[HN Gopher] Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped cha...
___________________________________________________________________
Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against
herself
Author : coloneltcb
Score : 325 points
Date : 2020-10-28 17:23 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.unionleader.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.unionleader.com)
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| My brother is a Public Defender. He tells me that this wouldn't
| work in California because it requires a court appearance here.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The forensic details are lacking. Sure, it would be natural to
| suspect the person benefiting the most from the charges being
| dropped. However, do they have her personal home IP address shown
| accessing the system? Also, if the court system can be so easily
| manipulated, it might be time to take a look at that.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I give her 40% odds of beating the headline charges. Not a
| chance in hell she's walking away without at least a
| misdemeanor of some sort though.
|
| On one hand:
|
| It's not exactly a stretch to imagine her boyfriend doing it on
| her behalf or something similar. A middling defense lawyer
| should be able to create enough doubt (barring some unreported
| facts that are damning for the defense). If the government's
| processes are so broken that this could happen as they say it
| did then she deserves to walk free for giving them the free
| audit. If she's really such a bad person they'll catch her
| again for something else.
|
| On the other hand:
|
| Hillsboro county is the second worst jurisdiction in NH in
| which to be accused of committing a crime against the
| government (Cheshire county is hands down the best any day).
| It's going to be almost impossible for a jury to not have at
| least a few people who take the view "I don't care if she did
| it, there's a reasonable chance she did and someone must pay
| for this". This is assuming it goes to jury trail (only a moron
| would go for a bench trial when the crime is against "the
| system" though).
| scintill76 wrote:
| > In several instances, she used the New Hampshire court
| system's electronic system to file documents.
|
| This suggests that there is either no authentication (insane),
| or any display of the authenticated sender is being ignored by
| people just looking at the claimed sender in the headings of
| papers (disappointing, a failure of the court processes at the
| human level, and probably a UX shortcoming.)
| [deleted]
| dredmorbius wrote:
| A RISKS Digest classic:
|
| _A prisoner was wrongly released after a fax was received from a
| grocery store stating that the Kentucky Supreme Court had
| demanded his release_
|
| http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24/65#subj7.1
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20070426034707/http://www.cnn.co...
|
| There are numerous examples in news reports.
|
| "Who are you?" is the most expensive question in information
| technology. No matter how you get it wrong, you're fucked.
| Zigurd wrote:
| That smirk on her face seems well deserved, even in what might be
| a mugshot
| itronitron wrote:
| That is the smirk of someone that is just getting started.
| squeezingswirls wrote:
| She looks like John Belushi doing a Saturday Night Live sketch
| gumby wrote:
| They should give her time off for creativity and perhaps some
| money for college, but I suspect they will not have a sense of
| humor about this.
| [deleted]
| bronlund wrote:
| First time I've seen a 451.
| elchief wrote:
| But can she do it again?
| Veen wrote:
| It amazes me that two and half years after the introduction of
| GDPR, sites like this still block EU residents.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Incentives matter - if there is no profit from it and they are
| outside their domain anyway why would they waste any time on
| the IT project alone? Let alone the business model changes
| causing at least short term negative profits (even if better
| behavior could help user base growth).
|
| Apparently empathy of all things is useful to soldiers
| ironically because being able to understand how others would
| react to movements and attacks gives a big edge in predicting
| them. You don't have to sympathize with the targets but it can
| help prevent being caught off guard by incorrect assumptions.
| In law knowing how the subjects would react helps predict and
| mitigate perverse incentives and loopholes or lure them into
| doing what you really wanted in the first place.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I don't think the goal was ever to avoid sites blocking the
| EU. The bill was clearly aimed at not contributing to bad
| practices with the EU GDP, what it isn't.
|
| Besides, the news can be found elsewhere (all news can
| nowadays), and the GP isn't much worse (I dunno, maybe even
| better off?) because of that blocking. At the same time we
| are here indirectly discussing tracking, and this is not the
| only thread about it.
| [deleted]
| jolmg wrote:
| So in a case like this, can the filing be reversed or did she get
| away with her prior charges?
| justaguyhere wrote:
| Illegality aside, this is quite impressive! and creative!
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| "Please tell us about the time you (...) most successfully hacked
| some (non-computer) system to your advantage"
| katurian wrote:
| clever girl
| mrlonglong wrote:
| With smarts like that she could make something of herself,
| rather than go down the path of criminality.
|
| Edited for typos.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| There is also an issue of "specialities" and overlap of
| skills involved. Being good enough at forging and placing
| court documents doesn't necessarily translate to something
| with legitimate demand.
| [deleted]
| giantg2 wrote:
| Not necessarily.
|
| For one, it probably doesn't take much smarts to fill out the
| paperwork or trick the system. The system is full of people
| who don't know their job and have no real incentive to (can
| be difficult to fire government employees).
