Re: I'm wondering
Please, "crispy Pi"
201 publicly visible posts • joined 12 May 2012
Hardly sanctifying - first I think government messes with everyone, from tasing 13-year-olds for not listening to their Mums and old ladies for not getting out of a baseball game seat or not signing a ticket. Second, as Swartz notes, depression is highly prevalent - I imagine % is higher among people with run-ins with the law. So every time the gov tries to intimidate a suspect, they may have 50% chance of messing with someone who's depressed or psychologically unbalanced. They know this when they try to entrap stupid kids into doing "terrorist acts" that they would have never carried out unless someone undercover organized it, brought the chemicals/weapons, drove them to the site, etc. - otherwise they would have stayed on their couch doing another bong-hit or going to rally and screaming "hey-ho, hey-ho, X has got to go" and then going home to do another bong-hit.
Third, I know the sentencing criteria is arbitrary and typically max sentences are not what's given - but this game of roulette favors the prosecutors, not the accused - a hanging judge in Texas can send a mentally retarded man to die, another in DC will send a reporter to jail because DoJ wanted to prove a point and then let prosecutors lie in court without repercussions or in this case a single public URL linked to gets multiplied to a count per credit card number found on the site. How much will a depressed intimidated suspect on a tilted playing field resist even if they think their position is entirely justified or willing to take a reasonable but not "cruel & unusual"? (though "unusual" is no longer operative).
Look at "abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances", which government regularly does with protesters. Or the paid (bribed) absurd extension of 80-100 year copyrights that Swartz was fighting?
Handling two in one, 1) he already signed an agreement that he can work in jail (just not make money on what he's sentenced for), and 2) yeah, he already has streetcred, which is the opposite of having his head so far up the government arse it hurts. Maybe you were thinking "streetcrud".
Stratfor may be wannabe - their talk about assassinations and such is probably pure DC bluff - but Endgame Systems seems to have been selling Zero Day exploit subscriptions for $2.5 million a year. That's a lot of cash for what one would guess is a sanctioned illegal hacking program - Anonymous' big mistake seems to be working too cheap and for the wrong customer(s) - forget moral equivalence, there ain't much in the way of morals here.
From the Vice article:
Keep in mind, Barrett is facing a 45-year sentence under one indictment that alleges he shared a link to illegally obtained, hacked information. In contrast, the individual actually found guilty of hacking the data is serving a sentence of ten years.
Wired explains the tougher sentencing:
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/barrett-brown-sentenced-5-years-prison-connection-stratfor-hack/
The judge, however, pushed back on the government’s attempt to increase Brown’s sentence in this way and decided to postpone sentencing until he could review all of the arguments thoroughly.
“In all the trials I’ve been a part of … and they’re all complex cases … I’ve never seen a judge take a time-out to issue his sentence,” Ghappour said on the eve of today’s sentencing in a phone interview. The move gave him hope that the judge was taking extra care to get the sentencing right and not be unduly swayed by the government’s forceful arguments. That proved not to be the case today, however, when it appeared that the judge had indeed been persuaded by prosecutors. The judge reportedly indicated that he believed linking to the file containing stolen credit card numbers was the same as trafficking in stolen data. The judge reportedly concluded that linking to the data was a form of aiding the Stratfor hackers and therefore part of the conspiracy.
Looks like someone got grumpy and resorted to thumbs downs - perhaps a nap would have done better. Meanwhile here's part of what the EFF had to say:
This raises uncomfortable similarities to the disturbing saga of Aaron Swartz, who ultimately committed suicide after facing the threat of years in federal prison for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA"). While the substantive criminal charges and motivations between Brown and Swartz may have been different, they present a clear view of just how powerful and uncomfortable the scrutiny of federal law enforcement can be. At a time when the White House is seeking to increase penalties under the CFAA, these cases highlight just how intense federal law enforcement power can be and calls for caution before we expand already harsh criminal laws.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/eff-statement-barrett-brown-sentencing
BTW, the link I put up here might be illegal - if you follow it, you could be bunking with Barrett Brown. Or me. Or both. What foul deed did that Tim Berners-Lee create with that dratted URL, the modern rogue's key to unlawfulness. Click bait may be the next jail bait. "but judge, she didn't look 15/classified"
Let's see, his big crimes were
a) linking to a URL that was already published,
b) pointing out that the government had referred companies to private internet dicks who could take down a legit journalist,
c) hiding his laptop when the feds came, and
d) publishing a hysterical threatening Youtube in response to them threatening his mother with jail.
