* Posts by Ian Michael Gumby

4454 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Apr 2006

Realtime data ingestor DataTorrent gets led Churchward

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Interesting.

Apex has some followers, and without DataTorrent, it would never gain traction or critical mass.

Its major competitor would be Flink so we will have to see if they can continue to grow and become a real company.

We want Waymo money from you! Uber sued for 'stealing self-driving car' blueprints from Alphabet

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Gene Cash

If memory serves, the Uber demo was on a truck route that Uber had previously driven using a driver.

So if you put in a really good GPS unit that is accurate to less than a meter, drive a road and map it out using the GPS and Lidar... its fairly easy to have the truck drive that same route again.

There's still a very large gap in full autonomous vehicles and what we see demoing today.

Notice that the locations of the trials are in certain cities and in certain regions of the country? ;-)

Toxic Uber sued after driver allegedly tried to rape passenger in car

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Re: "Jaquez remains an authorized Uber driver to the present time."

"Why the actual hell is that guy not in jail? Sexual Assault is a serious crime, so what is wrong with Minnesota that a rapist can just go free like that?"

Because this is a civil case and not a criminal one. There is most likely a criminal complaint against the guy, however this is a civil case where the victim is suing Uber for damages.

If Uber can't get the case dismissed, they will settle out of court. Even if they had a jury trial and were found negligent but only awarded $1.00, it would set a precedence.

I was authorized to trash my employer's network, sysadmin tells court

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Voland ... Re: @Ellier ... This will impact others as well

Yeah, we've all done it. Especially after a 36 hour marathon session to save a massive update build that went wrong because someone checked in some old code with their new mods.

Doing it as an accident is one thing.

Doing it intentionally to cause harm is another.

That's the thing.

Take a look at his actions.

Knowing it was wrong and doing it to cause harm is what makes it a criminal act.

There is more to this... there's the criminal aspect and then there is civil aspects in terms of the law. The company could sue him for damages too.

His argument is that he had access to the systems for work therefore he's not guilty of criminal trespass.

It doesn't work that way. In an earlier example I talked about a store clerk who had the keys to close up shop, coming back later and letting himself in to steal some alcohol. He's still guilty of trespassing.

Ian Michael Gumby

@Peter ... Re: rm -fr @IMG

I know. I was trying to give a simple example.

As to decommissioning a server farm / cluster... Its a lot more fun when you have to shred your drives and sign a document to that effect because no drives are allowed to leave the DC. ;-)

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Re: @Ellier ... This will impact others as well

Mens rea is 'guilty mind' which means that you knew what you were doing and you knew it was wrong.

It goes to show intent.

There is no loophole in the law as written. The appeal will fall flat. He's looking for a loophole where none exists.

To really drive the point home... Imagine if you worked in a liquor store and had the keys to the place because you sometimes closed up at night. Now imagine one night, you decide to drive up, use your keys to gain access and then take a case of booze. Using the logic of the appeal, you claim you didn't break the law because you had the keys to the place as part of your job, and you routinely stock the shelves so you had the right to handle the booze.

That's the logic. Or rather you let yourself in, and destroyed a couple of cases of booze sitting on the shelf and claimed that you didn't break and enter because you used your keys that were given to you so you could access the store.

The git doesn't have a case and the extra wording isn't required in the contract. While IANAL, I've written and negotiated many SOWs which are contracts based on an MSA which I too have had to read, edit and sign.

Ian Michael Gumby

@ Oengus ... Re: @Ellier ... This will impact others as well

Oh yeah, I've seen smart people accidentally delete directories and do stupid things. That's why we have backups.

But there's no intent on their part. It was an accident.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Yo! Coward... Re: @Ellier ... This will impact others as well

It doesn't matter if you consider it a professional designation or not.

If your job description says 'system administrator' then you need to know something about being a system administrator. So you should know that typing rm -rf * while at the root directory is a no no.

That's part of it.

