Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy(ag.ny.gov)
ag.ny.gov
Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2023/attorney-general-james-secures-615000-companies-supplied-fake-comments-influence
315 comments
This is why, I think, the future is either putting your money (or at least provable identity) where your mouth is, or not being heard (e.g. because everyone will assume a petition without hard proofs of identity fake).
Yes, this is disenfranchising. But not being heard while some company pretends to speak for you is even more disenfranchising.
Yes, this is disenfranchising. But not being heard while some company pretends to speak for you is even more disenfranchising.
Maybe this will come off as cynical, but aren't the customers of these 3 companies doing what you suggest here? "Putting their money where their mouth is", and since they have a lot of money their voice gets heard over the ones of individuals with no money. I don't think it's your goal.
So your second intuition about proof of identity is better, but the minute you invent a foolproof identity system and it gets widly used (by fiat or even voluntarily), you give a tremendous amount of power to the issuer/manager of it, as they basically hold the power of also removing/altering your public identity at their whims. You also make it harder and harder to remain anonymous and preserve your privacy, two things that might seem useless in a functional democracy, but unfortunately democracies are not perfect and they can turn into totalitarian systems where the wet dream of dictators is exactly this: having total control over every individual, especially the ones who would dare signing petitions against them.
This is by far not something humans have solved systemically, we have the technical solutions to build such systems, and governments tend to push to implement them, but as someone who cares about privacy/censorship resistance I do my best to build alternative, opt-in, systems to go around them.
So your second intuition about proof of identity is better, but the minute you invent a foolproof identity system and it gets widly used (by fiat or even voluntarily), you give a tremendous amount of power to the issuer/manager of it, as they basically hold the power of also removing/altering your public identity at their whims. You also make it harder and harder to remain anonymous and preserve your privacy, two things that might seem useless in a functional democracy, but unfortunately democracies are not perfect and they can turn into totalitarian systems where the wet dream of dictators is exactly this: having total control over every individual, especially the ones who would dare signing petitions against them.
This is by far not something humans have solved systemically, we have the technical solutions to build such systems, and governments tend to push to implement them, but as someone who cares about privacy/censorship resistance I do my best to build alternative, opt-in, systems to go around them.
> our second intuition about proof of identity is better, but the minute you invent a foolproof identity system and it gets widly used (by fiat or even voluntarily), you give a tremendous amount of power to the issuer/manager of it, as they basically hold the power of also removing/altering your public identity at their whims.
A decentralized way to issue and authenticate private keys, so as to eliminate the trust requirement- not just transferring it to a certificate issuer- seems needful.
Not only could it help eliminate the manufacture of consensus in OP, such a technology would have broad implications for trust and might lend itself to anti-counterfeiting measures.
Although such a development would also amount to solving the problem of Byzantine consensus so I would feel most fortunate to see it happen in my lifetime.
A decentralized way to issue and authenticate private keys, so as to eliminate the trust requirement- not just transferring it to a certificate issuer- seems needful.
Not only could it help eliminate the manufacture of consensus in OP, such a technology would have broad implications for trust and might lend itself to anti-counterfeiting measures.
Although such a development would also amount to solving the problem of Byzantine consensus so I would feel most fortunate to see it happen in my lifetime.
No. Public/private keys can be under the control of the individual. You only need the public key to be signed by a trusted 3rd party. That only gives them the power to revoke it, but even the revoking can't cancel what you already signed while the key was valid.
Sorry, but public-private key pair sais nothing about birth or death of individual. Which is an occurrence as common as you would guess. Being living person in some country is the relevant information, holding some cryptographic keys is not.
Imagine your “trusted third party” is or becomes a dictator, who logs all signed keys. This doesn’t solve anything I’m afraid.
Stop trying to solve everything. These complex issues are never solved but we can improve and work on them.
There's value to considering possible points of failure up front.
Think of the inertia that mag stripe only payment cards have in the USA, and think about how long it's taken to get chip cards rolled out. And then consider that we don't have the more secure chip and pin variant that Europe has, and (to the best of my knowledge) don't have any plans to go that route in the future.
A bad solution with broad penetration and huge network effects is one that can't easily be changed in the future. Let's do imagine some worst case scenarios and think about what it would involve to harden a system against them before rolling it out to everyone.
Think of the inertia that mag stripe only payment cards have in the USA, and think about how long it's taken to get chip cards rolled out. And then consider that we don't have the more secure chip and pin variant that Europe has, and (to the best of my knowledge) don't have any plans to go that route in the future.
A bad solution with broad penetration and huge network effects is one that can't easily be changed in the future. Let's do imagine some worst case scenarios and think about what it would involve to harden a system against them before rolling it out to everyone.
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Anonymity, in the age of cryptography, is not going anywhere.
Between astroturfing, AIs, trolls, and foreign involvement, we are increasingly in need of a countering force. We are currently suffering under the tyranny of the anonymous!
It is astonishing that so many people are still swayed by such outdated cyberpunk ideologies! The arguments of the 1990s do not make sense given the realities of the 2020s.
Between astroturfing, AIs, trolls, and foreign involvement, we are increasingly in need of a countering force. We are currently suffering under the tyranny of the anonymous!
It is astonishing that so many people are still swayed by such outdated cyberpunk ideologies! The arguments of the 1990s do not make sense given the realities of the 2020s.
> we are increasingly in need of a countering force. We are currently suffering under the tyranny of the anonymous!
Are you? What happens if this "need" isn't filled? Just because you can't probe popular opinion with an open comment system, it doesn't mean it is a requirement for society to work. We have systems to vote that work and don't have these issues. Simple paper ballots work really well.
> It is astonishing that so many people are still swayed by such outdated cyberpunk ideologies
Private companies and governments have never collected as much data as they do now, mostly without real consent, and they are getting the means to exploit this data very efficiently now with AI. The cypherpunk ideology (cyberpunk is a fictional sci-fi genre, although it's kinda related with its themes) applies more than ever in this context, it actually predicted the situation we are living, so I can't agree with you when you claim it is "outdated". Individuals should value their ability to be anonymous if they intend to remain somewhat free, this is the "counter" to mass surveillance.
Are you? What happens if this "need" isn't filled? Just because you can't probe popular opinion with an open comment system, it doesn't mean it is a requirement for society to work. We have systems to vote that work and don't have these issues. Simple paper ballots work really well.
> It is astonishing that so many people are still swayed by such outdated cyberpunk ideologies
Private companies and governments have never collected as much data as they do now, mostly without real consent, and they are getting the means to exploit this data very efficiently now with AI. The cypherpunk ideology (cyberpunk is a fictional sci-fi genre, although it's kinda related with its themes) applies more than ever in this context, it actually predicted the situation we are living, so I can't agree with you when you claim it is "outdated". Individuals should value their ability to be anonymous if they intend to remain somewhat free, this is the "counter" to mass surveillance.
What happens if this need isn’t filled? Well, the focus of this article for one, more and more astroturfing and fraud. How about riling up another country’s voting public with lies? Various forms of harassment and bullying? And do you think AIs are going to make this better or worse? Should we ignore all of this because we’re worried about the outcome matching the plot of a Gibson or Stephenson story?
I can’t come up with a better argument than I’ve made in these two articles:
https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/the-tyranny-of-the-an...
https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/authentically-human-i...
They are both short reads.
I can’t come up with a better argument than I’ve made in these two articles:
https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/the-tyranny-of-the-an...
https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/authentically-human-i...
They are both short reads.
Don't you think that security-guaranteed-by-strong-goverment model is outdated too? Governments all around the world seem to be incompetent to solve the emerging issues.
We don't need an ironclad identity system, we need stronger laws making individuals behind companies like this personally and criminally liable with harsh penalties. That is how scenarios like this can be avoided: destroy the cost/benefit ratio of pursuing it.
Yes, fraud can still happen. But if you fake 100,000 comments eventually you will be discovered and held responsible. What this would reduce is systemic fraud at scale.
Yes, fraud can still happen. But if you fake 100,000 comments eventually you will be discovered and held responsible. What this would reduce is systemic fraud at scale.
> This is why, I think, the future is either putting your money (or at least provable identity) where your mouth is, or not being heard
Oh, I assume this will be run by companies. What is stopping them from impersonating you? Or impersonating you after you're dead? How can we trust these companies not to sell access to identities? Further, why not sell/rent your access to your own identity?
Oh, I assume this will be run by companies. What is stopping them from impersonating you? Or impersonating you after you're dead? How can we trust these companies not to sell access to identities? Further, why not sell/rent your access to your own identity?
It's a good technical question.
Partly it's audit: check some randomly chosen votes, look for anyone not remembering casting their vote.
Partly it could be cryptography: you keep a private key and sign your vote with it. Your public key is stored by a trusted centralized institution, or several (see GitHub and signed commits), so anyone can verify your vote, but nobody can fake it.
Partly it's audit: check some randomly chosen votes, look for anyone not remembering casting their vote.
Partly it could be cryptography: you keep a private key and sign your vote with it. Your public key is stored by a trusted centralized institution, or several (see GitHub and signed commits), so anyone can verify your vote, but nobody can fake it.
Voting is anonymous to make it harder for someone to demand proof that you voted in accordance with their wishes.
I wouldn't want my employer, for instance, to be able to verify that I voted for their preferred candidate for state representative and take retaliatory actions against me if I didn't.
I wouldn't want my employer, for instance, to be able to verify that I voted for their preferred candidate for state representative and take retaliatory actions against me if I didn't.
I don't speak of general voting, like for President.
I mean voting for various petitions, etc, the stuff outlined in the article.