|
| For example, I am involved with a case in which a state
| trooper made 4 or 5 mistakes, including mis-citing a statute
| so badly that the court system shows it as invalid and he
| lacked probable cause to write the citation under the statute
| that he tried to cite, and thus we were subjected to unjust
| restrictions for weeks. The trooper even lied to the judge. I
| filed a complaint and the subsequent investigation confirmed
| his mistakes, yet he still has a job... after lying to a
| judge in court to cover up his mistakes... Did I mention that
| the judge in the case was replaced because he was arrested on
| multiple charges (gambling with campaign funds, perjury,
| etc). The courthouse will not give us replies to many of our
| requests, such as our petition under the pertainate judicial
| rule to dismiss the case. They can't even issue a correctly
| formed subpoena duces tecum.
|
| So yeah, I feel disillusioned with the effectiveness and
| legitimacy of the system. Our lives are ruled by morons. I'm
| considering contacting a civil rights lawyer so this stuff
| doesn't happen to others in the future.
|
| Second, intelligence is often the most overstated component
| to success according to many studies on the topic.
| pseingatl wrote:
| A traffic case? De minimus non curat lex. If it was a
| murder case, they would correct the trooper's errors. It's
| easy to fix typographic errors in indictments.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's a non-traffic summary offense. These are more than
| typographical errors (did you read the above?). Willful
| concealment of exculpatory evidence (his lie to cover his
| mistakes) is a civil rights violation, depriving the
| accused of a fair trial as prescribed under Brady vs
| Maryland. This is not de minimus as it should fit the
| definition of official oppression or malicious
| prosecution, much greater issues than the summary offense
| citation. So if you give a free pass on misdemeanor
| offenses of the trooper as de minimus, then surely the
| summary offense should be dismissed?
|
| Not to mention that it does not matter what the severity
| of the offense is. The same protections of the law and
| adherence to rule of law is necessary at all levels to
| ensure the integrity of the system and the protection of
| the people's rights. If you contend that a traffic
| violation doesn't merit the same attention and
| protections by the system, then I would contend that the
| traffic violation would be a de minimus infraction and
| doesn't merit any attention at all - better a legitimate
| outcome that some half-ass fuckery that violates the
| rights of the citizenry.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Judging from the outside is always easy.
| triceratops wrote:
| Prime r/madlads material.
| nojokes wrote:
| You were not wrong
| https://www.reddit.com/r/madlads/comments/jjtrto/woman_alleg...
| supernova87a wrote:
| I guess this brings up and interesting issue -- once someone
| knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very few
| barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is legit.
|
| There was a story in WSJ like last week about how the Japanese
| red stamp / seal still survives and is a barrier to them adopting
| new technology for practical every day speeding up of tasks. And
| keeps things like faxes around unnecessarily.
|
| Yet sometimes, these old checks are there to prevent maybe the
| worst case of bugs getting into the system. Maybe?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| One could argue the internal barriers are unnecessary if "trust
| but verify" works. In this case, it worked; she was able to
| play the system until verification identified something was
| wrong, and now she gets to go to jail over it.
|
| (Technical systems often need more stringent protections
| because "screw around and go to jail" isn't a threat that, say,
| Facebook can bring to bear).
| causality0 wrote:
| How many times have people gotten away with something similar
| without every being discovered, though? It could be very
| many.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| There's no such thing as a perfect crime.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| "The secret of a great success for which you are at a
| loss to account is a crime that has never been found out,
| because it was properly executed."
|
| -- Balzac
|
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/09/fortune-crime/
| manicdee wrote:
| Plenty of "good enough" crimes though.
|
| No such thing as a perfect crime detection system either.
| causality0 wrote:
| Indeed. I think most people know of very many things they
| and their friends and family would've been ticketed or
| arrested for if an officer had been present and
| interested. Running red lights, speeding, media piracy,
| unreported income from side jobs, broken regulations,
| sharing prescription drugs, etc.
| NeutronStar wrote:
| How would you even know that a perfect crime was
| accomplished. Is it perfect if we know about it?
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| The mistake here is messing with the legal system itself.
| Lots of scams and schemes can fly under the radar, but as
| soon as you start committing fraud against _the court_ ,
| you're _done_.
|
| Just ask the con artists at Prenda Law how lying to federal
| judges went:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law
|
| https://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Unless you're sufficiently large. The RIAA, Tobacco
| industry, ExxonMobile, POTUS.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Did it really work, or was it due to a happenstance:
|
| _In November, Hillsborough County prosecutors became
| suspicious when they heard from a state forensic examiner,
| who had been scheduled to perform a competency evaluation on
| Landon.
|
| The examiner saw a notice in Landon's court file that
| prosecutors had dropped charges; the examiner wanted to know
| if the examination should go forward._
|
| How would it have been detected if there were no loose ends
| like this out there or anyone who cared enough about the case
| to prompt a double-check?
