This Blog is Dead and All of the Posts are Old
I have retired this blog. Things change. Please do not read further, as This Blog is Dead and All of the Posts are Old.
(We’re are still at it of course — ten years+ now. See our newish secure site: https://tcjohnston.com)
Revenge Porn Conviction (the part where I was on TV)
When Kevin Bollaert was convicted for running a Revenge Porn site (no … he wasn’t!) in early February, KUSI News San Diego called me for an interview. My info was sketchy – reports that he was convicted for extortion and identity theft, usually accompanied by wrong statements (again) that Bollaert was busted for running a revenge porn site. Of course, the site itself would be immune from liability for user-generated content per the CDA §230. So it must have been the part where the poor victims whose private photos ended up on the site could get them removed for a modest fee; and the part where Bollaert solicited private information from the perps regarding the victims.
Anyway … the news truck came down and I yakked at them for 20 minutes or so. They kept the “Just be careful,” advice. I supposed it plays better on TV than where I advised, “Be alert; be vigilant; be circumspect; be judicious.” (That was a little experiment for my own personal edification.)
And reporter
Can’t embed the video on this not-self-hosted blog (I’ll get to it someday), so > Here’s a Link
… a delayed feeding (12.10.14)
Got caught up in real life again, and haven’t been posting – about which I do not apologize, as my guitar and piano chops are coming back. But, here’s some links from my feeds … some of which may be relevant and/or useful, or not, in no particular order, except I suppose we should open with CIA Torture Report (the general contents of which, btw, is quite old news, we just hadn’t seen the details yet).
- There Is Something Worse Than Torture in the Senate Torture Report / MoJo
- Hint: It’s the lying to Congress part
- Profiting Massively From Torture: Designers Of CIA Torture Program Raked In $81 Million (And Are Still Getting Money) / Techdirt
- The Torture Report and the possibility of International Criminal Court charges / The Volokh Conspiracy
- An Inside View On The Purpose And Implications Of The Torture Report / Techdirt
- Read this one. It’s a different take on much of what’s out there.
That’s enough of that. Now for some less depressing stuff.
- Why Is It That Zombies Eat Brains? / Gizmodo
- I actually knew this already because I was fully into zombies before they became all mainstream and stuff.
- Uber sued by SF and LA, shut down in Spain and Thailand / Ars Technica
- (Probably should have toned down the arrogance a bit too…)
- Jay Z crushes sample troll who claimed copyright in word “oh” / GigaOm
- Man this makes me happy. More case law supporting fair use in sampling context. And f*** trolls.
- Billion-dollar trial against Apple loses all plaintiffs—then gets a new one / Ars Technica
- Kim Dotcom Is Not a Fugitive, Court Hears / TorrentFreak
- This is part of the continuing tawdry US prosecution of Dotcom, who is in NZ. A quote, seriously!:
- [Defendants] are deliberately avoiding prosecution by declining to enter the United States where the criminal case is pending,” U.S. Attorney Dana Boente noted.
- This is part of the continuing tawdry US prosecution of Dotcom, who is in NZ. A quote, seriously!:
- Net neutrality’s cost to consumers pegged at $17B — or zero / GigaOm
- Copyright Law as a Tool for State Censorship of the Internet / EFF
- Quoted: Sony hacking as ‘righteous deed’; plus another attack / SiliconBeat
- Broken Windows And Broken Lives / Popehat
Next time, we give you, ah, maybe I’ll link to some all-wrong cover tunes I’ve been doing instead of all this.
bucket ‘o tech/law feeds (week of 7.27.2014)
And here we are again with some of the stuff I was reading last week – in no order whatsoever.
- Cell phone unlocking legal again as president signs measure / SiliconBeat
- The Phone Unlocking Victory Should Be the First Step Towards Real Copyright Reform
- Watch Drought Take Over the Entire State of California in One GIF
- Just because this affects me personally.
