Funny how Bitcoin ATM installations get all that hype, but their later flops and removals get much less attention.
They’ve got to be so desperate for good news in the Bitcoin community. Imagine being one of those suckers who bought in at $1000 or even $800, only to get hit with the steady drumbeat of Bitcoin criminality and government attacks.
And don’t forget: Bitcoin mining is getting harder all the time. As time goes on, mining is going to get so hard that the pool will thin, making it easier for a well-off team to take over 51% of the network and hijack the whole thing. If that hasn’t already happened yet. Because if you had 51% of Bitcoin, wouldn’t you… hide some of your resources under an alias so as not to scare people off?
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Even as Bitcoin crime and deception continue, the government has decided that yup, Bitcoin investors have to pay taxes just like everyone else. The anarchists have deemed taxation to be “unacceptable”. I’m sure the IRS will take that as an answer, right guys? Pass the popcorn.
Even if the Obama administration’s data use is way up, the answer is not to abolish NSA, or start shutting down programs entirely. Marco Rubio is right that it would amount to unilateral disarmament. I wonder if he reads RedState!
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Imagine you have a neighbor, let’s call him Chet Glix. He comes over and offers a deal to you: When he’s out of town, you water his plants, feed his pet, mow his lawn, and get his mail. When you’re out of town, he’ll do the same for you. Sound fair? Not quite. He travels once a week, you travel once everyfew months. Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of unbalanced “peering” deal Netflix wants to force ISPs to make under the name of “Net Neutrality.” And that’s why we should reject Netflix calling fairness and paying for what you use a “tax”
What if we called Netflix’s fees an unfair tax and demanded they give us free movie peering in the name of Movie Neturality?
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Gotta love it when the left uncritically regurgitates Sprint’s misleading talking points when they’d be having a hysterical screaming fit in the event I did the same to support my views.
Sadly I was right in my predictions about Obama back when hef irst took office, and Marco Rubio was right. The Obama administration is handing over the Internet to the UN, a blow to liberty and a victory for dictators around the world. I’m sure Rand Paul’s on board, since he wouldn’t want to tweak any dictators or anything.
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Have some more SOPA. We still need to kill the bill and primary the offenders, after all. The bill by Lamar Smith (with strong support from Chris Dodd) is a real problem. Forbes says it relies on ignorance and fiction not facts, understanding, and reality. WordPress developers have come out against it, too.
Arguments continue over unlicensed spectrum. Look, I’m open to the argument that it’s useful, but if you really want it, legislate it. Don’t just give the runaway FCC the authority to do what it wants without Congress getting to say anything.
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I’m back. I ended up taking an extended Christmas break because well, I liked having a break, plus there wasn’t a whole lot going on anyway. But, back to work!
Lamar Smith and Chris Dodd still want to censor the Internet, by pushing the SOPA bill that we need to defeat. Why is it bad? Victims get no due process, ISPs have the burden of proof if government makes economically or technically unreasonable demands on them, and of course the largest reason of all is that it amounts to censoring the Internet without actually stopping foreign infringers of American copyrights.
Let’s make sure to watch the SOPA sponsor list. They must be primary targets this cycle if they don’t turn. I don’t care who they are. Marsha Blackburn is one of my favorite members, but Erick Erickson is right to call her out. This is a bad bill, a terrible bill.
Yes, the foreign leeches are annoying, but the problem is that SOPA doesn’t actually stop them. It attempts (poorly) to censor what Americans can see online. It doesn’t protect American property rights, but instead threatens them in an ostrich-like attempt to hide us from the rest of the world.
Activists are already at work. There’s also an alternative to SOPA that actually will work. The OPEN act promoted by Darrell Issa and Ron Wyden would use proven techniques for stopping foreign infringers; Apple uses it already against patent infringement. The ITC exists for a reason.
But, Chris Dodd’s MPAA and now the RIAA are demanding SOPA, not OPEN. They don’t care if the Internet is open; they think if they shut down the Internet in America that you’ll buy more CDs and DVDs. They want government to pick winners and losers, not just protect rights. OPEN protects rights. SOPA pits one industry against all others.
Kill the bill. Primary the offenders. For those of us thinking of focusing on races other than the Presidential race, that’d be a great project to work on.
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The free market of Internet access, driven by constantly improving technology and heightening competition, is a driver of job creation and economic growth. Even Julius Genachowski, Obama’s FCC Chairman, has to admit that. This is just one reason we fight FCC power grabs.
So when the government starts talking about new regulations in emerging fields such as “cloud computing”, just say no.
And when Steve Chabot makes silly comments about wireless competition without daring to take an actual stand on the issue of the day, just sigh and ignore him. It’s a simple question, Steve. Government action, or free market. Pick a side or hush.
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Welcome to the remarkably early Tech at Night tonight. When I have my initial preparation done by 6pm, I’m not going to stay up until midnight to do the actual writing. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.
We start with some mild bad news: the resolution disapproving of Net Neutrality has been delayed. Fred Upton is getting recognition for his active work challenging the Obama administration on its overreaches, and Greg Walden’s subcommittee seems to be following suit nicely, but we will have to wait on this one particular vote.
The Democrats are definitely worried, though. Apparently it’s a bad thing that the FCC’s ability to act ahead of the Congress. Haven’t these Democrats ever heard of actually passing legislation to deal with new challenges?
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Welcome to the fourth and final part of the series (See I, II, and III to get up to speed with what’s going on here).
Brief summary: Andrew McLaughlin is Deputy White House CTO, and has been reprimanded by the White House for inappropriate relations with his former employer, Google. Due to a Google Buzz security hole, wide-eyed observers at Big Government noticed that McLaughlin was still very cozy with Google through his Gmail account. This led to a FOIA request for those emails, and now I’m reading them from an InsideGoogle.com release.
On to Part III of that release.
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Via InsideGoogle.com I’ve come across the Andrew McLaughlin emails released via FOIA requests (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). I’d meant to make a 5 part series of my reading through them for signs that McLaughlin was inappropriately acting as an agent of Google from his job as White House CTO (which is an accusation that Darrell Issa is not letting drop quietly, internal slap on the write to McLaughlin or not, and is in fact expanding beyond McLaughlin). This will be a four part series this week though. We’re starting on Tuesday instead of Monday because life got in the way. Unlike some of my opposition, my advocacy on technical matters is not funded.
Anyway, let’s begin.
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