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| > Indictments allege Landon also filed an order falsifying
| a decision of retired Superior Court Judge Gillian Abramson
| to waive filing fees in a lawsuit she brought against
| Hillsborough County. And she allegedly filed an order on
| behalf of a relative to halt guardianship proceedings
| involving Landon's child.
|
| The loose ends aren't separable from her desired outcomes.
| They're integral. You can't "tie up the loose ends" while
| committing these acts of fraud.
|
| "Hold on, why'd this case drop off the docket", says the
| DA. "I didn't file this", says the lawyer. "My ruling is
| due next week", says the judge.
|
| Any one of those would be noticed and questions asked of
| the court clerk. And they all end in the same place.
| whynaut wrote:
| > How would it have been detected if there were no loose
| ends like this out there or anyone who cared enough about
| the case to prompt a double-check?
|
| > "Hold on, why'd this case drop off the docket", says
| the DA. "I didn't file this", says the lawyer. "My ruling
| is due next week", says the judge.
|
| That's someone caring enough. The loose ends are entirely
| separable when discussing hypotheticals.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| If her court date were the last day before a holiday
| weekend nobody would have asked any questions.
| duxup wrote:
| The Hacktober thing seemed to demonstrate this.
|
| I apparently was involved with some project on github, got
| flooded with emails with read me changes.
|
| It never ocured to me how available such things are.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Years ago I was working somewhere and instead of getting a
| supervisor to approve some minor thing we would just put in a
| supervisor id that was known to people. Eventually, we got
| caught because that person had quit working there a few years
| ago and someone saw her code being used to approve things.
| DanBC wrote:
| It's surprising when people casually admit to dishonest
| behaviour as if it's no big deal.
| rembicilious wrote:
| Maybe it's not a big deal, unless you value honesty above
| all else. I am not always honest, especially when it's
| obvious to me that the other party will only use my
| goodwill to their advantage. In the case of the parent, I
| can imagine many scenarios where it is difficult or
| untimely to get supervisor approval, but failure or delay
| in doing so results in the employee catching all the heat
| for it.
| pugworthy wrote:
| Fair point, but the parent.parent says this was to
| "approve some minor thing" The risk is that the "minor
| thing" isn't so minor, especially when the bypassing of
| the review process becomes routine.
|
| I suppose put it this way. Imagine a software developer
| slipped in smaller code changes and circumvented
| procedures like QA or code review because they though it
| was "just some minor thing" Would you find that OK?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Somehow I don't think a bunch of retail employees
| processing returns without the manager's approval is
| gonna be a big deal. The manager will see the returns
| regardless of whether they approve them on an individual
| basis.
| pugworthy wrote:
| Unfortunately the parent up there never mentioned the
| type of job or any other context to help us understand if
| dishonesty could be an issue in their actions. In my code
| example, definitely an issue. In DanBC's comment below
| RE: regulated professionals? Definitely an issue.
|
| We all know there are bad or stupid rules out there. But
| honesty's not a rule, it's more of a moral principle.
| Gray areas for sure, but when dishonesty becomes a habit,
| or makes one lose trust, or actually breaks a rule meant
| to prevent an issue, it's a problem.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Where I work, making code changes after an approved
| review is pretty normal. Particularly because we aren't
| all awake at the same time (different time zones). It's
| quite common to see "feel free to merge after fixing."
| Otherwise it would take days to merge something.
| DanBC wrote:
| > unless you value honesty above all else.
|
| .
|
| > I am not always honest,
|
| I work with regulated professionals. Honesty is a big
| deal. Dishonesty is seen as a fundamental personal flaw.
| Healthcare professionals who've been dishonest struggle
| to show remediation.
|
| It's really weird to me that I need to explain that
| _forging someone else 's name on documents is a bad
| idea_.
| tomp wrote:
| What is the probability that everyone you work with is
| 100% honest, vs them figuring out how to be dishonest (in
| a "for the grater good" kind of way, as the comment you
| originally commented on) without you (or anybody else)
| noticing?
| pseingatl wrote:
| Good point--judicial orders contain no security features and
| are printed on ordinary paper. They long ago did away with the
| embossed seals, so now copying these are trivial and normally
| not needed unless a certified copy of the order is required.
| The article shows surprise at the defendant's cleverness in
| filing electronically. Not so--in many jurisdictions,
| electronic filing is mandatory. Pleadings filed by parties have
| no security features either. In some countries, pleadings have
| to be filed using special paper that is taxed. The paper has
| security features and the tax feature is a way both to obtain
| revenue and discourage prolixity. Now imagine that in the 3141
| counties in the US, each with different protocols, it's a
| wonder this isn't more frequent. Oh and each of those counties
| has its own system for counting votes. Good luck, USA.
| rsync wrote:
| "I guess this brings up and interesting issue -- once someone
| knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very
| few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is
| legit."
|
| This was a regular narrative from the days of phone phreaking
| and toll fraud, etc.
|
| Just speaking the correct lingo of a lineman or an operator or
| a toll office supervisor could allow one to navigate through
| all the depths of the telephone system. Not just to receive
| services without charge, but to actually build and teardown
| circuits, set up test numbers (ANACs), conference calls, etc.
|
| It's incredible to think that a few lines of Twiml, or a Twilio
| function, can create something like an ANAC which was a rare,
| valuable, and jealously guarded secret 30 years ago ...
| [deleted]
| whack wrote:
| _> once someone knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes
| there are very few barriers internally to check that an order
| /paperwork is legit._
|
| It sounds to me like they are using security-by-obscurity, as
| well as easily forgeable proofs such as "signatures" or drivers
| licenses (they're only as secure as your ability to spot a
| forgery). Hence why anyone who is knowledgable and determined
| enough, can easily crack the system.