If he only had a badge or was on the government payroll, all of this would be dismissed because 1) oops, made a mistake - chokehold a tad too long, thought the suspect was armed, 2) shhhhh, shhhhhh - terror and all that.
But I'm sure you'll get kudos and mod points for "it's always been like that, suck it up" and "those darned script kiddies, always on my lawn" comments, being the adult in the room. Hope you can comment on the Risen/Sterling case and explain to us youngsters how we're all safer if we gin up a war with Iran under false pretenses, us being so starry-eyed and clinging to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington notions of how government should behave.
In a thinking system, point b would be enough to drop most charges and focus on the exposed government malfeasance. Instead, the US lets the FBI complainant summarize the evidence in court rather than the judge and jury listening to the evidence - http://www.vice.com/read/heres-what-happened-at-barrett-browns-gag-hearing-yesterday - you rule, dudes - that's how to fast-track a rush to conviction.
Digby does a nice job of summarizing this horrid case:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.cz/2015/01/scary.html
worth following her links, which include more on Stratfor trying to stay out of the public eye (while deep in the public money), and Brown's rather interesting final statement (he apparently overestimated the ability of the judge to be able to walk and chew bubblegum)
Guess destroying journalists for government money is legit public work now - if only they didn't outsource it all, alas - it'd be so much easier to just apply for a regular civil service job or run say for President. And lying in court is okay as long as you're on the gov payroll. We have terror and all that to worry about, can't go wobbly...
Forget downvoting - I'll just point out the absurdity that Happy, Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women, All Down the Line, You Can't Always Get What You Want and Wild Horses are all part of your "post-relevance" period. And of course in this documentary by Jean-Luc Godard of Sympathy for the Devil - "find Brian" is like "Where's Waldo". [it also shows how much work it can be to turn a crappy little idea into a great song]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hksl3fr3hEA
Now go hang your head in shame.
Apple until lately has pretty well ignored the rest of the world and focused on the US market - are they a failure? Xiaomi is successfully playing Apple's game of quick sellout & shortages in India to foment demand, along with Singapore, Indonesia & other Asian markets. But they're only for sale on-line. That limits their reach (compared to carrier sales) but drastically lowers their overheads as well. The phones are great - my family has 2, with high satisfaction.
If you can imagine the scoffing at Honda compacts in 1975 (we had quite a chuckle on my block when a friend bought one) as they successfully transitioned from motorcycles to cars with a nice boost from oil embargos...
While Xiaomi makes feints of being an Apple, they might be more like Amazon - good quality online service cornering a product line (phones instead of books) with a reputation for quality that will translate into other lines going forward. In the regional market, they'll be picking off Nokia's once profitable feature phone market, upgrading it to smartphones.
By the time they go to carriers for deals, they'll go in with a position of strength - similar to Apple when they approached phone companies with the successful iPod-like iPhone in 2007. How they move their brand & product line from there will be interesting to watch. Are they worth $45 billion? as a firm valuation, no - highly risky. But for a reasonable crap shoot where people throw away $12 billion for a funny company like Autonomy or where Snapchat is "valued" at $10 billion, yeah, their potential as a disruptive new kid is there. Rave on. By the time we know whether they were worth it, they'll either be a great success or a great failure, but the market will take the cash out in risk over the next year.
Sure, moving up market is difficult - until you do. But there are a ton of examples in and out of IT of successfully doing just that, whether disruptive technology or just new mean contender. (fond shimmering flashback to that first Honda...). Sun riseth, sun setteth...
Did I hear the bellweather of "can't do it unless a monopoly?" Fortunately for Xiaomi, they're in China, where the chance of getting a monopoly due to locking out foreigners looks quite fortuitous and auspicious. Margins may be low now - might be raging in 2 years. That is what moving up-market's about. Of course when you have the Chinese government behind you, "margin" includes the gov payoff, just like Elon Musk's bottom line includes $1 billion from the state of Nevada (and Apple's include tax largesse/avoidance from the country of Ireland). It ain't over till it's over (or accounted for, deducted, depreciated, litigated, etcetera).
BTW, bitching about Xiaomi being no JFK/Apple is about as useless as complaining Oasis was no Fab Four - the Gallagher brothers pulled out some half a billion quid playing this cynical note, and I'm sure are quite happy with the result, aesthetic success or not. Xiaomi is certainly already happy riding the Apple vibe to investment and IPO, and no fear of "there's no there there" - only Gertrude Stein cares.
