Video gamer hunts down, stabs man who killed his online ‘Counter-Strike’ character
Michael Sheridan reports at NYDailyNews.com:
Julien Barreaux reportedly spent six months looking for the person who killed his online character in a virtual knife fight, and eventually found the foe living only a few miles away in Cambrai, a town about 2 hours north of Paris. The lunatic only got two years' imprisonment for what pretty plainly looks to me like premeditated attempted murder.
Tom Brady’s Four-Game N.F.L. Suspension Erased by Judge
Tom Brady is now set to play in the Patriots' opener. I don’t care, but I know my parents, my siblings and most of my friends might. Here’s what the presiding judge said:
"The court finds that Brady had no notice that he could receive a four-game suspension for general awareness of ball deflation by others or participation in any scheme to deflate footballs, and noncooperation with the ensuing investigation"
Missouri Teenagers Protest a Transgender Student’s Use of the Girls’ Bathroom
I can’t blame the students for protesting. Kids can be cruel, and kind of dumb. I certainly was.
But parents and attorneys like Derrick Good display a shameful vacuity in couching their bigotry in terms like “physical privacy.”
Karen Workman quotes one such parent:
"My goal is for the district and parents to have a policy discussion,” said Derrick Good, a lawyer who has two daughters in the district and wants students to use either facilities based on their biological sex or other gender-neutral facilities.
Alison Parker, Adam Ward of WDBJ remembered by friends
It’s inappropriate to use these tragic murders as fodder for the never-ending Second Amendment debate, and people on both sides of the isle are already guilty of that.
If the killer’s intent was to terrorize, are those people who are disseminating photographic and video imagery of the murders aiding and abetting that son of a bitch, even after his suicide?
I’m obviously emotional over this thing, as many people are, and the aiding and abetting thing is more a thought experiment than a serious question.
Lewis James Fogle Free, 34 Years After His Wrongful Conviction
The case against Mr. Fogle itself was never a strong one – it was based entirely upon the testimony of so-called jailhouse informants, including a man himself suspected of the crime. It was only years after the 15-year-old victim’s body was found in the woods that the suspect, Elderkin, named Mr. Fogle as being involved. This accusation came during Elderkin’s fifth statement to police, while Elderkin was receiving psychiatric treatment and with the assistance of hypnosis.
What’s better for free speech on reddit, saving a single thread or getting the whole site unbanned in Russia?
If the choice is between all of reddit remaining banned in most of Russia and IP-blocking access to one thread about mushrooms, I’d block access to the thread. I think there’s a far stronger “pro-free-speech” argument for restoring access to 99.99% of reddit for Russians rather than inciting a total ban by refusing to restrict access to a single post.
Facial Recognition Software Moves From Overseas Wars to Local Police
This is troubling:
Lt. Scott Wahl, a spokesman for the 1,900-member San Diego Police Department, said the department does not require police officers to file a report when they use the facial recognition technology but do not make an arrest. The department has no record of the stops involving Mr. Hanson and Mr. Harvey, and Lieutenant Wahl said that he did not know about the incidents but that they could have happened.
The ethics of modern web ad-blocking
Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper and, more recently, Overcast:
This won’t be a clean, easy transition. Blocking pop-ups was much more incisive: it was easy for legitimate publishers to avoid one narrowly-useful Javascript function to open new windows. But it’s completely reasonable for today’s web readers to be so fed up that they disable all ads, or even all Javascript. Web developers and standards bodies couldn’t be more out of touch with this issue, racing ahead to give browsers and Javascript even more capabilities without adequately addressing the fundamental problems that will drive many people to disable huge chunks of their browser’s functionality.
Can the FTC ban digital goods?
Brent Kendall, writing at The Wall Street Journal:
The current case is about patents, but the ITC also can take action against goods that infringe copyrights, an issue important to Hollywood and other rights holders. They are eyeing the ITC as a new venue for combating foreign websites that trade in pirated digital material and the ability of U.S. consumers to access them. If the court hearing this case on August 11th upholds the FTC’s decision to exercise its import ban authority in the digital realm the ramifications will be far-reaching and almost immediate.
Federal Court’s data breach decision shows new tilt toward victims, class-action lawsuits
John Fontana writes at ZDNet:
In an interesting twist, the Court said the fact Neiman Marcus offered free credit monitoring services was evidence that there was harm to these victims. The ruling turned on its head the way courts historically view such services as compensation for harm while negating a victim's right to file a lawsuit (re: standing).