The other part is a question of intent. Knowing your command could cause harm is part of the issue. Intentionally wanting to commit harm is the other part. As you said, you are a nuke guy and you accidentally typed your command in the wrong window. Ooops! No intent.

Being the admin, shutting down the back ups, locking others out... and then deleting the files? You have intent to do harm.

You need both and with respect to this case... they have it.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Elf ... no, timing doesn't matter.

The issue is showing intent and mens rea.

Did he know what he was doing?

Did he know what he was doing was wrong and would cause his employer harm.

The acts were intentional,

He knew what he was doing would cause harm.

He knew what he was doing was wrong.

He also had motive in wanting to help his friend who was suing for wrongful termination.

He will lose his appeal.

IMHO, he had two choices.

1) Resign and walk away citing issues.

2) Stay, and do his job. Of course when it came time to be deposed, he could spill his guts about the bonus to take over his friend's job. There's more, and the point is he could have helped his friend by being ethical and above board at all times.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Ellier ... Re: This will impact others as well

Unethical , heck yes 1000%.

Illegal? Yes.

While he has complete access as the admin, were the actions he took consistent with him performing his duties as an admin?

sudo su -

cd /

rm -rf *

3 simple lines that will hose any Unix/Linux system. (Kiddies do not try this at home)

As the admin, knowing that this will cause harm is what makes this illegal.

There's more to it, but the rogue employee had mens rea (guilty mind) which he doesn't deny.

Start there and you'll find his actions to be criminal.

Pai, Pai, Mr American spy: FCC supremo rips up privacy protections for broadband punters

Ian Michael Gumby
Big Brother

No clean answer...

There is some truth to the fact that FB and Google can and do collect so much more information about you that its frightening. So to be fair, the ISPs are at a disadvantage when you consider how FB and Google monetize this information.

HOWEVER... IMHO there should be a law that syncs both FTC and FCC rules and that both require OPT-IN for everyone who wants to capture my data. And they all have to explain how they use the information and who their customers are, for the data.

But hey! The news stories today are how senior citizens who are on Medicare are fighting with their Republican Congressmen about Obamacare. (Free clue to those outside of the US. If you're on Medicare / Medicaid, you're not on the ACA / Obamacare open markets and Obamacare is hurting you. )

How Google Spanner's easing our distributed SQL database woes

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@AC ...Re: Global clock is easy...

Could they lock it down? maybe.

Are they? No. See their current lawsuit w DoJ

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Global clock is easy...

Each data center has a cesium clock for accuracy and its synced to the National Atomic clocks receiving a radio time signal. Based on the known source of the clock and their GPS location you can accurately sync and keep time in each data center. Pretty simple and the hardware is approximately 4-6K (USD) per data center.

Even if your GPS resolution is to within 100 meters, your clock is more accurate than the clock in a server.

So Google isn't doing anything fancy here.

The rest of the technology isn't that difficult either.

The larger issue is the legalities that will vex Google.

When spanner crosses a country's border, which country's data laws are in effect?

Think about that for a second.

That's the stuff that will kill Google. And there's already two cases. One against Google and One against Microsoft on US wanting access to data stored outside of the US.

'First ever' SHA-1 hash collision calculated. All it took were five clever brains... and 6,610 years of processor time

Ian Michael Gumby

@Chris Miller Re: 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 sha1 calculations

No, sorry, its not that easy.

For a very long time, its been known that there's a potential for a SHA-1 collision to occur. Its was just that no one found it.

While a random collision can occur, creating a specific modified document and then to figure out how to create a SHA-1 hash equivalent that is also the same size? Not that easy,

You're doing Hadoop and Spark wrong and they will probably fail

Ian Michael Gumby

Re: @AC

no shit SQL != OLTP.

But that's what some clients want to do with their systems.

See SpliceMachines, Phoenix, etc ... where they want to impose transactions. (Hint: there's more to isolation than dirty read and HBase RLL isn't the same RLL that you expect in an RDBMs.)