Better fraud protection during general elections would be great, too, but it's a different and more complex area.
I mean voting for various petitions, etc, the stuff outlined in the article.
Better fraud protection during general elections would be great, too, but it's a different and more complex area.
>This is why, I think, the future is either putting your money (or at least provable identity) where your mouth is
That will become less effective as companies become increasingly centralized, with just a few having many, many brands.
That will become less effective as companies become increasingly centralized, with just a few having many, many brands.
Why would companies becoming more centralized make "putting your money where your mouth is" less effective?
Because it can become hard to pick a different brand since there really aren't any choices at all: it's a monopoly.
You seem to be addressing a related but separate matter, namely boycotting products to influence companies. The topic in hand is companies pretending to be large numbers of anonymous people. This is what would be prevented if submissions to public consultations were tied to real-world identities.
Because they will start to have a monopoly and consumer choice will be so little, that you can’t avoid them.
I think this is a miscommunication. You interpret nine_k's phrase "putting your money where your mouth is" as meaning "buying only from companies you support", but I think nine_k actually meant "having public comments require payment".
How do you invent a system where the websites instituting the identity proof (KYC/ Know Your Customer) systems don’t just become honeypots for collecting the necessary data to impersonate the millions of people that used it?
Others have commented on your point about money already
Others have commented on your point about money already
What makes you think lobbyists and large corporations can't afford the fee to speak?
It's mostly not the fee to speak, even though a mere $1 per vote could be too expensive for some petition-spamming efforts: 100k payments from the same account would trigger suspicion, and creating 100k legal payment accounts (paypal, google / apple / samsung pay, venmo, etc) just to pay $1 per vote may be onerous.
I mostly say about giving a ton of identifying info so that your vote can be reliably tracked back to you: not only email (with a one-time link to confirm the email works), but also a phone number, postal address, maybe even some government ID like SSN or driver license number. It removes any expectation of anonymity from the vote or signature, and this is by design. Fraud of the kind the article mentions would be easily detectable by a random check of 1-2% of the signatures (and more is suspicious patterns are noticed). As a side effect, it would make a vote or a signature a much more conscious, committed decision.
I mostly say about giving a ton of identifying info so that your vote can be reliably tracked back to you: not only email (with a one-time link to confirm the email works), but also a phone number, postal address, maybe even some government ID like SSN or driver license number. It removes any expectation of anonymity from the vote or signature, and this is by design. Fraud of the kind the article mentions would be easily detectable by a random check of 1-2% of the signatures (and more is suspicious patterns are noticed). As a side effect, it would make a vote or a signature a much more conscious, committed decision.
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Can you even function in modern society without a government issued photo ID? It’s required to drive, collect benefits, fly, purchase alcohol, purchase tobacco, or even purchase Sudafed. I just can’t fathom that there are any actual petitioners or voters that requiring photo ID would disenfranchise.
I guess the homeless and poor don't matter
Is there a state where you can sign up for public assistance without proving your identity with government issued ID? I'm not aware of any.
I'm pretty sure the Venn diagram of people without access to government issued ID and legal, eligible voters is two distinct circles.
I'm pretty sure the Venn diagram of people without access to government issued ID and legal, eligible voters is two distinct circles.
I'm pretty sure all citizens are eligible voters?
I’m pretty sure all citizens are able to get government issued ID
UK does not issue ID, but you have to have an ID to vote now :D 4D chess
They have a register of random documents issued by 3rd parties that they will accept as proof of ID.
They have a register of random documents issued by 3rd parties that they will accept as proof of ID.
There are areas that you have to pay for ID which disenfranchises the voters who can't afford it
Where are these places where potential voters can't afford ID and how do they do any of the other things that typically require photo ID?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/24-things-that-require-a-...
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/24-things-that-require-a-...
>how do they do any of the other things that typically require photo ID?
When they are poor enough they either don't or have incredibly limited funds. I'm not sure what you don't understand about this
When they are poor enough they either don't or have incredibly limited funds. I'm not sure what you don't understand about this
I just have a really hard time believing there is a large group of individuals without ID when it is essentially mandatory for modern life as an adult. I also am having difficulty believing that the usually less than $25 fee for government issued ID is an obstacle to anyone.
Personally I think a verified voter ID should be both required (so as to prevent voter fraud) and provided freely to everyone.
Personally I think a verified voter ID should be both required (so as to prevent voter fraud) and provided freely to everyone.
All that means is that you have an incredibly limited perspective shaped by your personal experiences. I would urge you to talk to people who are living on the streets or who work one or more minimum wage jobs to raise a family
I found this: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/technology/internet-provi...
Says a bunch of companies received millions in fines a few years ago and it names AT&T, Charter, Comcast and some lobbying group.
Says a bunch of companies received millions in fines a few years ago and it names AT&T, Charter, Comcast and some lobbying group.
Imagine if your water pipe decided to only serve you water occasionally, and when it did threw some random bull-crap in there?
Who would vote for that system?
Who would vote for that system?
Imagine if your television only showed you ads and propaganda.
It works so well too. Was on a r/visible, a Verizon subsidiary and they claim unlimited but it's really 1TB or less otherwise they threaten you. The thing is there are laws in place that bar carriers from doing this and the guy pointing this out is downvoted to hell because everyone there are all corporate defenders. Blow my mind that the phone consumer market are so gullible. When Comcast was pulling this shit, people were pissed. Nowadays people are falling in line.
> defenders
I read your comment as “…corporate defrauders…” and it made just as much sense in context.
I read your comment as “…corporate defrauders…” and it made just as much sense in context.
In reality we haven't seen the worst case at all. In fact, we have companies like cloudflare arguing that they are obligated as an infrastructure provider to serve neonazi websites.
They hire ad / "lead" companies to collect emails of people who have clicked on an ad, or entered their email saying they support A, B, or C and give them permission to post a comment on their behalf. So in theory each comment has someone who gave the company permission to post a comment for them. BUT if you tell an ad company "hey here is $2 million, get us X number of emails" they're going to produce X emails even if there are not X amount of people. The actual fake profiles come from "publisher" websites that generate fake clicks or leads. Usually the ad or lead companies will have some sort of system to detect fake / spam responses... but $2 million is a decent incentive to maybe loosen their standards a bit.
> emails of people who have clicked on an ad, or entered their email saying they support A, B, or C and give them permission to post a comment on their behalf
Even supposing they did it this way, and people gave their informed consent (fat chance, but for the sake of the hypothetical), that's still fraud. Unless every single comment had a "written and submitted on behalf of X by firm Y" disclaimer, it's still misrepresenting the comments as coming directly from individuals.
Regardless of what fine print unwary consumers agreed to, the agencies being deceived didn't agree to any of it.
Even supposing they did it this way, and people gave their informed consent (fat chance, but for the sake of the hypothetical), that's still fraud. Unless every single comment had a "written and submitted on behalf of X by firm Y" disclaimer, it's still misrepresenting the comments as coming directly from individuals.
Regardless of what fine print unwary consumers agreed to, the agencies being deceived didn't agree to any of it.
I’m curious if prosecutors could try someone for 900k counts of a crime.
I don’t believe there’s a limit to the number of charges in an indictment… I know I have seen 100+ count charging instruments (for credit card fraud).
[deleted]
Not only no jail, but the fine is laughable as well …
Yeah this, setting the price to $100k to guide core laws around $B businesses in a way to override public feedback is cheap. Sounds like it is now officially open season.
Why is it that a STATE AG is pressing for money while US AG does nothing?
STATE AG used Federal IG investigation to extract money from these crooks.
Why didn't FBI raid these companies?
They raided a ex-Presidents private residence for papers.
Identity Theft x 1 Million counts
STATE AG used Federal IG investigation to extract money from these crooks.
Why didn't FBI raid these companies?
They raided a ex-Presidents private residence for papers.
Identity Theft x 1 Million counts
> Why didn't FBI raid these companies?
> They raided a ex-Presidents private residence for papers.
Because that's not really how the FBI works. Recovering classified material from someone not entitled to be in possession of it is totally different. You probably want to read more, you seem to be speaking only at a very surface level, probably more than just Facebook too.
That said, while your rational for why they should be raided by the FBI is insane. I'm with you on the underlying idea. It seems crazy to me too that no federal agency is seeking charges under 18 USC 1001. How'd they avoid that?
> They raided a ex-Presidents private residence for papers.
Because that's not really how the FBI works. Recovering classified material from someone not entitled to be in possession of it is totally different. You probably want to read more, you seem to be speaking only at a very surface level, probably more than just Facebook too.
That said, while your rational for why they should be raided by the FBI is insane. I'm with you on the underlying idea. It seems crazy to me too that no federal agency is seeking charges under 18 USC 1001. How'd they avoid that?
> And who hired them? Is there no money trail?
This is the most galling aspect of that article - crickets on who paid them to do the deed. The companies named are obviously front company for hire. The clients are telecomms that require FCC licenses to operate. They should get their licenses revoked.
This is the most galling aspect of that article - crickets on who paid them to do the deed. The companies named are obviously front company for hire. The clients are telecomms that require FCC licenses to operate. They should get their licenses revoked.
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So we know they manipulated the net neutrality debate, but what are the EPA and the BOEM processes that they attacked?
That bit friendly fraud must stay profitable. Otherwise the enemy would do it for half the price! And besides, they just protected their jobs. That reasonable and everybody would have done this!!
"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent."
$615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.
$615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.
> $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.
