[HN Gopher] Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it wen...
___________________________________________________________________
Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of
business
Author : cpascal
Score : 610 points
Date : 2021-01-05 15:56 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| If you're curious what Ticketmaster or it's parent organization
| LiveNation's revenue is, to compare this fine... it looks like
| the pandemic predictably took a huge bite out of it, but here are
| some numbers:
|
| > Third-quarter revenue was about $154 million in 2020 compared
| to over $3 billion in 2019, with the company -- which operates
| both Live Nation and Ticketmaster -- reporting a $173 million
| loss for its concert business and a $142 million loss for
| ticketing.
|
| https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/live-nation-revenue-dr...
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| "Too Big to Prosecute"
| intsunny wrote:
| What terribly worded and confusing as fuck title.
|
| In case anyone was wondering, who, specifically went out of
| business:
|
| > Court documents didn't identify the rival company, but Variety
| reported it was Songkick, which in 2017 filed a lawsuit accusing
| Ticketmaster of hacking its database. A few months later,
| Songkick went out of business.
| varrock wrote:
| I thought I was going crazy or that my English has gotten
| worse. Thank you. I initially read this as Ticketmaster going
| out of business and was shocked.
| [deleted]
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Wait, SongKick went out of business?
|
| What the hell is the app installed on my phone, then?
| jedberg wrote:
| Ticketmaster bought them in 2018 as the first part of the
| settlement.
| petesmithy wrote:
| The bit that you can still see (ie. mobile app, website) is
| owned by Warner now actually, acquired by them in July 2017.
|
| The bit that Ticketmaster/LN 'acquired' in 2018 was, by then,
| just a vehicle for the lawsuit related to this hack/other
| anti-competitive/monopolistic behaviour.
| shmageggy wrote:
| Clicking through some of the links in the article, it looks
| like it refers to their ticketing operation which was
| apparently separate.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I don't understand why there isn't an anti-trust investigation
| against Live Nation at this point.
|
| I mean, I guess maybe there could be and we don't know.
| Yourmama wrote:
| Google and ti ketmaster should be merged. Would be best for all
| fans.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I still can't believe regulators allowed Ticketmaster and Live
| Nation to merge
| giobox wrote:
| I was at law school during that merger and it was a major focus
| of the Competition Law course, one of the most obvious
| monopolies that was ever allowed to proceed in recent times
| really. I think entire academic staff expected the opposite
| outcome too!
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I love law as a field, but the sad fact is that it's often a
| post-facto rationalization/repair of power politics.
| Sometimes it's like a conference of physicists trying to
| demonstrate that a fire in the room is not that hot instead
| of pouring water onto it.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| TicketMaster was a textbook example of a consumer-harming
| monopoly WAY before that merger. I've written to a few senators
| about it. Jack shit has been done, of course.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| There should be criminal charges to, otherwise, its just money.
| Take away your business license etc.
| gt2 wrote:
| If Songkick went out of business why does the songkick.com domain
| work and have the same Songkick branding as it used to?
| ajsharp wrote:
| A $10 million dollar fine for this is hardly a disincentive for
| similarly minded actors to do the same. If you're a large
| incumbent company fearing a challenger, a $10 million worst-case
| scenario fine for taking them out is pennies compared to the
| saved revenue.
| smsm42 wrote:
| So they knowingly committed multiple felonies and got fined 0.1%
| of their annual revenue? That sure will show them!
|
| That would sting about as much as me getting a parking ticket. So
| somehow hacking a competitor is on the same level as parking on a
| wrong side of the street.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| This one is really brazen, isn't it? I always wonder why this
| kind of nonsense doesn't end in criminal charges for the chain of
| command involved. On the other hand, historically, the
| entertainment industry has thrown notoriously heavy hands about
| to defend its perceived territory. I wonder if this is the price
| American society pays for patronage of the global entertainment
| industry.
| not2b wrote:
| Less than 0.1% of their market cap, in exchange for detroying a
| rival, a move that probably netted them well more than $10M. Cost
| of doing business, a message to all companies that they might as
| well do this kind of thing because any fine will be far less than
| the profits gained.
| Kosirich wrote:
| How is 10 million fine deterrent to other companies trying to do
| the same or what is the incentives for companies to really impose
| internal ethic guidelines, rule following ect. and not just in
| name only? How are the company holders incentivized to hold
| management accountable? Perhaps I'm reading too much into this,
| but as a major holder of the company it seems it would be in my
| interest to encourage my management in doing what ever they deem
| necessary to come on top, even if it means breaking the law, as
| the "spoils" in the end will justify the fine. This reminded me
| of the VW case where management involved in illegal activates
| surrounding emission test fraud, prepared funds to pay the fine
| in advance.
| Jerry2 wrote:
| At the very least, the manager who approved this hack should be
| charged with a criminal offence. This imbalance in the justice
| system is beyond disgusting. People need to protest this in front
| of DOJ offices. There are people in prison right now fur doing
| security research yet these criminals are off with a fine.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The executive who ordered the hack- Zaidi- literally was
| charged and plead guilty. It's mentioned in the article.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I hate the way this article is worded. Or perhaps the problem is
| the source documents.