NASA extends trial of steerable robo-stunt kite parachute

Ian Michael Gumby
Headmaster

Re: Not really a stunt kite

Almost at the level of a grammar or spelling nazi. :-)

Ian Michael Gumby

Re: Watch out NASA

Yeah, but then you have to return the chute and packaging back to Amazon...

Uber hires Obama's attorney-general to review its workplaces

Ian Michael Gumby
Mushroom

@Redstone

Absolutely!

Holder is corrupt and his firm is being brought in to whitewash the whole thing.

They will find her claims to be unsubstantiated and innuendo at best.

He was even hired to pick fights with the Trump Administration on behalf of the State of California, however it was soon pointed out that it would be illegal to hire outside counsel when the state already had competent attorneys on staff who can do the same job.

BlackBerry sued by hundreds of staffers 'fooled' into quitting

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Jamie Jones ... Re: @Yank Lurker Legality

Absolutely, there are a lot of shitty managers out there.

As my own boss, I usually end up taking a real, proper, vacation once every 3 years or so. When I'm not billing, I'm at home working on other things until the next gig. I do get time off, but when you're on the road more than 40 weeks during the year... you tend to want to stay home in your own bed when it comes to down time. (I actually have a policy on paper that say I get 8 weeks minimum of paid vacation, if only when I decide to take a real job one day.) ;-)

The thing about vacations... and this varies by state... you either have a take it or lose it policy, where if you don't take it... its gone. Or a limited amount of accruals. Or you can only take so many days at a time. Its definitely a YMMV.

If I were your friend, I'd have taken Fridays off for a couple of months just to get some down time.

This is why you need to downplay the offer of vacation or stock options. They may be nice to have, but they may end up being worthless.

Ian Michael Gumby

@AC Re: Article is not correct

Something doesn't smell right.

The lawyers are alleging the following:"BlackBerry arranged to transfer over 300 employees across Canada to a business partner. Only after employees accepted employment with the business partner, BlackBerry informed the employees that they had resigned their employment. Blackberry provided resignation letters for the employees to sign and dictated their last date of employment. Blackberry stated that the transfer is not a sale of business, meaning the employees will lose all of their years of service."

Blackberry could have been upfront with the employees and they didn't realize what was happening.

Again they could have said no, been fired and then gotten their benefits.

The lawyer is alleging a wrong doing and the burden of proof is on then to show that BB sidestepped the law.

Its going to be an interesting case.

Ian Michael Gumby

@John Brown ... Re: @Yank Lurker Legality

I was just tossing out some numbers. YMMV. Some companies don't offer a lot of vacation and even if you have it, you may not get to take it. From my experience... if you take off more than 2 or 3 days, you end up spending too much time playing catch up, or when you're gone there was a SHTF moment.

Some companies start with 7 paid national holidays and 2 weeks paid vacation. Then after a couple of years +1 year, and then after a couple more years +1 again. Of course some companies start with 3 weeks these days.

This is probably the only example of a seniority benefits I could think of. Other than time towards vesting... which goes away in any case.

Ian Michael Gumby

@ledswinger ... Re: Intelligence Test

Intelligence Test?

Lets be clear, there is no implicit threat.

Here are the facts. You sign this document you're guaranteed a job with the same salary that you currently have, performing the same work... for a period of time.

If you don't sign, you will be terminated because the company is shutting down that LoB.

If you don't sign, they give you your payout package. (By law).

However, you're now on your own to find a new job and more than likely, you will be barred from being hired in to the new company for a period of time.

The period of time could be 6 months to a year. It will depend on the country's laws.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Yank Lurker Re: Legality

This wasn't a merger and it may not have been a sale of a Line of Business.

We need to know the agreement between BB (Blackberry) and FC (Ford Canada).

I agree that during an M&A, there are retention packages for critical staff, and a transfer of seniority to a point. They may say that your 10 years at company X gives you 4 weeks of vacation and they will honor it, but you won't see a bump in benefits because you are starting over in terms of the company's benefit program.