It is. But its also state and local officials using state law to try to get any punishment for what is a fairly serious federal crime that, for some reason, the federal government has elected not to prosecute. [0]
[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
It is. But its also state and local officials using state law to try to get any punishment for what is a fairly serious federal crime that, for some reason, the federal government has elected not to prosecute. [0]
[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
> But its also state and local officials using state law to try to get any punishment for what is a fairly serious federal crime that, for some reason, the federal government has elected not to prosecute.
Prosecuting that would have lead to a dangerous precedent for a lot of companies and government agencies involved in propaganda.
Prosecuting that would have lead to a dangerous precedent for a lot of companies and government agencies involved in propaganda.
Not prosecuting it is a dangerous precedent. Especially now we have AI text generation, such actions should lead any company to be sued into bankruptcy, and jail time for its leaders.
> Prosecuting that would have lead to a dangerous precedent for a lot of companies and government agencies involved in propaganda.
Propaganda (a.k.a , advertising/marketing) is broadly legal (though some specific methods and certain actors participating in certain kinds are restricted), deliberately making materially false statements to the government in the course of, and in order to influence, a government proceeding is prohibited. Firmly drawing the line between those things is a good thing.
Propaganda (a.k.a , advertising/marketing) is broadly legal (though some specific methods and certain actors participating in certain kinds are restricted), deliberately making materially false statements to the government in the course of, and in order to influence, a government proceeding is prohibited. Firmly drawing the line between those things is a good thing.
Good, I hope any such companies and agencies are eliminated and their leaders jailed.
If an individual committed fraud by impersonating millions of people, they'd be in prison.
Not really. Vast majority of the crypto money made in 2021-2022 was by swarming ICOs and launchpads with sometimes hundreds of thousands (among people i personally know) and probably millions among those i don't, fake accounts - all having real names, addresses, IPs, passport scans etc. - getting in onto highly deficit launches when like 1 in a 100 trying gets in, and then the coin goes 10x because of immense demand. You do it with 100K accs, 1000 get in and buy coin for $500 each, you get $4m profit spending $500K for buy-ins and another $500K for accounts themselves ($5 apiece). Until even that stopped working because apparently, these fraudsters simply ran out of people worldwide. Some rather ordinary people made north of $100M this way, and i'm sure there are those i don't know (i'm not really in crypto at all, just like hanging out with smart guys) tho made billions. No one went to jail as far as i heard.
Many went to jail and some celebrities got fines. I'm pretty sure some went under the radar but the prosecution is still working on the years 2016-2019. If you are in the US and you've been involved in such sh*t, you are in really bad position.
People who defrauded "investors" by advertising shitcoins - sure! But that was a purely anonymous, scripted activity.
It seems the thing to do, before you dump toxic chemicals into the water or whatever, is to open a corporation. "Mistakes were made", after all.
This is only trumped by by sovereign immunity, for starting wars or oil spills or releasing viruses or whatever. "Bush is gone, let's move on - why are you still on that?"
State Power is great isn't it?
This is only trumped by by sovereign immunity, for starting wars or oil spills or releasing viruses or whatever. "Bush is gone, let's move on - why are you still on that?"
State Power is great isn't it?
Let's put some shareholders in prison.
Just the executives
If my dog bites somebody, I'm on the hook. It should be no different with companies--otherwise there's no incentive to avoid funding shady behavior.
Stock ownership is rewarding because it's risky. Let it be risky.
Stock ownership is rewarding because it's risky. Let it be risky.
I will not silently go to prison because my 401k worth under USD 20k owns 0.0015 shares as a part of some mutual fund.
The CEO and the board do not do my bidding.
Send them to prison.
Technically you own shares of a mutual fund, and the mutual fund owns the stock. Unless the mutual fund only owns its shares via ownership share in a bank, which owns a derivative which owns the 0.0015 shares.
Which is generally why responsibility stops with the board of directors, because there’s no way there was criminal intent through four layers of indirection. (Except shell companies, of course.)
Which is generally why responsibility stops with the board of directors, because there’s no way there was criminal intent through four layers of indirection. (Except shell companies, of course.)
Intent sure, but negligence?
That sounds like it would be a very strong incentive for investors to avoid potentially bad actors and instead favor non-criminal investments such as bonds. This is a feature.
So you do a convertible bond with a buy option that give you 90% of the company if it's successful and you still avoid risks and get all of the profit.
Practically speaking, I'd expect the courts to round up the top 10 shareholders or something like that.
In principle though, I think partial ownership of a harmful company should expose you to some liability, whether or not the CEO listens to you.
In principle though, I think partial ownership of a harmful company should expose you to some liability, whether or not the CEO listens to you.
You should only get 0.0015 prison sentence then.
We deliberately changed this with the advent of the LLC, which is a new thing (~50 years)
Before that shareholders were liable for corporate acts. At least monetarily
People seem to not realize this.
We should undo it. It was a mistake
People seem to not realize this.
We should undo it. It was a mistake
Do you mind unpacking this? How is an LLC fundamentally different than a C Corp in this regard? Do you have references?
LLC's are state inventions, and thus vary quite a bit, but one standard feature is that you can't be liable for more than you put in. Thus they are shielded from any excess liability beyond their investment. This is true of c-corps today for sure.
However, on top of that, they usually have almost no formalities or regulations, making piercing the corporate veil incredibly difficult.
C-corps have limited liability (now), but piercing is much easier for bad acts, and they have lots of regulation and formality (historically) that helped prevent bad acts in the first place.
The LLC changed a lot here - you could form businesses basically structured any way you want, with almost no regulations, and still not be liable. Outside of constructing an LLC to do totally illegal things (like rob banks or something), you and your shareholders are pretty much never liable.
That is definitely not true of C-corps, and was even less true historically :)
For limited liability in general: General forms of limited liability are about 100-150 years old, depending on country. IE before 1850, it was pretty rare. I believe new york has an earlier statute, but it was uncommon.
LLC's are not corporations, either, under most state law, they are special forms of companies.
The alternative mind you, was sometimes double liability for shareholders, who both lost their investments, and had to pay for excess loss.
I'm actually okay with that - it's a good way to ensure better diligence and less risk.
It's true that LLC's enabled innovation that would have been slower, but at a tremendous cost - enabling almost any risk to be taken for free is to me, a lot worse than slower innovation. It also lead to totally perverse things (toxic dumping, etc) and shareholders didn't worry or care because at most they lost some of their investment, and most of the time, could easily pull it out before the shares dropped, and move on to investing in the next horrible thing. In the old world, they would have been responsible for the entire cost, even if they pulled out.
Limited liability is a bad idea as long as people can do horrible things to each other and the world faster than you can (or should) make them strictly illegal.
People can always think of horribly destructive ways to make money, and ensuring not just personal, but shareholder liability for them, is one of the only ways to keep things in check.
These things would happen a lot less if the ROI was not as high, and in particular, if downside risk was not minimal.
Your friendly billionaire is going to invest a lot less in arms dealers if the downside risk is not just their 1 million investment, but their entire fortune.
There are lots of good articles on this:
https://www.bus.umich.edu/KresgeLibrary/resources/abla/abld_...
https://www.occ.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-instituti...
etc
C-corps have limited liability (now), but piercing is much easier for bad acts, and they have lots of regulation and formality (historically) that helped prevent bad acts in the first place.
The LLC changed a lot here - you could form businesses basically structured any way you want, with almost no regulations, and still not be liable. Outside of constructing an LLC to do totally illegal things (like rob banks or something), you and your shareholders are pretty much never liable.
That is definitely not true of C-corps, and was even less true historically :)
For limited liability in general: General forms of limited liability are about 100-150 years old, depending on country. IE before 1850, it was pretty rare. I believe new york has an earlier statute, but it was uncommon.
LLC's are not corporations, either, under most state law, they are special forms of companies.
The alternative mind you, was sometimes double liability for shareholders, who both lost their investments, and had to pay for excess loss.
I'm actually okay with that - it's a good way to ensure better diligence and less risk.
It's true that LLC's enabled innovation that would have been slower, but at a tremendous cost - enabling almost any risk to be taken for free is to me, a lot worse than slower innovation. It also lead to totally perverse things (toxic dumping, etc) and shareholders didn't worry or care because at most they lost some of their investment, and most of the time, could easily pull it out before the shares dropped, and move on to investing in the next horrible thing. In the old world, they would have been responsible for the entire cost, even if they pulled out.
Limited liability is a bad idea as long as people can do horrible things to each other and the world faster than you can (or should) make them strictly illegal.
People can always think of horribly destructive ways to make money, and ensuring not just personal, but shareholder liability for them, is one of the only ways to keep things in check.
These things would happen a lot less if the ROI was not as high, and in particular, if downside risk was not minimal.
Your friendly billionaire is going to invest a lot less in arms dealers if the downside risk is not just their 1 million investment, but their entire fortune.
There are lots of good articles on this:
https://www.bus.umich.edu/KresgeLibrary/resources/abla/abld_...
https://www.occ.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-instituti...
etc
Board of directors, representing the shareholders and elected by them need some prison time.
They're protected. People with that much money only go to jail if they mess with other rich people's money, and still seldom.
I would be completely open to prosecuting a majority stake holder who insisted they were not responsible for a companies' abhorent actions because we have no evidence that all their personal requests passed the board.
I would be perfectly fine with prosecuting every single employee as well. The level of “I didn’t see the contents of documents I printed” is far too high everywhere, and if employees were unwilling to carry illegal activity, it would be much harder to perform this level of crime.
It’s exactly similar to everyone who participated in a pyramid scheme is liable for the last round of victims. Up to you to get informed.