|
| "Ticketmaster" didn't do anything. Ticketmaster is a company
| which cannot make decisions or take actions.
|
| - An employee at Ticketmaster stole a password (and financial
| documents)
|
| - Multiple other Ticketmaster employees abused that stolen
| information to actively attack a competitor.
|
| - Ticketmaster management was aware of this and rewarded that
| employee with a promotion and additional responsibilities.
|
| Both the thief and the managers who rewarded the the thief should
| be going to jail. Instead the company is paying a small fine. I
| guess at least _someone_ is going to prison, but I doubt all of
| the parties who were aware are. As usual, the executives in
| charge walk away.
|
| Hopefully there is a class action lawsuit by the shareholders/
| owners of this company against Ticketmaster.
| aqme28 wrote:
| If corporate management knew about and encouraged this
| behavior, how is that not "Ticketmaster" doing it?
|
| IMO both the individuals and the corporation should be held
| responsible.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I guess I wasn't as clear as I thought here.
|
| Corporations can't act, people inside the corporations act.
| If laws get broken, the individuals who made that choice
| should pay the price. This wasn't a defense of the company,
| I'm fine with the company getting fined here, so long as the
| people who did this get penalized as well.
|
| So long as we let companies be a sort of shelter for the
| people inside the company, this kind of activity will
| continue.
| s_dev wrote:
| >Corporations can't act, people inside the corporations
| act.
|
| I'm not really sure why you think this distinction is
| important. If a sufficient enforcement/punishment was laid
| on a company you can bet the employee responsible will feel
| it. Rather in this sense because there was no real
| punishment the employee was commended.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > If a sufficient enforcement/punishment was laid on a
| company you can bet the employee responsible will feel
| it.
|
| The employees most responsible are the executives who
| signed off on, were aware of and/or managed the criminal
| activity.
|
| What they felt was a gentle caress across their wrist,
| which some may pretend was a slap.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > If a sufficient enforcement/punishment was laid on a
| company you can bet the employee responsible will feel
| it.
|
| The fine was likely less than the cost of the C-Suites
| annual bonus package.
| jnsie wrote:
| Kind of like saying "the 49ers didn't lose, their players
| did"...
| swsieber wrote:
| No, the equivalent of this in the sports world would be
| fining a team some thousands of dollars for drug abuse
| instead of banning the offending players.
| spoonjim wrote:
| which they should, if the drug abuse was encouraged by
| team leaders and rewarded with promotions/contracts.
| [deleted]
| ska wrote:
| are you agreeing with the "instead of" in that post?
|
| Through symmetry if a player is expelled from a league
| for doping, a manager who arranged/encouraged it should
| face the same, probably.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| When Barry Bond got caught doping, nobody said "The SF
| Giants were doping". Barry Bond owned that.
|
| That's all I'm looking for here.
| fastball wrote:
| But this was a collective effort that involved multiple
| people within the company. When "the Astros" got caught
| stealing signs, we say it was the Astros, even though the
| majority of people involved with the team were not
| involved with the sign-stealing.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| You are arguing semantics (and apparently my first post
| focused too much on semantics). I am mostly concerned
| about accountability. The Astros cheating scandal
| resulted in:
|
| > "As a result, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and
| field manager A. J. Hinch were suspended for the entire
| 2020 season for failing to prevent the rules violations.
| The Astros were fined the maximum allowable $5 million
| and forfeited their first- and second-round picks in the
| 2020 and 2021 drafts. No players were punished because
| they had been given immunity by MLB in exchange for their
| cooperation.[1] The Astros subsequently fired both Luhnow
| and Hinch on the day their suspensions were announced"
|
| The individuals who made the decisions were held
| accountable, or at least some of them.
| naravara wrote:
| When accountants at Enron defrauded the State of
| California and the SEC, we didn't say "accountants at
| Enron." We said "Enron" and held Enron, the entity,
| responsible.
| MaysonL wrote:
| Also the CEO, COO and CFO were sentenced to prison.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| Jeffrey Skilling served 24 years in jail
|
| Andrew Fastow committed suicide
|
| Ken Lay died of a heart attack before his trial
|
| Lou Pai walked away with $250 million and disappeared
|
| The litany of charges that were brought against the rest
| of the people involved have not been very successful:
|
| https://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-ap-enron-trial-glance-
| sto...
|
| All of those sentenced in the above article were for
| reduced sentences since many of them testified against
| Skilling and others in order to get a shorter sentence.
|
| The only one who served any real prison time was
| Skilling.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Arguably, three people paid a heavy toll. Escaping prison
| because of suicide or having heart attack while waiting
| for your trial aren't exactly get out of jail free cards.
|
| Aside from that, totally agree. Many of the people who
| benefitted from the Enron disaster walked away without
| consequence. Very unsatisfying end.
| skylanh wrote:
| Fines are issued to players, coaches, and the team
| depending on the severity and type of offense.