I've seen it where companies do things like this. Its either sign the paper and start with the new company or you're terminated. And if you're terminated, while you get your package, you will be barred from working at the new company for a period of time. (Or permanently) Its legal, if done properly.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Dave Austin ... Re: Legality

Without seeing the actual contracts, or understanding the specifics of Canadian Labor Laws, its a tough call.

Your point about how the papers were presented is meaningless and noise. A company hands you a legal document to sign, you had better read it. If you said you wanted to take the document and run it past a lawyer and they said no, then they would have issues. However that's not what is being alleged.

Where Blackberry may be on legal thin ice is that they didn't compensate their staff properly, and again it depends on the labor laws. Even questions about duress may be difficult to prove.

But there are a lot of unanswered questions...

What exactly is the transaction between Blackberry and Ford Canada? Did they outsource to FC? Did they sell the line of business?

What did the employees lose? Pensions?

Unused but accrued Vacation Days?

Seniority and benefits due to length of service?

Did Blackberry follow the required labor law announcements and notifications? (e.g. if they were terminating a number of employees did they notify the correct government officials of the resource action?)

And that's the thing.

If Blackberry made the official announcement of a resource action and said that they were shutting down a division and were selling off the support contract to FC, essentially you were losing your job and starting over at FC. (no accrued seniority or benefits since you're a new employee) Then they should have paid out accrued benefits. If you didn't sign the document, you didn't have a job at FC so you would have been terminated and gotten those accrued benefits.

So you have to know the agreement between BB and FC along with what was said in the document in order to know what will happen in court.

Watson can't cure cancer ... or all the stuff that breaks IT projects

Ian Michael Gumby

@Tom Mariner Re: Failure to Commercialize

Its not a failure to 'Commercialize' but to monetize. (They are actually two different things)

But MD Anderson does do real research and is one of the top research hospitals for Cancer Treatment.

The problem is that everyone and their brother is trying to cash in on using 'big data' to help fight cancer and in most cases the hype is so far over the top, you will have a hard time talking people down to reality. Everyone is giving money to Cancer research and here's a way to cash in.

The truth is that cancer research is an iterative process and where 'big data' and AI can help is to prune the tree and reduce both the time it takes per iteration and the number of iterations until they find something.

IBM did this in terms of marketing. They used this as a way to suggest how important Watson was. (Its more than just 'big data' but also some analytics packages. ) They used this to keep morphing and selling IBM. The I in IBM doesn't stand for 'innovative' while the M stands for 'marketing'. I be marketing... ;-)

Ian Michael Gumby
Devil

Re: Tried to cure one cancer, allowed in another ..

So that pork is really cured ham?

Florida Man jailed for 4 years after raking in a million bucks from spam

Ian Michael Gumby

@Phil Endecott

Spam?

Where were you when Siegel and Cantor spammed USENET with their green card adverts?

(Do you even know what USENET is/was?)

The point is that its not that easy to catch and shut down.

It used to be that you would go after the ISP and shut down the pink contracts. SAVVIS was a big time offender.

But when they use a botnet and malware... you have to check out who is behind it and that takes time and a bit of luck. Its not that easy. (It also depends on how the botnet is controlled.) The only way to track them down is to contact a legitimate business and see who they signed on with and go after them. Until of course it leads to people off shore.

I do think that it would be nice that these guys get longer prison sentences. However... that will never happen. And of course they will always try to find another scam.

Mystery deepens over Android spyware targeting Israeli soldiers

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Roj Re: Iran

No,

Israel will protest. Note: no one stepped forward about stuxnet, and of course those that assassinated weapons researchers in Iran were never caught.

And if Iran were involved. It was to support Hamas in an effort to gain troop movements along the Gaza border.

Ian Michael Gumby

Bzzt.

No, you don't hack your own. For one, its illegal in most countries. Russia, Iran, Syria, etc ... they will and do encourage spying on their own citizens along with other countries. But Western Democracies... not as much as you would think. Certain programs come cross to the line and are in grey areas, but not outright hacking and spying.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Re: Given Obama's last minute U-turn on Israel policy

Obama is antisemitic. That much has been proven time and time again.