Last, but most important - this is the first time that China's gotten its shit together marketing-wise, and should scare the bejeezus out of the rest of us. Rather than just dumping cheap crap on the rest of the world, having Mommy (gov) super-subsidize its way to success, or using some flashy western interloper to make most of the gnosh, they're actually successfully putting all the pieces together including brand management on the way to the user's hands as a quality enjoyable piece of gear - e.g. satisfying user expectations. If the Chinese can do that with cars, designer apparel brands, colognes, and what-not (airliners and weapons sales?), there will be much gnashing of teeth among the Foreign Devil Gweilos along with a change in economic/political status.
The gold standard on blog dissection of NSA & other gov releases and decisions for snooping, detainment and torture details from a legal view remains Marcie Wheeler - in this case parsing the implications for the dragnet:
https://www.emptywheel.net/
Her latest post isn't as exciting or maddening as many in her archives, but probably stuck in the rum & plum pudding as well - by New Years, I'm sure she'll have dug out a few more gems from the doc dump.
"Assange has simply been an information broker" - hmmm., yeah, the telegraph was just an "information transfer enabler" - just a bunch of dots & dashes even - quite an irrelevant invention, right?
"Heroes" may not come with the cape & tights you prefer, but without these guys (and arguably John Kiriakou who now sits in jail for exposing & confirming torture), this week's controversial torture report would have never appeared for inspection.
I think he just meant there aren't a lot of of tech CEO's discussing details of their sexual life at all.
That said, I'm sure it's nice affirmation from one of the top IT companies in the world that being gay doesn't have to mean a glass ceiling.
But like with Obama and race, once it's done, the actual details of job performance return to being the most important, and those with remaining curiosity can search out the asterisks in the Guinness Book of World Records, such as Roger Maris' home run record.
Huh? Adult comment? This is the Reg, where we come for biting crowd pile-on commentary, not for stolid unhumoured nuance.
Jokes about judo/martial arts & pajamas have existed forever - get over it - how do you think race jockeys feel?
And Putin's penchant for high-testosterone male mano-a-mano sports and double bare-back riding are just halon for the Universal Gaydar alert system. There is an Iron Closet that has fallen on Europe, from the steambaths of Kaliningrad on the Baltic in the north to nude strips of Crimean coastline in the south.
If I only had a Bitcoin for every time someone complained about someone famous having an ego.
Lessee, "Stop Making Sense" - too much of David Byrne's ego. Julian Assange & Glenn Greenwald - too much ego. Steve Jobs - too much ego. We can go on with Bono, Richard Branson, Tony Blair, Elon Musk, Obama, John McAfee, Kim Il-Jong (I,II,III...), Justin Bieber, etc.
Space to humans: PEOPLE HAVE EGOS. OFTEN THE ONES WITH THE BIGGEST DO THE MOST HARM AND THE MOST GOOD. GET USED TO IT. Love, Ming the Merciless
PS - didn't KDC acknowledge that the reason for the loss was him personally? Is that ego?
PPS - are you really claiming there's no conspiracy against KDC? You keep using that word - I do not think it means what you think it means. Apologies, Inigo Montoya
Act like a silly git? Over the last 12 months she's built herself into a serious franchise with her coming-of-age schtick. Tacky, sure, but very very profitable. I'm sure she could be singing church hymns and visiting art museums and raising money for the needy, but ain't gonna happen soon.
Note the followup where Miss B said it was all consensual. It's useless for me to keep writing facts when folks would rather trade in stale innuendo. We know the basics of the story, there's no there there.
It would have been very simple for the prosecutor to get on a plane and interview him in England because setting a precedent of "guy who leaks info on the US worried about being stuffed in a CIA rendition plane" isn't exactly a huge set of cases. And typically for human rights cases, these are exactly the types of conditions that humane governments are supposed to protect from, not hide under bureaucratic process of "wir müssen Ordnung haben" when it's exactly that order that's Orwellian. What'd we get instead? More US spying on national leaders and huge dragnet of EU information.
For frak's sake, *CONSENSUAL*. The first one the only question was whether Assange tore his condom on purpose - a rather unusual fetish one surmises - the sex was consensual, aside from her claiming it was going too fast & she was uncomfortable (but let's just get it over with?), and then he stayed in her flat a week longer.
The second one had sex with a condom with him *willingly* and then it's the question whether he later entered her while sleeping without a condom.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden
(You'd think with Assange's animal magnetism, penchant for 1-night-stands and apparent aversion to condoms that it'd be easy to find a flock of pretty young things around the world who'd been demeaned & bullied by him into unprotected sex - but I haven't seen such a revelation - score 1 for the defense).