|
| If you want to prevent such problems, you could either go
| really old-school. Require the person filing documents to show
| up in person, and be personally identified and recognized by
| someone in-house. Or go really new-school and only accept
| biometrics or digital paperwork that has been filed using a
| secure account accessible only by that person.
|
| Using an in-between approach, like a signed paperwork that has
| been given to you by someone you don't recognize, is the worst
| possible solution.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The usual way to fix these sorts of things is to ensure there
| are multiple independent barriers to fraud. 2 factor
| authorization is an example. Double entry bookkeeping is
| another. Independent audits is another. Separate checks for
| unusual activity is another.
| tomrod wrote:
| System resilliance is valuable. But ossified systems are
| resilient, simply inert.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I don't know too much about the red seal system, but it doesn't
| strike me as something that would be very difficult to forge. I
| model Japanese workers as being pretty meticulous, but it
| strains credulity to believe they are carefully authenticating
| such stamps. (How would you even?) I suspect that system is
| vulnerable to a similar attack to this one, it's just that the
| risks outweigh the benefits.
|
| Which also goes for the situation we're discussing. I've never
| heard of an attack like this and I doubt it is frequently
| attempted or succeeds.
| ilamont wrote:
| I lived in Taiwan in the 1990s when the "chop" (Yin Zhang ) was
| still alive and well for individuals and institutions. I
| remember a bank fraud that revolved around a bank employee
| using a bar of soap to make a copy of the bank's seal to
| authorize transactions or transfers and used the money for
| stock market investments which he or she then intended to pay
| back. IIRC it came to light when the 1997 Asian financial
| crisis hit.
| wtn wrote:
| The government of Japan is rapidly abolishing the hanko.
|
| http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13789927
| bavila wrote:
| > I guess this brings up and interesting issue -- once someone
| knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very
| few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is
| legit.
|
| I used to work as a criminal defense attorney, and the job
| regularly required that I obtain subpoenas from the court in
| order to mandate a witness's appearance at court. My state
| courts have a template that subpoenas must follow, wherein you
| would include the case number, attorney name, witness name, and
| other basic details.
|
| Once the template is completed, you take the original along
| with a certain number of copies to the court clerk for filing.
| All the clerks would do is make sure that the case number on
| the subpoena corresponds to a case that actually exists in the
| system, and that the names of the plaintiff(s)/defendant(s) are
| accurate.
|
| The clerks never asked me any questions about my role in the
| case (e.g., whether I was a party to the case, an attorney, or
| a staff member of the law firm representing a party), nor did
| they ever ask me to provide any sort of identification. I just
| give the clerk the papers, they look at the papers, they stamp
| the original and copies, and then they return the copies to me
| (which are to be served on the witness and/or opposing
| counsel).
|
| I don't think there's a ton of value someone could get out of
| obtaining a fake subpoena (other than perhaps issuing your own
| self a subpoena as an excuse to get out of work, or maybe just
| to screw with someone), but it was always pretty astonishing to
| me that anyone off the street can just dump some papers in
| front of a court clerk and receive a legal order mandating
| someone's appearance in court--no questions asked.
| m463 wrote:
| Just wear a hardhat and carry a clipboard.
| mynameismonkey wrote:
| I used to participate in a city-wide water pistol
| assassination tournament. Skipped the hard hat, got white
| coveralls from Home Depot, pinned my work id to it, carried a
| clipboard. Got in everywhere I needed to be, including a
| heliport and a private boat dock. I forget where I read it,
| but the phrase "just act like you're supposed to be there"
| has stuck with me a long time, and paid dividends.
| polytely wrote:
| Wow that sounds like a ton of fun, could you go into more
| detail about how that worked?
| [deleted]
| nullsense wrote:
| >I used to participate in a city-wide water pistol
| assassination tournament
|
| TIL that that's a thing!
| clairity wrote:
| as a teenager, i remember marveling at a friend who could
| successfully walk into bars and order drinks. you have to
| both look the part and play the part (i could do neither).
|
| even at places that carded, they wanted to serve you, so
| the ID had to only provide enough plausible deniability to
| the bouncer or bartender to credibly claim they were duped
| into serving you. i'm sure some bartenders secretly got a
| kick out of the cat and mouse game.
| asdff wrote:
| In college there was a beer delivery service that would
| even deliver directly to the dorm if you gave that as
| your address. If you paid with your debit card over the
| phone, they wouldn't even card you since the beer was
| already bought and paid for.
|
| One time they did check, and my friend lied and said he
| didn't have his ID with him. Then the delivery guy who
| was probably only a couple years older than us just asked
| to see his actual underage ID to prove he wasn't a cop
| and handed us the beer anyway.
| autarch wrote:
| > Then the delivery guy who was probably only a couple
| years older than us just asked to see his actual underage
| ID to prove he wasn't a cop and handed us the beer
| anyway.
|
| The liquor enforcement folks (usually not cops, AFAIK)
| could easily hire someone under 21 to attempt to purchase
| alcohol. In fact, I'm pretty sure that in some places
| they do exactly this.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Yeah, that seems like ensuring you get convicted if the
| guy was a cop. At least without checking his underage id
| you could claim you believed him.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| They just want to fine the business. Arresting delivery
| drivers for not giving a crap about underage drinking is
| how you create libertarians and that's the last thing the
| local police department wants.
