LUX.ET.UMBRA

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Apparently, the online tax for North Carolina hasn’t been bringing in the money that it was supposed to and the thinktank, Tax Foundation, has published a report that says that not only does it hurt the state in the short term, but it also hurts the state in the long term too.

Noooo kidddding.

Amusingly, this is basically the “I told you so” parts where the legislation made decisions on things they knew nothing about and spent budget money that they didn’t have. Again. Nothing new here, folks. Politicians that don’t understand technology and business? Like we’ve never heard that one before.

Interestingly enough, although to no avail, I had spoken about this issue time and again during the time when the “Amazon Tax” during the time period when it was passed and how our legislation thought how wonder it would be to gain some figure in the sky millions in some sort of pot of gold wish.

I mean, seriously. They still continued to budget and spend for this year as if there is this money coming in although there is nary a word from the North Carolina Department of Revenue on whether or not there actually is significant tax revenues coming in due to this tax. I suspect that there is little to nothing, considering they had targeted Amazon, and Amazon cut their ties with North Carolina affiliates and hurt the state in the process. Amusingly, the bad guy that Amazon was made out to be wasn’t so bad and in the end the politicians seemed to have stuck their own foots in their mouth if this study from Tax Foundation has anything to say about it.

From my perspective? Well, one of my businesses just didn’t carry as much revenue this year. Instead of having to pay taxes on the income, it seemed that it was more of a write off this last year. Oh well. Tough cookies for the North Carolina bare coffers.

Tags: Amazon, Law, Local, Observation, Opinion, Politics by darkmoon
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Sometimes I wonder if judges know exactly what they’re doing when they bring down the heavy hand of the law.

In this case, a bank had “mistakenly” attached a spreadsheet that had a lot of personal data in it. Now, if anything, that bank should be in big trouble. You don’t store personal data in spreadsheets if anyone from security knows anything, and recalling an email? What the heck. When an email goes out, it’s GONE.

So Google refuses to give up the account name due to privacy laws, so the judge orders the account to be deactivated. So my question is…. if I happen to email that judge by mistake, my social security number… does that mean that by precedence, he has to have his email deactivated too?

I mean, that’s the judgment that was passed down, but it doesn’t make any sense from a technological standpoint. There are processes and procedures dealing with IT rulings and when this happens, the corporation that messed up is the one that should be fined, not the person that got sent the information. Amusingly enough it reminds me of a local story about a medical facility that is being investigated for leaving medical records on the side of the road. They claim it was a third party service, but they won’t name the service. And go figure that privacy law is what’s also driving this local story and they’re the ones in trouble.

Tags: Email, Internet, Law, Observation, Opinion by darkmoon
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I really don’t understand North Carolina state. At all.

The entire legislation is made up of some people that have no idea about technology or how it works. The fact that the final tax bill going to the floor has the “Amazon tax” tells me that not a single one of the incumbents that have pushed this or voted this in is either in the twenty first century, nor know a thing about business law. Mainly, the idea that affiliates are the physical presence for a major online retailer is so ludicrous that it’s laughable by anyone that has done consulting work. I’ll give you an example in the consultation analogy:

According to North Carolina state legislation, if I am an out-of-state corporation, but I have sub-contractors that I have agreements to do work with me, then I am to be taxed as if I operated my business in North Carolina.

Sound good to you? Well, that’s the same agreement that affiliates have with any sort of online retailer that pays them to sell advertisement. I also will be curious as far as when others such as the newspapers (News & Record, Business Journal), magazines, online radio stations, and so on feel this bite since I have heard nary a word from them even though they will technically be hurt by this. I’m surprised that actually no one has even thrown a red flag out there. Oh well, time to bite the bullet with stupid taxing that won’t bring in any money.

Here’s why it’s a stupid idea and totally the wrong way to go about taxing Internet purchases. If you want to chase Internet purchasing taxation, you’ll have to do some sort of an agreement through a payment service. Going after affiliates just allows the retailer to continue with their business and cut their ties to the affiliates (aka small business that do pay local taxes). What you miss out on is all of the taxation that the small businesses were putting into your coffers, and on top of it, you’re not making anything from the online retailer(s). This is expected to $150 million in the next two years?

Who the hell are they joking? With the way it’s written and the ties cut from affiliates, the State will be in the hole more than $150 million. Mainly with all the retailers refusing to pay and cutting their ties, and indirectly jeopardizing any real tax money that would have come into play. I can tell you that one of my businesses will be hurt by this and unfortunately for the state, unless something changes this company will probably be in the red instead of black this year and thus won’t be giving up anything to state coffers. Sucks to be you, eh?

If you want to tax internet retail, you have to move from smaller battles to the bigger picture. But if you can’t understand how to walk, I’m not exactly sure when you’ll achieve dreams of running a marathon.

Tags: Amazon, Business, Internet, Law, Local, Observation, Opinion, Politics by darkmoon
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I’m not sure where you people learn to drive, but sometimes I hope that your license gets revoked before you hurt someone.