Of course Miss B apparently is so concerned about disease in 2 1/2 years she never had sex with her ex without a condom, but oddly is not so concerned about stalking a famous stranger and going to bed with him at first chance (has someone clued her in on efficacy of condoms, me hopes?)
The broken condom that Miss A gave police surprisingly has no Assange DNA on it -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203920/Condom-used-evidence-Assange-sex-case-does-contain-DNA.html
http://rt.com/news/assange-condom-no-dna-277/
Continuing, "That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Niether Wilen’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of rape."
How about Miss B (Wilen)? "However, his second accuser, now 29, who claimed to have been raped in her sleep by Assange, apparently told police she had not been opposed to having unprotected sex with him despite previous statements to the contrary, the daily reported."
There you have it - clear as mud - that awful Assange and those women who just can't keep their stories up. Occam's Razor says go for the simplest explanation - paying 2 gals to coordinate an exploding condom/disappearing condom story is simpler than getting knocking Assange out of the public eye by discrediting his actual revelations.
"but I've seen nothing to suggest that he won't get a fair trial in Sweden"
Please... as 1 of many examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
"Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery, two Egyptians who had been seeking asylum in Sweden, were arrested by Swedish police in December 2001. They were taken to Bromma airport in Stockholm, had their clothes cut from their bodies, suppositories inserted in their anuses and in diapers, overall, handcuffs and chains put on an executive jet with American registration N379P with a crew of masked men. They were flown to Egypt, where they were imprisoned, beaten, and tortured according to reports by Swedish investigative programme "Kalla fakta"[78] The Swedish ambassador visited them only six weeks later. Agiza was previously charged and sentenced in absentia with being an Islamic militant and was sentenced to 25 years, a sentence that was reduced to 15 years due to the political pressure after the Rendition became known. Al-Zery wasn't charged, and after two years in jail without ever seeing a judge or prosecutor he was sent to his village in Egypt. In 2008 AL Zery was awarded $500,000 in damages by the Swedish government for the wrongful treatment he received in Sweden and the subsequent torture in Egypt."
More: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/05/cia-rendition-help-european-leaders
Wikileaks never used the "let's throw it all on the street" method - they vetted through media outlets, and set the standard for responsibility. Where things did fall apart was when some asshat at the Guardian published what he thought was an old unused password which surprise turned out to still work on various archives (didn't he know things are eternal on the internetz?) - and being an asshat, he continued to blame Assange, even though Assange likely deserves some blame for not anticipating asshats.
Anyway, working off of standard US government slander after all this time? Not cool - facts are fairly easy to check - just use teh Google.
Come on, it's been years - just look up details of what's known to have happened:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1307137/Supporters-dismissed-rape-accusations-WikiLeaks-founder-Julian-Assange--women-involved-tell-different-story.html
Woman A was supposed to leave him her apartment, but returned early to sleep with him, and said she thinks he broke his condom on purpose.
Woman B was infatuated with him and tracked him like a groupie, and it sounds like the evening sex was with condom, the morning sex without.
As a slightly important aside, the chance of a heterosexual non-IV drug user having HIV is rather tiny. But that will start another Reg blowup.
"the alleged victims deserve that much" - for what? being groupies? it's fine for 15 minutes of fame in "Almost Famous" / Cameron Crowe films, or a bit of fun Vanilla Fudge/Led Zeppelin red snapper perversion, but unless Assange actually pulled a Mike Tyson or Phil Spector on the lasses, really, this "he tricked me into having unprotected sex" or "the condom broke, maybe on purpose" bit is pathetic. Really, there is a helluva lot of rape and abuse that goes on in this world that should be punished, and this bullshit makes a mockery of it. Most self-respecting police departments would have closed this book quick and got on with real crimes.
I'm sure if the US could have slipped a sex scandal into Snowden they would have been happy to.
As it was, the best they could do was "he leaked secrets to the Chinese", being a rather liberal interpretation of "he gave docs to the Hong Kong news media".
Of course Assange made Wikileaks about himself by... lessee, by having private consensual sexual encounters? (I guess he carries as much responsibility as Bill Clinton in that regards - God knows he's a critically important politician and an inspiration/bad example for children). Oh, then having a public tiff with Domscheit-Berg, the purer Wikileaks member who split off from the org and went on to do great... errr, nothings? Or was it Assange making the US block all its credit card payments? Yeah, the dude just brought it all on himself - I guess he should have just waltzed to Gitmo or Quantico to get the Bradley Manning take-it-like-a-man-now-girl treatment.