| SolarNet wrote:
| They do actually do this. County sherrif mass emails the
| county employees if they have any teenage children who
| wanna ride in a police car for a week once a year as the
| pitch.
| abeppu wrote:
| What city was this in? Is it in a place where other people
| have real guns? Is it in a place where the cops have guns?
|
| I both want to play and suspect that it would go really
| really badly.
| fuzxi wrote:
| For the most part, water pistols look nothing like
| firearms. I very much doubt that you'd be in danger of
| being treated as an armed threat when holding a
| transparent, green, plastic gun that's leaking water.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| If someone already suspects you have a firearm they don't
| need evidence... they need an excuse. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin
| centimeter wrote:
| Trayvon Martin assaulted Zimmerman before Zimmerman shot
| him. This event is not germane to the discussion. No one
| thought Martin had a gun.
| [deleted]
| sam_bristow wrote:
| * assuming you're white
| NeutronStar wrote:
| Just don't paint the water pistol black you fool.
| JackFr wrote:
| In NYC its a crime to brandish a toy gun that looks like
| a real one. That's why all the water pistols are
| florescent green and orange. It's also a crime to paint a
| real gun to look like a toy.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Being illegal in NYC is like being known to the state of
| California for causing birth defects and other
| reproductive harm. It doesn't actually tell you anything
| about the matter in question.
| eli wrote:
| People have been shot for less
| munificent wrote:
| This is in that category of activities that I assume no
| longer exists in a post 9/11 America.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Yes, getting very large tanks of medical grade nitrous
| oxide for parties worked like that, for me.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Brother in law put himself through college working as a
| plumber at night. Said after that he could go and wasn't
| afraid to go anywhere.
| space_ghost wrote:
| Can confirm that this works in more places than you'd hope.
| [deleted]
| criddell wrote:
| You might like this story:
|
| https://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2006/0.
| ..
| rightbyte wrote:
| A manual sanity check is ofent nice. Also it makes it easy to
| override stupid bugs.
| fatboy wrote:
| archive link:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20201028172931/https://www.union...
| Maha-pudma wrote:
| Thanks. Can't believe sites still do the 'we're unable to show
| you a page because ... GDPR'.
| seanwilson wrote:
| I love the ones that show a big notice like "Your country is
| very important to us....you're blocked".
| danellis wrote:
| Thanks. I'm visiting the UK, and I'm astonished at how many
| sites are blocked.
| cannam wrote:
| They're not blocked, they're blocking themselves.
| noir_lord wrote:
| Yep, so far "We can't serve you for legal reasons AKA we
| won't comply with the reasonable provisions of data
| protection" has been met with a broad _shrug_.
| OwlsParlay wrote:
| For US-based news sites they might well only get a few
| European visitors. I only ever get this problem for
| trending stories like this.
| viraptor wrote:
| If a US site does not have any presence in the EU and is
| not selling anything to the EU visitors, why would they
| even bother adding the blocking? They can... do nothing
| instead. (Or disable buying subscription to the EU)
| solarkraft wrote:
| Fear that it'll haunt them should they ever enter the EU,
| probably.
| eli wrote:
| What's anyone supposed to do about it? GDPR didn't
| exactly provide funding to help anyone get compliant and
| it's hard to argue that GDPR compliance is a priority for
| a struggling local media site. It's a bummer, but I think
| it was inevitable in the way the law is structured.
| jowsie wrote:
| Doesn't take much money or effort to just not sell my
| data.
| WayToDoor wrote:
| Mirror for people in Europe (451: Unavailable due to legal
| reasons).
|
| https://outline.com/3jtrdR
|
| Side note : why are some sites still not GDPR complient ?
| Fnoord wrote:
| Here one which does not require JS [1]
|
| [1] https://archive.is/YR1YO
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| Genius!
| roywiggins wrote:
| People have pulled the same trick to get themselves released from
| jail.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/florida-killers-arent-fir...
| interestica wrote:
| Not that far off from the scene in Idiocracy.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| amusingly enough, coming from the EU the site told me: "451:
| Unavailable due to legal reasons"
| fauria wrote:
| The Four Internets... https://stratechery.com/2020/india-jio-
| and-the-four-internet...
| pornel wrote:
| Good to know that their business model is illegal in 27
| countries.
| eli wrote:
| GDPR requires far more than a compatible business model.
|
| In practice, you need a consultant and maybe a lawyer to help
| with the paperwork and that's assuming all the processes are
| basically in compliance.
| quercusa wrote:
| 451 is a great status code, right up there with 418.
| jll29 wrote:
| 451 F = the temperature at which fire burns
| diab0lic wrote:
| It's the ignition temperature for paper. Fire burns at
| different temperatures depending on the fuel source, even
| paper will each a much hotter temperature after ignition.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| <pedant>
|
| It's an approximate and somewhat mythical value,
| popularised by Ray Bradbury's novel. Actual ignition
| point varies bu 100+ degF. Experience this past year with
| sourdough baking --- on parchment paper at 290degC
| (550degF) --- shows that though the paper browns, it does
| not combust. (Possibly affected by thermal mass /
| moisture of bread loaf.)
