The P/R-side Chat Thread v.2

[Super Dude]

I don't really have a proper meme image for it, but there needs to be one that reads:

Obamas plant White House vegetable garden and teach kids to eat healthy
Congress names pizza a vegetable

Blame Obama

[antigoon]

[AcidLameLTE]

Reminded me of this:

https://www.onionsportsnetwork.com/articles/presidential-fitness-test-now-awarded-to-any-kid-w,26857/

[Sigz]

 

[antigoon]

Chris Hedges is suing the president. lol.

[chknptpie]

Chris Hedges is suing the president. lol.

For what?

[El Barto]

He appears to be suing to block the provision of the NDA which allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens based on mere suspicion.  I suspect all but one or two of us think it's dandy that somebody's trying to stop this nonsense,  but I doubt he'll get anywhere.  I envision one of those clusterfucks where he's denied standing to sue since he hasn't actually been detained.  Of course,  people who have been detained will have no opportunity to challenge their detentions in court,  so it's one of those catch-22 type things. 

[Sigz]

Picture my friend took outside the library on campus today:

[jsem]

That pic is awesome on so many levels.

[El Barto]

https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71818.html

Ran Paul was detained 'indefinitely' after refusing a full body pat-down in Nashville. | AP Photo
Close
By TIM MAK | 1/23/12 10:37 AM EST

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) was detained Monday by the Transportation Security Administration in Nashville, Tenn. after refusing a full body pat-down, POLITICO has confirmed.

“I spoke with him five minutes ago and he was being detained indefinitely,” Paul spokesperson Moira Bagley said Monday morning. “The image scan went off, he refused patdown.”

Paul’s father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) tweeted out news of the incident, saying that there had been an “anomaly” with a body scanner.

“My son @SenRandPaul being detained by TSA for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner in Nashville. More details coming,” wrote the authenticated Twitter account of presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Paul was travelling when he was detained.

The incident was first reported by Bagley on Twitter.

“Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville,” read her tweet.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71818.html#ixzz1kIYd5Vsq

God damn,  I hope this dude raises all kinds of hell about this. 

[antigoon]

Woulda been pretty funny if it had been almost any other senator, but I know Rand opposes this stuff.

Alright, it's still kinda funny.  I agree with you, though.

[El Barto]

Score one for the good [bad] guys.  SCOTUS ruled for Antoine Jones in the warrantless GPS case.  Kind of a mixed bag of opinions,  which should make for some good reading over lunch.  Still,  I'm certainly pleasantly surprised. 

Here's a nifty analysis of the decision.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2012/01/opinion-recap-tight-limit-on-police-gps-use/#more-137614

[antigoon]

Way to go SCOTUS! Will definitely read soon. Edit: It was unanimous? holy shit.

[El Barto]

Way to go SCOTUS! Will definitely read soon. Edit: It was unanimous? holy shit.

Not exactly.  It was unanimous to overturn the conviction,  but not in the message they sent.  There was a majority opinion and a concurring opinions,  which was also joined by Sotomayer,  making for one clusterfuck of a plural decision.  I haven't gotten to it yet,  but I believe Alito's concurrence will be far short of the important message here.

That message is very important,  and one which I never expected to see.  I thought there was a small chance they'd overturn the conviction based on the trespass component,  but I wouldn't have bet one cent that they actually rule the tracking to constitute a search.  In fact,  that's stated very directly, numerous times in Scalia's majority opinion.  That makes me very happy.  From a footnote of his opinion:

JUSTICE  ALITO’s concurrence (hereinafter concurrence) doubts the
wisdom of our approach because “it is almost impossible to think of
late-18th-century situations that are analogous to what took place in
this case.”  Post, at 3 (opinion concurring in judgment).  But in fact it
posits a situation that is not far afield—a constable’s concealing himself
in the target’s coach in order to track its movements.  Ibid.  There is no
doubt that the information gained by that trespassory activity would be
the product of an unlawful search—whether that information consisted
of the conversations occurring in the  coach, or of the destinations to
which the coach traveled.
In any case, it is quite irrelevant whether there was an 18th-century
analog.  Whatever new methods of  investigation may be devised, our
task, at a minimum, is to decide whether the action in question would
have constituted a “search” within the original meaning of the Fourth
Amendment.  Where, as here, the Government obtains information by
physically intruding on a constitutionally protected area, such a search
has undoubtedly occurred.

[antigoon]

Ah, that's what I get for reading news headlines. In any event, that's fantastic. Looking forward to checking out the full opinion.