However this isn't US based.

Iran does have enough technical capabilities along with potential help from Russian based Hackers. Russian Hackers may or may not work for the Russian government and they may or may not freelance.

More than likely it is Iran and they are providing this to Hamas.

GoDaddy CEO says US is 'tech illiterate' (so, yeah, don't shut off that cheap H-1B supply)

Ian Michael Gumby

@ yank

Not quite.

The trick is to create a job posting that has a really low salary. So that it doesn't get filled.

There are a lot of tricks that get played in HR these days.

The whole goal is to show a position was open and there were no qualified applicants so hiring a H1B is fair game.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Ghost ... Re: Solution

Sorry Mate, but you really don't know the difference between a software engineer and a code monkey.

It takes more than just learning the basics and a language.

This is why companies screw up Big Data projects.

Google to cough up $20m after Chrome rips off anti-malware patents

Ian Michael Gumby

Re: Again, prior art?

Nope, its different.

But to your point, software patents... suck.

There needs to be patent reform now that Reid is out of office.

Ford fills up ex-Google, Uber engineers' tank: $1bn pours into Argo AI

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Why Me...

It's not going to happen for a few more years.

There's the issue of computing power and having enough sensors.

Its one thing to drive in Phoenix/Scottsdale where the roads are nice and easy to figure out your lane and position, but on roads in Chicago or other large cities? LOL... good luck.

In terms of GPS positioning... its not accurate enough.

2009 IBM: Teleworking will save the WORLD! 2017 IBM: Get back to the office or else

Ian Michael Gumby
Headmaster

@Dr. Syntax ... Re: It's Like The Tide...

Noooo!!!! GOTOs are not allowed!

Ian Michael Gumby

@Chris Miller Re: You answered your own question

The reason this is a 'steath RIF' not because its not obvious but that they don't have to file any action notices.

The whole point is to make people want to quit.

IBM's Marissa Mayer moment: Staff ordered to work in one of 6 main offices – or face the axe

Ian Michael Gumby

@IT Ghost.

You've never worked for IBM.

If you had, you'd understand that if they tried to switch teams, there wouldn't be any head count to switch in to.

Elon Musk joins anti-Trump legal brief

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@AC Re: @David Knapman

Cupcake,

Obama cemented his place in history.

Tell you what. Take Obama's name off his record and look at the facts.

He's the worst by a long shot.

You haven't a clue about Trump.

He's a crazy Ivan.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@ boring coward Re: @Warm Braw @Neil Alexander Chilling

And there you have it.

You ignore the present, and the law, based on your own paranoia.

The law and the courts deal with the present and not the future. Maybe you need to stop trying to believe that Minority Report is real?

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@David Knapman

No, Trump does have the power to do this. While it could have been better written, the underlying power exists and Trump isn't the first President to deal with immigration. Both Carter and Obama have put bans in place.

The real question is why the uproar?

The answer is that many who voted for Hillary can't face the fact that Trump won. That the people behind the protests are creating FUD by making this sound like its a ban based on religion. (Its not.) That its an all out ban on immigration. (Its not.)

I had an Indian (H1B) coworker as me about how the ban affects her. She was worried about traveling for vacation in the US. (I told her she could go back and forth to India without a problem and that traveling to Florida was also not an issue.) Her fears were due to FUD created by the fringe left who look for any excuse to attack Trump.

We've had to deal with Obama, the worst POTUS in the history of this country and now Trump. Suck it up cupcake, he's the POTUS and he hasn't broken any laws yet.

I guess if you get down to it... once Sessions is confirmed as the DoJ USAG, he can assign a special prosecutor and then charge Hillary Clinton and her staff for violating the espionage act. (Yes, as of January, there's now enough evidence to show her violations.) He can defer to the NY AG and the IRS to go after the Clinton Foundation. The reason I raise this... it means that those hoping for a coup and getting Hillary in office... aint going to happen. Her political future isn't looking so good. (Besides you lose Trump, you still have Pence. )

BTW, once the TRO is overturned. (And it will be) The lawsuit becomes moot. Remember this ban is for 90 days, not to mention Trump will win the lawsuit.