“Happy birthday” lawsuit takes a(n unexpectedly interesting) turn
Did you know copyright lawyers have waged a legal battle over ‘Happy Birthday’ for a long time? They have, and, somehow, it recently got interesting.
If this proposition is accepted by the judge, Warner/Chappell may lose out on a cash cow that is reported to reap $2 million a year in revenue. Filmmakers like the named plaintiffs — and others who have forked over as much as six figures to license — would no longer have to pay a penny to feature "
China-Tied Hackers That Hit U.S. Said to Breach United Airlines
This is starting to look like a concerted effort to gather a specific data set for some sort of coordinated use:
The previously unreported United breach raises the possibility that the hackers now have data on the movements of millions of Americans, adding airlines to a growing list of strategic U.S. industries and institutions that have been compromised. Among the cache of data stolen from United are manifests -- which include information on flights’ passengers, origins and destinations -- according to one person familiar with the carrier’s investigation.
Drone regulation, firefighting and basic decency
Michael Martinez, Paul Vercammen and Ben Brumfield report at CNN:
Five such "unmanned aircraft systems" prevented California firefighters from dispatching helicopters with water buckets for up to 20 minutes over a wildfire that roared Friday onto a Los Angeles area freeway that leads to Las Vegas. This is an inappropriate use of drones, wholly lacking in basic decency. It’s not impossible, or even implausible, that a drone-related delay will some day result in the destruction of one or more homes or even get someone burned to death.
Democracy.io - Contact your Members of Congress
Great stuff from the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Failure to effectively reach members of Congress has disastrous consequences. Studies show that politicians fundamentally misconceive their constituents’ views, making it harder for them to represent us in the lawmaking process. That’s why we built Democracy.io: a new tool to put you in touch with your members of Congress—with as few clicks as possible.
Ex-Googler says she exposed company-wide pay inequality with crowdsourced spreadsheet
Kristen V. Brown wrote for Fusion about Googler Erica Joy’s recent salary spreadsheet. Google had no response to her request for comment, which is the worst kind of response to something like this. Apple released, deliberately, a dismal diversity report (read: majority male, majority white) last year, and Tim Cook took responsibility for fixing it.
If there is a pay disparity problem at Google, or even the illusion of a pay disparity problem, Google PR needs to be on top of this story.
Antitrust official inappropriately lauds Amazon’s “disruptive business model”
DOJ antitrust head William J. Baer, speaking at a London antitrust conference:
By conspiring with Apple, which was seeking a fail-safe way to enter the market, five major publishers and Apple reached an agreement to drive the industry to an agency sales model and seize back control over and raise retail pricing of e-books. The department successfully challenged this conspiracy to quash Amazon’s disruptive business model, forcing the defendants to terminate the contractual agreements they had used to effectuate the conspiracy.
Obama Plans Broader Use of Clemency to Free Nonviolent Drug Offenders
Peter Baker of The New York Times:
In his second term, Mr. Obama embarked on an effort to use clemency and has raised his total commutations to 43, a number he may double this month. The initiative was begun last year by James M. Cole, then the deputy attorney general, who set criteria for who might qualify: generally nonviolent inmates who have served more than 10 years in prison, have behaved well while incarcerated and would not have received as lengthy a sentence under today’s revised rules.
iOS 9 Public Beta coming today?
I rarely cross-post from my geekery-focused Tumblr, but I’m so excited about this I had to share it here, where I have literally thousands more followers.
I’ll be writing a proper post about the public beta after I’ve used it for a few days. There are some interesting legal consequences of agreeing to use beta software.
The Verge made a FAA drone exemption search engine
Ben Popper reports at The Verge:
We have partnered with the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College to collect data on every commercial exemption the FAA grants. It's a fascinating snapshot of a fast-growing industry still in its infancy. [The result] is an interactive database that allows you to drill deeper into details, exploring the companies that have been given permission to fly and what they are planning to do with their drones.
Tor Project seeks Executive Director
The Tor Project, makers of anonymizing browsing tools, is looking for a new Executive Director:
The position provides the high-profile opportunity to assume the voice and face of Tor to the world, and particularly to the global community of Internet organizations dedicated to maintaining a stable, secure and private Internet. In this position, the successful candidate will be able to exercise their deep leadership experience to manage a virtual team of culturally diverse volunteer developers.