|
| Examples:
|
| Mike Tomlin fined for blocking an on-field player, the
| team may have been penalized by forfeiting draft picks:
| https://www.nfl.com/news/mike-tomlin-fined-100-000-for-
| actio... They weren't: https://www.nfl.com/news/steelers-
| won-t-lose-draft-pick-for-...
|
| Coaches fined $100k for not wearing face masks, teams
| fined $250k: https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-fines-
| broncos-49ers-seahawks-fo...
|
| Saints fined $500k and stripped of draft pick:
| https://www.nfl.com/news/saints-fined-500k-draft-pick-
| patrio...
|
| Controversial team fines: https://www.nfl.com/news/draft-
| picks-that-have-been-stripped...
|
| - Falcons for fake crowd noise
|
| - Patriots for "deflategate"
|
| Saints were fined as a team, head coach suspended,
| players suspended for "bounty gate": https://en.wikipedia
| .org/wiki/New_Orleans_Saints_bounty_scan...
|
| Team sports can be lost by a player, but must be won as a
| team. E.g. Kyle Williams of SF 49ers muffing two punts in
| the 2012-Feb-22 game against the Giants (off his knee,
| and the strip).
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| Citizens United said otherwise.
| 8note wrote:
| The individuals in the corporation did it on behalf of the
| owners. The owners should be held accountable
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| 14 employees plus the employee with the stolen credentials
| were present for at least one of the felonies committed.
|
| There should be at least 15 conspiracy charges in addition
| to the CFAA violation charge.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Corporations absolutely do act, just as surely a person
| acts even though only their fingers or individual limbs may
| be moving. I agree the individuals should be subject to
| criminal penalties, but so should shareholders and board
| members, who hoped to profit and looked the other way,
| respectively.
| darepublic wrote:
| That's crazy, how about we lock up the janitorial staff
| as well. They were the toes
| kelnos wrote:
| I agree that both the people involved and the company
| should be legally liable in this case.
|
| The important point to me about the company being liable is
| that a) the company itself benefited from the crime, and b)
| management knew about the crime happening; this wasn't a
| single rogue employee who did crimes and hid that fact from
| everyone else. (Contrast this to an employee using company
| resources, in secret, to commit a crime that only benefits
| the employee.)
|
| And no consequences for the people involved means there's
| no deterrence. In the future, employees with unethical
| management will realize that they can do this sort of thing
| with little risk to their own livelihood, so why not give
| it a try?
| CPLX wrote:
| It really is both. Corporations have corporate personhood and
| should be held accountable for criminal acts, as should
| individual criminals.
|
| Ticketmaster did do something. They clearly broke the law. So
| did the individuals. All should be severely punished this is
| egregious behavior.
| TwoBit wrote:
| Otherwise every illegal thing any company did would be played
| off as by rogue individuals.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| That is literally the standard dodge.
| cbsmith wrote:
| > - Ticketmaster management was aware of this and rewarded that
| employee with a promotion and additional responsibilities.
|
| At some point the employees involved were fired. So there was
| some short term reward, and long term... I don't know.
|
| Also, the article says that Zeeshan Zaidi, plead guilty to 26
| months ago. So obviously this is the last in a series of
| consequences.
| TwoBit wrote:
| Fired after the company was caught, or before?
| cbsmith wrote:
| I think from the context it is very clear that it was not
| before.
| icefrakker wrote:
| "Ticketmaster" didn't do anything. Ticketmaster is a company
| which cannot make decisions or take actions.
|
| It's sad that people can write things like this and still
| expect to have their opinions taken seriously.
| hshshs2 wrote:
| The last class action lawsuit against them resulted in people
| receiving unusable virtual tickets. I have hundreds of dollars
| worth. They're incredibly good at ripping people off.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > As usual, the executives in charge walk away.
|
| As usual, the DoJ has little appetite to prosecute non-weak
| people.
|
| It is the most maddeningly predictable outcome of every DoJ
| action against a corporation (w/ well funded lobbyists). We can
| thank every administration ever for this.
| foota wrote:
| It sounds like the person that was found guilty was at a fairly
| high level, not the top perhaps, but it sounds like it was
| quite possibly their idea.
| habosa wrote:
| The fine is certainly too small, but also shouldn't someone be
| criminally charged here? I feel like many laws were broken and
| they know exactly who did it.
| dave_sid wrote:
| SongKick is out of business??? Damn
| harry8 wrote:
| So you're a CEO of a company. Other employees of the company
| commit crimes. You know about the crimes. The company profits
| from the crimes paying your salary &/or bonus. You do not inform
| the police.
|
| How is this not a criminal conspiracy engaged in by the CEO
| (either before or after the fact) resulting in Jail time for the
| CEO?
|
| Is it just because "with a computer" that the CEO isn't facing
| charges? What crimes committed and prior or subsequent knowledge
| of and then profit from those crimes would qualify in the CEO
| being charged with being involved in a criminal conspiracy? Does
| it have to be something that reads dramatically in a newspaper
| like armed robbery or assult or murder? Do the victims of the
| crime have to be elderly? Or are those crimes also fine as long
| as your title is CEO rather than "Don"?
|
| Is this fixable?