As someone else here noted, yes, shooting the messenger - the US government and military is filled with egotistical bastards like Petraeus who "trained" the Iraqi & Afghanistan police to great acclaim only to discover they're completely worthless and desert at first chance. Yeah, he got his sex scandal too, fortunately for Obama. Stanley McChrystal? resigned, having egotistically insulted the Commander-in-Chief to a reporter. Raymond Davis, CIA agent who assassinated 2 Pakistanis in broad daylight - whisked back to the US. Outsourced Halliburton policy led by Dick Cheney himself which led to the gunship atrocities Wikileaks reported. (and that nice extrajudicial drone killing, and those nice Abu Ghraib pyramids, and the recent US rape-and-sodomy-and-murder pictures withheld for 7 or 8 years. But Assange is the only ego here to complain about...)
Clueless question #1 - uh, he doesn't get any light, and he can hardly walk more than 100 meters or get any reasonable exercise, plus humans suffer psychological issues through confinement that can affect their physical health as well.
Of course it's based on the facts - 1 of the girls looks specifically to be a setup who then disappeared, the other one possibly or else a clueless groupie. Colluding on the facts after-the-deed/OMG she-slept-with-him-too to go running to the police with? over what, an exploding condom? wow, that's a charge worth incarcerating 2+ years for. 2 consensual encounters and the police are going to find anything to charge on a he-said-she-said overnight in a bedroom when she fixed him a nice public brekkie in the morning, then went & complained to the bobbies? only in Sweden, though not the beloved "I am Curious Yellow" Sweden back in the 60's.
Truly strange.
As much as the US's FBI has been known to set up unwitting clueless "terrorists" by supplying them all the materials, and assorted other nasty tricks towards non-Americans beyond the Constitution, the people here largely seem to think the Yanks wouldn't have set up Assange with a couple of tarts.
(we did of course launch a whole war or 2 under false pretenses - why would lying about Assange slow us down any?)
Of course the rape charges knocked Assange off his roost - the threat of whisking off to the US made it doubtful he could respond but was just gravy. (the double whammy is often employed to better effect - such as when Clinton had a political requirement he not assert his constitutional right - damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.
More worrisome is simply that the people bitching here don't much care for the negative affects of the government's manipulation & deceit that's only grown steadily in the last 10 years. Instead, Assange and Snowden are the only egotists, despite the overwhelming bloviating from the PM's seat on down (or that Nobel Prize winner in the White House....)
And please note, it's very doubtful the Ecuadorian government is going to piss off the Brits by sneaking Assange out - it has to be done overtly.
Hmmm... seems The Reg pulled a brunette picture of Lohan rather than one of her many blonde layouts (her Marilyn cover, anyone?), and the readers are confused. Of course if they'd have read the article - a high hurdle, I admit - they'd have noted the game authors leaked her name and activities as a side mission - with the subtle disclaimer "-like".
Presumably if she loses, anyone can make a game based on anyone - "I just thought it was funny how Obama acted as president, so I made a trilogy of game action play around him"; "I was making fun of Chuck Norris, so I created a series of 30 satirical martial arts games with coinciding books, videos and microwave recipes"
Meanwhile I expect TheReg to fess up and admit the Lohan navigation mission isn't exactly fair use policy, but is instead a papparazzi-ladened view of Lohan when all spaced out - hardly a rare occurrence. By my calculations, you owe her roughly a Googleplex worth of Likes, and probably some compensation for likening her to Helium Head.
BTW - Lohan's a pretty good actress - knows how to hold an audience. As for her personal life, her business - not the first person to crash & burn.
I figured it was High Data Performance Analysis. Like many boffins, your data is often seen to have a spleef or 2 at lunch, come back a bit lethargic, and fall asleep by mid-afternoon. That'd be bad news, but at 3am, it's out at rave parties picking up trends and sexy correlations, and carrying on in ways you and I haven't in decades. Overall, the good outweighs the bad.
Yeah, just like Howard Hughes and Jimmy Page, I want hotels to remember who I am.
When I show up incommunicado except for my full head cockpit display and a blinking light showing latest Salesforce stock price, I'll finally get the respect and attention I deserve.
Think of it as a portable Cone of Silence that's the other wearable end to a shoe phone.
I do believe in fairies, I do, I do...
Cow-tipping only stopped due to regulation and prohibition - probably your dad-in-law was brought up after the dark period of repression began - in the old days there was a regular cottage industry built up around it. For some time, cows would even tip themselves just as they have to get rid of excess milk, but after a few generations they seem to have weaned themselves off of it.
Do Androids salivate over electronic nanofabric steak? Moo Moo.