When the light is green, you have to YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS.

When it is red you have to YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS.

Even when it is yellow, you still have to YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS.

This rule doesn’t change if you’re turning right either and am in a hurry. Pedestrians have right-of-way at a cross walk. All the time. Don’t believe me?

NCDOT rules state:

In North Carolina pedestrians have the right of way at all intersections and driveways but must yield to motorists when crossing at any place other than a marked crosswalk.

Go figure. A human body can’t take on half ton of fiberglass? How did anyone ever figure that out. So, quit driving like absolute frackin’ idiots because even as an accident, if someone gets hurt or killed, your life as you know it will either end up in a very big legal proceeding or worse, prison. And who would want that?

Tags: Law, Life, Local, Observation, Opinion by darkmoon
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I don’t know what the North Carolina Legislation is doing, but I can tell you that they’ll be hurting small businesses.

Crazy? Not at all. In fact, this morning I had to re-read my email twice and make sure that the email didn’t come from some hoax source trying to just get to respond with my email so they could sell me Cialis or Viagra or something.

This morning, I received an email from Amazon that said:

We regret to inform you that the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) appears ready to enact an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates.

Hmm. They’re trying to collect taxes from Internet companies… again?!? Come on. It wasn’t but yesterday, I watched how Hong Kong’s civil servants take a voluntarily pay cut to help ease economics and taxes for this year. Yet, here we are in North Carolina, where we’re looking to throw up more laws on things such as taxes on cigarettes, driving mileage, even a text messaging ban while driving to try to make the economics jive. Meanwhile? We are not even enforcing the laws we do have in place such as the tint laws, covers on license plates, and all sorts of other things that could be bringing in revenue for the state.

This isn’t just Amazon mind you. Amazon is only the beginning of the companies that will refuse to do business in this state. There have been others and unfortunately the people that need it the most, the small businesses, are the ones that suffer from this move. Contact your media and state legislation right away. And if your business has anything to do with the Internet, we cannot let things such as this go through.

In the words of Gandalf the Grey, “You Shall Not Pass!”

UPDATE (10:18AM): News & Record’s Mark Binker covers some more details.

Tags: Advertising, Amazon, Business, Internet, Law, Local, Observation, Opinion, Politics by darkmoon
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The United States Sentencing Commission has voted but I haven’t found anything on what they’ve actually decided.

Basically, there was legislation put out there that was written in too broad of a format where it said that any sort of proxy server use could increase jail time up to 25%. Now, in essence, the way it’s worded would mean that proxy server use seems to be a secondary offense if you use it for means of hiding yourself to do illegal deeds. And knowing that there are things such as bouncers, and darknets, there’s definitely a reason for this from a law enforcement perspective. But on the flip side, if you strictly say that there is jail time in direct relationship with proxy server use, then that’s completely incorrect and then you render the that argument invalid since there are many uses of proxy servers including those of privacy concerns.

From my perspective, I believe that there’s more to it than meets the eye. It’s not just privacy that I would worry about for your average Net surfer but the fact that translation servers like the one used by Google, is technically a proxy server since it can translate websites and redirect. This means that as a proxy, the host website sees Google instead of your IP address and thus is in a “proxied” fashion. Would you jail those that use translations? What about other means of redirection that are legitimate? Thus, I believe that using the terminology as proxy servers by itself would be too broad. There has to be some sort of offense tied to the use to cover illegal means.

That being said, there are darknets and hosted vpns that you can use for privacy use. TOR is just one of the many. But I think that both sides have to be weighed and find the correct wording choice that doesn’t interfere with privacy, or legal use versus prevention of law enforcement to chase down those that use proxies for unethical behavior.

Tags: Internet, Law, Observation, Opinion, Security by darkmoon
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It’s really unfortunate when you read stories like this. Julie Amero, a substitute teacher in the Connecticut area, has been battling the state on a porn pop-up case that landed her four felony pornography convictions in early 2007.
A team of pro-bono computer forensic experts examined a ghost image of the hard drive and found numerous errors in the prosecution’s case which lead to overturning of the trial and it went to a new trial last June. Amero plead guilty to a misdemeanor of disorderly conduct, paid a fine and is moving on with her life.
Unfortunately for this particular situation, I think that Threat Level reported on the spot. The prosecution’s technical expertise was flawed in many cases and the testimonial didn’t jive with the evidence given by what the forensic evidence provided by the hard drive. Even giving up her state teaching credentials is asking too much of someone that didn’t actually click the pop-up links from malware judging by the analysis report of the ghost image given by the defense’s technical experts.
I assume that the prosecution wouldn’t let the charges drop even due to this overwhelming evidence due to the fact that four years down the line, they had already committed to many resources that it a dropped case would have looked bad. While I’m no legal expert, I believe that the misdemeanor was a justification of internal politics that happens in all stages of corporate and government alike.
A copy of the report by the forensics team can be found here.

