The best case scenario is that a US company buys Element Pro. Then the EU can institute fines, fines, fines. EU barely creates, it stands at the finish line and extracts money from the winner.

Mod parent funny but the low-hanging joke I was looking for was "It couldn't happen to a more deserving and persistently vicious moronotron." He's earned more than the sudden need for a new phone number.

I wonder how often the YOB's own phone number leaks? Credible reports say that it's widely known. (More likely that a certain phone number is widely known but that the phone number just reaches some sycophants who get lots of taxpayer money to carry that phone around on shifts.)

Thank you for sharing this meme, which is completely unsuitable for this case.

In a Free to Play game, customer isn't a product. In-game purchases are the product. To get the customer to the product, customer must first install and play the game.

No funny here, but the Subject is the low-hanging fruit I was looking for.

What Flock does is mass surveillance of the most massive sort. However, I can imagine one way to provide legitimate probably cause. Link the cameras to speed detectors and only take pictures of license plates when speeding has actually been detected. But that approach would obviously harm shareholder value, so...

We now live in a fully connected world where most users are connected through web browsers and are the intended victims.

This particular story is an exception to that. Remote software, accessed through a web browser, normally does not have read/write access to your local filesystem. But people are granting local filesystem access to proprietary AI services.

I think that granting such access is .. wow. I wouldn't do it, though I can see how if you use a specialized account for it, and if you're confident that your OS has no local user priv escalation bugs, it might be ok. In your sandbox you trust.

But GP's comment is about whose decision that is. If you use Linux, then it's your decision. If you use iOS, then it's Apple's decision. And MacOS is becoming less Linuxy and more iOSy every year. I think it makes plenty of sense for stories like this to result in people dumping MacOS for Linux. (But daaamn, their values surprise me. You wanna make your computer less secure instead of more? Oh well, like Rumsfeld said, freedom is untidy!)

No, if the state were renamed, it would be to Old America. NM might not be the true original, but if you look at it through the eyes of European colonization and continuous governance, then New Mexico has the best claim of the fifty. (Though if you take a less racist view, then I guess Alaska had the real OGs.)

Randi McGinn, a lawyer for New Mexico, said applying the full $5,000 penalty to the number of violations would create too large of a penalty under the US Constitution's protections on due process.

I ass/u/me this refers to the Eighth Amendment, but I don't remember seeing any monetary constants encoded within that text.

Google's telling me Meta is worth about $1.8 trillion so how would a mere $40B be "excessive?" It's only about 2% of their worth! Civil penalties in excess of 2% of someone's worth are routinely accepted as constitutional, aren't they? If this case were about me driving drunk and killing a whole family, I bet no one would flinch at the 8A implications of taking 2% (!?!) of my assets, and everyone would laugh at my lawyer if he brought up 8A for such an insignificant fine.

I understand why we have 8A, and everyone deserves mercy, but I don't see why Meta deserves exceptional mercy as a singular special case that we would be horrified to see applied anywhere else. Bringing up 8A for such a tiny fine would be giving Meta a very unique carve-out that we normally would not apply.

It may be that $5k is too much to charge criminals per act, in that each crime didn't really cause that much loss, but bringing up due process concerns seems like bullshit when the fine is already so small. NM and Meta had been trying to negotiate the cost of illegal business for years before negotiations failed and it went to trial. Meta decided to let a jury decide, and the jury's come up with a fairly tiny fraction of their assets.

If Meta thinks the price of illegal business is still too high, then they can lower the number of willful violations they commit per year, to optimize the advantage they gain from illegal actions at an affordable rate.

Geez, Zuck, just do less of it. If $40B seems like a lot, then maybe try only $10B worth of crime next time. What's the big deal? Live and learn. After this little fine you still have 98% of the company left to go on and incur the next wave of liabilities.

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones. ”

--Niccolò Machiavelli, 1513

Valorant is free to play.

How about Stupor-Intelligence? I think it rolls off the tongue more easily. But it could end well if it somehow persuaded the YOB to read Bostrum's book? At least he might know who the bad machine is...

Other parts of the discussion were more focused on the story as one of bad military leadership. So the joke along those lines would involve a certain infamous corporal who became commander-in-chief of a big military. But these days the Americans couldn't even reach a consensus on whether that ended badly... "If only he'd waited another year before attacking Stupid Joe..."

I can't tell if you're going for funny or you don't know much about how good young children are at seeking their own destruction. It's really hard to keep 'em alive and it takes a whole lot of love. Even for the kids that turn out badly, perhaps because of unlucky genetic draws.

Doesn't seem like you want to discuss genetic counseling and reproductive rights in the context of possible solutions. And it's not like Slashdot is the most suitable venue for such discussions. I strongly suspect this crowd is below average for the numbers of children produced.

Nice FP, though yet to be modded Funny and I wish you'd had the leisure to add some more humorous examples beyond the vague "this". However in the context the reference is clear enough to establish the recursive humor. Yet it was basically an obvious and low-hanging joke.

The other one would be the anti-social media thing, but it's still early in the discussion and perhaps someone will do a good version. Getting harder and harder to remember the "good old days" when Slashdot was some sort of social media...

However I still persist in asking such silly questions as "Why?" and "Isn't there anything we can do to make the situation better?"

So for the why part, my basic answer is "bad economic models". I can't decide whether to blame free radio and TV broadcasts that led to an illusory Golden Age of idealistic public-service journalism without worrying about profits or the fools who created the weak and uncompetitive profit-driven versions of journalism. That's mostly "60 Minutes" and CNN, but there are so many flavors, none of which can compete.