[El Barto]

I was mistaken.  Alito's concurrence actually goes a bit further.

As I understand it (I'm not a lawyer, I don't play one on TV, and I didn't sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night),  the majority opinion was somewhat narrowly tailored to include the trespass as a component of the search.  In his closing remark,  Scalia said that if it had occurred without the trespass,  they might still decide the same way,  but don't have to worry about it right now.

Alito's concurrence,  joined by Ginsburg, Kagen and Breyer,  was considerably more vague.  They discounted the role of the trespass, but considered it a breach of one's reasonable expectation to privacy,  and therefore a search.

Sotomayer filed a separate concurrence,  which supports both explanations,  and suggests that they need to go quite a bit further in establishing privacy rights in the digital age.

[Scheavo]

https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71818.html

Ran Paul was detained 'indefinitely' after refusing a full body pat-down in Nashville. | AP Photo
Close
By TIM MAK | 1/23/12 10:37 AM EST

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) was detained Monday by the Transportation Security Administration in Nashville, Tenn. after refusing a full body pat-down, POLITICO has confirmed.

“I spoke with him five minutes ago and he was being detained indefinitely,” Paul spokesperson Moira Bagley said Monday morning. “The image scan went off, he refused patdown.”

Paul’s father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) tweeted out news of the incident, saying that there had been an “anomaly” with a body scanner.

“My son @SenRandPaul being detained by TSA for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner in Nashville. More details coming,” wrote the authenticated Twitter account of presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Paul was travelling when he was detained.

The incident was first reported by Bagley on Twitter.

“Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville,” read her tweet.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71818.html#ixzz1kIYd5Vsq

God damn,  I hope this dude raises all kinds of hell about this.

Given what I heard, my only problem is the slight hyperbole given to this. "Detained" means he wasn't allowed to board a flight until they had resolved why the scanner went off. Pretty tame, and I'm sure it was rather civil.

That said, I think the TSA procedures are invasive. Some kind of security is warranted, but full body scanners and the level to which we suspect everyone is still too strong of a reaction to 9/11.

[El Barto]

Detention in this case is actually more significant.  When detained by TSA you're not allowed to go home, either.  Once you enter a checkpoint,  you're there's until they either send you forward or backward.

[Progmetty]

I frankly wish everybody would suck up the TSA shit already. Let the man feel you up and you'll be on your way, are you that worried you might like it? 

[Super Dude]

Yeah, I have to be honest, I don't understand the big deal. It hasn't impacted my life in any way.

[El Barto]

As I've pointed out in the past,  my objection isn't that they want to see or feel my dick.  I dislike and distrust authority; always have.  In some cases,  I see that it's warranted and abide it.  In other case,  like this one,  I see it as arbitrary and senseless.  TSA is an unnecessary intrusion that, quite frankly,  exists only to remind us all who's in charge.  I hate to sound like one of Alex Jones' minions,  but this seems more like population control than security.

And let's not forget it's role in the big picture.  It's one more piece in win conjunction with everything else going on,  it's a pretty sorry-ass development. 

[Super Dude]

That's another thing I don't get: why distrust/reject authority for its own sake? I know I seldom criticize the government, but that doesn't mean I don't get ticked off at times; I just like to think I'm more particular and take things on a case-by-case basis.

[AcidLameLTE]

[Sigz]

Well, at least they got the countries right I guess. I mean, sure, they said Norwich is London and marked Cornwall as a city, but it's a start.

[Scheavo]

American's don't know geography, what's new?

[jsem]

American's don't know geography, what's new?

This. Not surprised to see this epic failure tbh.

[El Barto]

Student Arrested for Jailbreaking Game Consoles

A Southern California man was taken into custody Monday on accusations of running a home business of jailbreaking videogame consoles so they can play pirated games.

Homeland Security authorities arrested Matthew Crippen, 27, from his Anaheim home following his indictment for allegedly breaching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. The Cal State Fullerton liberal arts student is accused of hiring himself out to circumvent copyrighted encryption technology on Wii, Playstation and Xbox games.

Prosecutor Mark Krause said in a brief telephone interview that, if the case went to trial, he could prove the illegal activity “a number of times.” The indictment (.pdf) charges Crippen with two counts, carrying a maximum 10-year prison term.

Crippen, in a telephone interview with Threat Level, said the purpose of the jailbreaking was not for illegal piracy, but to allow patrons to use decrypted copies of their own DRM-laden gaming software. The DMCA, however, is not on his side, especially because he is accused of profiting from his hacks.

“This if for your legally made backups. If you’re talking about piracy, I’m not helping you out,” he said.