- Earth is in the early stages of a sixth mass extinction, says the journal Science – News.com.au
- Google Protects Chilling Effects From Takedown Notices / TorrentFreak
- Do You Search Differently Since Snowden? t / Gizmodo
- NSA Surveillance Chilling Effects: HRW and ACLU Gather More Evidence / EFF
- EFF Asks Court To Declare NSA’s ‘Internet Backbone’ Collections Unconstitutional / Techdirt
- The New Senate USA FREEDOM Act: A First Step Towards Reforming Mass Surveillance / EFF
- Please Stop Saving Me A Click l / BuzzFeed
- Socrates Takes a Back Seat to Business and Tech
- Science Says You Should Leave Work at 2 p.m. and Go for a Walk
- Judge upholds warrant for Microsoft e-mail on foreign server r / The Volokh Conspiracy
-
Microsoft ordered to give US customer e-mails stored abroad s / Ars Technica
- Why Minecraft is a phenomenon: it requires its players to co-create it – Robin Sloan / Medium
That’ll do…
f-fuh f-fuh f-f-feeds
Well it’s been two weeks, and my collection of links is pretty expansive. So I’ll just keep most of them to myself, and here’s some random stuff that’s not too old…
- File-Sharing Doesn’t Hurt Box Office Revenue, Research Finds / TorrentFreak
- An Amusing Explanation of Why Net Neutrality Is So Serious
- Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues
- Comcast admits its policies are responsible for customer harassment s / The Verge
- Google, Netflix, and Facebook ask FCC to intervene in fight over internet ‘congestion’ / The Verge
- Biggest “patent troll” slapped down hard by appeals court n / Ars Technica
- Yet another evidence that Germans run US trolling operations
- Verizon will start restricting LTE speeds for its heaviest unlimited-plan customers
- Musician Whose Works Are At Center Of Copyright Lawsuit Against YouTube Star Slams Lawsuit And Copyright
- Some really crazy people made the entire Star Wars movie in Minecraft
- Latest CAFC Ruling Suggests A Whole Lot Of Software Patents Are Likely Invalid
- Another Blogger Wins a Fair Use Defense For a Photo–Leveyfilm v. Fox Sports
- Amended aggravation: Garcia v. Google t’s 43(B)log
- Suing File-Sharers Doesn’t Work, Lawyers Warn o / TorrentFreak
- Yelp statements about its filters not protected by anti-SLAPP law or CDA t
Yeah, pretty mixed up… next time perhaps a thematic approach again.
feederishly (week of 7.6.14)
I’m thinking, meh … don’t really have a lot to say this time round. Much of the big ugly same, and the NSA. So here’s some of this week’s feeds maybe clustered by subject, but that’s about it:
- Want To Encourage Gossipy Content Online? Go For It–Jones v. TheDirty (Forbes Cross-Post)
- Microsoft drops case that severed DNS hosting for millions of No-IP nodes
- Four Unanswered Questions From Aereo’s Supreme Court Loss (Forbes Cross-Post)
- Taylor Swift is right about music, and the industry should act on her ideas
- Security company says your data can easily be recovered from ‘wiped’ Android phones
- Seth Rogen and James Franco are ‘shocking the world community’ (and don’t fear ‘any punishment from Heaven’)
- Billionaire Elon Musk giving $1M to Nikola Tesla museum – San Jose Mercury News
- “Loopholes for Circumventing the Constitution”, the NSA Statement, and Our Response
- True or false: NSA snooping disclosures hurt cloud adoption
- FBI Directly Spying On Prominent Muslim-American Politicians, Lawyers And Civil Rights Activists
- What Were They Thinking? Microsoft Seizes, Returns Majority of No-IP.com’s Business
… More Disruptive Innovation v. Entrenched Interests …
- Lyft will launch in NYC Jul 11, cars can be hailed initially from Brooklyn and Queens but not from Manhattan – Mike Isaac / New York Times
- Lyft defies New York City taxi agency’s ban, to launch Friday
- Lyft hit with restraining orders from NY attorney general, Taxi Commission
- Lyft reverses under legal pressure, cancels Friday night New York launch
- Lyft blocked at city gates by New York Attorney General, Taxi Commission
VentureBeat
And this is just hilarious…