It’s exactly similar to everyone who participated in a pyramid scheme is liable for the last round of victims. Up to you to get informed.
In the game of prisoners dilemma, they defected and won. This means their strategy of corruption is a winning strategy. It means our law has failed and we can expect more people to practice a strategy of corruption and flouting the law rather than a strategy of adherence to the law or ethical principles.
Breaking the rules and cheating has been a celebrated strategy here and in the startup community. Remember that Uber and AirBnB were blatantly illegal when they launched and made millions. Remember how YC was encouraging people who advertised how to lie to skip covid vaccine wait lines as a "social hack"?
Puts on conspiracy hat
What if killing net neutrality was a given, but the administration wanted the appearance of due process…
God, I’ve grown jaded.
What if killing net neutrality was a given, but the administration wanted the appearance of due process…
God, I’ve grown jaded.
I mean, the rhetoric for net neutrality was pretty extreme. According to the rhetoric of the time, we would be living in a world of internet "fast lanes" right now if net neutrality didn't pass. Only services affiliated with the big greedy telcos were going to be given a pass while all the other services on the web were going to require additional fees to get adequate bandwidth to/from. That was a major fear mongering argument that hasn't come to pass. All the major tech sites were publishing the same rhetoric.
> According to the rhetoric of the time, we would be living in a world of internet "fast lanes" right now if net neutrality didn't pass.
Anything remotely resembling this existed almost a decade ago in a very different landscape, and what you're saying isn't even really reflective of the reality at the time. The vast majority of reasonable people were talking about what would gradually happen if the concept of net neutrality was totally thrown out; in the interim both sides have constructed more nuance, there is more public awareness, more partisanship, and thus different goalposts being fought over.
Now we have a ruling that the FCC can't limit state net neutrality law, because Verizon was literally fucking THROTTLING FIREFIGHTERS DURING A MAJOR WILDFIRE. Less "fast lane," more "death lane." ISPs know that the current environment won't tolerate their unchecked fantasies.
Anything remotely resembling this existed almost a decade ago in a very different landscape, and what you're saying isn't even really reflective of the reality at the time. The vast majority of reasonable people were talking about what would gradually happen if the concept of net neutrality was totally thrown out; in the interim both sides have constructed more nuance, there is more public awareness, more partisanship, and thus different goalposts being fought over.
Now we have a ruling that the FCC can't limit state net neutrality law, because Verizon was literally fucking THROTTLING FIREFIGHTERS DURING A MAJOR WILDFIRE. Less "fast lane," more "death lane." ISPs know that the current environment won't tolerate their unchecked fantasies.
> Verizon was literally fucking THROTTLING FIREFIGHTERS DURING A MAJOR WILDFIRE
Here are some sources for anybody who doesn't want to believe this happened:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttle... https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/verizon-throttled-californi... https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/verizon-throttle-fir... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/verizon-firefighter-data-s... https://finance.yahoo.com/news/verizon-explains-why-throttle...
Here are some sources for anybody who doesn't want to believe this happened:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttle... https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/verizon-throttled-californi... https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/verizon-throttle-fir... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/verizon-firefighter-data-s... https://finance.yahoo.com/news/verizon-explains-why-throttle...
They have a new fantasy where they want a fee from high bandwidth platforms like Netflix and YouTube, because suppisedly they can't deliver what they already charged consumers for. More likely because there's a lot of money moving about and they want a bigger slice.
If a water bottling company moved into your town I'm sure you'd support them paying a little extra. You pay for your water too.
That data is only flowing to me because I requested it, and the ISP already sold me an uncapped service.
Can you explain your analogy? I'm unclear if the aquifer is the ISP, the video platform, or something else.
Can you explain your analogy? I'm unclear if the aquifer is the ISP, the video platform, or something else.
At the time home broadband wasn't so cheap outside of about a few hundred major cities, satellite internet was a joke, and phones were still on 3G networks with relatively aggressive data caps.
It wasn't obvious whether the telcos were going to keep competing and improving or just become complacent as a cartel. Snowden's leaks were just about to be released. The distrust seemed very reasonable at the time.
In a few ways the "fast lane" idea did get implemented, but in terms of cost rather than the speed of access. Lots of bundles between telcos and streaming services exist now (i.e. Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, ESPN, YouTube TV, etc.).
It wasn't obvious whether the telcos were going to keep competing and improving or just become complacent as a cartel. Snowden's leaks were just about to be released. The distrust seemed very reasonable at the time.
In a few ways the "fast lane" idea did get implemented, but in terms of cost rather than the speed of access. Lots of bundles between telcos and streaming services exist now (i.e. Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, ESPN, YouTube TV, etc.).
What did these companies get out of pushing to repeal it then? If the regulation was banning a business model that no one was going to use anyway, I don't see the impetus to commit mass fraud. Does net neutrality prevent anything beyond fast lanes and censorship?
They want to charge you for access, but they also want to charge who you are connecting to, even if through a middleman.
Just because Netflix paid their providers, your local isp wants their cut as well.
Just because Netflix paid their providers, your local isp wants their cut as well.
Just to speculate:
- perhaps it includes auditing and reporting measures to ensure they aren't doing this things.
- maybe its really hard to guarantee exactly equal performance for all traffic and they examine the traffic and do different things depending on the domain to balance loads
- perhaps it includes auditing and reporting measures to ensure they aren't doing this things.
- maybe its really hard to guarantee exactly equal performance for all traffic and they examine the traffic and do different things depending on the domain to balance loads
To overly simplify it I believe we witnessed a battle of big tech vs big ISP. Each had a financial stake. Big ISP didn't want to pay for investments in infrastructure it didn't think would bring a good ROI or the extra costs you mentioned above with having to comply with new government regulations. And Big tech didn't want to pay extra fees for being some of the biggest servers of data on the internet. The fact so many comments here don't acknowledge big tech also had business interests in net neutrality passing like big ISP had business interests in it failing scares me. They are both big business looking out for their own backsides. I'm saying this as someone who grew up in a house that STILL doesn't have access to highspeed landline internet in 2023 because the ISPs did t consider the density of houses in the area worth the investment. I'm not immune to Big ISP or a shill. But this legislation was not the good vs evil it's made out to be by so many. Big tech companies have little problem taking a stand for some opinions they don't seem acceptable. they don't give neutrality to their platforms either.
Big tech has large service costs because a large number of little people are requesting data from their networks. Data for which the transit has already been payed for by the requestor. Despite the 'asymmetries' in throughput vectors, the market value equivalent of a Poynting vector is minimized with settlement-free peering. Paid peering is only enforceable because there are few enough retail providers for large segments of the population that they can wield monopsony power without customers fleeing on masse from degraded service.
[deleted]
It was obvious from the one sided marketing that the entire story wasn't being told.
I remember back then, it was abundantly clear that this is what it was. Ajit Pai was against it. He’s a corporate shill. They were doing stuff deliberately to sour the process. Also, like 100% of the fake comments were against net neutrality, which was quite telling. The fake comments weren’t even spread in a believable way. The times look very much bot generated. Simple stuff to filter out if you were honest.
I try to ignore the message of bad-faith content instead of penalizing the person who it seems to favor. Otherwise you enable false flag attacks.
What if? That's almost certainly what happened.
Are you really positing that the NY State AG was colluding across four years of time with the Trump administration's FCC? That's getting a big beyond "jaded" and into tinfoil territory, to be honest.
No, there's no collusion here. These are just state laws that are insufficient to compel the behavior we want. She got what she could and called it a victory. But a very progressive AG is clearly not in the pocket of the internet content industry.
No, there's no collusion here. These are just state laws that are insufficient to compel the behavior we want. She got what she could and called it a victory. But a very progressive AG is clearly not in the pocket of the internet content industry.
[deleted]
Slap on the wrist? Lol. $61.5m would be a slap on the wrist. $615k is a tip.
$615k is a stern look by a grandma whose eyes cannot help but betray just how much she loves you.
It works, because you love her.
An almost absurd question, but would it be possible to add love to company interactions?
An almost absurd question, but would it be possible to add love to company interactions?
I don’t believe so for my definition of “love” because it includes wanting to do kind things for someone without needing anything at all in return.
A company might emulate love, but it’s really just veiled manipulation.
A company might emulate love, but it’s really just veiled manipulation.
Unless you're Subaru, then no. For every other company, there is public opinion and public goodwill.
Haha
Start with the idea "somebody" is making $1T/yr because of the status quo. Qui bono?
Then factor time:
1000000000000÷12÷30÷24÷60÷60
Somebody is making $32k profit per second. Who? That's about 5% margin/tax on $615k, so yeah, it's happening per second.
Then factor time:
1000000000000÷12÷30÷24÷60÷60
Somebody is making $32k profit per second. Who? That's about 5% margin/tax on $615k, so yeah, it's happening per second.
"but it says right here in article 5 paragraph 20 section b of the EULA you agreed to that we may use your personally identifiable information to improve our service."
> $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.
No fine has ever been a threat to any company. The entire system is such a joke.
No fine has ever been a threat to any company. The entire system is such a joke.
Such a disheartening outcome. They perpetuated fraud at a scale we've never seen, they get away with it, they changed history, and now we have to live with it.
More consequences are due.
More consequences are due.
Right. They need to reopen commentary and unrepeal net neutrality. How is it that we have a system that rewards endless appeals in the judiciary but the equivalent of a mistrial in public policy is treated with a barely-there fine?
I just watched the Nike/Air Jordan movie... kind of reminds me of the part where they just pay the $5k fine and have him wear the red shoes.
