mortov

I think we can guess we're about to be told the North Koreans used TOR so decisive action needs to be taken against the network as part of the retaliation measures just announced.

My understanding is that it was this facility (in part) which was used to track & monitor ex-US Marine Toby Studabaker when he went "missing" around 12 years ago with 12 year old Shevaun Pennington. He was 'found' in a hotel room in Germany - despite his phone being turned off.

Sounds like a fun way to practice deep scuba techniques - learning 'for real' in large water bodies is full of additional risks. However I'm a bit concerned at the 'caves' [not shown on the diagram]. Martyn Farr's book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkness_Beckons a rather short, blunt and to the point entry which makes sobering reading) makes it pretty clear that cave diving is pretty incompatible with long life (many people he talks about were killed on cave dives). Anyone I know who has done any sort of confined space dives has a terror story of things going wrong in even the most benign of holes. I think adding caves to the pool is a disaster waiting to happen - regardless of whether they are there to train techniques or not.

Technicalities such as whether actions are 'legal' are of little concern to the UK Security Service (their real name - for some reason, they don't like to use their initials publicly as other departments do).

There is absolutely no possibility of any court review (not even in the new secret courts the UK has started for trials [1]) so debate about ensuring legislative cover is pure theatre probably to bolster the only press statement they ever release in response to questions which always states their actions are legally authorized and nothing else.

What this really looks like is a move to shift the data storage burden away from CGHC offices and place it onto ISPs, Telco's etc. Direct access can then be made to the data without any of the associated costs of maintaining multi-PB databases which grow at eye-watering rates every day.

Passing this legislation is a simple government way of saving them money and passing the cost on to business as a 'compliance requirement'.

They also get the added bonus of plausible deniability - 'don't be crazy - the Government does not store that sort of information on you!'. They don't - they force your ISP to keep if for them.

Sadly the UK seems a great starting point for such measures - experience is people are gullible and swallow the anti-terrorist cool-aid more easily than most.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-c...

sender domain please ? I need to update my block list on my mailservers to protect my customers (and myself).

There must be public links/references if this is their business model - care to share those ?

Also, what test cases ? Those are public record in the UK - they are no liablity issues in pointing to matters of public record/factual court records.

You need a better lawyer.

If the situation is as you describe, sending unsolicited email and then charging you for receiving it (that's essentially what you're describing) when you have clear evidence you hired via the prior contact with another agency (they have that documented, right ?) is something which can be easily fought - albeit in court with some initial costs if they're going to be ass-ish.

You would win both your case and the legal costs if things are as cut and dried as you suggest.

However, if you replied to the unsolicited email (establishing you saw it) and there is no evidence of the prior agency being before that, you have a more difficult case. My personal experience of two agencies being involved was that the agencies sorted it out amongst themselves how to split the single fee which was paid to one of them - this was in the UK as you seem to be.

Only an experienced lawyer familiar with the details of your situation can properly advise you. I'm curious that you've been advised to settle if you've consulted a lawyer and appraised them of the situation you describe. Normally lawyers like slam-dunks like this.

My experience is recruiters don't send unprompted candidates because, without a prior agreement/contract, they will have difficulties in establishing they made an initial introduction and hence qualify to get paid. Otherwise they can just mailbomb you with millions of name variations and claim they introduced you to everyone on the planet and you owe them $$$$$s. [I think you realize this with your 'proposed' new business venture. ;-) ]

It's not really silly at all. It is there for two reasons.

(1) The law requries it to be stated in contracts [at least partially because of (2) below].

(2) Case law develops and can mean that something in a contract was previously enforceable but due to a test case or other development, it is no longer enforceable. Rather than companies having to watch every test case go through the courts and have lawyers rewrite contracts every few weeks just in case something needs updated, the catch-all allows for a more reasonable update cycle with rewrites only happening when there is a significant change to legislation or a number of cases has resulting in significant numbers of terms being invalidated. Pending the rewrite, the term makes it clear any updates to legal interpretation are honored.

In the EU there is also a choice of venue available to consumers so often the 'rules of country X' are not so readily enforceable for companies when they deal with consumers across EU borders. But that's a whole other complicated area.

The hotel made a strategic error so no need for court.

Under the UK Consumer Credit Act, when a credit card charge of £100 (or more) is made, the credit card company becomes 'jointly and severally liable'. A charge for a bad review also falls foul of UK Fair Trading legislation which means the couple can pursue the credit card company for the unfair trade breach and reclaim their money that way. Credit card companies don't argue in these cases and refund pretty damn fast (from experience) and just charge-back the business (so they lose the £100 and have additional charge-back fees of around 25% added on top).

If the hotel charged £99.99 instead, it would be a very different story and would need the Trading Standards people at the local municipal council to take action. (They already stated they will be regardless of the refund since these are unfair trade practices.) A refund would happen but would take longer and may well need a local county court action.

"I personally think ulbricht is guilty.."

Which is presumably the intention of the fanfare around the smears - pollute the jury pool as much as possible to avoid the inconvenience of people making a decision based on the facts or evidence presented in court; get out the jury deliberations quickly, just go for whatever knee-jerk guilty feeling you got when you read the headlines about how evil the defendant is; don't bother reading any detail or anything that might hurt your brain and destroy your prejudices !

