This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy with a pretty excellent summary of the ongoing crusade by the monkey selfie photographer:
Some legacies are better than others
He could have been remembered as a nature photographer, but that was too dull.
He could have been remembered as the person who owned the camera the ‘monkey selfie’ was taken on, but fame like that would have faded from view far too quickly.
He could have been remembered as someone lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time for a one-in-a-million shot to be taken using his gear, but dumb luck is just too tame.
No, instead he’s going to be remembered as the guy who decided that threatening people for using a photo in the public domain was a good idea.
He’ll be remembered as the guy sued by PETA, who claimed to be bringing the lawsuit against him on behalf of a monkey.
He’ll be remembered as the guy who is apparently such an atrocious photographer that the copyright status of one picture is enough to make or break his entire career, to the point that he’s willing to go on a multi-year crusade to ‘protect’ it from the vile ‘public domain’.
He could have been remembered for any number of things, but given his obsessive fixation on the status of a single photograph I’m pretty sure he’s just going to be remembered for behavior that would make even a drunk monkey look mature by comparison.
In second place, we’ve got a quick comment from Roger Strong in response to Dianne Feinstein’s continuing push for encryption backdoors, making proper use of the language that shows up in such rhetoric:
“Responsible encryption” is encryption that is secure. They demand irresponsible encryption.
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got two more comments about Feinstein and the encryption debate, starting with some thoughts from Ninja:
It doesn’t matter if the struggles FBI had were the fruition of their own stupidity or if the device is just impenetrable for now. They are not entitled to every single bit of evidence out there. They can’t have access to conversations in person, destroyed documents and other unrecoverable evidence and yet they can pursue other evidence from other sources to secure a conviction in the courts. If one bad guy goes free, well, though luck, it’s a small price to pay for the hundreds of millions of people that will be secure and will have their privacy respected. It’s a very small price to pay for the security of journalists, whistleblowers and generally (generally!) awesome people that rely on this privacy and security on a daily basis to do their jobs.
Besides, a criminal will not stop in a single crime and will eventually fail and leave breadcrumbs outside of encryption that can be used by competent law enforcement agents to build a decent case. Humans err. All the time. And again, if one exceptional criminal manages to stay under the radar once you weight this against the security and privacy of hundreds of millions the choice is obvious: preserve encryption as it is and if possible improve it.
Next, we’ve got a reply to that very comment from Toom1275, who summed it up with a nice little phrase:
It’s called a search warrant, not a find warrant.
Over on the funny side, we start out by returning to the monkey selfie story, where our first place winner was an anonymous commenter:
Don’t worry, Mike, the saga will end 70 years after the monkey has passed away. (Unless he has any relatives that will push for copyright extension.)
In second place, it’s Roger Strong again with a creative response to the shady anti-spyware developer that lost its lawsuit against a competitor that flagged its software as malicious:
Dead Parrot Sketch, Enigma Software Edition
Bleeping Computer: I wish to make a complaint!
Enigma Software: We’re closin’ for lunch.
Bleeping Computer: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this anti-spyware software what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
Enigma Software: Oh yes, uh, Spyhunter…What’s, uh… What’s wrong with it?
Bleeping Computer: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. It’s useless, that’s what’s wrong with it!
Enigma Software: No, no, that’s uh,… that’s defamation.
Bleeping Computer: Look, matey, a negative review is protected free speech, and this negative review is well earned.
Enigma Software: No no it’s not free speech, it’s defamation! Remarkable software, Spyhunter, idn’it, ay? Beautiful UI!
Bleeping Computer: The UI don’t enter into it. It’s stone useless.
Enigma Software: It’s a legitimate product! That’s just your opinion, and it’s defamation!
Bleeping Computer: All right then, let’s see what others think about it! (Runs Malwarebytes) (Malwarebyes declares it a threat and removes it.)
Owner: That’s tortious interference, that is!
Bleeping Computer: No, it’s an accurate assessment based on its uselessness, not to mention your other business practices!
Enigma Software: It’s felony interference with a business model!
Bleeping Computer: It isn’t. Your product is useless! Ineffectual! Pointless! Hopeless! Fruitless! Incapable! Incompetant! Inept! Inadequate! If you weren’t charging people for automatic renewals in perpetuity, you’d go under! This product protects users like Ajit Pai protects consumers!
Enigma Software: I never wanted to do this in the first place. I wanted to be… a DRM provider!
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with one more nod to Roger Strong who, after we were called out on a typo rendering “apply” as “apple”, went ahead and supplied a definition for our neologism:
Verb. Meaning “Take bold action which makes no sense.”
The classic case: Apple buys Beats headphones for $3 billion. Then they immediately remove the headphone jack from the iPhone.
Usage: “Americans wanted to “drain the swamp” so they appled Trump and his Wall Street and oil industry friends into the White House.”
And finally, we’ve got a nice and simple anonymous response to the idea that obscenity isn’t protected speech:
Yes it fucking is.
That’s all for this week, folks!
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Author: Leigh Beadon