taxes
Arrests made in massive, $390/hour Video Relay Service scam
Dealing with some technology is challenging enough for the hearing-impaired without scammers taking advantage of federal dollars meant to help them. That’s exactly what has happened with the Federal Communications Commission’s Video Relay Service (VRS), however, and 26 people were arrested Thursday for scheming to steal “tens of millions of dollars” from the program. VRS was first launched in Texas in the mid-90s as a way for the deaf to communicate via telephone.
Continue reading »Who’s going to pay the RIAA?
I feel for Joel Tenenbaum. I really do. He’s someone who likes music and who shared it.
Continue reading »What’s the damage? $116.67 per user
On hearing the outcome of the Joel Tenenbaum trial I was struck, as I’m sure many were, by the discrepancy between the award of $675,000 and any losses Sony may have actually suffered as a result of his admitted filesharing activities. Indeed, if they could somehow squeeze that amount out of everyone who ever used a p2p network, this marvellous form of compensation would far exceed the GDP of the United States. Personally I don’t think record companies should be compensated at all by filesharers: the deal that was struck with publishers when copyright laws were first enacted – the exclusive right to duplicate in exchange for keeping the creators alive – would not make sense today when duplication is immediate, free and mostly untraceable, and when creative types can market themselves directly to fans.
Continue reading »New algorithm guesses SSNs using date and place of birth
For citizens of the US, the social security number (SSN) is the gateway to all things financial. It fills its government purpose of helping us pay our taxes and track our (in many cases, hypothetical) government benefits, and it has also been widely adopted as a means of verifying identity by a huge range of financial institutions. As a result, anytime you disclose an SSN you run a real risk of enabling identity theft.
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