Despite my reservations, the US would be better served if it had contempt of court laws like England which specifically prohibit discussion of any details of court cases prior to them being heard precisely in order to stop this sort of situation happening.

edit: spelling.

Yes, it was called the Boston Tea Party.

North Americans are probably astonished at what is 'permitted' for UK police to become involved in - there are no constitutional protections and no effective oversight and there never has been in the UK. Even today the Police actively obstruct and frustrate attempts to bring effective controls and oversight of their activities which can be in clear and blatant breach of what limited legislation exists.

This (and other related) stories rolls on with only a few days ago the Metropolitan police in London being forced by a court order to admit the identities of two officers - Jim Boyling and Bob Lambert [who the referenced article is about] - who fathered children (then disappeared leaving the mothers and babies to fend for themselves). http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/15/metropolitan-...

While management like to put these posters up, a friend who is a consultant in the NHS was quite clear when I asked him about it - he's a doctor, not a billing clerk and he doesn't care how obvious it is that someone is outside NHS cover, it's not his issue.

He's involved in things like kidney transplants where abuse is apparently rife - patients [outside NHS eligibility] often come from Xstan countries in renal failure and are critically ill (i.e. ambulance from the airport tarmac). Some of these people go to the top of the transplant list - which is why they got on the plane to England to begin with (plane ticket < cost of unlikely kidney transplant in home country). As far as he is concerned he treats the medical condition based on need and anything else is up to management and he will not get involved in anything outside medical need.

Sounds like the registrar in the article has the same policy.

Spoken like a true American ! After all, if stealing a king size snickers bar deserves 16 years (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/040700-01.htm), stealing a bicycle needs some serious deterrent sentencing. Sure, he was a recidivist and had previously stolen some Oreo cookies too !

Or, it's a bicycle - keep things in proportion. Sure it sucks to have stuff stolen (I've been a victim too) but crazy disproportionate sentencing has made criminal justice in the US just insane.

Your proposal sounds great, just like all the other get tough on crime initiatives over the past 40 odd years but it has left the US with what looks like the craziest most vengeful 'justice' system outside of the Sharia introduced by ISIS.

It's all great until you happen to fall foul of these get tough initiatives - see lots of previous HN stories for examples.

Static cameras have markings and 2 pictures are taken, normally 1/3 of a second apart. Activation is either radar or in-road inductive wiring. Neither are foolproof and pictures are supposed to be manually checked but often are not with results like this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-21264281 where a claimed 50mph was actually 18 mph)

The video is required to zoom to show the driver of the vehicle as well for identification purposes. It prevents people claiming they were not the driver.

(e.g. it looks like this http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pictured-speeding-motor...)

That would only be the case where people accept tolls & toll booths on roads as an acceptable thing.

Sure, they're common in Canada and the US but in some other countries they lead to years of civil disobedience, protests and eventual scrapping by newly elected governments : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye_Bridge#Toll_controversy

Speed fines have the semi-respectibility claim of trying to reduce accidents/dangers on the road (with some validity).

Often (but not always) in the UK, the laser is accompanied by video footage which shows where the beam has been trained and it is a combination of both the video and laser reading (shows on the video) which is the evidence. (all tripod mounted - so I suspect many of the issues detailed are well known). Sounds like that would give good supporting evidence for a challenge.

However, traffic violations is most places are about revenue raising so anything which reduces the opportunities - like accuracy and fairness - are unlikely to get much of a look in.

edit: for clarity, it looks like this http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pictured-speeding-motor...

also referenced in my reply below.

It is standard practice in classified material communities to have carefully controlled variants of documents and a log of where and when the subtle variations go in order to detect and source leaks of information. When any particular area is detected as suspect, misinformation dressed up to look more valuable is then carefully spread in that direction to see who takes the bait. They are then either used to send misinformation or, if they have served their purpose or have nothing to offer, removed (fired/imprisoned or whatever is appropriate).

The Americans (TV Series) had a couple of themes based around this - it's not exactly a secret strategy and receivers of information know to verify what they get before getting too excited.

Since we're talking about government actors here, nowadays they would not be easily fooled and would have skilled engineers checking stuff no matter what, so that is not going to add any 'cost' to the operation. People in the espionage game learn pretty quickly or they don't get to play for very long.

For those brave enough to visit the site, they have a 'reading' section.

It seems this litigation has been going on since at least 2012 and Jason Van Dyke is still handling it with general attempts at litigating anyone and everyone who can be 'connected' in some way via 'the internet'.

I don't know if that's a common approach for Texas lawyers (one place I've never been) but it looks like this is some sort of ongoing 'war' against pinkmeth by Jason/Shelby. The tweets claiming to be from Jason are all pretty aggressive/out there and searches on Shelby Conklin are inconclusive even though it's a fairly unusual name. I wasn't even completely convinced she exists as described as the person in these papers.

Could this be some sort of publicity stunt ? Or am I just too suspicious ?

