Flock and Cyble Inc. weaponize “cybercrime” takedowns to silence critics (opens in new tab)

Cloudflare would have to bring that suit since they were the ones defrauded. The site owners probably can't sue Cloudflare because of their contract. So the site owners probably have to go basic "tortious interference" and be ready to show actual damages.

The "resulting damages" is pretty small though, they just had to move off of cloudflare. I'm not sure it would be worth it, especially if the other side doesn't end up paying their legal costs.

You would need damages

>Knowingly filing false DMCA claims will also perjure them.

You are confusing false claims with filing DMCA requests on behalf of someone you don't have permission from.

>and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed

A false DMCA request is misrepresentation.

Not one single person in the history of the DMCA has been prosecuted for perjury related to filing a DMCA claim.

> One long-standing code is that they moderate YC companies less on HN, allowing criticisms like yours to stand:

Well, that’s what dang says he does. There’s no transparency and no publicly available data that would demonstrate adherence to the rule.

> To HN's credit I haven't seen this rule violated.

I don’t think you’d observe anything different if it were violated.

There are economies of scale. But if one of your investors owns even a single digit percentage of your company and calls you to comment on direction or strategy, if you're wise, you pick up the phone.

Speeding tickets are not related in any way to why Flock (YC S17)* is bad.

* how I will now always refer to them

Cameras at schools, I can see how that could be concerning. But what's wrong with ticketing drivers on Sundays?

Entering your licence plate into this site gives the operator your geodata/ip address tied back to your licence plate.

If the security depends on the person it's supposed to be secure against not trying to break it...

What about doing it all client side? Or perhaps let the user type one or two characters then fetch that from the server for all matches and do the remaining matching client side. There are ways you could truly isolate yourself from the PII.

That "value" here lets them mislead policymakers.

The value is being able to mislead your users

Well aware of these, however that would not benefit in this case. Their main protection is against pre computed lookup tables. But since the operator needs to be able to lookup the license plate within their own database, then they would not be using either of these. If the operator really wanted to do this in a safe way for the user then the whole database should exist client side.

You can romance Shadowheart as Laezel if you want and they hate each other at the start of the game. Don’t need Gale for that. You can “win” in act 1 with Gale though.

The context is given, it’s all about users’ data. facebook, google, plantir, flock, you name it, the end goal is to harvest data as much as possible to sell it, profile the individuals, manipulate the public opinion (facebook did a mood-manipulation “experiment” back in 2012, you can only imagine now in the era of social media dependency and AI), invade people’s privacy, among many other things. Now add to that mix a mandatory digital ID, and let’s hear what these CEOs will call the public behind closed doors, I’m sure it’s worse than “dumb fucks”. Fun fact: Zuck early days business card printed with “I’M THE CEO, BITCH.”

it is fairly evident that contextualisation is paramount in objectively assessing a situation ... in the context of having god like power over billions , it seems entirely moot to debate the merits of why such a god like individual would label his subjects as idiots ...

If you operate in a world where your goal is to scam others then anyone displaying any amount of trust is obviously a dumb fuck.

> I'm kind of ok with it. All the kids who fucked around in school and picked on the nerds for just existing are kind of getting their comeuppance

I have yet to see it. All the stereotypical “asshole jocks” I can recall from school tended to be from upper middle class families. They’re doing much better than many of the nerds many of who are unemployed NEETs.

Though I admit these sort of social cliques are much more complex in real life than in a corny 80s coming of age movie.

All the kids who fucked around in school and picked on the nerds for just existing are running the government. Not sure this is the win you're painting it as?

How much does food and electricity cost you (if the electricity is even on for you at all)? Also, uh, this isn't high school anymore, and the "nerds vs. jocks" framing says a lot more about your own internal state than it does about the state of the world, which is being run into the ground by wealthy oligarchs. If you have bad high school memories to process, that can be done elsewhere.

Do you realize that many of those nerds who were bullied in high school are fighting on the other side, trying to take on even bigger bullies - the oligarchs, to save democracy? Meanwhile, many of those bullies have grown up too, realized how cruel and shameful their conduct was, and are now fighting on the same side!

I understand that childhood bullying can leave some scars. I have faced my fair share too. But life teaches you ever bigger lessons and shifts your priorities. There are much bigger problems now! But if you had the luxury of harboring your grudges against some kiddie bullies, then you have some serious insecurity problems and too much time in your hands. In fact, that's exactly the problem that convert some shy rich kids into destructive oligarchs who lack any empathy. They end up with the delusions that they're somehow special, extra-intelligent and the rightful heirs to the future of humanity. They see their former bullies as sub-human creatures who stand in the way of their and humanity's glory.

I'm not making this up. Go ahead and read the literature that guide these techno-authoritarians. You'll see this philosophy repeated time and again. If you don't want to put in that much effort, there are numerous articles and media that psychoanalyze them based on these literature. You can see that fingerprint in all of their destructive behavior, including their disdain for democracy. And then check your own comment. See how much it resembles them!

I don't think "the nerds" are really dishing out much comeuppance here.

Professionally, they're marginalized by finance-bros, who actually decide what gets built and which morals get followed. Privately, everything you might want to repair or tweak or invent is still getting locked down or patented or criminalized.

And they/we absolutely love the distraction

> are manufactured specifically

the fact that these majority do accept the distraction points to lack of intelligence and discipline in critical thinking and future planning. The populous has half the blame - not just those who do these manufacturing of distractions.

Cattle is as Cattle does

I'm an American blue collar that does NOT carry a cell phone.

Datapoint: one.

"us smarties would never fall for such obvious bread and circus. not like those silly dumdums what live in {region}!"

said without an ounce irony as the proverbial rug is yanked right out from under your feet

It's not about stupid people, there are stupid people everywhere, it's about the .1% elite controlling all the wealth and power, using flaws in the ways humans work (stupid or not every human has to have shelter and food to survive).

I was offended and then I defined "exceptionally stupid" a few ways and all the statistics support this claim.

I'm still offended though.

Fucking a lot of smart people in Mass., Vermont, Conn., New York, Maryland, DC.

I think you will find that fifty percent of people are of below average intelligence regardless of where you live.

The average does tend to vary from state to state. It actually is a bit lower in the southern and midwestern states, but only by a few points.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-iq-...

Come on, there are exceptionally stupid people almost everywhere. No need for ad hominem.

Flock helped catch the Boston/Brown shooter.