|
| https://slate.com/technology/2012/06/ray-bradbury-death-
| does...
|
| </pedant>
| Fnoord wrote:
| It is a reference to the book/movie Fahrenheit 451 [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(disambiguat
| ion...
| smabie wrote:
| Not better than 420. You could say that 420 is the highest of
| all status codes
| maxcbc wrote:
| My favourite part of GDPR is getting to use 451 legitimately
| everywhere.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I don't know. "Our site is so hostile to user privacy that
| it's illegal in some places" isn't exactly something I'd be
| proud of. Nor is, "We might be in violation of GDPR and we
| might not--we have no idea so we're going to just block
| you."
| ben_w wrote:
| > Nor is, "We might be in violation of GDPR and we might
| not--we have no idea so we're going to just block you."
|
| It's not something to be proud of, but it is something I
| am sympathetic about. Modern laws (not just GDPR) are
| long and the language is often hard to understand.
|
| I believe that laws must be simple enough to comprehend,
| or else they will not be comprehended and thus will be
| violated even by people who want to follow them -- the
| phrase would be better if it was "ignorance of the law
| cannot be an excuse", because that works both ways.
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| Even if you never actually did anything wrong,
| demonstrating compliance with GDPR delays releases and
| adds costs that never end.
| ben_w wrote:
| It's a Carol business decision that letting Alices & Bobs
| view content for free isn't cost effective if Carol isn't
| allowed to track Alice and Bob without their permission and
| make money by letting Eve, who is unknown Alice and Bob, to
| build up a detailed profile of Alice and Bob.
|
| Project Guttenberg in Germany (and The Pirate Bay in the
| USA, I think) would be 451.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Why is Project Gutenberg illegal in Germany?
| ben_w wrote:
| Court order regarding blocking specific books, the
| project itself isn't a problem:
| https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html
| OJFord wrote:
| I'm not sure it is really though is it?
|
| It's legitimate in the same way that '451: we want to load
| up our site with so much javascript your computer catches
| fire and burns your house down, but that's illegal in your
| jurisdiction so this site is Unavailable for Legal Reasons'
| is.
|
| To me 451 is like 404 (nothing here) and 410 (was something
| here but now there isn't) - it's a further
| progression/specificity to 'was/sort of is something here
| but it's not presently available for legal reasons'.
|
| Common obvious one is DMCA takedown notices, but it might
| also be an injunction, or even accidentally published while
| still under embargo - or deliberately to prime SEO (not
| advice) - or NDA, etc.
| nabilhat wrote:
| It's just bulk distributed townnews dot com generated content.
| Search the name "Lisa Landon" to find the verbatim story in
| dozens of tabloid rags. Some of them are east of the Atlantic.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Interestingly, I get this from my US corporate VPN as well
| tzs wrote:
| Even if any tracking your site does already fully complies with
| GDPR as does your handling of personal data, it still takes
| some effort and costs some money if GDPR actually applies to
| your site.
|
| If you are not in Europe, the main thing that determines
| whether or not GDPR applies to your site is Article 3 of the
| GDPR, "Territorial Scope", and the corresponding Recitals.
|
| A big factor there is whether you are offering goods or
| services in the Union, irrespective of whether or not users
| have to pay. Mere accessibility from the Union isn't enough to
| show you are offering things in the Union. What matters is
| whether or not the site "envisages offering services to data
| subjects in one or more Member States in the Union".
|
| There are several things that can show you _are_ envisaging
| offering in the Union. Having localized versions of your site
| in languages that are used in the Union but not in your own
| country, accepting payment in Euros or the national currencies
| of Union members, targeting Europeans with ads for your site,
| and many others.
|
| If you aren't doing those things, it gets more subjective. If
| your site should be of no interest to Europeans, and you don't
| expect to make any money from whatever Europeans happen to
| somehow end up on it, it is simplest to do a geoip block on
| Europe. That should conclusively establish that you do _not_
| envisage offering services to people in the Union.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It's not only offering goods and services but also
| "monitoring of behaviour" so analytics and tracking, which,
| strictly speaking, makes the GDPR applicable to most websites
| on this planet.
|
| In practice, if you don't have high visibility (i.e are small
| enough, which probably means 90% of websites) and don't have
| any presence in the EU then just ignore GDPR because no-one
| is going to go after a website on another continent because
| it tracks visitors and sometimes people from the EU visit it.
| jedberg wrote:
| For local news organizations who don't get any revenue from
| foreign viewers, it's much cheaper (and more profitable) to
| just block Europeans than to try and comply with GDPR.
| guitarbill wrote:
| this isn't correct, and i wish it would stop being repeated
| on HN. if you don't target/do business with Europeans
| specifically, there is nothing to comply with. what
| jurisdiction does Europe have?
|
| however, a lot of "small", local news organisations are
| actually owned by huge (multi-national) corporations. they
| might work hard to preserve that small appearance, but do
| have a reason to fear the GDPR.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| GDPR also apply to websites that process personal data to
| "monitor behaviour" irrespective of whether they target or
| do business with EU residents as long as the person being
| monitored is within the EU. So your claim is also
| incorrect...
