FireBeyond

And not only that, this also wasn't caught by their auditors who attested to the KGC and details.

So you'll be getting rid of Firefox, Chrome, Edge, etc.? All of which have non-USCs working on security code in their browsers?

> Apple has never bothered to detect jailbreaks and lock people out of iCloud and iMessage.

Not entirely true. It absolutely has in the case of the Hackintosh. In fact many a year ago that’s what inspired me to get my first Mac, because every release of macOS made it harder and harder with custom bootloader and kexts to get around Apple’s active efforts to ensure you couldn’t use those unless you were on an actual Apple device, not just running their OS.

Huh? This is a wild misstatement. Even your link doesn’t support this, and says that the "most likely reason" for the high rate is that prosecutors have broad discretion over whether to prosecute at all, and credits low prosecution rates and a different way of calculating the rate.

The new system has been in place for less than ten years, only covers a very limited set of crimes and is much more modeled on cooperation than coercion. The Ramseyer and Rasmusen paper reported 99.9% convictions in 1994 (49,598 of 49,643), when the law did not allow plea bargains. The rate was already above 99% long before plea deals existed.

Don't forget (and not just in LA) that you can only exercise your right to remain silent not by remaining silent, but by saying those words, ideally in response to each individual question.

Otherwise the prosecutor can stand up in court and say you were "uncooperative" and resisted, even obstructed attempts to investigate the crime, and if your lawyer tries to frame this as you exercising your right, the judge will not permit this because you didn't utter the magical incantations.

Partially. The prosecutors and DAs are motivated by conviction rates. The delays in the court system are a bludgeon to encourage that end. Just like identity theft in itself, no-one is motivated to fix the system but the ones being fucked by it, who are the least able to do so.

> Why doesn't the police connect the dots?

They don't care. My iPhone was stolen. Through a circuitous route, I was able to get the details of the eBay seller, someone who lived near me, and whose listing pages couldn't have been more blatant if it had a neon sign on it: 100+ laptops, mostly Macs, "no chargers, no accessories", often activation locked. Same with phones.

So I went to my PD, with the buyer information, the seller, all of this. Their response:

"Well, he probably didn't steal it himself."

Huh, "Isn't it still a crime to knowingly sell stolen property?"

"..."

"..."

Nothing done. As of a year later he was still steadily adding multiple phones and laptops a week to his listings.

Well, now you get to the absolute travesty that is:

Identity theft is a failing of other people that is your problem to solve.

This very nearly burned me when buying my home - having been an AT&T customer in the PNW for nearly two decades, "I" apparently decided to hit up a Walmart on the outskirts of El Paso, sign up for a Verizon service, run up two months of international calls and bail out.

Despite a police report, my utility statements, AT&T bills, etc. (all of which were, to be blunt, none of VZWs business), VZW stood by it initially, "On review of your documentation, we remain satisfied that this debt belongs to you based on the documents used to open your account".

I asked to see them, since they were, in VZW's own words, "mine". "We can't, for customer privacy reasons." Oh, so "mine when the bill needs paid, may not be mine for privacy purposes".

We constantly face the consequences of businesses failing to secure the information which they (and in some cases legislation) requires us to give them. And when it (inevitably) is lost, then you're offered "free credit monitoring"...

The CRAs compete for breach business, because it's absolutely a profitable enterprise for them:

If you've ever signed up for one of these "free credit monitoring for a year" following a breach?

When you do, you typically do so by signing up for the highest tier (sometimes $30 or even $50 a month) product with a redemption code for one year free. You have to enter a credit card to do so, and to no-one's surprise, if you don't cancel in time, it automatically converts to a paid subscription "for your convenience".

There are many consumer protection farces in the US, but right up there has to be the notion that "identity theft" is the consumer's responsibility/obligation to prevent or resolve, not the entity that actually had the data stolen. You're considered liable until you prove innocence, even though you did nothing wrong.

> I forgot the source but the amount of prosecutions that are plea down is staggering.

I'd wager that 99% of the plea deals that occur in the world occur in the US. No other country uses it to the extent we do, and it's not even close. In many countries it's not an available option, or when it is and it's used, its use is heavily regulated and requires (meaningful) oversight by the judge on fairness, likelihood of conviction, etc.

And once you've accepted a plea deal it's not just a matter of making your plea - you also have to sign a whole raft of documents waiving a whole raft of rights, about appealing your conviction, about the right to present evidence in your defense in the future, or to witnesses, you have to sign a statement saying that even if you were to (attempt to) change your plea that it is your acknowledgment, "based on material facts" that the state is in possession of enough evidence to convict you.

They give a shit about their conviction rate. And maintaining a comfortable relationship with their local police department(s). Very little else.