Tags: Internet, Law, Observation, Opinion, Security, Society by darkmoon
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It looks like SCO has finally dug itself into a hole. Ordered to pay for attorney fees plus interest and probably will put a stop on the SVRX agreement with Sun Microsystems since they were found have unjustly held onto royalties that were owed to Novell.
What’s more interesting is that while SCO is reviewing the findings and will probably appeal and push for a jury ruling, this hasn’t broken them out of the IBM case yet. Which means that the other hammer hasn’t fallen. Fun times for SCO. Fun times.

Tags: Business, Law, Linux by darkmoon
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The latest thing that the G8 conference talked about was anti-piracy measures. And apparently they want to enact the international agreement that would give the right to inspect all portable devices such as music players, phones, or laptops for illegal downloads.
While this is more likely to be about customs officials actually being able to intercept shipments of counterfeit goods (of which they already can as far as I know), there is an eerie feeling that there will be some overzealous screener that will take into their own hands a misinterpretation of this agreement.
Here’s the deal. The chance of actually having a scan of your device is probably fairly unlikely due to the fact that there is no way to actually prove ownership. On top of that, it would increase the times at customs checkpoints by ten-fold. I don’t think there are many people that don’t bring music players for transpacific or transatlantic trips anymore.
In regards to the burden of proof, I give you this example; many people rip their entire music library on CD and legal downloads to their portable music device. I personally have over 4000+ songs (all legit) and I know people that have more. How customs will be able to prove that is beyond me if I’m going in and out of the country. If there is a misinterpretation of this however, the more likely thing would be confiscation. And you know that will face the wrath of at the very least business people that go on flights if not the citizens of G8 countries. Without very strict rules on how the procedures are and what is and isn’t allowed, the only thing we can hope for is that this doesn’t happen.
Photo Credit: (Will Lion)

Tags: Government, Law, Movies, Music, Opinion, piracy by darkmoon
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Over the Memorial Day weekend, Revision3 was brought down by MediaDefender due to an open BitTorrent tracker, that according to MD, was seeding illegal copyrighted content.
Now here’s the rub. MD usually just seeds the target trackers with corrupted files and collects data on whom could be downloading the copyrighted property. But R3 claims to have found an open security hole in their tracker (used to distribute their legitimate content) and closed it over that weekend. From there on, MD servers took drastic measures and sent over 8,000 SYN packets a second trying to reach the tracker instead of just shutting down. MD obviously defends their actions, while R3 speaks against it.
Question is, were any laws broken?
While I’m no attorney, any sort of DoS attack is a violation of IAB proper use policy. On top of that, this there’s a question of whether or not any computer crime laws were broken. On a federal level, it seems pretty gray area since most of it deals with actual damages of copyright or intrusion based on commerce and fraud. What is interesting to note however is California actually has code specifically for computer crimes.
While much of it seem to apply such as civil damages and such, here’s the one thing that I found rather fascinating. In Section 1 of Stats.1987, c. 1499, under 8c:

(c) Any person who maliciously accesses, alters, deletes, damages, destroys or disrupts the operation of any computer system, computer network, computer program, or data is guilty of a public offense.

The reason why this is interesting is because from the interview, MD was saying that their actions were legit due to the fact that there was copyrighted materials. But even law enforcement have specific procedures that they have to follow and can’t go guns a-blazing and MD doesn’t constitute as law enforcement. On top of that, DoS attacks clog the networks that route them, meaning that an attack launched as such would not only effect R3 itself but would create a major load on the Tier 1 routers pushing the traffic and any routers down the stream. For most DDoS attackers, this isn’t an issue due to the fact that they’re knowingly committing a crime. But for MD? Having servers set up in this fashion couldn’t be good by any means. Either way, one thing is extremely clear. There definitely was a disruption of a computer network.
There’s a lot more to go over in the California State Penal Code, but overall being that both corporations are in California state, I personally think that MD would be fighting an uphill battle with the comments already made and having read some of the attorney speak. It’s obviously based on my interpretations of the code (which doesn’t mean squat in a court of law, but it is my opinion nonetheless). I’ll leave the whole federal law thing to the FBI who’s sorting out the matter in itself. I would be curious to know if the copyrighted materials found within the R3 tracker was indeed an exploit, or if an employee or what not was involved in those materials. It still doesn’t legitimize MD’s attack, but it would put R3 in deeper water than it is currently.
If MD should change their tune and say that it was a misconfiguration or what not and take back what the CEO said to Wired, then I would be curious how that works out since then it becomes pretty gray area of who’s at fault. That’s one for judge or jury and not I or anyone else.
Should be interesting to see what outcome is from this event. Word to the wise. It’s not always prudent to fight fire with fire. Especially if your “fire” could be the not-so-ethical kind.

Tags: Internet, Law, Opinion, Security by darkmoon
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