| sunir wrote:
| This was a criminal conviction. It says so in the article.
|
| Are you commenting on the disparate sentencing for the company
| versus an individual?
|
| It is a deferred prosecution agreement, which is definitely an
| aspect of corporatism: that is the pre -eminent rights of
| corporations over natural people.
|
| However there was a criminal conviction of a natural person as
| well. The DPP was the criminal conviction of the corporation
| that benefited from the underlying crime.
|
| DPPs exist to avoid collateral damage to innocents dependent on
| the corporation, whilst still criminally convicting the
| corporation itself. It's a balancing game.
|
| With it a bit nuanced I am curious to understand better what
| you meant by your comment.
| harry8 wrote:
| Looks to me like the person who holds the job title CEO has
| engaged in a criminal conspiracy. For profit. Is that really
| not how it looks to you?
|
| Has the CEO been charged? How bad does the crime have to be
| before the CEO being involved in it before it happened, or
| becoming aware and profiting from it after without informing
| the police before the CEO is themselves charged for the CEO's
| criminal behaviour in engaging in a criminal conspiracy with
| respect to that crime.
|
| I'm hoping if the crime was murder, conspiring by the CEO
| would result in charges. Yes?
|
| What level of crime is sheielded? Should any crime be
| sheielded like this?
| sunir wrote:
| I'm not a criminal prosecutor or lawyer nor do I live in
| the jurisdiction this was tried under.
|
| However, I would wager that the CEO would have to have
| intentionally and actively cooperated with the criminal
| act; merely benefiting from it indirectly by running the
| corporation is insufficient. Hence they indicted the
| corporation which is directly benefiting.
|
| Even if the CEO was aware and conspiring the prosecutor
| would still need to prove it. They may not have evidence
| beyond a reasonable doubt.
|
| All that being said it is possible prosecution was pro-
| corporate biased and refused to burn down a company. I am
| not discounting that possibility. Regardless it is
| difficult to win convictions so it is also plausible this
| is the best win prosecution believed it could get.
| djabatt wrote:
| This a sick company.
| tareqak wrote:
| Could the $10 million fine be used by a future defendant to argue
| that the crime is not a big deal? What if members of FAANG+M
| decided to hack small startups or even each other?
| hemloc_io wrote:
| Cyberpunk Corpo wars come closer and closer to reality every
| day...
| agilob wrote:
| > What if members of FAANG+M decided to hack small startups or
| even each other?
|
| You mean the way Amazon does it every day to successful,
| independent small sellers, copies their products and bans them
| from Amazon without providing a reason why? The way Google
| removed Tutanota from search results? Microsoft spread FUD
| about open-source? Or like Oracle acquired MySQL?
| g2entgroup wrote:
| This is sad that larger companies have a fear of the new kids on
| the block. When in fact, large companies should be embracing the
| young companies.
| inetsee wrote:
| Large companies often embrace young companies. They buy them to
| eliminate competition.
| RyanGoosling wrote:
| That idea is not in-line with a business mindset.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| Ticketmaster keeps buying up its actual competitors... that's why
| there's no natural challenger to remove this filth. American
| Capitalism FTW.
| throwawaysk wrote:
| I worked at Songkick. The business was not sustainable, there was
| no revenue stream in sight before the Crowdsurge merger.
| Crowdsurge effectively acquired us when they merged as Songkick
| had run out of funding, with no potential buyers or investors.
| Crowdsurge was not sustainable either, they lost money on every
| ticket sold, but mostly because TM would only allow 10% of any
| allocation at any TM venue. Crowdsurge were backed by Access (Len
| Blavatnik who owns Warner). The CEO and COO of Crowdsurge went
| after Ticketmaster as an exit. They built a corporate structure
| that made the employee share pool worthless. This meant that no
| employees ever saw any of the $110m "buy out" and they will never
| see any of this new $10m. The CEO and COO have a lot to answer
| for.
| nanna wrote:
| I worked at SK too, leaving to pursue my studies. I always
| wondered what happened in the end, so thanks. I assumed the
| crew at least got something from the buyout - damn I'm really
| sorry for them that they didn't.
| riteshpatel wrote:
| Yikes :O
| boshjlock wrote:
| The COO was a psychopath who treated daily company life as a
| game of poker. From the Crowdsurge side, it never really came
| as a surprise that the exec team were always planning to fuck
| over the company in their favour.
| tschellenbach wrote:
| Probably related to the large amount of funding they raised
| compared to the exit,
| https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/songkick
| 247hustler wrote:
| What the hell lol
| ipqk wrote:
| Compare this slap on the wrist to Aaron Swartz:
|
| Federal prosecutors later charged him with two counts of wire
| fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse
| Act,[15] carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in
| fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and
| supervised release.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
| 533474 wrote:
| Nice reminder of how unbalanced and corrupt our system really
| is.
|
| I am not saying that our system doesn't work. It just feels
| that there is so much left to do.
| originalvichy wrote:
| "If the punishment for a crime is a fine, the law was written
| against the lower classes."