While there are definitely issues of pay disparity, there are a lot of criminal law firms employing "former prosecutors". In my conversations with one or two - the pay is better, but the disillusionment and need to railroad defendants got to them.

In Tacoma, a "party house" suffered an arson attack recently. The theory/rumors, etc., are that it was a neighbor, pissed off with the constant noise, traffic, etc. The home is right by the Narrows bridge, views, etc., and rentable.

The other part of the theory is since it is owned by a former NFL player (and a Seahawk, at that), that local police were reluctant to rock the boat too much. Neighbors got frustrated, and well, maybe?

Look at you taking pages out of the Fox playbook over a decade ago. “What if Obama isn’t really a citizen? We’re not saying he’s not, we’re just asking the question…” (every hour on the hour for months).

> Back when the shoe was on the other foot, the right tried to make several alternative platforms and there was widespread collusion amongst all levels of infrastructure providers to push them off the internet.

Wow, what spin.

There was no collusion. If we look at Gab, Stripe and PayPal had had numerous issues for a long time leading up to them not accepting payments. I love how you ignore -why- providers cut ties with them: The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter planned and coordinated his efforts on Gab, and when Gab was repeatedly warned about it, refused to do anything. Similarly, though this administration made a lot of it moot, many of the Jan 6 riots were coordinated actively there, same thing (and yes, riots - it was shown in evidence that these were the people who were planning to hurt politicians, staff, law enforcement, and see if they could "capture" Mike Pence to stop his role in certification).

And they were offline for less than a week.

Parler? AWS said that they'd reported over 100 posts to Parler that were active and specific plans for violence and incitement, and been ignored. Following the FBI investigating Parler for its role in coordinating violence on Jan 6, AWS pulled the plug.

It's on the App Store, on Play, now.

But categorizing that as some kind of disagreement on ideology is a hilariously bad take that ignores active coordination of crimes and violence on those platforms.

DHS literally telling federal court judges that they are going to continue extraditing someone in face of a court order not to, that they are not going to turn a plane around.

ICE refusing to make officers available to law enforcement for investigation of issues.

A lot more happening than "making executive orders", though kudos to Trump for trying to sign executive orders that even his own DOJ are not just illegal, but unconstitutional.

Photography is one that comes into play a bit (taking photos in public places). There was a Georgia police chief who gave a press conference on the steps of a courthouse having just lost a civil rights case: his officers arrested a photographer and just kept doubling down. His conference had this marquee quote: "We cannot expect our police officers to be constitutional lawyers or know every minute detail".

"We can arrest you even though we're not really sure if you actually broke a law. You, on the other hand, are expected to know the law, and ignorance is not considered an excuse."

> There seems to be a subset of law enforcement officers who fundamentally don't understand privacy, checks and balances, and responsibility. They believe they should have unrestricted access to everyone else and that they are above us all.

A large part of law enforcement training is specifically to instill and reinforce this belief. They are officers, you are civilians. You are not the same (in their eyes). They are the thin blue line keeping society from crumbling into anarchy (or socialism). Hell, when push comes to shove, they will close ranks and throw firefighters and paramedics under the bus (arrested on the scene of car accidents for insufficiently respecting the cops "authority"), ER staff (ER nurses arrested for refusing a warrantless blood draw when the cops are desperate to diffuse blame from their off-duty drunk fellow officer who blew a red light and fatally t-boned another car), and so on and so on.

> Interim Maj. Max Nowinsky sustained the allegation and recommended an eight-hour suspension.

"Bad cop, take the day off".

Absolutely. Cue up moronic regulations like "Homes can only have approved lists of colors, and no homes side by side can be the same color."

> I can think of a few neighbor situations where an HOA with teeth would have been welcome. The most specific involved someone getting a big angry dog breed, neglecting it, and then leaving their gate unlocked so it got out. That one was eventually dealt with by the city, though.

Wow, no. That should only be dealt with by the city. I cannot imagine the types of misuse and abuse that would come from the self-centered, small-minded petty tyrants that want to be on a HOA board deciding what breeds of dog they'd like in their community. It'd be a bunch of "toy" dogs that frankly I find far more obnoxious than larger breeds with incessant yapping. I don't get to make the decision that that's a problem, because it's a preference/annoyance, not a problem. But you can guarantee that that's the kind of thing that happens.

> I think the nightmare situation is a busybody HOA that starts going after things that don’t matter, which would be hell.

I think many HOAs are exactly that, because often the kind of person drawn to being on a HOA board is exactly that. Just like they're often the kind of person to post on Nextdoor, "Hey, there are a bunch of black teenagers I've not seen before walking down the street."