Ian Michael Gumby

@fear nothing...

The courts shouldn't be asking anything except does the plaintiff have actual damages or reason to bring action?

Then the courts have to ask if they have jurisdiction. Hearing the case is one thing. Issuing a blanket TRO the exceeds their jurisdiction is another.

The POTUS has the power to issue this EO. This was provided by Congress in 1952 and modified in 1965.

Where were you when Obama did this in 2015 by removing these same 7 countries from the visa waiver program? Or imposing a 6 month ban on Iraqi visa requests? 6 MONTHS.

Seems your issue is with Trump and not with the EO.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Robert Helpmann Re: Chilling

Wow. You're way out in left field and the argument you're making is a stretch.

How exactly do these companies have damages from the ruling? Specifically?

And that's the thing. Its difficult for them to show actual damages that can be directly tied to the ban.

A good lawyer, can tear the plaintiffs apart. I don't mean a great lawyer, but just a good litigator.

And you missed a very important point. National Security trumps a corporation's damages. The DoJ lawyers can easily show justification by pointing to Obama's actions in 2015. Yes, its that simple.

Note that the issue w green cards was cleared up already as well as certain visas and some other issues.

But to your point... Any argument that goes to staffing... you'd have to show that there are no other qualified persons in the world to perform that job. That argument has a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding. Remember, this is a 90 day ban...

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@JamesB ... Re: Chilling

Sorry but I think you need to spend more time around lawyers and in the courts. Not that I would recommend it but its an eye opener about how messed up things can get.

You have a couple of issues.

Yes you are correct, the plaintiff must show actual damages incurred by the ban in order to have standing. That's going to be a difficult one.

Then you have the issue of jurisdiction. You're going to have to do some reading on that one. Does a Federal Judge who's jurisdiction is limited to a district of federal court have the right to impose an order that extends outside of his jurisdiction?

The current case is the TRO issued by a judge in Washington State. (Home of Amazon)

The judge didn't have to justify his reasoning and provide a written opinion based on law. His only comments were that it was a religious based ban and that the plaintiffs should win their cases. (This is why the DoJ lawyers should win the appeal. ) The appellate court will have to issue a written statement. If the DoJ lose, it will go to SCOTUS. If they win... most likely it wont. (Per news analysts and lawyers)

You then talk about the 1965 law which modifies the 1952 law which gives Trump the power to sigh the ban in the first place. You need to spend more time because Trump has the power to impose a time limited ban if there's an issue such as national security.

This is where it gets fun.

The courts should provide more leeway to the POTUS based on such a claim. However the DoJ would have to show that there was justification. They can, simply by pointing out Obama's actions on these same 7 countries in 2015.

Legally, Trump will win.

IMHO, the execution... not good.

You should read Alan Dershowitz's comments on this. A bleeding heart liberal, yet an honest lawyer.

Judges are not infallible. They don't know everything in the law and often make mistakes that you have to live with. Its not uncommon to have to go thru the appeals process which can take a year or two before their ruling is overturned.

Ian Michael Gumby

@Warm Braw Re: @Neil Alexander Chilling

I agree that there are two issues. The Executive Order and how it was implemented. The EO had some overreach in that those with Green Cards were impacted. However that was cleared up within 24 hours.

Note however that both Visas and Green Cards can be taken away.

"Ostensibly, because the governments of those countries weren't providing adequate intelligence on travellers so the US government decided it needed to pre-screen visitors by means of visas."

Uhmm,,, that's a bit of an understatement. The issue is that in each of these countries there are concerns about the vetting process performed in the visa check. So that Trump wanted a ban on people traveling with visas from these countries or people who have visas and traveled to one of these countries in the past couple of years.