| wpietri wrote:
| Depends on how you do it. Some places do fines based on
| income, not dollar amounts. E.g., the rich Finn who had a
| $103k speeding ticket: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/a
| rchive/2015/03/finland...
|
| In the US, especially during this new gilded age, I'd
| probably change that to be a percentage of total wealth _or_
| a percentage of annual income, whichever is larger.
| learnstats2 wrote:
| I find this principle useful - that a fine is just permission
| slip for people who can afford it.
|
| But, in terms of environmental crimes as discussed in these
| comments, the reason corporation dump toxic waste in the
| river is to avoid the clean-up cost - it's an economic crime.
|
| So in that case, it's an appropriate solution to fine a large
| multiple of the total clean-up cost plus damages. The point
| is to not make it an affordable option, no matter how rich
| you are.
|
| Separately, fines which rise in proportional to wealth can
| work in a progressive way, e.g.
| http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8446545.stm
| insert_coin wrote:
| > But, in terms of environmental crimes as discussed in
| these comments, the reason corporation dump toxic waste in
| the river is to avoid the clean-up cost - it's an economic
| crime.
|
| Stealing is also an economic crime then, as they are
| stealing it because they cannot financially afford it and
| no one should go to jail but only pay a fine.
|
| Of course not, the reason might be economic but the crime
| is against much more than the economy and the punishment
| should be even greater still. Fines do not even register.
| learnstats2 wrote:
| >Stealing is also an economic crime then... no one should
| go to jail
|
| I completely agree?
| eropple wrote:
| _> The point is to not make it an affordable option, no
| matter how rich you are._
|
| The only thing the sufficiently rich can't call-and-raise
| you on is time. Fictional sums of money, sums that may be
| less than likely to ever really be paid, are more easily
| reckoned with than jail time.
| Spivak wrote:
| Still not a great system unfortunately. Time based
| punishments still disproportionately punish the poor who
| have less of it.
|
| Suffering based punishments hurt everyone equally, they
| don't waste a person's time they could be contributing
| something positive to the world and can be scaled to fit
| the crime. One hell of a deterrent too.
| oauea wrote:
| Wait, are you advocating torture?
| Spivak wrote:
| Sorta? I say this only speaking for myself. Given the
| option between a jail or prison sentence and receiving
| corporeal punishment I would take the latter always. I
| draw the line at anything that causes permanent harm or
| actual torture (which is an "I know it when I see it
| kinda thing.")
|
| Things that would be absolutely miserable but I would do.
|
| * Physical exertion like having to run suicides.
|
| * Being forced to stand in an uncomfortable position
| hours.
|
| * Being belted/caned/shocked so many times.
|
| * Forced labor.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Suffering-based punishments disproportionately punish the
| chronically unhappy, who have less non-suffering.
| learnstats2 wrote:
| > One hell of a deterrent too.
|
| Psychology says no.
| eropple wrote:
| Entirely true. There are crimes, particularly ones
| against the body politic, where it a reasonable
| disincentive on top of the reparative justice of paying
| for cleanup, though. Reparations are still important--but
| those reparations will just not raise enough of a threat
| to prevent it from being done again. Adding some blood is
| really the only option.
|
| Because, candidly, the poor aren't dumping toxic waste in
| factory quantities.
| jdc wrote:
| It's a bloody miscarriage of justice.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,[15]"
|
| You could walk into a liquor store - pistol whip a clerk then
| rob the joint and do less time. AND at least if you pistol whip
| a clerk you get parole. You wont get federal parole if you try
| to guess a computer password [1].
|
| https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/is-federal-parole-sy...
| xxpor wrote:
| There's absolutely 0 chance he ever would have done anywhere
| near the statutory maximum. Statutory maximum != sentencing
| guidelines.
| INTPenis wrote:
| Probably not but if you have a possibility of 35 years in a
| US prison, or even 5 years, looming over you that is a
| heavy burden. And we all know how it turned out.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Yes. If you pistol whip a clerk you would get 10. If you
| get caught hacking you will get 5 in federal (35ish year
| max). The guy pistol whipping will get parole in 5. Same
| same.
| ryanlol wrote:
| Most federal CFAA penalties have been far lower than 5
| years.
| nathanyz wrote:
| It is one of the great imbalances in the justice system where
| technically corporations are people, but criminally don't face
| anywhere near the same levels of punishment.
| cortesoft wrote:
| It is all about resources.... a person who has the resources
| to defend themselves like a corporation will probably get the
| same punishment.
| bdowling wrote:
| > ... but criminally don't face anywhere near the same levels
| of punishment.
|
| We generally do not punish corporations harshly for criminal
| wrongdoing because (1) punishing the corporation mostly harms
| the shareholders, who aren't responsible because they only
| have indirect control over the corporation, and (2) the
| individual employees who commit crimes face criminal
| prosecution and punishment.
|
| [Edit]
|
| I regret that my comment was taken as one endorsing
| corporations or their shareholders profiting from crimes.
| That was not my intent.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| I think that reasoning is at best, shortsighted.
