context of the abhorrent RINO ad: https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1538938290476158976

  • On the post: Impossibility Theorem Strikes Again: YouTube Deletes January 6th Committee Video

    migi ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2022 @ 10:38am

    Excuse me while I bookmark this so I can bring it up every time someone claims that only conservatives are "censored" on tech platforms.

  • On the post: More Details: Sony Reportedly Telling Its Game Studios Not To Comment On Abortion Issue

    migi ( profile ), 23 May, 2022 @ 03:15am

    "pro-abortion crowd"

    "pro-abortion crowd" Being pro-abortion would mean being in favour of terminating pregnancies that are both wanted and not harmful to the mother's health. No-one is in favour of that position. The correct term is "pro-choice". The pro-choice position is that the mother should be able to choose whether or not to have an abortion. The state should not make that decision by making abortions illegal, nor mandatory.

  • On the post: Reality Check: Twitter Actually Was Already Doing Most Of The Things Musk Claims He Wants The Company To Do (But Better)

    migi ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2022 @ 09:17am

    how much speech is absolutely abhorrent and something that people will gladly leave the site to avoid, yet fits in neither category
    I didn't mean to imply this isn't the case. The only thing I wanted to push back against is the notion that Elon's prior pronouncements about "allow all legal speech" is incompatible with blocking spam, if you view it as a refinement of his previous position.

  • On the post: Reality Check: Twitter Actually Was Already Doing Most Of The Things Musk Claims He Wants The Company To Do (But Better)

    migi ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2022 @ 09:00am

    Twitter is going to get real nasty real fast.
    I assume so as well, I didn't intend to imply otherwise.

  • On the post: Reality Check: Twitter Actually Was Already Doing Most Of The Things Musk Claims He Wants The Company To Do (But Better)

    migi ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2022 @ 04:47pm

    AND operation

    Elon's initial comments didn't mention spam or bots, so I assume (and hope) he modified his views after receiving feedback. My interpretation of his intended new rules are that each post will be checked: first for spam, then for legality. If it passes both tests (an AND operation), it will be permitted without any other checks. Of course that simple operation lacks the 16 years experience that Twitters' current rules and policies have, but maybe (hopefully) Elon will continue to be open to feedback, and accept more recommendations from people with expertise, rather than just whatever his Twitter followers chant. Unfortunately his recent behaviour, condoning when Twitter’s legal head, Vijaya Gadde was called Twitter’s “top censorship advocate” suggests otherwise. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/27/elon-musk-tweets-criticising-twitter-staff-acquisition-deal (I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that article has correctly interpreted the agreement Elon signed, I think Elon agreed not to criticise the merger and people directly involved, not the whole of Twitter and all its employees)

  • On the post: Elon Musk Demonstrates How Little He Understands About Content Moderation

    migi ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2022 @ 11:02am

    If there has been no stifling of conservatives, then you wouldn’t be panicked.
    When Conservatives get suspended or banned, it's always the ones who promote violence, medical misinformation, or similar. The ones who stick to policy are never affected. Odd that.
    You wouldn’t be concerned about a change in moderation, because no changes in moderation practices which show favoritism could possibly be identified
    People are concerned that removing complexity and nuance from content moderation will make Twitter a cesspool of hate, abuse, and spam. They will then leave Twitter for a new platform, which will be disruptive for the individuals and bad for Twitter. People aren't concerned that conservatives will overpower them through the sheer brilliance of conservative arguments, they are concerned that unscrupulous companies or hostile foreign actors will have an easy time gaming the simplified rules to manipulate a significant portion of public discourse. I'll end with a quote from everyone's favourite prosecutor, Robert Mueller: "Over the course of my career, I have seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government's effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious. And as I said on May 29, this deserves the attention of every American."

  • On the post: Elon Musk Demonstrates How Little He Understands About Content Moderation

    migi ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2022 @ 09:54am

    I think this is about right. None of Musk's previous companies have dealt with content moderation at scale, so he doesn't have any prior experience with it. The other question is whether his 'numbers' intelligence gives him an advantage when trying to tackle a problem that's based around human interaction.

  • On the post: John Oliver Tries To Scare DC Into Doing Something About The Privacy Dumpster Fire That Is Adtech

    migi ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2022 @ 04:41pm

    So if John Oliver can buy all this information, how long have the FSB and GRU possessed it? Or for an insider threat, could the FBI or CIA buy it and use it against Reps who are trying to pry into things the FBI would prefer to remain secret?

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