Posts by Doctor Syntax 40413 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"And here I was thinking that US elections take place inside the borders of the US."
Election may have been in US. Russians indicted for doing stuff in Russia. Is it so difficult to grasp that Russian is not in the US, not in US jurisdiction and that however much US doesn't like it, it's out of their control?
As I said, just theatre but I see you're one of the audience.
"Espionage against the US for Russia's benefit is a crime in the US."
Point missed, apparently. The actions, as far as I can make out, took place in Russia. This may come as a surprise to many in the US but US jurisdiction stops a few miles off-shore from the US coast. Therefore the US has no jurisdiction in Russia. It might be a crime in the US if it had taken place in the US but it didn't. There's no chance they can get extraditions.
Without US co-conspirators it's just theatre and one which invites counter theatre although Putin could gain the moral high ground (!!!) by ignoring it. The only possible reason for indulging in this would be if US co-conspirators were to be pulled in later but if that were in prospect, why not wait?
Nevertheless, judging by a lot of comments here, it may be theatre but he has an audience.
Would the activities have been considered conspiracy against the US in the jurisdiction in which they were carried out? If not why are they being charged? And on what basis does the US believe it has any jurisdiction for charging them? If they were charged with conspiring with named US citizens it might make sense but the best they can come up with is "unwitting Americans".
This seems to me an unbelievably stupid move. It simply opens the door for Russia to respond by charging the entire staff of the CIA if they were to feel like it.
"Intel do not accept that they have done anything wrong or the need to compensate their customers."
That's why people are suing. When the case is over then they'll know whether they need to compensate their customers. They may not accept they've done anything wrong if a court tells them they have but that would be between themselves and their sense of their own importance and of no significance to anyone else.
"That does stop frivolous legal action, but equally it makes large companies essentially immune to legal action unless the claim is very high value."
If the claim is low enough to fit in the small claims route then large companies are vulnerable to individual claims as they can't claim back their fees if they lose. They then have to make a decision as to whether it's worth fighting a case at all. If the circumstances are that there could be a flood of claims then it probably would be, if not then it would be cheaper to write off the case and settle.
In the current situation I think the claim would have to be against the retailer not Intel. This makes small retailers (if there are any left!) vulnerable. Against a big company? Best let someone else go through the expense of fighting Intel first so it's easier to point to established facts rather than risk being the first in line and crushed by a strong defence aiming to stop further claims.
"I believe US EULA's are not enforcible in the UK/EU, due to different legal wording or some rubbish like that"
I'm not sure whether you were referring to the wording being rubbish but if it's contrary to the law where the product was sold then that would indeed be an apt description because a court would just strike it out.
"but haven't heard of any class action in the UK, yet ?"
Class actions haven't normally been a part of UK law. There is, however, recent legislation to this effect: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34402483
It doesn't seem to me the best way to go about gaining redress if the amount to be claimed is within the limits of the small claims court (or small claims track of the county court in England & Wales). AFAICS class action in the US seems to be basically a money-making scheme for lawyers. What's left over, from some reports here, doesn't even go to the claimants. Small claims courts take out the financial risk of losing as there's no facility for BigCo's lawyers fees to be dumped on the litigant. That, in turn, makes it not worth while for BigCo to put a lot into defending the claim as it would cost them more than they'd save if they lost. In a case like this, however, it would be best to leave someone else to get a case on record establishing liability as otherwise a judge might decide it's too complicated for a small claim.
"By not returning your CPU, you accepted the EULA."
At best a EULA is a contract. Contract terms can't breach the law in the appropriate jurisdiction. For consumer products, at least in Europe (yes that includes the UK) and maybe other places there's strong consumer protection legislation. If some words purporting to be a term on a contract are contrary to that legislation (assuming we're talking about consumer sales) then they might as well not there as far as the contract is concerned because any court would strike that term out.
"Sometimes when it’s just trying to maximize its reward, the model learns to game the system by finding tricks to get around a problem rather than solve it."
A bit like the horse that could do arithmetic except that it was picking up cues from humans when to stop tapping out the answer.
How long has it taken for this insight to dawn on them when it's been in plain site for a century or so?
"what is no less a fingerprint that has a sufficient set of data to identify individual users."
Really? Let's look at the list:
"Ubuntu Flavour & Version" That's a fairly limited choice. Almost all the installations at any one time will be split between very few options there.
"Network connectivity or not" A binary choice containing even less information.
"CPU family, RAM, Disk(s) size, Screen(s) resolution, GPU vendor and model & OEM Manufacturer" With enough cash you can buy kit with the same spec by the pallet. No serial numbers of any of them. How do you distinguish them one from another by this information or from the next pallet load of the same spec?
"Location (based on the location selection made by the user at install). No IP information would be gathered" That's time zone and maybe language. We've made a start on identifying the individual - it's somebody in the UK!!!!
"Installation duration (time taken)" That, indeed, can very. But if I go off and take a break whilst it's busy copying the files how, from the time I allowed, do you tell it's me?
"Auto login enabled or not" Another binary choice.
