Where do the discussions on HN, and Reddit [0], come from if it's not a thing in the wild? Granted: It's hard to search for because Google will bury any relevant results between a ton of support requests about people not being able to get their Samsung TV online.
This is not an argument, like not at all, it's just a distraction from the issue: Trampling all over user-rights because somewhere in hundreds of pages of ToS/EULA legal-speak there's a clause hidden supposedly justifying it all.
Here's some reality: "You’d Need 76 Work Days to Read All Your Privacy Policies Each Year" [0] and that was back in 2012. Since then ToS, EULA, Privacy Statement and whatnot have only expanded in scope, people use even more services these days and thus accept even more terms.
You'd need a dedicated law team doing all the reading and interpreting for you if you want to realistically stay informed about all that consent you've given, without having to give up large parts of your productivity just checking and tracing what weird things you supposedly agreed to [1].
There need to be some well-established limits that won't just rely on users supposedly hand-waving all their privacy away, that way the USG might actually even go back to honoring the Fourth Amendment [2].
> Just disconnect it from the network and keep a box plugged into HDMI1.
One would assume it'd be as simple as that, but apparently it ain't because many SmartTV's will jump trough quite a few loops to get online, like using nearby open Wifi.
At least there's been a bunch of stories like this in past HN discussions around SmartTV's.
> Or that they are incompetent enough, to not secure their own back doors and networks, and allowed the FBI, NSA, and other American government organizations, the ability to counter-hack them, and monitor all their internal communications.
Wait.. did I miss something in the article?
The closest thing to that, I remember happening, had the roles reversed [0], and should be an important lesson about not underestimating the opposition.
Well, the best case in point in that regard is having a finance minister with a well-known past of money laundering (Schäuble) and a former, well renowned, Chancellor valuing his back-room dealings more than his duty to the country (Kohl's Ehrenwort).
Like many other German corruption scandals, these were never properly investigated/charged. With time people simply forget about this kind of stuff, but it happened and it very likely still happens because getting caught before didn't have any real consequences for them, so why would they stop?
> All countries are corrupt to some degree, but degrees do vary.
Indeed, but the practices of corruption also vary, often dictated by culture, so how does one really "measure corruption" in such a way that it's actually comparable? Imho that's quite a difficult, if not impossible, task because it involves a lot of subjective value judgments.
> That is an interesting point, but in terms of the Russian Oligarchs I think part of the distinction is they are (and have been) attempting to export that wealth and diversify it so that if they do lose power they will still be insanely wealthy.
I don't see how that's an actual distinction because the same thing applies just as well to the house of Saud and Saudi Arabia in general. Do you honestly think the house of Saud didn't put a bit of wealth aside for the unlikely event they might be removed from power?
For whatever reason, it's become acceptable to just assume that certain countries are "ultra corrupt" while others are supposedly "corruption free". In reality, none of this applies because, in reality, the practices of corruption just differ from country to country depending on the local laws.
Corruption always finds a loophole and in many places established forms of corruption are not even recognized as such. Case in point: Germany
How many people would think Germany is a country ripe with corruption? The super punctual, super correct, super bureaucratic Germans could never be corrupt, right?
Well, Germany was among the last countries who ratified the UN convention against corruption, as a matter of fact, it was the last EU country to ratify it. It took German parliament 11 years [0] to ratify that UN convention against a lot of opposition. High profile German politicians publicly complained that if the UN convention was ratified it would be impossible for them to keep working like they've been working.
That's quite long and vehement opposition against something that would usually just be regarded as the sensible thing to do, I'll leave the reasons for that strong opposition up to your imagination.
Of course, it wouldn't have been their only market, but it's among them.
Even something ostensibly harmless as cannabis can finance quite questionable people and groups.
A while ago Arte France released a series titled "Cannabis", where the plot revolves around a shipment of Morrocan hashish lost on the Mediterranean sea, with the consequences playing out all over Europe. And while it's a fictional plot, it still paints a somewhat accurate picture how a lot of this business goes down.
Because that's also the case.
Big organized crime groups often have access to exactly the kind of logistics required to manufacture and smuggle drugs across large distances.
They have the muscle to stay competitive in a market where there is no state authority to give you guarantees on anything.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/bpr6xs/if_you_choo...