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Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

arstechnica.com

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Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#331

Post by wpietri »

jjeaff wrote: post #278
onethought wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s a crime for you to misspeak wouldn’t you err on the side of caution? Anti trust hearings of 4 tech companies at once... ridiculous... All 4 of you have a monopoly on... something! Bullshit politics. You aren’t being forced to use ANY services from big tech in the US there is HEAPS of competition. Just US lawmakers shoring up constituents

While I very much dislike the anticompetitive practices of these companies, I have to agree they aren't really close to monopolies. Google and Facebook are not social media companies. They are advertising companies. They sell ad space. There are still a lot of different ways to spend as money.

This is wrong in a few ways. One, antitrust includes more than monopoly, including oligopoly and monopsony. Two, there is no generic advertising market; there are a variety of specific ones. Three, Facebook and Instagram are the only way a lot of small companies find buyers, because their platforms give them rich data for ad targeting not available elsewhere. This came up during the Stop Hate For Profit campaign; large companies joined easily, but many small businesses couldn't. Having zero effective choice is a clear sign of anti-trust concerns.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#332

Post by interestica »

will_pseudonym wrote: post #233
harry8 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For criminal behaviour from the organisation, the burden of proof needs to be reversed. The CEO should need to prove they did not know and did not endorse tacitally or otherwise and would have reacted strongly to prevent and effectively sanction those responsible if they had found out in advance. It's their job to know. Only if they are a victim of a genuine criminal conspiracy performed by other employees and it can…

OT, but "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" reminds me of a funny Mitchell and Webb sketch about evil villains using ambiguous phrases when ordering their henchmen to kill someone. (NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6cake3bwnY

Corporations will hire 'plausible deniability officers' specifically to obfuscate decisions.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#333

Post by cbsmith »

confidantlake wrote: post #150
cbsmith wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the not-quite-last (there's a deferred prosecution agreement that is part of this) in a series of consequences in a case that goes way back in time. I'm not sure I follow the logic of looking at the net worth of a conglomerate when assessing a fine. If someone parks the corporate car in a no-parking zone, or spits out chewing gum on the sidewalk, you're not going to fine them x% of net worth. At least in term…

Some countries actually do this, charge variable fines depending on net worth. The fine in this case is to de-incentivize bad behavior like reckless driving.

It makes sense for penalties on people that aren't motivated by profit.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#334

Post by wiml »

ryanlol wrote: post #287
ipqk wrote: post #148

Compare this slap on the wrist to Aaron Swartz: Federal prosecutors later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,[15] carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Aaron never received any penalty at all. The government offered him 6 months in jail, with the opportunity to argue for further leniency. There’s a very good chance that he would’ve walked away with essentially nothing.

The government threatened him with 35 years in prison and a lifetime of debt in order to extract a forced confession. That's what a plea deal often amounts to, a confession under duress.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#335

Post by onethought »

wpietri wrote: post #326
onethought wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... are you assuming the US = world? Uber didn’t get a monopoly... and there are a bunch of competitors in lots of different countries. And Uber is paying for this with epic losses every year... where is the anti trust?

We were talking about US-based tech companies speaking to the United States Congress about possible anti-trust violations in US markets. A bunch of competitors in other countries doesn't mean anything for US markets. And epic losses are a sign of the antitrust violation: they're burning capital unsustainably to buy market share from which they can extract oligopoly rents.

So which city doesn’t have taxis any more in the US?

Before Uber... where were the taxi anti trust hearings?

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#336

Post by modo_mario »

ryanlol wrote: post #329
akudha wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yet she hounded him with as many charges as possible anyway Why? What does she get out of it? I honestly do not understand. It is one thing pile charges on a violent murderer - not that it makes it right, at least it is debatable. Why would she think decades in jail makes sense in this case? I honestly do not understand. How do these people sleep at night?

She offered Swartz 4 months for his crimes, why should she have any difficulty sleeping at night over this?

Threatening with many many years in jail which you don't even believe they deserve in order to get someone to give up their rights in court is immoral.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#337

Post by modo_mario »

ryanlol wrote: post #300
modo_mario wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not in this universe anyway, nothing close to 35 years was ever on the table. To suggest otherwise is deliberate disinformation. The prosecutors office was working to pile on even more charges for a theoretical max of 50 years. The offer was a plea deal which the prosecutor thought was an appropriate sentence yet she hounded him with as many charges as possible anyway guaranteeing him years in jail if he did not acc…

> The prosecutors office was working to pile on even more charges for a theoretical max of 50 years The theoretical maximum is utterly irrelevant. > guaranteeing him years in jail if he did not accept So you acknowledge that he definitely did violate the law, no? Sounds like the prosecutor was very generous with their plea deal offers. “According to Swartz’s lawyers, the prosecutors in the case offered two different…

Yeah he violated the law and the few months offered in the plea deal isn't that long but the fact that you can be blackmailed/threatened into basically being forced to take them and giving up your rights in court or get fucked otherwise is a travesty of the American justice system.

If the proper fitting punishment for his crime was 4 months or 6 months or what have you like that should be the kind of punishment that's on the table and expected during a fair trial. Not something that's achieved outside of court trough deals. Looking from the outside in from a western European country it's hard to see why this is such ingrained concept in the US.

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