| jedberg wrote:
| > if you don't target/do business with Europeans
| specifically, there is nothing to comply with. what
| jurisdiction does Europe have?
|
| Because as you said yourself, they're part of a large
| organization that DOES do business with Europe, but that
| part of the business doesn't get any money from Europe, so
| there is no reason for that part of the business to go to
| the effort of complying.
| guitarbill wrote:
| sure, if they do business with Europe, they should be
| complying with the laws. i don't think that's
| controversial.
|
| you said "local news organizations", and i was simply
| pointing out if that is what they truly were, they
| wouldn't have to comply. so i think we agree?
| eli wrote:
| What does "doing business" mean here? I've read Recital
| 23 and at best it is vague and seems up to the discretion
| of the various member states.
|
| It would be a great service to everyone if the EU could
| clarify which type of sites do not have to comply.
| Otherwise, you can hardly blame organizations that it
| would be cheaper to block EU traffic than even just to
| pay a lawyer to try to figure out of GDPR is applicable.
| jedberg wrote:
| Even for a truly local news org, it might make more sense
| to just block Europeans then allow them, because Article
| 3(2) of the GDPR, which gives the EU extraterritorial
| powers to prosecute.
|
| While it's never been tested, there is a good chance the
| USA would cooperate with an extraterritorial prosecution,
| and so it's easier to just avoid it altogether by
| blocking Europeans.
| gpvos wrote:
| They might use an ad network that automatically provides
| geo-targeted ads to Europeans. I'm not sure if that would
| qualify at targeting/doing business with Europeans under
| the GDPR, but it wouldn't surprise me.
| geocar wrote:
| The GDPR does not prohibit showing an ad to someone on
| the sole basis that they live in a particular country.
| parliament32 wrote:
| Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
| madsbuch wrote:
| Well, if the prices are
|
| 1. the legal tools to make Spotify not lockin ones personal
| content and 2. Read some random article on the internet where
| the publisher actively does not want to protect the readers
| privacy
|
| then I think I know what price I want.
| garmaine wrote:
| I really don't. You're telling me some music app is more
| important than being able to access local news from other
| regions?
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| A vpn is always an option, and it's commoditized enough.
| Eventually all regions that pretend to care about their
| citizens freedom should adopt a GDPR like law.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Eventually all regions that pretend to care about their
| citizens freedom should adopt a GDPR like law.
|
| But unless they all adopt the same one, the requirements
| will all be different, which means they'd each have
| independent compliance costs, which means local news
| providers like this will still block everybody outside of
| their own jurisdiction so that they only have to pay one
| set of compliance costs instead of sixteen or a hundred.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| There are lots of regulations governing all the stuff you
| use and consume. They are different between regions but
| often regions band together and synchronize their
| regulations.
|
| It's really not a big deal and yes if the tradeoff is
| that forcing the web monopolies into consumer friendly
| behaviour means that some tiny services are region
| limited (in name, not necessarily in practice due to
| vpns) then it's a net good.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > They are different between regions but often regions
| band together and synchronize their regulations.
|
| This is, as a general rule, _catastrophically_ worse.
| Because then the only parties with input into the rules
| are the largest organizations who can successfully lobby
| an inter-governmental body and they (unintentionally or
| on purpose) promote rules that work for the largest
| organizations and annihilate smaller ones.
|
| It also tends to make the rules much more complicated,
| because each of the individual jurisdictions have their
| pet issues they want to graft onto the unified system, so
| now instead of having some obscure and poorly conceived
| rule only applying in Russia or Egypt, it ends up on page
| 641 of the unified rules.
| parliament32 wrote:
| Exactly. Attempting to regulate the internet will always
| end in failure, as we've seen again and again. The EU's
| initiatives are very noble but I think: as they try to
| keep enforcing their laws and fines, they're just going
| to end up with less content being available to people in
| their jurisdiction. You thought copyright region-
| restrictions were bad.. just wait until Spotify refuses
| to serve your continent because compliance is costing
| more than the profits you generate.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| If spotify stops taking my money I and millions others
| will go buy music somewhere else. Spotify is not exactly
| popular with non-superstar musicians either.
| jedberg wrote:
| > where the publisher actively does not want to protect the
| readers privacy
|
| You don't know that. They may take privacy very seriously,
| but don't see any point in risking possible GDPR issues,
| especially if they get no income from people in Europe.
| [deleted]
| think814 wrote:
| GDPR FTW
| [deleted]
| mshumi wrote:
| One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and
| impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some
| perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis) who in 1924 stole
| ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders.
| The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in
| maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portugal and
| eliminated the paper trail.
| hobbes78 wrote:
| There's a TV series watchable on-line about him. Only in
| Portuguese, though...
|
| https://arquivos.rtp.pt/programas/alves-dos-reis/
| airstrike wrote:
| Obrigado!
| doublekill wrote:
| Having someone else do your prison time was fairly common. Now
| with more cooperation between organizations and improved
| biometrics it has dropped.
