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Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

unionleader.com

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Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#141

Post by ben_w »

ryandrake wrote: post #112
maxcbc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite part of GDPR is getting to use 451 legitimately everywhere.

I don't know. "Our site is so hostile to user privacy that it's illegal in some places" isn't exactly something I'd be proud of. Nor is, "We might be in violation of GDPR and we might not--we have no idea so we're going to just block you."

> Nor is, "We might be in violation of GDPR and we might not--we have no idea so we're going to just block you."

It’s not something to be proud of, but it is something I am sympathetic about. Modern laws (not just GDPR) are long and the language is often hard to understand.

I believe that laws must be simple enough to comprehend, or else they will not be comprehended and thus will be violated even by people who want to follow them — the phrase would be better if it was “ignorance of the law cannot be an excuse”, because that works both ways.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#142

Post by erik_seaberg »

ben_w wrote: post #141
ryandrake wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. "Our site is so hostile to user privacy that it's illegal in some places" isn't exactly something I'd be proud of. Nor is, "We might be in violation of GDPR and we might not--we have no idea so we're going to just block you."

> Nor is, "We might be in violation of GDPR and we might not--we have no idea so we're going to just block you." It’s not something to be proud of, but it is something I am sympathetic about. Modern laws (not just GDPR) are long and the language is often hard to understand. I believe that laws must be simple enough to comprehend, or else they will not be comprehended and thus will be violated even by people who want…

Even if you never actually did anything wrong, demonstrating compliance with GDPR delays releases and adds costs that never end.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#143

Post by JackFr »

fuzxi wrote: post #83
abeppu wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What city was this in? Is it in a place where other people have real guns? Is it in a place where the cops have guns? I both want to play and suspect that it would go really really badly.

For the most part, water pistols look nothing like firearms. I very much doubt that you'd be in danger of being treated as an armed threat when holding a transparent, green, plastic gun that's leaking water.

In NYC its a crime to brandish a toy gun that looks like a real one. That's why all the water pistols are florescent green and orange. It's also a crime to paint a real gun to look like a toy.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#144

Post by whack »

supernova87a wrote: post #23

I guess this brings up and interesting issue -- once someone knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is legit. There was a story in WSJ like last week about how the Japanese red stamp / seal still survives and is a barrier to them adopting new technology for practical every day speeding up of tasks. And keeps things like faxes around unnece…

> once someone knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is legit.

It sounds to me like they are using security-by-obscurity, as well as easily forgeable proofs such as "signatures" or drivers licenses (they're only as secure as your ability to spot a forgery). Hence why anyone who is knowledgable and determined enough, can easily crack the system.

If you want to prevent such problems, you could either go really old-school. Require the person filing documents to show up in person, and be personally identified and recognized by someone in-house. Or go really new-school and only accept biometrics or digital paperwork that has been filed using a secure account accessible only by that person.

Using an in-between approach, like a signed paperwork that has been given to you by someone you don't recognize, is the worst possible solution.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#145

Post by solarkraft »

viraptor wrote: post #139
OwlsParlay wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For US-based news sites they might well only get a few European visitors. I only ever get this problem for trending stories like this.

If a US site does not have any presence in the EU and is not selling anything to the EU visitors, why would they even bother adding the blocking? They can... do nothing instead. (Or disable buying subscription to the EU)

Fear that it'll haunt them should they ever enter the EU, probably.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#146

Post by jowsie »

eli wrote: post #121
noir_lord wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, so far "We can't serve you for legal reasons AKA we won't comply with the reasonable provisions of data protection" has been met with a broad shrug .

What's anyone supposed to do about it? GDPR didn't exactly provide funding to help anyone get compliant and it's hard to argue that GDPR compliance is a priority for a struggling local media site. It's a bummer, but I think it was inevitable in the way the law is structured.

Doesn't take much money or effort to just not sell my data.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#147

Post by Swenrekcah »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47
Swenrekcah wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vpn is always an option, and it's commoditized enough. Eventually all regions that pretend to care about their citizens freedom should adopt a GDPR like law.

> Eventually all regions that pretend to care about their citizens freedom should adopt a GDPR like law. But unless they all adopt the same one, the requirements will all be different, which means they'd each have independent compliance costs, which means local news providers like this will still block everybody outside of their own jurisdiction so that they only have to pay one set of compliance costs instead of six…

There are lots of regulations governing all the stuff you use and consume. They are different between regions but often regions band together and synchronize their regulations.

It's really not a big deal and yes if the tradeoff is that forcing the web monopolies into consumer friendly behaviour means that some tiny services are region limited (in name, not necessarily in practice due to vpns) then it's a net good.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#148

Post by at_a_remove »

mynameismonkey wrote: post #40
m463 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wear a hardhat and carry a clipboard.

I used to participate in a city-wide water pistol assassination tournament. Skipped the hard hat, got white coveralls from Home Depot, pinned my work id to it, carried a clipboard. Got in everywhere I needed to be, including a heliport and a private boat dock. I forget where I read it, but the phrase "just act like you're supposed to be there" has stuck with me a long time, and paid dividends.

Yes, getting very large tanks of medical grade nitrous oxide for parties worked like that, for me.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#149

Post by drpgq »

doublekill wrote: post #131
mshumi wrote: post #84

One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis ) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders. The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portug…

Having someone else do your prison time was fairly common. Now with more cooperation between organizations and improved biometrics it has dropped. Different people would be arrested, show up to court, or enter the prison. Impossible for organizations downstream to detect or assume a switch had happened.

Jeez I’m wondering what the going price would be for that today.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#150

Post by Swenrekcah »

parliament32 wrote: post #66
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eventually all regions that pretend to care about their citizens freedom should adopt a GDPR like law. But unless they all adopt the same one, the requirements will all be different, which means they'd each have independent compliance costs, which means local news providers like this will still block everybody outside of their own jurisdiction so that they only have to pay one set of compliance costs instead of six…

Exactly. Attempting to regulate the internet will always end in failure, as we've seen again and again. The EU's initiatives are very noble but I think: as they try to keep enforcing their laws and fines, they're just going to end up with less content being available to people in their jurisdiction. You thought copyright region-restrictions were bad.. just wait until Spotify refuses to serve your continent because co…

If spotify stops taking my money I and millions others will go buy music somewhere else. Spotify is not exactly popular with non-superstar musicians either.
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