With the Xbox360, he said, “It’s a given that any game will be scratched in that system. ”

The Entertainment Software Association tipped the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of the Homeland Security Department that Crippen was allegedly running the circumvention outfit from his house.

“Playing with games in this way is not a game, it is criminal,” Robert Schoch, an ICE agent, said in a statement.

The authorities said they seized a dozen consoles. Crippen said he charged about $30 a job.

The defendant suspected a former neighbor alerted the Entertainment Software Association. Federal agents then went undercover. “They got two systems done,” Crippen said.

Potential customers were alerted to him, he said, by “mostly word of mouth.”

“There was no advertising. There was none of that shit. I’ll tell you that much,” he said.

The DMCA, the law under which Crippen was charged, says, “no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”

Crippen appeared in Los Angeles federal court late Monday and was released on $5,000 bond.

He said it took about 10 minutes to jailbreak a console.

Where did he learn the skill?

“Google, man.”

The fascinating part of this story, to me anyway,  is that it was Homeland Security that busted the guy.  Seems a little outside of their mandate.

But I doubt we have anything to worry about.  I'm sure they won't expand their scope beyond fighting terrorists and protecting the Entertainment Software Association.   

[chknptpie]

I'm not entirely familiar with jailbreaking, especially of consoles... and this sentence is like another language to me:

allow patrons to use decrypted copies of their own DRM-laden gaming software


So what exactly was he doing and how is it illegal?

[El Barto]

I'm not entirely familiar with jailbreaking, especially of consoles... and this sentence is like another language to me:

allow patrons to use decrypted copies of their own DRM-laden gaming software


So what exactly was he doing and how is it illegal?

He was modifying Xboxes and/or PS3's to allow them to play copies of games by circumventing their built in copy protection.  The justification is that people can make copies of games they bought and store the originals in a safe place (the 360 is notorious for scratching the hell out of every disk you put into the thing).  The reality is that it allows people to download pirated versions and play them.  Unlike a computer or a DVD player,  consoles have very stout copy protections built into them,  so the only way to play non-original disks is to hack them (which, last I checked,  involved a new chip and some soldering skills).  He was selling this service.

My point is that the Department of Homeland Security is now raiding people for [fairly mild] instances of copyright infringement. 

[Scheavo]

Ya, that' a little fucked up.

I thought a judge ruled within the past year or so that jailbreaking was legal? Or did that get overturned, or was it specific to something else?

[chknptpie]

I'm not entirely familiar with jailbreaking, especially of consoles... and this sentence is like another language to me:

allow patrons to use decrypted copies of their own DRM-laden gaming software


So what exactly was he doing and how is it illegal?

He was modifying Xboxes and/or PS3's to allow them to play copies of games by circumventing their built in copy protection.  The justification is that people can make copies of games they bought and store the originals in a safe place (the 360 is notorious for scratching the hell out of every disk you put into the thing).  The reality is that it allows people to download pirated versions and play them.  Unlike a computer or a DVD player,  consoles have very stout copy protections built into them,  so the only way to play non-original disks is to hack them (which, last I checked,  involved a new chip and some soldering skills).  He was selling this service.

My point is that the Department of Homeland Security is now raiding people for [fairly mild] instances of copyright infringement.

I definitely understood your point, just wanted to understand exactly what he was doing

So could someone also get a game from gamefly or something similar and copy it?

[El Barto]

No.  Anybody could copy it,  but no console would play the duplicate.  Consoles have DVD drives that will only read specially manufactured disks which are only available to game manufactures.  None of us can buy the blank stock.  It'd be like printing fifties on your ink jet printer at home.  To the best of my knowledge,  nobody's ever been able to duplicate those things. 

Moreover,  each console is programmed at the factory to only operate with the DVD drive it was originally built with.  Therefore,  you can't even swap out the drive with one which would play copied disks.  Frankly,  this part of it is kind of bullshit.  Those drives fail at a pretty high rate,  and even though they only cost about $10 on eBay,  they can only be installed by reprogramming the unit--tricky and risky. 

By virtue of their hardware level copy protection,  console games have enjoyed a tremendous amount of protection from counterfeiters.  Anybody can download a PC game.  Almost nobody can play a pirated console game.

[chknptpie]

Thanks for the technical info. I had no idea games were that secure.

[hefdaddy42]

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Did anyone else notice all the people on the Super Bowl who DIDN'T have their hands over their hearts during the National Anthem?  Including servicemen.  I guess it's okay to do that if you aren't a black Democrat in the White House.