Interestingly the actual judgement is significantly higher (still single digit millions). I dont really know what a "Statement of Financial Condition" is but I assume it means they are taking basically all the money these companies + their directors have.
These are not big operations, they were charging 7c a "lead", so each company made ~100k, and the CEO was running the script to send fake data himself.
These are not big operations, they were charging 7c a "lead", so each company made ~100k, and the CEO was running the script to send fake data himself.
Yeah I mean without looking into specifics of what criminal laws would or wouldn’t be applicable, that definitely seems like something the CEO should do a bit of prison time for.
I kinda refuse to believe the US gov doesn't undertake astroturfing for its own needs
Their "suspected" employers just inhaled that amount of money before I finished this comment.
Does this set precedence? Under $1 dollar fine for each identity impersonation is a
bargain!
Less than $1 / fake comment.
It is probably more than what they made as a "fake comment provider".
> $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.
Justice was served.
Justice was served.
Viewed as an investment, it probably had a quite good ROI.
$615k... feck. More like a gentle caress.
And a small slap at that.
whitemary(1)
I remember debating with a guy I know about Net Neutrality leading up to this.
He was a sales director at a company that ran network backbone and fiber lines. He was insistent that the Net Neutrality debate was dumb, because it was trying to negate the peering agreements that make the industry run. The way he told it, anyone with a big backbone chooses to invest in peering arrangements with other companies who also make similar arrangements. If you are pushing an undue amount of traffic relative to the other party, you invest more. His take was that Netflix was supporting Net Neutrality so they wouldn't have to invest more in their peering arrangements.
Now - this is a guy who historically is almost always on the wrong side of history. I thought it an interesting talking point, but even now having had some exposure to the peering arrangements between (say) Microsoft and Akamai, I still don't know enough to be able to say whether this is even a valid talking point. I'm very sure this is just something he was told, and repeated ad nauseum.
This seems like the right audience (since I wasn't posting here back then), to ask if there's any legitimacy to this talking point?
He was a sales director at a company that ran network backbone and fiber lines. He was insistent that the Net Neutrality debate was dumb, because it was trying to negate the peering agreements that make the industry run. The way he told it, anyone with a big backbone chooses to invest in peering arrangements with other companies who also make similar arrangements. If you are pushing an undue amount of traffic relative to the other party, you invest more. His take was that Netflix was supporting Net Neutrality so they wouldn't have to invest more in their peering arrangements.
Now - this is a guy who historically is almost always on the wrong side of history. I thought it an interesting talking point, but even now having had some exposure to the peering arrangements between (say) Microsoft and Akamai, I still don't know enough to be able to say whether this is even a valid talking point. I'm very sure this is just something he was told, and repeated ad nauseum.
This seems like the right audience (since I wasn't posting here back then), to ask if there's any legitimacy to this talking point?
There’s something there - Netflix had just moved to a tier 2/3 provider and they weren’t peered well and Netflix was trying to get the big ISPs to peer instead of selling transit - peering for an almost entirely one way connection. The t1s weren’t having it.
The moment Netflix setup caching servers in isp COs around the world they stopped caring about net neutrality. Strange.
The moment Netflix setup caching servers in isp COs around the world they stopped caring about net neutrality. Strange.
Netflix couldn't know what the outcome was going to be, so they hedged by creating a technical solution to the problem. They still pay the ISPs, but for colo services instead of the net neutrality ransom. The problem with paying ransom is it'll just keep going up. Colo services could also keep going up, but it's much more constrained because there's an actual good/service being provided and not just paying money to change a firewall/QoS box rule.
My understanding was that the retail ISP monopolies were refusing Netflix's caching servers unless Netflix agreed to pay 'value'-priced access contracts.
Caching can delay the net neutrality issue by NOT serving the contents from the first party. ISPs peering Netflix won't suffer the heavy traffic (thus no reason to charge tons of money), and ISPs that hosts caches can achieve higher QoS for their customers and also can possibly charge other peers who don't host caches. It's a win-win strategy.
If Netflix wasn't sharing costs in upgrading peering links I agree, but I never understood that to be the point of the debate. Instead it's that ISPs want to rate and charge differently for different providers / content types.
This allows them to try and charge the customer more, but possibly more importantly to charge service providers for access to their customer base. The alternative is that you pay your ISP for X bytes and it doesn't matter what they are or who it's from.
This allows them to try and charge the customer more, but possibly more importantly to charge service providers for access to their customer base. The alternative is that you pay your ISP for X bytes and it doesn't matter what they are or who it's from.
My friend's argument was that the "Meta" i.e. what the debate was really about was about Netflix and others trying to avoid paying their fair share for peering arrangements.
And that the stated reasoning behind the neutrality debate was null and void, because it wasn't what the debate was really about.
And that the stated reasoning behind the neutrality debate was null and void, because it wasn't what the debate was really about.
Is Netflix 'pushing' the traffic onto the ISP or are the ISP's customers asking for and pulling in that traffic though?
Depends which side you're on ;-)
Sorta. It's that Netflix didn't want to pay more for something someone else was getting for cheaper. If I sell hot dogs for $3, but charge you $6 because you're you, wouldn't you raise objections?
The problem with your friend's reasoning about peering arrangements is that net neutrality is about getting what you paid for. If I go to the store and buy eggs and the farm decides it hasn't gotten enough money for the eggs, then the next time I go to the store to buy eggs, after I pay the store and get home, the farm sends someone to my house and demands an extra $3 from me (and only me). Something about that just seems off to me.
The problem with your friend's reasoning about peering arrangements is that net neutrality is about getting what you paid for. If I go to the store and buy eggs and the farm decides it hasn't gotten enough money for the eggs, then the next time I go to the store to buy eggs, after I pay the store and get home, the farm sends someone to my house and demands an extra $3 from me (and only me). Something about that just seems off to me.
What if I charge you $6 because you order so many hot dogs that I have to find another distributor of raw hot dogs and hot dog buns? And charging $3 would mean that I'm taking a loss?
That doesn’t really apply to this debate. Netflix isn’t sending data back and forth through the ISP’s network just for their own fun and their own benefit. They send the data because the ISP’s client specifically asked for it and is paying for that bandwidth. They are also likely paying for far less bandwidth than the low bitrate Netflix is using. TV streaming is also arguably one of the main reason why the end user bought a high speed internet connection in the place.
[deleted]
Doesn’t seem like a dumb argument to me, although I don’t think net neutrality would have actually interrupted or replaced most of those peering arrangements in practice.
If you’re pushing 15% of all internet traffic you’re going to end up peering, the best I can see net neutrality doing for Netflix is it sets the default payment to $0, giving them a better bargaining position going into any negotiation about peering arrangements, and probably gives them some legal protection against ISPs who might want to throttle Netflix traffic rather than agree to Netflix’s terms.
If you’re pushing 15% of all internet traffic you’re going to end up peering, the best I can see net neutrality doing for Netflix is it sets the default payment to $0, giving them a better bargaining position going into any negotiation about peering arrangements, and probably gives them some legal protection against ISPs who might want to throttle Netflix traffic rather than agree to Netflix’s terms.
Internet traffic is not “pushed” onto ISPs. The paying customers of ISPs request data from providers, and they pay those ISPs to receive and deliver that traffic.
“If 15% of all internet traffic is requested from you by the paying customers of ISPs, you’re going to end up peering with the ISPs”
Criminal organizations conspiring to subvert democratic processes... The companies should be dissolved, the people who organized it should go to jail, and the broadband companies should be fined millions.
The irony here is that none of that mattered for the purpose of this agreement. They committed fraud by saying they'd subvert the democratic process in one way, but did it in a lazy way instead.
They got fined $600k, the telecoms saved billions
Pretty good deal if you ask me
Pretty good deal if you ask me
Came to write this exact comment. The press release makes this sound like a victory?
Just call it the cost of doing business hah
Just call it the cost of doing business hah
NY is corrupt enough that it might have been intended as both an underhanded victory announcement and as a public quelling measure to make people think justice was done.
Those two things aren't related. This was during a Republican FCC adminstration and Ajit Pai would've repealed net neutrality even if every comment was for it. He doesn't care what public comments say nor does he need to.
That not mattering was then canceled out by another not mattering, because California passed the same rules so they effectively apply to everyone anyway.
That not mattering was then canceled out by another not mattering, because California passed the same rules so they effectively apply to everyone anyway.
It's also about public sentiment towards the companies and their interests. Comcast, for example, as a long history of trying to silence its critics[1][2].
They want to make their critics look like a minority or as if they don't exist at all, especially when much of the criticism is grassroots and organic from actual telecom customers who are often stuck with a monopoly's service.
[1] https://www.salon.com/2008/06/09/comcast_2/
[2] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/comcast-accu...
They want to make their critics look like a minority or as if they don't exist at all, especially when much of the criticism is grassroots and organic from actual telecom customers who are often stuck with a monopoly's service.
[1] https://www.salon.com/2008/06/09/comcast_2/
[2] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/comcast-accu...
Doesn't seem like it mattered here. Everyone noticed at the time, it didn't matter (because Ajit Pai doesn't care what you think), and there was no harm (because California doesn't care what /he/ thinks.)
Comcast has been losing lately as more places have been repealing their municipal internet utility bans IIRC.
Comcast has been losing lately as more places have been repealing their municipal internet utility bans IIRC.
Just because the outcome would have been the same doesn’t mean we can just allow this to happen with not even a slap on the wrist. This should be serious jail time.
More like, they paid $600k to make billions. Maybe <10m in operational cost?
Legal for a fee. Amazing ROI.
Legal for a fee. Amazing ROI.