Regardless of how either you or I feel about it... Trump has the authority to implement such a ban. Where he got in to trouble was those traveling on Green Cards and those who are already landing in the US that have a valid visa. Then there were other groups like visas for Iraqis who held jobs assisting American troops as translators ... Still there's no permanent ban in place, nor a ban based on religion And that's what you see protesters marching around the airports or talking heads are running their mouths...

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Re: Chilling

There are two conflicting cases and two conflicting judgements. Microsoft and Google.

If our understanding of the Microsoft case, the US Government feels that they have jurisdiction over Microsoft because while its a global company, it's a US based company and thus regardless of where the data is stored the US Government has rights to the data. If this reading is correct, then IMHO the US Government is overstepping their jurisdiction.

Then you have Google's case.

Here they ship US data around their global network. Here the judge reasoned is that Google would have to comply with the Government's request because regardless of where the data is located, its accessed by those in the US. If I read that case correctly, Google is screwed.

You think the US law is confusing. Take a look at Swiss banking and data laws.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Neil Alexander Re: Chilling

"So far there is no evidence that this is really anything to do with National Security. "

Uhm... actually there is.

Obama removed these countries from the visa waiver program. Now why did he do that?

Hint... cough, cough... National Security .

There I said it. The same countries Trump went a step farther and stopped immigration for 90 days.

There's more, but lets let that little nugget sink in, for a moment. ...

.

.

.

Trump's ban will withstand the TRO from Washington State and if it makes it to the SCOTUS and they decide to hear it... it will be an unanimous decision in favor of Trump.

The issue wasn't with the ban, but its implementation and the only questionable pieces were already modified.

The POTUS has a lot of latitude when it comes to his EO , especially when he can utter the two words "National Security".

With respect to the SFO court case... its going to be very difficult for any of these tech companies to show harm from a 90 day ban on immigration from these 7 countries.

Maybe these companies need better lawyers?

Streetmap loses appeal against Google Maps dominance judgement

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@AC Re: Just say no to Google

Just say no to Google?

Really?

Its much harder than you think.

To prove it... if you run NoScript, take a look at what scripts every site you visit have in common. They all have Google Analytics.

Why doesn't El Reg remove this script? They have Alasdair Dobbs who could probably cobble up their own analytics package and keep their site stats in house. So why don't they do this?

In fact why doesn't any of the other commercial sites do this?

That would be a very good article for any tech magazine to write.

Why does it cost 20 times as much to protect Mark Zuckerberg as Tim Cook?

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Paranoia? Maybe. But there could be more too it.

Tim Cook. Is the CEO of Apple. But if you ask anyone who's the first name that they think of when it comes to Apple... its Steve Jobs. (Steve Jobs[RIP] is still a large chunk of the brand).

Zuck? He too is the brand. So he's a much larger and brighter light that attracts moths.

So while there's an ego element, there's also a larger chance that Zuck has a larger crazy fan base than Tim Cook. Also more haters and more threats.

But what do I know? I only used my FB profile while I pulled a gig there. Not because I wanted to be on FB.

Big Tech files anti-Trump brief: Immigration ban illegal and damaging to business

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Yo! Anon coward... Re: ...

Do you actually know something about the ban?

Do you actually know something about Persians who came to the US prior to 1979 in order to flee the revolution?

Free clue. Most of those Persians who came are now US citizens. (At least 100% of the few that I know did just that. ) Most of those have never returned to Iran. (For some obvious reasons).

Now with respect to Trump's ban... does it ban US citizens who are of Persian descent ? NO.

The confusing part was who was banned even if they have a valid green card?

Then ask yourself who gains from spreading FUD?

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Doctor Syntax ... Re: ...

You raise a valid point.

I'm sure Sweden is rethinking just that policy. Had they had it in place... there's this guy Julian who would never had been allowed in their country and there were two women who would have been safe.

But you didn't want to hear that, so lets clear the issue. The POTUS as any world leader has an obligation to keep their country safe. I suggest you see what Trump's immigration and illegal immigration issues are and why they exist. Then you can rethink your position. There isn't an easy answer and your silly example doesn't help.