> The HOA then sold the home to an employee involved in the foreclosure, whose partner was on the HOA board that had voted to foreclose, and voted to accept the three dollar ($3.24, to be precise) bid

And when I say they sold it to an employee involved after buying it themselves at auction for that $3.24, they sold it to the employee for one dollar. So this woman was out hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity because a self-dealing HOA and its law firm (tied by marriage to one of the HOA board) voted to foreclose on her home and accept a purchase price that couldn't buy you a drink at Starbucks.

Alright, fine, then let's talk about his BIL's failing endeavor SolarCity, which was given an undeserved lifeline from Tesla.

Kinda like Pepsi and UPS. Seven years of waiting for their 1,000+ Semis they had ... 37, that mostly did yard work because... no charging network.

And then this year Musk's band of merry clowns announces that they've "completely redesigned the windows" because, I shit you not, "Turns out there’s a lot of infrastructure in the world, whether it’s a badge reader, or your toll booth, or you’re talking to somebody on a call box. There’s all kinds of stuff right at that height, and it became evident that we needed a roll-down window in order to make that infrastructure easier to interface with."

Spectacular R&D on which to tie your mission critical infrastructure to. Oh, and the charger network, "still a 'hurdle'", says an anonymous Tesla employee in a feat of understatement.

Oh, just like how they "projected" that the Cybertruck would be able to tow a Porsche faster than the Porsche itself, or they released "simulated" Plaid numbers.

It got to the point where even Tesla's lawyers had to get involved, and numerous reports from Tesla disclaim that "Elon Musk's statements are aspirational and may not reflect engineering realities".

I'd rather my performance car takes significant winding ocean roads like its on rails, than my BIL's performance car which by his own words (and both our experience) is "significantly sloppier and a lot more hair raising".

And then I get the joys, living near a base, of 19 year old E-2s with base Challengers thinking they have a "performance car" and constantly wanting to race me.

And for anything else, it doesn't matter. My RS 5 might take 7:55 around the Nordschleife, versus a Model S Plaid at 7:35... but when the Tesla pulls in after its lap for "thermal throttling", the Audi will just ... keep going. I think the last time I got bored and curious, at 130mph and a full tank of gas, the Audi will just keep going for about 200 miles before needing the gas station. The Model S will get ... 75-80.

I love adrenaline, and a 2s (or less) 0-60 time is exhilarating. But a 3s isn't much less fun, and on a commute, is not practically any different.

There was a fairly crazy case in Georgia recently where a lady stopped paying her annual dues over a billing dispute. The amount worked out to be less than $3,000.

The HOA hired a law firm, forced a foreclosure, held a foreclosure auction where the HOA itself bought her house for THREE DOLLARS, and continued to charge her HOA dues (even though the HOA owned the home now) before evicting her later.

The HOA then sold the home to an employee involved in the foreclosure, whose partner was on the HOA board that had voted to foreclose, and voted to accept the three dollar ($3.24, to be precise) bid, though they hid this behind an LLC that didn't actually exist when they did it. The employee then reactivated her real estate license and sold the home to another family several months later.

There are fewer greater lunacies than HOAs, and the type of people drawn to run them.

It's getting near to winter. Take your FSD Tesla to Pittsburgh (complete with poor street painting, and potholes) or Montreal, wait for a nice snowing night.

Report back to us how well your FSD Tesla gets you across town with no interventions. We'll be ready to hear the glowing review.

Yes, because this position is being leveraged into things that significant public funds are being put into - SpaceX is on the receiving end of huge tax breaks, notable government contracts, extensive environmental impact waivers and so on and on. Yeah, I can be annoyed that a non-zero part of this is a shell game that is likely to leave taxpayers holding the bag when its considered "essential infrastructure" because of the all too cosy Trump-Musk relationship.

And what if you -do- have pervasive cancer, but a Theranos test told you you didn't? You go about your day, and the cancer continues to worsen, untreated (speaking of poison inside you).

> Theranos was doing was using traditional equipment to run the tests as a smokescreen for the fact that they didn’t have any working technology. So the results should have been similar to anyone else running them when that was the case.

> But there is a problem that when a company is saying they’re doing one thing or using one technology but your actual tests could be run on unknown combinations of unknown lab hardware depending on the day and the whims of a CEO trying to defraud investors, you don’t know what kind of results you’re going to get.

Exactly. They were using Siemens machines, but they often had insufficient blood because they were trying to maintain a pretense of "nano collection". Siemens' machines weren't even trying to pretend they could work like this, so Theranos kept trying to figure out ways to dilute or diffuse the samples they did have to get to a usable volume for the tests. But of course every experimentation there was destructive, so they had even less to use.

So we're not talking about error rates on properly calibrated machines, with sufficient blood that re-tests could be performed before needing another collection, we're talking about error rates on effectively misusing machines.