You would have thought they would have learned that since they apparently first sued in 2012 - 2 years is surely long enough to learn about the internet ? http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/12/06/52881.htm

Regardless of whether the case by the Swedish authorities is dropped, he still faces prosecution by the UK now for the breach of bail conditions - distinct offence in UK law with severe penalties regardless of the state of the original reason for being placed on bail.

Many people end up in prison on the UK for breach of bail despite being aquitted in court of the original charge they faced and it is naive to think that any hypothetical dropping of charges by Sweden is either the end of the matter or the end of the risk of a one-way ticket to the US.

Any /reputable/ sources for that ? Or are you just trying to bait people ? How is your comment relevant to the situation in the US ?

Because right now people have access to GPG and can send information reasonably securely to journalists.

But don't worry, a 3 [or 4] letter agency near you is working real hard on that.

The stuff about terrorists can wait as that's not quite as important as stopping you knowing about what the agency is up to. The supposed masters in charge of limiting them - government ministers - are willfully compliant in the manipulation and deceit.

[edit:spelling; I wish english was my first language.]

This is a great article to elucidate the complexities of homelessness.

Despite having intelligence and a talent, resulting in an income sufficient to 'get started' on the social ladder and rejoin mainstream society, the prospect is very daunting to Leo.

Even when given access to support and then a 'deadline' to push him (and being accompanied to a bank to deposit the money), it gets too much and he backs out.

Homeless people are not just hopeless drunks or weirdos. They often have an array of complex and intractible fears and issues and are incapable of functioning in mainstream society - even with large amounts of help.

I don't see any blame here - but it does sadden me that someone with so much clear and semi-realized potential can struggle so much. Consider for a moment how homless people less 'fortunate' [I can't help feeling that's the wrong word] must struggle every single day.

I've never thought through the 'teach a man to fish' in this way; life's not actually that simple.

Sadly, I don't see a solution. But I wish there was one.

Alas, using the latest Firefox 29 (downloaded yesterday) all I get in response to 'Try Now' is :

Loading Codio, hold tight... Browser not supported!

Your browser is very old and will not work correctly with Codio. Please upgrade to the latest version or use a modern browser

Sounds like someone really wanted to set up a UK style '0 hours contract' where you get to avoid paying an 'employee' unless you ask them to do something and then only need to pay for the actual time they spend doing it but you have the advantage of stopping them getting another real job since they are already reserved by your 'employment'.

UK companies do it all the time - sounds like this Belgian needs to move to the UK to get the desired outcome of slaves on standby.

In contract terms, yes it is ambiguous - especially now legislation offers an alternative phrase.

As a consumer, perhaps I think place order means let me try it for 30 days and decide if I want it or if I want to return it. Or some other variation which means I don't expect to have to pay you anything.

Whether I am being deliberately obtuse or not, few traders will want to get into legal nonsense over online orders which are not necessarily very profitable (hence any profit is lost as soon as there is any dispute costs).

If the law offers an acceptable phrase, it is reckless not to adhere to it as otherwise you end up in a court discussing sematics of english phrases rather than whether you are owed money or not.

[edit:typo]

The reality would be that if people knew of the extreme threat to life which existed, they would look to leaders such as the President and NASA to show they valued that life.

While in a military command and control situation it 'makes sense' to say these people are already lost, we just abandon them and move on, that would not be acceptable to the general public as that's not how things are perceived.

Indeed, it would almost certainly destroy the ability of NASA to continue if they were seen to be so impotent and incapable of doing anything when things go wrong.

A dramatic, high risk rescue attempt would possibly be the only option, even if that itself ended in disaster and death of all involved (a real risk according to the theoretical plan).

I think the public would have been more at ease knowing that a real rescue attempt was made and that genuine heroes had made the ultimate sacrifice in an attempt to save their colleages. People are all mushy and emotional like that.

Would it have made sense in terms of risk assessment, as a direct risk-reward evaluation ? Clearly not. But it's not always about that.

Besides, this is an alternative time-line scenario which never was. Those always have the benefit of working just like in feel-good Hollywood movies.

The issue is not because of the language used. You can have bugs - potentially fatal as this case underlines - in any language.

When I studied the Therac case, there was also a study in the "Killer Robot" - see here : http://www.onlineethics.org/cms/5122.aspx. Well worth a read to understand how software can become dangerous.

Sadly nowadays, a search for Killer Robot turns up all sorts of stories of drones being used to kill people. When I first looked up killer robot a number of years ago, the results were pretty much all about the ethics scenario and not real life people being killed. How society has moved on...

Wow ! Obviously sexual discrimination and workplace bullying are in favor at AOL.

Seriously, this sounds like another 'top notch tough businessman' appointed at immense salary.

My experience has been the first person normally claiming they are top notch is none other than themselves, and otherwise prosperous companies with generally good prospects seem to bleed money shortly after their arrival (normally into their pockets) and end up as burned out shells being sold off piecemean with some golden parachute to the outgoing top notch guy before he repeats the performance or retires to a recently purchased, by a tax haven based company, island in the Carribean.

And as proof of true sexual equality, there are examples where the he is a she.