As noted last month, the Biden FCC is finally getting ready to restore net neutrality rules stripped away during the Trump administration amidst a lot of bullshit and fraud. And unpopular telecom giants, with the usual support of the GOP, are already busy trying to undermine the effort with a whole new list of manufactured […]
As the American market continues to expand on rights for Americans to enjoy being super high on cannabis, the industry around those rights are expanding quickly as well. And, in a way that is somewhat akin to the craft beer explosion that occurred last decade, more and more trademark scuffles are popping up as these […]
Last week, we kicked off our Error 402 series on the history (and hopefully future) of web monetization, by talking about much of the framing of what this series will be about. I started it out by noting that it has been 30 years since I first got online in 1993. That also happened to […]
Elon Musk keeps insisting that stopping spam bots is a huge priority. After all, he said he’d either stop them or die trying. And, apparently one way to try to stop spam is to stop allowing people to report spam. I’m guessing this is just a mistake on a site that has massive errors pretty […]
His heart is probably in the right place. That’s the best thing I can say about Berkeley professor Dr. Hany Farid, who has spent the last couple of years being wrong about CSAM (child sexual abuse material) detection. That he’s been wrong has done little to shut him up. But he appears to deeply feel […]
The Complete Photoshop Master Class Bundle has 6 courses to teach you what you need to know to create amazing projects. It’s no secret that Photoshop can be a bit dense when you’re first getting your feet wet with it. That’s why it pays to have an expert instructor show you the ropes. Led by […]
You will recall that, last month, Elon Musk mentioned in passing that he’d decided the only way to stop bots and spam on Twitter (which he’d already claimed to have stopped a few times earlier) was to paywall the entire site with “a small monthly payment for use of the X system.” This statement apparently […]
Once a year like clockwork, the telecom industry trade association releases a study claiming that if you squint just right–broadband prices have dropped year after year. It’s their annual attempt to pretend (and to help the politicians that coddle them pretend) that the U.S. broadband market isn’t heavily monopolized and woefully uncompetitive. Last week, AT&T-backed […]
ShotSpotter may consider itself to be a solid contributor to the fight against crime, but the facts don’t really bear that out. What it is capable of doing is sending cops to any place a gunshot is (possibly) detected, but that hasn’t really shown to have any meaningful impact on solving gun-related crimes, much less […]
One of the copyright world’s key weapons is a constant barrage of propaganda about the alleged benefits of this intellectual monopoly, and of the supposed horrors of its infringement. This is typically conducted through massive lobbying of politicians, funded using the copyright companies’ generous profits that could have been distributed to the poorly paid creators […]
Over the last year, we’ve covered a whole bunch of truly ridiculous, vexatious, bullshit lawsuits filed by school districts against social media companies, blaming them for the fact that the school boards don’t know how to teach students (the one thing they’re supposed to specialize in!) how to use the internet properly. Instead of realizing […]
Plenty of legislators and law enforcement officials seem to believe there’s only one acceptable solution to the CSAM (child sexual abuse material) problem: breaking encryption. They may state some support for encryption, but when it comes to this particular problem, many of these officials seem to believe everyone’s security should be compromised just so a […]
Think about the things you lose most often. Your keys and your phone, right? Well the Nut Find 3 was built to resolve that little forgetfulness issue. Thanks to Bluetooth 4.0 and Smart Anti-Loss, you won’t be anxious about your losing or misplacing your stuff. Just attach the tiny, portable Nut to whatever you lose […]
Play Trust & Safety Tycoon in your browser on desktop or mobile » Today we’re super excited to launch Trust & Safety Tycoon, a video game simulating what it’s like to run a trust & safety team at a fictitious, rapidly scaling social media company called Yapper*. If you’ve ever wanted to see how you’d […]
Last week T-Mobile annoyed customers everywhere by not only informing them they’d soon be facing a steep price hike, but by pretending it wasn’t actually a price hike. The company announced it would be moving customers to a more expensive plan unless they opted out (hoping that users wouldn’t notice the change). Leaked support docs […]
Back in February, a copyright case that somehow made it past me, but embedded below, was filed by BMG against MGA Entertainment over a song the latter used for one of its toys. That song was called “My Poops” and is a parody of The Blackeyed Peas’ “My Humps.” You can go hear the song, […]
This case contains multitudes. Let me explain. There’s an exception to the Fourth Amendment known as “inevitable discovery.” That theory says the evidence obtained by possibly unlawful means would still have been discovered by lawful means. That means the evidence is still usable. The most common source of “inevitable discovery” is the “inventory search.” If […]
Landmark Technology’s U.S. Patent No. 7,010,508, and its predecessor, are very likely two of the most-abused patents in U.S. history. These patents, under two different owners, have been used to threaten thousands of small businesses since 2001. In just one 18-month period, the ‘508 patent was the subject of more than 1,800 patent demand letters sent […]
Way back in 2016, Ken White posted a “lawsplainer” about “opening up our libel laws,’“ as Donald Trump had promised on the campaign trail. In it, he noted that unlike (for example…) Roe v. Wade, there was no decades-long effort by the Federalist Society to undermine 1st Amendment principles, such as those established by the […]
Minors attending public schools may find their rights are limited, due to a variety of factors: school safety, access to learning, etc. But they’re not nonexistent. This much courts have made clear, including the top court in the land. Nevertheless, school administrators seem to feel students should be treated as suspects until proven otherwise. In […]
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