hn_throwaway_69

The first paragraph is whatabouttery, the second may be accepted, but the claim I replied to was he was legally innocent until proven guilty. That is what I was addressing, not some broader notion of morality.

>innocent until proven guilty and all that

To be fair, he was refusing to face trial. And he is expected to plead guilty, so he isn't innocent.

That said, there may be legitimate questions about whether the United States should be entitled to exercise jurisdiction over foreign nationals who are not physically present in the jurisdiction for national security offences.

It should be noted this is specific to the United States.

>password database, Linux image for installation on a new laptop

Heh. Imagine surviving a plane crash. Everyone is busy calling their loved ones, and I'm busy setting up my new Linux distribution on a laptop bought in duty free, using the Linux image in my pocket.

Eh, price scalping sucks. This is the lesser of two evils.

It's not xenophobic, it's just realistic.

If you tried to run a fake, malware-laden website in a Western country you would eventually be shut down and prosecuted.

These scams mostly fester in nations with weaker institutions, not just Eastern Europe but also China and India. Their authorities are simply not interested in preventing this kind of unlawful activity.

I only have a modicum of respect for this company after they butchered CentOS.

Australian here. I find the excessive emotive flair throughout the judgment as pressing the boundaries on occasion. A court is supposed to act impartially and emotions kept in check. This kind of language could be appealable in Australia, see for instance, this news report from yesterday:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-10/dismissal-of-assault-...

Maybe it's just more common in Canada for judges to be more forthright with their opinions.

Reminds me of the line in VeggieTales, In the future, entertainment will be randomly generated. [0]

[0] https://youtu.be/j4Ph02gzqmY

This often doesn't work and backfires. The school will just warn them, the target will be characterised as a snitch and it will just strengthen the bullies' mutual loathing of the target.

Generally the only way to stop bullying is to build resilience and fight back.

There are extreme cases where I agree it should be reported, including infliction of physical violence.

>where I am pretty sure they copied my hard drive

What evidence do you have, leaving aside speculation or conjecture? Can you state it any higher than it was possible they copied your hard drive? Is this a routine occurrence where you live?

There's no reason to make such material lawful unless the converse is proved by empirical evidence. That is, can it be proved that people who view AI-based material are less likely to act on a sexual interest in real children? Unless that's proven, there's no other reason to make such material lawful. You're welcome to provide one.

The analogy is not apt. You cannot compare image-based abuse of children with a video game. GTA is a legitimate form of entertainment, child abuse material is not. They are not remotely similar. This shows why analogies are almost never helpful and it's best just to focus on the topic under discussion.

>doesn't hurt anybody

You're looking at it too narrowly. AI-generated CSAM may facilitate a sexual interest in children among certain individuals. Development of such an interest makes it significantly more likely they will abuse children. So it ought be illegal.

This is still child abuse material and probably still illegal where you live. The reason is obvious, it's a gateway to the abuse of real children.

You can break whatever law you choose, but there may be consequences for doing so. It's no answer to breaking a law to say that you don't agree with the law.

Here's the thing - both of those issues you've identified are broader societal issues that concern everyone, not just you.

(2) in particular is suggesting, effectively, that you should be allowed to circumvent a law you disagree with. In other words, you should be allowed to communicate unlawfully if you don't agree the communication should be unlawful.

That's just not how it works. As a society, your view is one of many. I'm sure many people involved in illicit activity disagree in their activity being characterised as criminal.

(1) undermines the fabric of institutions and assumes that law enforcement targeting criminals may do so for collateral purposes, so they shouldn't be allowed to target criminals just in case.

I don't agree with either.

>No.

Assume for sake of argument that it were possible to develop an encryption regime which protected bona fide users, but did not protect criminals. That would be a good thing.

As a matter of public policy, criminals shouldn't be given the right to communicate for the sake of furthering criminal activity without the possibility of lawful interception. It's here that some technologists lose sight of the real world. In the real world, society expects that authorities be able to fight crime using proportionate means.

The real issue is that you can't separate the two from each other - weakening encryption for criminals means weakening it for everyone.

My rule: If there isn't a prominent, 1-click unsubscribe link in an email, it gets marked as spam.

If I click unsubscribe, and the form asks me to fill in information, it gets marked as spam. No, I'm not filling in my email, let alone completing a CAPTCHA, to ask you to stop sending me emails.

However, I don't click an unsubscribe link in an email where I suspect the unsubscribe link is itself a scam to collect information.

Admittedly also on the rise in Australia, but they're nowhere near the size of pickup trucks that occupy American highways.

>people just like big stuff

I'm inclined to think that applies more to Americans than people generally. Europeans and Australians can be quite content with smaller vehicles, smaller properties, and quite frankly smaller lifestyles.

I'm glad this is "safer" in the proper sense of the word. And not in regulating the behaviour of contributors, which many open source communities seem bent on.

On reflection, it's might not fair to even describe this as a violation of the law in the first place, but I am outside post edit time.

In any event, I fully support the journalist.

I should have said arguable, not technical, as you say in your comment.

In the article linked the prosecutor expresses that opinion.

"there is an argument to be made that there was a violation of law"

I probably should have said arguable, not technical. That's what's in the article. I guess we never really know if the law was broken at all unless a jury gives a verdict, so it's all a bit hypothetical.

Suppose there's a law that says you can't film other people without their permission. You catch a thief breaking into someone's house, film them, and give it authorities enabling their identification, then delete the footage. I'd describe this as a technical breach of the law. It probably shouldn't be prosecuted.

This is kind of analogous to the present situation, a bit of a rough analogy I admit. Whether or not a law was broken, the journalist did something that was a net positive to society, with no real victim except a red-faced politician.

Really? It looks as though the system worked in this case.

A technical violation of the law was not prosecuted as a result of the exercise of prosecutorial discretion not to pursue a prosecution which was not in the public interest.

Grand juries are not a solution to this problem. One glance at the shockingly high percentage of cases in which grand juries indict should be sufficient to cast doubt that they are truly filtering out bad prosecutions. That the proceedings occur in the absence of the accused and therefore deprive them of procedural fairness is another problem.

The responsibility properly lies with the prosecutor.

I mean in the context of users providing support for commercial products without being paid for it.

Stack Overflow is a general Q&A site, not a support forum for a commercial product. The context is very different. Also, while I'm at it, it has its own flaws, but people providing trite and useless answers isn't one, they get downvoted to oblivion.

Agree. To go further, I find these "community-powered" support forums infuriating to read, when they are run by a huge company that should be remunerating support staff.

Why anyone would volunteer to answer queries for free in this context is beyond me. What do they get out of it? A flashy hat to wear and a few trivial perks?

Respect to those trying to help out, but when a question like this is posed in the forum, I would only be interested in hearing the response of a salaried Google employee, not a volunteer.

It's even worse when the response offers trite, generic information that doesn't relate to the problem, regrettably a common occurrence on this type of forum.

Edit: Note, these remarks are not applicable to the commendable people providing support in FOSS projects, and in other non-commercial contexts.

>Clearly, you have no idea of how the moving industry works.

It's really no answer to say I need to understand how each industry works.

Why would I? And why should I? It's the government's responsibility to understand the nuances of, and regulate, each industry.

Do we really want to live in a world where consumers need to understand the detail of how each industry operates so they can ensure sub-sub contractors can be remunerated appropriately?

Print and frame this content chain as a fine example of Poe's law.

Eh, I hope it doesn't. Tipping needs to die out. I'd prefer to have the moving company pay the movers a living wage such that a tip would be unnecessary and politely refused.