Whoever was directly involved in this or who ordered it should go to prison. Like 10+ years minimum.
[deleted]
This is only the tip of the iceberg. A majority of the "user content" (product reviews, brand engagement, comments on social media sites, etc) is completely fake, bought for and paid by big money interest aka bots. No different than automated scans of the IPv4 address space: simple, unsophisticated, low-cost and without any repercussion.
I keep getting this eerie feeling when seeing product reviews and the rest of things you list here - I would never in a million year consider writing a paragraph long glowing review of my car jack on amazon, and yet there are millions of such interactions all over the web.
I was startled to recently discover that a local gastroenterologist has numerous excellent reviews on Google Maps by people talking about what a lovely colonoscopy they had, some of whom related the specific medical condition that brought them there. Never in a million years would I consider doing this either. It turns out people are pretty weird.
> I was startled to recently discover that a local gastroenterologist has numerous excellent reviews on Google Maps by people talking about what a lovely colonoscopy they had, some of whom related the specific medical condition that brought them there. Never in a million years would I consider doing this either. It turns out people are pretty weird.
I mean, you kinda are talking about visiting a colonoscopist on hacker news, so there's that.
I mean, you kinda are talking about visiting a colonoscopist on hacker news, so there's that.
For all we know, they may well have had an upper endoscopy.
Medicine is run by big business in the USA, I wouldn’t trust those reviews at all.
I've been burned to the tune of thousands of dollars because I took star ratings on Google at face value without looking into the actual reviews to see if they were real or not. I still feel like an idiot because of it.
It's such a double-edged sword anonymity on the internet, but it really is starting to come to be a massive problem where you have no idea whether someone is a person or a bot and now with LLMs, I fear the fake review spam will be next level where it'll be almost impossible to tell real from fake.
Is a paid fraudulent review written by a real person so much better than a LLM-generated one?
More than anything this seems to highlight how naive this approach is for polling public opinion - using an easily gamed internet connected form. Really the whole thing was just a dog and pony show to begin with. The FCC leadership at the time showed absolutely zero intention of being persuaded by the public comments as their minds were already made up beforehand. It was just some kind of hand wavy bs attempt to pretend to perform their due diligence before doing what they were already going to do anyways.
$615 million dollars seems like chump change for 9 million counts of identity fraud. I recently read a story where the local DA in Portland charged a homeless man for identity theft for stealing a wallet. He hadn't tried to represent himself as the other person; he literally just had the wallet and ID.
Yet again, turns out it's OK if you're a corporation.
Yet again, turns out it's OK if you're a corporation.
The fine was $615 thousand, not $615 million. Although I might agree with your original statement too.
>Portland charged a homeless man for identity theft
Can you source this? Here's the closest I can find[1], an event in 2017 where a homeless person stole the wallet and wedding ring from a dead man after someone else murdered him.
1: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2017/06/homeless_man_now...
Can you source this? Here's the closest I can find[1], an event in 2017 where a homeless person stole the wallet and wedding ring from a dead man after someone else murdered him.
1: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2017/06/homeless_man_now...
Portland arresting a homeless person? I doubt it.
Well, those are the rules. That's how capitalism works.
This isn't a meaningful tautology. "The system is unjust because it is unjust and therefore must always be unjust."
We can and should improve society.
We can and should improve society.
Yeah, but the other poster was probably being sarcastic and just frustrated in a tone that is hard to describe in plain text.
ETA: Upon rereading, this feels pretty weasely and I don't stand by it, so I'd like to add this was my bad & I'm sorry for being overly literal. Ultimately it's as much my responsibility to understand the sarcasm as it is other people to make it clear to me. I feel this way when I'm misunderstood despite being fairly clear, so it's only fair that I apologize and accept responsibility when I am the one to misunderstand.
Looking deeper I see you're likely correct, but honestly I disclaim responsibility for misunderstandings caused by Poe's law when I'm on this end. I see this trip people up all the time, so I know it's not just me. I see the sincere version of this statement made, defended, and doubled down on regularly, so no, I can't reliably tell the difference without a sarcasm marker (/s). I admit this is a weakness on my part, but I don't really feel responsible for it.
Looking deeper I see you're likely correct, but honestly I disclaim responsibility for misunderstandings caused by Poe's law when I'm on this end. I see this trip people up all the time, so I know it's not just me. I see the sincere version of this statement made, defended, and doubled down on regularly, so no, I can't reliably tell the difference without a sarcasm marker (/s). I admit this is a weakness on my part, but I don't really feel responsible for it.
If only everyone were as gracious and thoughtful… thanks for demonstrating responsible engagement online!
Yes, Poe's Law and all for sure…
Also: https://mimiandeunice.com/2011/06/08/status-quo/
Yes, Poe's Law and all for sure…
Also: https://mimiandeunice.com/2011/06/08/status-quo/
[deleted]
> This isn't a meaningful tautology. "The system is unjust because it is unjust and therefore must always be unjust."
> We can and should improve society.
We should, but what makes you think that we can?
> We can and should improve society.
We should, but what makes you think that we can?
I've seen amazing progress over my lifetime, and I see enormous potential in current social movements. It's not guaranteed, and I see incredibly destructive social movements picking up speed as well, but I do believe it's possible.
From the time Lincoln was assassinated in 1895, until Roosevelt was elected in 1933, we had the age of robber-barons, enormous wealth disparity and the rich owning all of America.
We've had something like social progress from then until, when? Reagonomics? 1981.
So maybe 50 years of socially progressive government. Out of 250. Pretty dismal.
We've had something like social progress from then until, when? Reagonomics? 1981.
So maybe 50 years of socially progressive government. Out of 250. Pretty dismal.
I see forward movements regarding social issues, but I don't think I can recall anything for my entire life, which has been a win against capital.
That's not to say it isn't possible, but that it's unlikely should we continue the same way.
That's not to say it isn't possible, but that it's unlikely should we continue the same way.
I think that there are many overlapping and mutually supporting systems that produce injustice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy), so progress on for instance LGBT rights moves forward the broader cause of creating a more just society and makes progress along other axis more tractable. Eg, LGBT bigotry and the accompanying rigid gender roles provide a buttress for abusive elements in our society, for instance by telling men that an element of masculinity is to endure any hardship without complaint, thereby sabotaging their ability to recognize they are being taken advantage of and organizing to support each other in opposition to, say, an abusive employer.
I think people are starting to understand that our relationship to work and to resource extraction is untenable and that momentum is building. Of course this has been understood for a very long time, but anything remotely opposed to capitalism has been demonized and had almost no role in mainstream discourse (at least here in the US). I think that's changing pretty quickly.
On a long enough timescale, my confidence we can build a utopian society approaches 1. I think the trick is surviving long enough to get there. I suspect that a more just society is an attractor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor). It may not be the only attractor, there may well be a totalitarianism attractor, but if we can get sufficiently close to the just society attractor we can get caught up in it's influence & remain stable in that state for a long time. Not by magic, it would take lots of work to maintain that society at it does to maintain ours, I'm saying society would reliably produce the people and conditions that allow it to maintain and improve itself. My diagnosis would be that our current society can create people with the ability to improve it but can't reliably create the conditions for them to succeed - but just because it isn't reliable doesn't mean it doesn't happen every now and again, so the trick is being able to make the best of whatever cards you're dealt and to stay in the game until you get a good hand.
This is mostly speculation based on my experiences and observations, I can't prove to you this is true (I can't, beyond a shadow of a doubt, prove it to myself). But it gives me hope, and I believe it reflects a truth about human nature rather than being a vain hope. So I offer it to whomever it may be useful, and if that isn't you, that's okay, feel free to discard it.
I think people are starting to understand that our relationship to work and to resource extraction is untenable and that momentum is building. Of course this has been understood for a very long time, but anything remotely opposed to capitalism has been demonized and had almost no role in mainstream discourse (at least here in the US). I think that's changing pretty quickly.
On a long enough timescale, my confidence we can build a utopian society approaches 1. I think the trick is surviving long enough to get there. I suspect that a more just society is an attractor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor). It may not be the only attractor, there may well be a totalitarianism attractor, but if we can get sufficiently close to the just society attractor we can get caught up in it's influence & remain stable in that state for a long time. Not by magic, it would take lots of work to maintain that society at it does to maintain ours, I'm saying society would reliably produce the people and conditions that allow it to maintain and improve itself. My diagnosis would be that our current society can create people with the ability to improve it but can't reliably create the conditions for them to succeed - but just because it isn't reliable doesn't mean it doesn't happen every now and again, so the trick is being able to make the best of whatever cards you're dealt and to stay in the game until you get a good hand.
This is mostly speculation based on my experiences and observations, I can't prove to you this is true (I can't, beyond a shadow of a doubt, prove it to myself). But it gives me hope, and I believe it reflects a truth about human nature rather than being a vain hope. So I offer it to whomever it may be useful, and if that isn't you, that's okay, feel free to discard it.
I have seen how fast any past progress can be reversed by sufficiently determined populist conservatives. Don't take it for granted when every liberty you have can be disappeared with one election.
Three companies wouldn't be doing such a crime if big money wasn't involved. An investigation to dig deeper must happen.
Not being very familiar with US government webdesign, it took a while for me to realize that this is in fact the official website of the NY attorney general, rather than the personal website of an individual.
The AG's name is written in huge letters on top, as if it was her, rather than her office, that mattered most. The name appears three times before the first paragraph of the article, and again in large, bold letters below the article. To an outside observer, this looks like a political personality cult, and the article itself reads like a PR fluff piece.