|
| Shareholders are responsible, albeit indirectly, for the
| corporation they've invested in. If shareholders have a
| reasonable chance of signfiicant loss of value, then
| they're more likely to require the company take steps to
| mitigate that (i.e don't do shady stuff).
|
| As for prosecution of employees for crimes - that, too, is
| often rarely done, or focuses on the wrong people. Plenty
| of cases where it was the whistleblower, or someone who was
| raising red flags that gets the harsher penalty, rather
| than management who deliberately ignored it and has better
| paid lawyers to go for some light-weight bs
| wpietri wrote:
| There is a "head I win, tails you lose" here dynamic that
| is pernicious. Executives and shareholders can get rich off
| the monetary extracted via a company's activities. But when
| something bad happens, suddenly they had nothing to do with
| it. It seems to me if they're responsible enough to get
| paid for the good parts, they're responsible for the bad
| parts too.
| bdowling wrote:
| > It seems to me if they're responsible enough to get
| paid for the good parts, they're responsible for the bad
| parts too.
|
| Executives involved in crimes can face personal liability
| for those crimes. The corporation can also be wiped out
| and the shareholders can lose their investments.
| wpietri wrote:
| I'm less interested in "can" than "do". The 2008
| financial crisis, for example. Anthony Mozillo, just to
| pick one representative miscreant, was one of the most
| severely treated. His penalty? To pay back a portion of
| his gains.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Liquidate criminal corporations and you have 2 simultaneous
| outcomes:
|
| Shareholders lose their investment
|
| Investors that didn't invest in the criminal corporation
| get to buy the assets for pennies on the dollar.
|
| Perfect harmony.
| gowld wrote:
| > punishing the corporation mostly harms the shareholders,
| who aren't responsible because they only have indirect
| control over the corporation
|
| Then why should shareholders get the profits from the work
| they don't comtrol?
|
| > the individual employees who commit crimes face criminal
| prosecution and punishment.
|
| Do they?
| bdowling wrote:
| > Then why should shareholders get the profits from the
| work they don't comtrol?
|
| Because they invested money into the corporation when the
| corporation issued stock.
| postnihilism wrote:
| And when that company commits a crime, it should be
| punished and its stock should lose value.
|
| It seems like you're arguing that shareholders should
| reap rewards for actions that a company takes but be
| shielded from negative financial repercussions that
| result from criminal actions it takes.
|
| This creates a moral hazard similar to to the "too big to
| fail" situation of banks. It incentivizes risky and
| potentially criminal behavior because ownership is able
| to capture the value of any upside and is shielded from
| the downsides of the behavior.
| bdowling wrote:
| > And when that company commits a crime, it should be
| punished and its stock should lose value.
|
| I agree. That is part of the risk investors take.
| cookingrobot wrote:
| It's not enough to lose your investment. You should lose
| your share of the penalty. The idea of limited liability
| is heinous.
| rectang wrote:
| > _[Edit]_
|
| > _I regret that my comment was taken as one endorsing
| corporations or their shareholders profiting from crimes.
| That was not my intent._
|
| Regardless of whether your intent was angelic, devilish, or
| neither, rampant corporate criminality (such as
| TicketMaster's) is the _obvious consequence_ of building a
| system according to principles that advantage criminality
| so baldly.
| bdowling wrote:
| > ... a system according to principles that advantage
| criminality so baldly.
|
| As I wrote elsewhere, there is no advantage to
| criminality because there are many ways that a
| corporation can be brought to justice.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| The rational minds at ticketmaster seem to have disagreed
| with you in this instance.
| rectang wrote:
| Like TicketMaster was brought to justice? What a joke.
|
| TicketMaster is not an outlier -- corporate impunity is
| the rule, not the exception. The incentives you advocate
| have proven utterly inadequate to ensure either "justice"
| (for those who care about justice) or economic efficiency
| arising from legitimate competition.
| rectang wrote:
| > _shareholders, who aren 't responsible because they only
| have indirect control over the corporation_
|
| That's crime-laundering. Whether it should be punished by
| criminal prosecution is dubious, but whether it should be
| punished by investors losing money is not. Otherwise the
| system manifests a perverse incentive to invest in
| corporations which commit crimes.
|
| Then again, facilitating criminality by the investor class
| is the whole point, isn't it?
| atty wrote:
| I think there's two points to address here.
|
| 1) it's rare, if ever, that a CEO, CFO or COO faces jail
| time for crimes the company committed that are similar or
| worse compared to jail-able offenses by individuals. So
| your second point doesn't really happen in practice.
|
| 2) shareholders SHOULD be punished for the actions of the
| company. If my dog maims you because of my negligence to
| control it, I'm liable. If a corporation knowingly commits
| crimes, then the CEO (and everyone in the chain down to
| whoever performed the criminal action) is a criminal, and
| the board and the shareholders should be liable for not
| exercising proper control and guidance. When you own
| something you also take on responsibility for that object.
| Stocks are no different.
| bdowling wrote:
| > So your second point doesn't really happen in practice.
|
| It happened in this case. From the article, "Zeeshan
| Zaidi, the former head of Ticketmaster's artist services
| division, pled guilty in a related case to conspiring to
| hack the rival company..." Anyone else who conspired with
| him could be charged with the crimes.