Making the situation better? I used to think solution-oriented journalism might be an angle. Basically a charity approach, trying to dodge the pressure of the big money. However my expectations have been reduced, mostly by time. Apparently my last residual purpose in life is to do my tiny bit to boost the life expectancy statistics? So have a nice day.

Yes, so what on earth are you doing on Slashdot? This certainly has morphed, from me making a truthful admonition to people that their phones are not a safe space to me somehow being part of the police state, where they are gonna get ya, and can manufacture all the evidence needed, and all citizens are doomed.

This isn't even to make some sort of statement that bad things can't happen. Of course there are bad police, just like there are bad people. Are all people evil? Are they evil because some people make false accusations? I posted in here about a false accusation against me - too long to do. it again. But if I take the standard Slashdot intense hatred of law enforcement, I should therefore believe all humans are doing this.

Hell, the police I had to deal with in the fall accusation against me we pretty nice. Seems that a lot of people in here are caught up in a narrative, a prejudiced viewpoint.

Better move to Idaho, build a compound, barter chickens for bullets, Destory your social security card, no electronics, completely cut off from society. Because popo can get ya, and since everyone here thinks popo can just make shit up, you gotta do that. Leave civilization

Wanna get yourself even more paranoid? Popo can record your conversations by measuring the glass vibrations in your house windows. Popo can tell if you are using a radio by finding the IF frequencies. They can even tell what station you are listening to. Popo can disable your GM car using Onstar. Popo can even tell what you are working on by reading RF emissions from your computer screen. Cites upon request.

But they so seldom do this. It's expensive, labor intensive, and always saved for people who they know are doing sketchy things as they build a case.

Enjoy your fear and paranoia.

I feel sorry for people like you. Living constantly in terror and fear of popo, Why do you not move to another country where there is total privacy.

My entire point in all of this, is that you can do whatever you want to do. But using insecure devices is stupid. But you have a narrative that must be served.

First off my fear filled friend, I'm exposing my innocence, not proving it. I'm providing an alibi.

Perhaps you do not like alibis? If a gas station has me on camera, time stamped, and my credit card was used to purchase gas, or a soda, on my credit card, while my cell phone pings off a local tower, that goes a hella long way to provide an alibi.

What is your solution, homie? I just gave a fine way to show your location, and show your innocence if questioned. All by outside sources.

And yes, not all police are saints. Then again, not all police are the evil, evidence planting monsters you appear to believe. It's a spectrum, just like everyone else on earth.

What's more, I have some experience with wrongful accusation. It was sometime in the late 90's, the day after Christmas. I took my son to the local skating rink. about 20 minutes in, when I stepped off the ice, I was approached by 2 officers.

"Sir, where were you last night around 7 P.M.?"

Me: "I was at my parents house, watching a game on TV."

"Can you provide proof?"

Me: Yes, there were some 20 people there at the time,"

"Were you at the airport?"

Me: "I drove by around 8:30 on the way home."

Sir, it's better if you just confess"

Me: (quiet)

So we took it outside, I had the rink manager look after my son. I cooperated fully.

Already the police saw something was off about the situation.

They asked for my ID of course.

"Can you show us your ID?"

Me: "Sure - it is in my car, the red Chevy van right there."

The male cop gets on the phone, the lady cop accompanies me to my vehicle.

"Sir, you shouldn't keep your wallet inside your vehicle, it isn't safe you know."

Me: "It's a lot safer than inside the rink."

She started laughing. This whole thing was not adding up.

We went back to join the other cop.

"Me: Do you want me to call up my parents and relatives now? And I've been very cooperative - what exactly is it I've been accused of?"

Sir, a worker at the airport was threatened last night around 7 P.M., and someone in the rink says you were the person threatening the employee."

Me: "What do we do now?"

"My partner is going to pick up the victim, and we're going to see if he can identify you."

So I hang out with the lady cop while the other runs off to the airport. Comes back 20 minutes later with the victim. I stood with the lady cop, the victim stood about 25 feet away. I could see them talking, eventually the victim shakes his head. Office tells him to have a seat in the cop car. Then walks back to us, also shaking his head.

"Well sir, it definitely wasn't you."

Me: "What did he say?"

"You are taller, wear glasses, have shorter hair, have a beard, are more muscular, and don't really look like the guy who threatened him at all."

We walked back to the rink, They apologized, shook my hand.

"We're so sorry, Mr Olsoc, for the inconvenience, And thank you so much for the cooperation. I'm going in to speak with your accuser."

I chatted with the lady cop, she appeared to actually like me by this point. The male cop came back out.

"They insist it was you, even after letting them know it was definitely not."

Now it was my turn. When I get really angry my voice takes on a calm, apparently eerie tone, I'm told. Never yell.

Me: "I am the president of the youth Ice Hockey association here, my career requires me to work on sensitive research, and I have to maintain a clearance. My life requires I be pretty spotless. Let us make no mistake, if they do not stop, here and now, I will insist on them being arrested for a false police report, and we'll all be in court, criminal, then civil, so if you could do me and them a favor and let them know that if that is what they want, we'll pursue that."

He went in again, came back out

"All taken care of, Ol"

Only repercussions were getting ribbed a lot by the rink manager, and yes, there is some psychological damage to being falsely accused. And ended up on a first name basis with the police I was working with.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.