Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

> What if members of FAANG+M decided to hack small startups or even each other?

You mean the way Amazon does it every day to successful, independent small sellers, copies their products and bans them from Amazon without providing a reason why? The way Google removed Tutanota from search results? Microsoft spread FUD about open-source? Or like Oracle acquired MySQL?

But you do make mistakes. All humans do. Maybe you had an argument with a family member earlier in the day, and your mind wanders and you don't notice a red light. Maybe it's night, and raining, and some unexpected glare combined with debris in the road causes you to crash. Maybe you do drive tired, just once, even though generally you're strict about not doing so. Having a perfect driving record requires both luck (that no one else around you screws up) and constant vigilance on your part. Blemishing that record only takes the tiniest mistake, just once. No one, literally no one, is immune to these factors.

As much as I dislike the term "accident" when talking about car crashes (because, to me, the implication of the word is no one has to take responsibility), sometimes things just happen, because we are imperfect beings with imperfect nervous systems and imperfect perceptions and imperfect reaction times.

Self-driving cars will be better at a lot of things, but, yes, possibly worse at others. They have the potential to eliminate many causes of crashes, but might add a few new ones.

When you're on a plane, you're trusting not only the pilots, but a ton of complex avionics software. Why is that ok, while trusting self-driving isn't? I get that the two tasks are very different, and self-driving will require more sophisticated, nuanced software, but in both cases you're turning your safety over to a computer. That didn't work so well with the 737-MAX, but no one is talking about scrapping modern aviation because a bunch of people died due to bad software decisions.

The problem is the illusion of control. People think that driving their own car means they're in control of nearly every possible outcome, but in reality, they're not. Plenty of things can happen in a car that are out of the driver's control, even without another vehicle involved.

Another part of it is that people (Americans especially) can be excessively individualistic. Many people will balk at a solution that will result in (just making up numbers here) 25% fewer deaths if it means they personally will have a 0.001% greater chance of dying. Frankly, I find that mindset really worrying in a society, even if it can be understandable.

(Somewhat relatedly, I recall an episode of Star Trek TNG where one possible solution to the problem du jour was to give the computer full control over propulsion in order to save the ship. And we're talking about a futuristic computer that could probably flawlessly simultaneously self-drive every car currently on Earth without breaking a sweat. But in the end, blatantly pandering to our "human control is always superior" biases, the computer was found to be not good enough, and humans saved the day. Even more telling, I believe it was Captain Picard who took manual control; they didn't even have Data, the android, do it!)

This was a deferred prosecution agreement between Ticketmaster and a DOJ lawyer, not the court's decision. In the US, courts have limited power to review these agreements and generally judges just approve them every time. In other countries that allow DPE's, courts may have the power to limit their use.

The agreement might state what Ticketmaster must do or refrain from doing after the effective date to avoid being prosecuted in the future. Paying a fine might be only one part of the agreement.

One can only make assumptions about what the court might have found regarding the CFAA claim. The fact is, it did not get the opportunity.

It's possible for both of those views to coexist. I have no idea if the data fits such a model, but off the top of my head here are a few factors which might matter.

1. White-collar criminals might be more significantly deterred by the threat of any prison time, perhaps because they have more to lose or because such crimes have more premeditation.

2. Prison might work as a deterrent in general, but if 20yrs will already ruin your life then the additional threat of another 80yrs might have little to no impact.

3. Rehabilitation might have a stronger effect than deterrence, which could point to hybrid solutions leveraging both effects, supposing they mix appropriately.

The world is turning more and more into neuromancer / shadowrun everyday..