The title of the article is misleading. The issue here isn't about putting cameras on private property. As I understand it, the judge was saying that in a place that the police could have searched or could have themselves hidden and watched in person without a warrant they can also put a camera without a warrant. I'm as bothered as just about anybody about the erosion of 4th amendment protections, but this doesn't appear to me to be one of those.
This is not about someone's residence. It is about rules for searching "open fields."
This is an area that it is worth paying someone who knows and has done it several times before. There are brokers who do this for a living, and are good at it. The commission they charge is worth getting it right.
I have no idea about anything having to do with the Megaupload case, but private business influences the actions of government agencies all the time. It isn't as simple as a number you can call, or paying a bribe (which I think is rare in the US). It has more to do with relationships and influence, and yes, influence with a Congressman does play an important part in that mix. It isn't that easy to spot when legitimate influence (which all large lobby and business interests have) steps over the line and becomes corruption.
That is why I was wondering what would have been the signaling channel in this case. Obviously for FBI to put all this effort into it, they'd have to have some payoff (maybe publicity about how well they did the job was the payoff?). So at some point someone had to suggest this course of action and hint on the expected reward.
One way I can think is through Congress. There are revolving doors around many govt regulatory agencies and industries they regulate but I think a revolving door between FBI and Hollywood is a little harder to imagine.
EDIT: Just thought about it. Can someone donate to FBI? I found:
There is a gap between IM/chat and email and documents, specifically in regard to remote team collaboration. That was one of the strengths of Google Wave, except that Wave had a learning and familiarity threshold people weren't willing to climb over. There's a huge opportunity there for a startup that I haven't seen anybody really tackling yet.
You can't get away from the value of face to face meetings though. If it is possible, getting face to face occasionally is a huge benefit in strengthening relationships in a team. In the end, teams are about relationships. Remote teams work great, and I prefer them to co-located teams, but figuring out a way to meet in person on occasion is worth the effort.
Different people communicate well in different ways. There's a tendency to think there's a right way to do these things. There isn't. You have to have a way for people to chat with each other informally that works for the real people on a real team, and a work environment and culture that encourage it. Whether that can be done remotely or not, or whether it actually works better remotely, depends on the specific people and the relational chemistry of the team.
There are times when a company needs a "rock star," and there are times when that's the last person you want to hire. It takes all kinds, and there is work that is enjoyable for all kinds. If you aren't inclined to stuff that is currently considered cool, you won't get the cool jobs. If what you want is a rewarding and successful career, look for jobs that suit you, that you enjoy, that you are good at. Then build on that. There are a lot of people who have made very solid and successful careers out of stuff that some think is boring.
It is true that things are rarely as simple as we'd like to draw them. It is also true that the current system we have for political contributions breeds corruption, not just in one party or the other, but in our political system in general. Getting into power and staying there is expensive, and it is naive to think that the gifts come without strings. So lists like this are not conclusive evidence of anything other than the raw numbers, but saying you can't draw any useful conclusions is also misleading.
Thanks for taking the time to give that input. It's a valid point about how well we're communicating on the site. My blog post completely aside, I am still genuinely interested in the question I asked in the HN post.
As long as we have a sue-happy society, companies will use privacy policies to limit liability. That means they will continue to be documents with more text than most of us are likely to read. Icons and diagrams won't work without the text behind them. However, I do agree that just because a document has legal significance does not mean it needs to be full of legalese. We tried to keep our privacy policy as short and light as possible and write it in plain language. http://nodeping.com/PrivacyPolicy
Some people say the U.S. has a sue-happy society. Others say that we don't; that the whole sue-happy idea is an invention of large companies that want tort reform.
Yesterday I observed that companies still sell products in that hard-to-open plastic packaging that has injured a lot of people. That this packaging is still common indicates to me that we do not in fact live in a sue-happy society.
There's probably still need of a legalese document behind, but we are working on cutting that part too :P
Even with the need of having a strictly law-compliant page, having a first page which is simple and readable at a glance is always a good idea.
Consider that we are seriously working on bringing that model to the mass (read end of the article :) )
Thanks! That's a very good question, and the honest answer is because we're geeks and design is much harder work for us than building functionality. I guess that's another argument in favor of something like iubenda.com is doing.
I'd agree that a balancing proxy is more appropriate for HA. The post mentions that this is specifically not intended as a high availability solution. It's a fairly narrow use.
This is not about someone's residence. It is about rules for searching "open fields."