|
| Different people would be arrested, show up to court, or enter
| the prison. Impossible for organizations downstream to detect
| or assume a switch had happened.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| This seems similar to the Catholic concept of buying
| indulgences as a carbon offset type concept against sins. Pay
| to play
| drpgq wrote:
| Jeez I'm wondering what the going price would be for that
| today.
| warent wrote:
| Probably more of a price in terms of favors and
| relationships than money. e.g. If a mob could somehow bust
| you out then you belong to them for some percent of the
| prison time. Just a guess though.
| kbenson wrote:
| I've seen reports that it's somewhat common for the rich in
| China[1], so there might be some info on what it costs
| there, and maybe some extrapolation could be made. Either
| the "serve prison in lieu of me" or "say you were the one
| that committed the crime" version. There are weird perverse
| incentives at play in some of the criminal justice system
| in China.[2]
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339051
|
| 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10173395 (warning,
| the linked article describes very disturbing behavior)
| WalterBright wrote:
| Positively identifying people was very difficult before
| fingerprinting came along. The police used all kinds of
| schemes of erratic accuracy.
| [deleted]
| lqet wrote:
| Here in Germany we had a few cases where persons worked as
| hospital doctors for a few years without a license or diploma
| or even any medical training. They usually submitted a fake
| license to the hospital. There was a spectacular case in the
| 1990s where a former postal employee named himself "Dr. med.
| Dr. phil. Clemens Bartholdy" and worked as head of department
| in a psychiatric hospital for years. In another case, a former
| barber worked for 20 years as a doctor, eventually becoming
| chief physician in a children's hospital [0].
|
| Back in the 2000s there was a case of a medical student who
| failed her final exams 3 times, and instead of leaving
| university as she had to, she just continued her studies
| without the possibility to take any exams. After a few years,
| she printed a fake license and a fake diploma and secured a job
| as an assistance doctor in the children's hospital of the
| Hamburg University Hospital, eventually becoming a respected
| colleague (she was, after all, actually trained to be a
| doctor). After a few years, she failed to hand in the original
| license and her fraud came to light [1].
|
| Last year, a fake anesthesiologist was uncovered in Fritzlar.
| She had no training at all and had handed in a fake diploma to
| get the job [2]. No one noticed until last year, at which time
| she had already killed 4 people.
|
| Given that there are several such cases each year, change are
| very high that there are still some fake doctors in employment
| here.
|
| We also had the famous _Captain of Kopenick_ , an ex-convict
| who in 1906 put on a uniform, rounded up a few soldiers,
| occupied a city hall in Berlin, arrested several employees and
| confiscated 4000 marks [3].
|
| [0] https://www.aerztezeitung.de/Panorama/Hochstapler-im-
| weissen...
|
| [1] https://www.welt.de/welt_print/article1142757/Falsche-
| Kinder...
|
| [2] https://www.fr.de/hessen/hessen-drei-falsche-aerzte-einem-
| ja...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Voigt
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Wow, now that's an odd thing to see on HN: Non-tech local news
| from the small town you grew up in. And an article in the "Union
| Liar" no less! One of only a dozen times on HN.
| aksss wrote:
| Good effort. I wonder if she would have been able to ascertain
| whether the evaluation was scheduled and in doing it over could
| have covered that base proactively, or if there was no way of her
| knowing about that angle (even in doing it over again, no way she
| could have known about that in order to address it). In other
| words, was this defeated because of an oversight on her part, or
| was this an unknown unknown for her.
| pseingatl wrote:
| She could forge a letter from the prosecutor saying that there
| was no need for an exam because the case was nolle prossed. The
| problem is when the forensic examiner sends in a bill, unless
| they are on a retainer and don't have to submit timesheets.
|
| One issue not addressed is scale. Law doesn't scale. A
| prosecutor with more than 500 cases will have difficulty
| staying on top of them all; if you had to deal with Google or
| Twitter numbers (tens or hundreds of thousands) you wouldn't
| notice if a case disappeared off your docket.
| pwinnski wrote:
| It's amusing that the reason this was caught was a human picked
| up the phone and said, hey, is this right?
|
| She would have gotten away it, too, if it weren't for that
| meddling forensic examiner!
| unimpossible wrote:
| With the improvements in speech recognition, NLP, speech
| generation, I wonder how long before we can quickly spin up a
| network of false personas simply to provide "witnesses" or verify
| false information, or even provide alibis.
| ada1981 wrote:
| A competent hacker could deep fake zoom hearings and
| communications and have the actual prosecution dismissing the
| case on video.
| totalZero wrote:
| This depends on the actual prosecutor never attempting to
| participate in the case. Plus, I imagine that the penalty for
| getting caught defrauding a court is pretty steep.
| ada1981 wrote:
| So maybe you submit motion to dismiss request for a number
| of random cases. You become hidden among the others.
| lolc wrote:
| Difficult tradeoff because that multiplies the chances of
| detection.
| racl101 wrote:
| When you kobayashi maru the legal system.
| snazz wrote:
| I gotta try that in my next interview....
|
| For those of you who missed it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Salesman
| sabujp wrote:
| this is the most hilarious thing i've seen on HN and your
| comment made me roflmao more
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