For comparison, this[1] is the official website of the German chancellor, the head of government, infinitely more important than an AG. His name is written as a regular-sized menu item, clearly subordinate to the office he occupies, and most of the articles use the term "The Federal Chancellor" to refer to him, rather than his name.
Taken as a whole, those websites paint a picture of radically contrasting administration styles, and aptly demonstrate just how incomprehensible US politics is for Europeans, and vice versa.
[1] https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-en
The AG's name is written in huge letters on top, as if it was her, rather than her office, that mattered most. The name appears three times before the first paragraph of the article, and again in large, bold letters below the article. To an outside observer, this looks like a political personality cult, and the article itself reads like a PR fluff piece.
For comparison, this[1] is the official website of the German chancellor, the head of government, infinitely more important than an AG. His name is written as a regular-sized menu item, clearly subordinate to the office he occupies, and most of the articles use the term "The Federal Chancellor" to refer to him, rather than his name.
Taken as a whole, those websites paint a picture of radically contrasting administration styles, and aptly demonstrate just how incomprehensible US politics is for Europeans, and vice versa.
[1] https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-en
To be fair, this is atypical among US government websites. NY leadership in particular seems to tend towards egotism. Lest we forget that governor Cuomo spent millions of taxpayers dollars on new highway signs to rename a bridge after his father, who by many accounts would have abhorred the idea of having a bridge named after him.
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Oh man. I worked with a lot of local and state governmental officials at my last job and some of the websites are bonkers.
I've also done fact checking for academic publishers on topics that required deep diving into a lot of non-Western governmental resources and the web design (where there was a web presence) could get really interesting. I highly recommend going to peruse the websites of governmental entities in countries you don't ever think of - you see some weird/cool stuff.
I've also done fact checking for academic publishers on topics that required deep diving into a lot of non-Western governmental resources and the web design (where there was a web presence) could get really interesting. I highly recommend going to peruse the websites of governmental entities in countries you don't ever think of - you see some weird/cool stuff.
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You're not wrong, but at least whitehouse.gov doesn't have Joe Biden's name in giant letters.
This kind of shit is one of the reasons why people stop believing in western democracy.
And yet democracy so tarnished still appears better to me than the alternatives we have tried so far.
I haven’t lived in some of the alternatives, but I have visited some, and I feel fortunate to have been born in New Zealand.
I haven’t lived in some of the alternatives, but I have visited some, and I feel fortunate to have been born in New Zealand.
> and I feel fortunate to have been born in New Zealand
Just make sure you don't have the wrong opinions. Such as not going with the medical coercion and banning of civil rights that occured from 2020.
Oh, my bad, that authoranianism is good and they deserved it - Signed, Mr G.
Just make sure you don't have the wrong opinions. Such as not going with the medical coercion and banning of civil rights that occured from 2020.
Oh, my bad, that authoranianism is good and they deserved it - Signed, Mr G.
There are places that were welding people's homes shut at that point.
Do you suggest we move away from democracy or try to fix the failings of our systems?
Do you suggest we move away from democracy or try to fix the failings of our systems?
> There are places that were welding people's homes shut at that point.
Yes. Many places including new Zealand did unthinkable authortiarian things. Easily could be classified as torture.
> Do you suggest we move away from democracy or try to fix the failings of our systems?
How on earth did you arrive at "move away from democracy"?
Also, the coercive and sometimes violent authortiarianism perpetrated by govs with media/big tech collaboration (who saw massive profits from lockdowns) had little to do with democracy. In fact, extreme powers that go against different constituinal documents were enacted in the most damaging security theater ever.
Yes. Many places including new Zealand did unthinkable authortiarian things. Easily could be classified as torture.
> Do you suggest we move away from democracy or try to fix the failings of our systems?
How on earth did you arrive at "move away from democracy"?
Also, the coercive and sometimes violent authortiarianism perpetrated by govs with media/big tech collaboration (who saw massive profits from lockdowns) had little to do with democracy. In fact, extreme powers that go against different constituinal documents were enacted in the most damaging security theater ever.
They are wrong here. A regime which is not western democracy probably would pretend that nothing happened. It is much more suspicious when there are not investigations like this. Sometimes it is worse: such kind of investigations are conducted by independent entities, which are then prosecuted and silenced.
I agree, that fine is a joke and cast doubt on western democracy, but what I want to say, is like Chircill's:
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.[1]
In practice absolute level of your belief doesn't matter, only a relative one when comparing with alternatives.
[1] https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form...
I agree, that fine is a joke and cast doubt on western democracy, but what I want to say, is like Chircill's:
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.[1]
In practice absolute level of your belief doesn't matter, only a relative one when comparing with alternatives.
[1] https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form...
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Net Neutrality was one of the handful of things I wrote my representatives about. I knew it was going to be mostly fruitless, but goddamn this is disgusting.
The same people who wrote the comments also sent about half a million fake letters to members of congress, about 900 per representative.
The bad news is that they did this. The good news is that they thought this would help, so writing your representative perhaps isn't entirely useless?
The bad news is that they did this. The good news is that they thought this would help, so writing your representative perhaps isn't entirely useless?
I'm not sure why my previous comment is flagged.
Clearly democracy is better than the alternatives.
Clearly democracy is better than the alternatives.
This is the actual "vote with your money" everyone's talking about.
"Stop" should be past tense and you forgot the quotation marks around "democracy"
Public comments aren't votes so they aren't part of democracy. Influencing an unelected official like the FCC chair who gets to rule however he wants isn't democracy.
Democracy is far, far, far more than just mere voting and that fact that you believe this basically just proves the original point.
Comments that have no legal force (because they're not actually required to respond or respect them) surely aren't.
There's other situations like community meetings for land use that are far more democratic. Although, those are mostly bad, because it means only people with lots of free time can attend them!
There's other situations like community meetings for land use that are far more democratic. Although, those are mostly bad, because it means only people with lots of free time can attend them!
Yet public commentary was requested and even required to be evaluated. Therefor, fraud existed. Either is was the US government implying this was a democratic process, or the perpetrators of identity theft committed a crime. Which was it?
Being able to influence (both up and down the social pecking order) seems to be a very prominent characteristic of Democracy, but I could be wrong.
Seems more like petitioning a monarch to me. A more democratic system would be that if an official doesn't listen to you, they lose their election. Ajit Pai doesn't have an election.
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$615K for three companies, this is not even a parking ticket. This just puts a pretty discount price to pay for companies that want to impersonate their customers for fraudulent purposes.
3 companies defrauded the government and pretended to be millions of US citizens in order to make billions in illegitimate profits.
Were fined a few hundred thousand.
Why isn’t every individual involved in jail? Why haven’t all the company assets been seized?
Also, given that they were impersonating real living people, can we please get a list of those people? Or at least have the victims of identity theft, fraud, and I think for many on HN defamation?
The _only_ reason those details should not be available is to further protect these shit stains.
Were fined a few hundred thousand.
Why isn’t every individual involved in jail? Why haven’t all the company assets been seized?
Also, given that they were impersonating real living people, can we please get a list of those people? Or at least have the victims of identity theft, fraud, and I think for many on HN defamation?
The _only_ reason those details should not be available is to further protect these shit stains.
Simply put: limited liability, lobbying (political donations) and general ignorance of the subject matter by a majority of the population.
Limited liability only protects the "owners", not the employees, including the board.
So while piercing the LLC veil seems unreasonably hard, putting every individual involved in jail seems not unreasonable.
So while piercing the LLC veil seems unreasonably hard, putting every individual involved in jail seems not unreasonable.
Yet reality defies your "reasonable" expectations.
My problem with Net Neutrality is what is its the "wrong way" to deal with a pesky problem: entrenched local monopolies.
Net Neutrality is "oking" monopolistic behavior, under a narrow set of stipulations. I don't trust Comcast any farther than I could throw their CEO.
I just don't see this ending well. I think the alternatives: expanding access, increasing competition, improving technology and promoting innovation, busting oligopolies at the state and municipal level is the way to go.
This is my opinion, so feel free to disagree. There are definite upsides to net neutrality right now for "here and now" problems, but it's not a good long term solution IMHO.
Net Neutrality is "oking" monopolistic behavior, under a narrow set of stipulations. I don't trust Comcast any farther than I could throw their CEO.
I just don't see this ending well. I think the alternatives: expanding access, increasing competition, improving technology and promoting innovation, busting oligopolies at the state and municipal level is the way to go.
This is my opinion, so feel free to disagree. There are definite upsides to net neutrality right now for "here and now" problems, but it's not a good long term solution IMHO.
Infrastructure building is NOT an activity that benefits from free and open markets. The only way this works is if things change such that only government can build out infra, but it can be serviced by the best provider.
It's a step in the right direction. Enabling localities to set up their own competing internet services would be the logical follow up to that.
That I can absolutely agree with, as long as the taxes are usage based and opt-in only!
That's not the way public utilities, work everyone pays taxes on roads and schools without directly benefitting, I don't have any children yet a large portion of my income goes to school, but I understandt the utility of it. the same would go for public internet.
Without net neutrality you are oking monopolistic behavior on the internet service level.
It says "the nation's largest broadband companies" but doesn't say which ones. Does anyone have more context here?
I remember a case from a few years ago where Comcast/Xfinity did exactly this, using other people's identities to flood legislators with letters when there were hearings for public comments on legislation that would impact the company. I think it was during hearings on net neutrality bills.
It's a great way to drown out the public's actual comments and drum up fake support.
It's a great way to drown out the public's actual comments and drum up fake support.
tbh, this sounds like Comcast, but I didn't want to assume
"Comcast, Charter, and AT&T"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/biggest-isps-pai...