|
| > shareholders SHOULD be punished for the actions of the
| company.
|
| The entire purpose of the corporate entity is so that
| investors can share in the ownership of a business that
| they do not manage without risking personal liability.
| Shareholders can completely lose their investment because
| of liabilities of the corporation, but they usually don't
| face personal liability.
| rectang wrote:
| Well, thanks to this genius system -- and criminal-
| adjacent advocacy such as this -- for ensuring that
| corporations which commit crimes will always be awash in
| investor money, since such criminal corporations enjoy an
| advantage over law-abiding corporations.
|
| Advantaging criminality to this degree is a _choice_. Our
| economic institutions did not have to be designed in such
| a way that criminality is rewarded so highly. We could
| architect them differently -- but then it would be harder
| for a small number of people to make a great deal of
| money ripping off the rest of us.
| bdowling wrote:
| > ... such criminal corporations enjoy an advantage over
| law-abiding corporations.
|
| There is no advantage to criminality. It is a general
| rule of law that no one should be able to profit from his
| crimes. That rule applies to corporations as well as
| individuals and there are many ways to hold corporations
| and their managers and employees accountable (civil and
| criminal liability are two of them).
|
| My point was that passive investors shouldn't be
| criminally liable for criminal actions of employees of
| the corporation that they knew nothing about.
| rectang wrote:
| > _There is no advantage to criminality._
|
| Of course there is. That's why YCombinator prefers
| "naughty" companies that break rules but get away with
| it.
|
| http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html
|
| > " _Though the most successful founders are usually good
| people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye.
| They 're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they
| care about getting the big questions right, but not about
| observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word
| naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules,
| but not rules that matter._"
|
| Is there any doubt that YCombinator would be investing in
| TicketMaster if it were a startup? Is there any moral
| distance between the scofflaw insouciance of AirBNB and
| TicketMaster? TicketMaster just eliminated a threat to
| its quasi-monopoly through criminality and were rewarded
| because the criminal penalty was utterly inconsequential
| compared with the commercial advantage obtained. They
| have "won" in the "marketplace", as that criminality-
| advantaging "marketplace" was constructed.
|
| The unjust demolition of TicketMaster's competitors, and
| the resulting systemic economic inefficiency, is
| underpinned by rhetoric like yours.
| moosebear847 wrote:
| Seriously, as messed up as this is, what TicketMaster did
| is completely rational if the game is all about making $$
| and the rules say, "$10 million fine. 1 guy go to jail.
| go directly to go and continue to collect $x
| billion/year".
| meigwilym wrote:
| Punish the shareholders too. Companies would soon find
| themselves ethical.
| marricks wrote:
| That's one way to look at it, but I think the deeper truth is
| just systems are pretty much always controlled by the
| powerful and benefit only them. Any new rules will be
| enforced as such. The HN thread discussing blue state
| concealed carry laws was very revealing; turns out those laws
| just lead to pay offs to police departments when some org
| needs permits. [1]
|
| Senators make millions on insider relief package info? Who
| cares. You challenge the powerful by revealing embarrassing
| secrets? Enemy of the state, you're gonna lose everything or
| at the very least many years of your life in legal limbo.
|
| The power balance in many cases could be the real issue,
| everyday people just need to (somehow) get way more
| empowered.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193861
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > the deeper truth is just systems are pretty much always
| controlled by the powerful
|
| The power of individuals with the right idea to change the
| world (often running circles around the 'powerful') is the
| foundation of the technology behind most people's jobs
| here. How do some people can work in the IT industry and
| promulgate the parent's fatalistic outlook? Internet
| Explorer would be the dominant browser, Windows the only
| operating system, and we'd be discussing it in an MSN
| forum.
|
| If people believed in this outlook, there was would be no
| democracy, human rights, and rule of law (in countries
| around the world), everything would be corrupt and would be
| the same everywhere, women and minorities would have made
| no progress, etc. To say it has no effect and nobody cares
| is edgy and cool these days, but obviously wrong. If your
| predecessors believed that, I can't imagine how our lives
| would be now.
|
| The fact is that individuals and groups of individuals, if
| they act, can and do change the world - and change their
| communities. Ask any leader; the problem is not lack of
| power but lack of action. Corruption will fall or not based
| on you, personally, on what you do. Look at what prior
| generations did for us; what are you doing for the people
| who follow us?
| [deleted]
| marricks wrote:
| I don't think we actually disagree on a ton, my original
| comment was extremely vague on which "systems", I meant
| mainly western governments and mega corps.
|
| I don't think this unbalance is baked into humanity, I
| 100% agree people collectively taking a stand (unions,
| mass actually effective protests, etc) would lead to far
| better systems.
| SulfurHexaFluri wrote:
| IMO everyone related to a corporate crime should be
| responsible. If a company dumps toxic waste in to a river,
| the person who pressed the dump button, the person who told
| them to and any management that signed off on the idea should
| all be personally as responsible as if I just took a bucket
| and walked down to the local river.