"Disk layout selected" This can be a bit of an individual thing. But in some cases, particularly if I were just trying "let's have a quick look" I'd let it default so that layout carries exactly the same info as the disk size because it's what the distro would always pick for the disk size. If I were building for a particular purpose I might customise that. And having built for a specific purpose when I come to built the next I might vary that according to what I learned from the last. What's more, if I were building for a particular purpose I'd set up LVM with plenty uncommitted disk and more to each logical disk as needed so what would be uploaded at install time might well not be what would be seen a few months later.
"Third party software selected or not" Another binary choice.
"Download updates during install or not" Yet another.
"LivePatch enabled or not" and one more.
So that's 5 bits of binary choices, some mass production data and some fairly general variable choices above that. You mention fingerprints. In forensic science we used to think in terms of discriminating power and frankly I don't see much discriminating power in that lot.
Getting GDPR understood is going to be difficult enough. Let's not make matters worse with disinformation.
"You can spot the Americans because they refer to personal data as PII"
From that well-known American site ico.gov.uk and its definition of personal data within the meaning of the forthcoming DPA:
"Personal data means data which relate to a living individual who can be identified"
PID would be a handy abbreviation. Unfortunately, that TLA has long established usage elsewhere so let's substitute Information for Data. PII it is, whichever side of the pond you're on.
I think I found the one you mean. Try running whois on them. It doesn't look anything like what I'd expect from an official EU site.
Googling GDPR FAQ brings up pages of ads, all from service vendors. Oddly enough it doesn't seem to bring up anything from the EU itself. Attempting to search the actual EU official site, http://ec.europa.eu for GDPR FAQ doesn't actually lead to anything like an FAQ although, bizarrely, even though I'm querying an https page entering the query brings up a warning that the information I've entered is to be sent over an insecure link.
"How are they planning to send the information to their servers without sending your IP at the same time?"
IP address sent from other than a home location isn't likely to be PII. IP address sent from a home location isn't likely to be PII either as ISPs don't normally issue static addresses without charging extra. Not that that excuses a pre-ticked opt-in.
"It also one of the few major public transport providers that is now expected to operate without a subsidy (major infrastructure projects excepted)."
That's a pretty big exception. Every time infrastructure subsidy in the north is mentioned it seems to be because another cut is being reported in what's promised (but not delivered).
"I suggest we expand GDPR. Expand the scope to the whole world"
If the operation covers any EU residents it will be within scope. For those of you who are non-EU residents dealing with non-EU businesses, you need a regulatory system that will look after you better. At least even the Brexit-minded HMG has to put it into UK law so it will apply even when we're outside the EU.
"In a lawyer's office, especially, I would not want to manage the logistics of issuing a laptop that goes home with them with all kinds of stuff on it."
In a lawyer's office the logistics of providing a full size PC at the various courts they might have to attend would be even harder to manage.
"Yah know, to listen to you guys, you'd think the only stuff worth knowing was computer stuff, and anyone who doesn't understand computer stuff must automatically be, like, yah know, an idiot, and computer guys are gods who know everything that's worth knowing."
I drive a car. I don't do it for a living and it's a long time since I was able to do stuff like take the head off and reseat the valves (MGBs were nice to work on). Nevertheless I need to know where all the controls are and what they do. I also need to know which side of the road to drive on, what the various road signs etc. mean.
Back in the day I used to be a laboratory scientist. I needed to know things like how to set up a microscope, how to balance the tubes in a centrifuge etc.
In short, I, like everyone else need to know enough (NB enough, not everything) about the tools I use to be able to use them. Why should it be different when the tool in question is a computer, especially when it's being used as part of one's job?
"Yet doesn't have the cash in the bank to cover a months rent?"
What seems to have happened is that unauthorised deductions took away the money that was there for the rent. If this was your bank account would you blaming yourself for the purchase that was charged several time without your say-so?
"The real problem was speculating in an unregulated market with almost all your money."
The problem here doesn't seem to have been punters speculating with almost all their money. It was the payments processor taking more money than had been speculated.
I hope the refunds will also compensate for any consequent damage to those who were driven into the red.
"That $17.13/share gets them $39.2m, some $17.3m less than the $56.5m they would have netted at the $24.67/share deal price."
I hope that price only applies to the plaintiffs, not the rest of the shareholders. If it does apply to the rest then maybe they'll sue the plaintiffs for the difference.
"Isn't there something more useful that we can spend the money on?"
Back in the C17th people took to puzzling about these things. I suppose if you'd have been alive back then you'd have said much the same thing. It was one of the things which lead to our understanding of Newtonian mechanics which has served us well ever since.
People didn't stop thinking about such things and noticed a few discrepancies that didn't quite fit with the Newtonian view. Maybe if you'd been alive you'd have said the same thing then. Out of that came the theories of relativity and out of those came a whole lot of other stuff from nuclear energy to the clock corrections necessary for GPS to work.
But in your view it's still a waste of time and money. Me? I wonder what's the next lot of useful stuff that's going to come out of it.
"So, you can observe the speeds of stars that actually have escaped the galaxy, and those that haven't."
I'm not sure whether they'd spot the stars that have escaped but the maximum measured velocities of stars in the galaxy is likely to be just under escape velocity.
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