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/biggest-isps-pai...
New York Attorney General James Secures $615,000 from Companies that Supplied Fake Comments to Influence FCC’s Repeal of Net Neutrality Rules
All told that doesn't seem like that much of a deterrent. I have to imagine the rule change was worth more than that to them.
I agree, I pittance compared to what they were paid to provide. $600k~ should be $600m~ to be a better deterrent.
I'm no advocate of the CCP, but China has seized assets from, imprisoned, exiled and executed white collar criminals that committed fraud, engaged in corruption, etc. Risking your assets, freedom and life might make brazen fraud less enticing.
Likely less than the cost of the investigation
Toothless and useless without criminal prosecution and jail time.
Lol, $600k is quite simply a joke. It's not even a slap on the wrist, compared to the payoff. And spread between three companies? If that's the price of corrupting government policy, then just build it into the cost that you pass onto your clients when lobbying. Mega-corps like Comcast and Verizon would pay that in a microsecond.
I have to wonder how on Earth this is not a criminal matter. Where I live, signing a document with someone else's name is, AFAIK, something you could potentially go to jail for.
Yesterday I saw a graph of how money these operators make each second, revenue is in billions, a ~600k is like a business trip cost for one of the executives.
I remember analyzing this data, it’s was pure AstroTurf.
Is it possible to contact the people impersonated so they can sue these companies?
At the time you could download the public comments on the FCC website. It was just a ton of copy/paste entries. Useless.
I think individuals would have to prove some sort of damages if they want to win a suit, unfortunately.
Misappropriation of likeness, fraud, etc.
Could we please investigate Ajit Pai to determine if he was knowledgeable and thus a co-conspirator of this scheme to defraud the United States?
Techdirt has a good writeup of this press release https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/12/ny-ag-doles-out-wrist-sl...
In theory it's possible the settlement was done in exchange for evidence against the telcos. One can dream at least.
Are they open to more charges in other states? Why is this done by a state AG? The FCC is federal, shouldn’t this Garland and not James?
What a disappointing penalty. People have been freaking out about foreign influence in politics and voter fraud, but when there is an actual, proven and admitted fraud that has significant impact on the legitimacy of governance, it’s a tiny flick to the wrist? SMH
Once again nothing being done to stop the pillaging of western civilization by large corporations, executives building as much personal wealth as possible before the entire system eventually comes crumbling down, just like civilizations before it.
Here is my simple reasoning: (1) Large internet companies fight feverishly for net neutrality. (2) Based on past experience, it is inconceivable to me that they would so feverishly fight for the end-users' benefit. (3) Therefore, they fight for the net neutrality because it very beneficial to them.
I am guessing there is something inside Internet backbone data transfer that allows these companies to make tons of money/get large subsidies, provided that net neutrality is in place. I would love to understand that it is.
I am guessing there is something inside Internet backbone data transfer that allows these companies to make tons of money/get large subsidies, provided that net neutrality is in place. I would love to understand that it is.
Last mile service providers were forced to serve traffic generated from any legitimate website.
Any traffic induces load on their systems/infrastructure and happens disproportionately based on the service being consumed (e.g. Netflix early days, instagram).
So the economic fight of Net Neutrality was based on bandwith-intensive services not paying for transit proportionate to their traffic volume (driven by consumers), and the maintenance cost being borne by the last-mile providers. Allegedly.
The problem comes from the fact that last-mile providers are monopolies in just about every place in the USA, meaning that they can already charge whatever they want to the consumer for the bandwidth _they_ consume. ISPs shouldn't be allowed to charge both directions for the single link they own going to buildings. And we don't want every building to have thousands of wires going to it for every new telecommunication company in existance, which is why we have Title II of the Communications Act.
By repealing net neutrality it allows last-mile providers (largely owned by major national media corporations) to unfairly compete against new technologies and media companies in the marketplace who's growth was fueled largely in part by requiring equal access to bandwidth.
Any traffic induces load on their systems/infrastructure and happens disproportionately based on the service being consumed (e.g. Netflix early days, instagram).
So the economic fight of Net Neutrality was based on bandwith-intensive services not paying for transit proportionate to their traffic volume (driven by consumers), and the maintenance cost being borne by the last-mile providers. Allegedly.
The problem comes from the fact that last-mile providers are monopolies in just about every place in the USA, meaning that they can already charge whatever they want to the consumer for the bandwidth _they_ consume. ISPs shouldn't be allowed to charge both directions for the single link they own going to buildings. And we don't want every building to have thousands of wires going to it for every new telecommunication company in existance, which is why we have Title II of the Communications Act.
By repealing net neutrality it allows last-mile providers (largely owned by major national media corporations) to unfairly compete against new technologies and media companies in the marketplace who's growth was fueled largely in part by requiring equal access to bandwidth.
Very interesting. Sounds like a complicated issue with lots of trade-offs for various players. Certainly not the impression one might get by reading the news.
Or by the same logic:
(1) Large ISP companies fight feverishly against net neutrality. (2) Based on past experience, it is inconceivable to me that they would so feverishly fight for the end-users' benefit. (3) Therefore, they fight against net neutrality because ending it is very beneficial to them. (4) If it's so beneficial to them, ending net neutrality is probably not so good for the end-users.
Which one?
(1) Large ISP companies fight feverishly against net neutrality. (2) Based on past experience, it is inconceivable to me that they would so feverishly fight for the end-users' benefit. (3) Therefore, they fight against net neutrality because ending it is very beneficial to them. (4) If it's so beneficial to them, ending net neutrality is probably not so good for the end-users.
Which one?
I am not sure (2) works in this logic chain. The net neutrality is presented in the infospace as beneficial to the end-users. If ISPs fight against it, they would be fighting against the end-users' benefit. This is not so inconceivable, yes?
If I remember well they were saying that the extra income from the internet companies would allow them to improve the network and that would benefit end users.
Why are the people who ran these companies not in jail?
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How long before someone looks at the online elections donation systems that are subject to the same type of fraud that would allow wealthy parties in the US and outside the US to funnel money into candidates with no transparency as all the gifts are tiny and below reporting threshold?
How is this monetary loss calculated? This is absurdly low. Something that even a small size company will easily afford.
On a humorous note, may be they started with how much a politician takes from lobbyists for their soul. We have seen them proposing absurd laws for very less.
On a humorous note, may be they started with how much a politician takes from lobbyists for their soul. We have seen them proposing absurd laws for very less.
So who is going to jail? This is the impersonation multiplied by millions. Must be a major crime
I wanna know how did they did it and how they got found out. Is it as simple as a VPN + bots?
There's some information about it on Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S... I'm not even positive a VPN was necessary.
This will seem quaint after everyone starts using the generative AI models in sybil attacks.
Companies be like "Whoops"
It's difficult to say how much this 'influenced' policy but it sure gives a good smoke screen.
With the amount of money we have spent de-anonymizing the internet for profit we should have been able to disclose this earlier.
It's difficult to say how much this 'influenced' policy but it sure gives a good smoke screen.
With the amount of money we have spent de-anonymizing the internet for profit we should have been able to disclose this earlier.
“the three companies have agreed to pay $615,000 in penalties and disgorgement”
Is this actually a significant punishment? Will the decisions based on these fake comments be reconsidered or reversed?
Someone should sue these companies in civil court for damage done.
Is this actually a significant punishment? Will the decisions based on these fake comments be reconsidered or reversed?
Someone should sue these companies in civil court for damage done.
If you think it's just 3 companies, I've got a bridge to sell you.
And this will happen again and again, if nothing changes. People need to be aware of stuff like this, but the news pull them in the path to ignorance instead. This is why public awareness is important.
Tish is awesome. Getting any kind of judgement against this BS is a real achievement. That she can't put people in jail for this a law problem, not a her problem.
What's a compelling argument in rejection of net neutrality (that these fake identities hypothetically would use)? Better delivery of in-network content, perhaps?
The best argument against it is you would be mandating that companies peer and increase the peering regardless of anything else; and that companies would have to peer with other companies even if they didn’t want to.
why are companies like this allowed to continue to exist? Why aren't their corporations simply dissolved for doing illegal activities. This is flat out fraud.
These were real people they impersonated. Not even $1 penalty per. I wonder if individuals who were impersonated have any grounds to sue?
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That fine is nothing it should come with stipulations that hit the people who were running those companies too.
This is a completely acceptable cost of business for these companies, and everybody knows it.
Put them in jail. Review the law.
Put them in jail. Review the law.
Those fines are laughable. How is no one of the organisers of this fraud is in jail?
How about a class action lawsuit by all the people who were fraudulently impersonated?
I believe, this has become a big industry. Fake comments are everywhere.
Life pro tip: be a company and you can get away with anything.
shouldn’t there be a class-action lawsuit by the people who were impersonated?
“Enter your name to check if you were impersonated by these companies and join the class-action lawsuit…”
“Enter your name to check if you were impersonated by these companies and join the class-action lawsuit…”
Language models are going to make this problem way, way worse
What are chances of this news making your local news?
There is a lot more at stake than $615,000
Dissolve their fucking business licenses.
Country level stuff
Trump's FTC was gonna kill Net Neutrality without these fake comments. Everyone knew they were bogus from the get go.
Starlink would not exist if liberals passed net neutrality. I trust the market over politicians.
I don't understand your position. Are you saying the fraud is justified, or do you make remarks like this to help you feel like you're "owning the libs"?
Wow. Just wow. How can anyone at these companies be avoiding jail time?
And who hired them? Is there no money trail?