|
| Perhaps some exceptions for people who could not be expected
| to understand the law, for example an untrained retail staff
| being tricked in to violating laws usually only understood by
| management or legal teams.
| himinlomax wrote:
| > the person who pressed the dump button
|
| That person would often be paid minimum wage, have at best
| a high school education and so on. That may not exactly be
| fair in all cases.
| wpietri wrote:
| I agree, and I would go slightly farther. One of the
| lessons the mortgage bubble taught us is how much
| executives benefit from plausible deniability. For
| corporate crime, I think the standard of "knew or should
| have known" should apply. If CEOs are going to hoover up a
| lot of the profits when things go right, they should hold
| at least as much responsibility when things go wrong on
| their watch.
| harry8 wrote:
| For criminal behaviour from the organisation, the burden
| of proof needs to be reversed. The CEO should need to
| prove they did not know and did not endorse tacitally or
| otherwise and would have reacted strongly to prevent and
| effectively sanction those responsible if they had found
| out in advance.
|
| It's their job to know. Only if they are a victim of a
| genuine criminal conspiracy performed by other employees
| and it can be shown without the CEO's knowledge should
| there be any defence.
|
| CEO's are quite happy to tell people to do things without
| telling them to do the thing. That has been going on for
| centuries. Shakespeare wrote whole plays about it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_
| tur...
| Chris2048 wrote:
| I don't think CEO is the right level. It may be the top
| position with high pay, but a CEO is so high up the food-
| chain that they touch very little.
|
| Any level of management with a direct responsibility is
| where blame should lie.
| wpietri wrote:
| If a CEO is so high up the food chain that nothing they
| do matters, then why should they have the high pay? I
| don't understand the notion that they're responsible for
| all of the good things their employees do but none of the
| bad ones. Especially when, as here, it's the bad ones
| that are so profitable.
| Larrikin wrote:
| This is the same argument that tech corporations say
| should apply to them. They should be allowed to grow
| uncontrollably to make as much money as possible but it's
| actually impossible for them to know the details
| (moderate content in this specific iteration of the
| argument) of what they have grown. The point of this
| thread is the same argument against that very idea.
|
| If the organization is so big that the CEO believes that,
| it shouldn't matter. They should be ultimately
| responsible for the entire organization. No one forced
| the company to be that big and no one made them take the
| job.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > but it's actually impossible for them
|
| but what is "them" in this case. You are talking about
| the corporation, but does this mean CEOs, managers, or
| some combination of the two?
|
| I'm not sure I'm arguing along those lines at all. What
| I'm saying is most CEOs are far removed from anything
| direct, but I'm not sure how that translates to "and
| therefore no one is".
|
| > They should be ultimately responsible for the entire
| organization
|
| I disagree. You don't really argue why, and I argue, at
| least, that it's not at all practically. Best case it
| leads to scapegoating the CEO for things they aren't best
| positioned to control, and/or executive-levels
| micromanaging lower levels for fear of liability.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| But you can't know all of that.
|
| Imagine some local wallmart having an issue with
| something (eg. a bunch of expired chemicals, that have to
| be disposed as dengerous), and they don't want to deal
| with that in a proper way, and some local manager tells
| some local worker, to just dump the chemicals into a
| stream behind the wallmart. Usually noone notices stuff
| like that, if the chemicals are not "too bad" (=fish
| die), the worker will lose his/her job if (s)he doesn't
| do it, and the manager will get someone else to do it. If
| the worker reports it, it's his word against the
| managers, the manager will just say it was leaked
| rainwater, and that they asked the worker to spill it in
| the gutter, so the worker has no real choice, if they
| want to feed the kids that night. People above the
| manager have no idea about that local wallmart, and that
| one time issue.
|
| Then, the worker dumps the chemicals into the stream, the
| chemicals just happen to be very dangerous, and a million
| fish die in the river downstream. Is the CEO really the
| guilty on here? Did he really know?
|
| On the other hand, you have the VW dieselgate, where a
| whole team had to work on the software, and atleast a few
| level of mangers had to have known about the issue. But
| on the corporate ladder, where every level is squeezing
| the level below it to "do more", "bring in more profits",
| it's possible that some manager in charge of something
| actually didn't tell the people above him, just how
| exactly he solved the exhaust issue, just that he solved
| it, and saved millions of euros (and got a huge bonus).
| On the other hand, coordinating a big team of coders, and
| such info not getting to higher ups or to members of
| different teams in the same company (with different
| managers) is probably unlikely.
|
| What i'm trying to say is, that blaming the CEO by
| default is bad, because in the first case, it's
| unrealistic to expect the CEO to even know that that
| local walmart exists.... and in the second case, that
| there should be a very thourough investigation just how
| high the knowledge went, and have the whole chain of
| comand held responsible.
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| It is the duty of the CEO to demand the types of
| observability, monitoring, and training so that this
| scenario could be avoided.
| canofbars wrote:
| The problem is management can just abuse this by saying
| something like "Dispose of these chemicals safely, you
| have 5 minutes to be back". The manager clearly said to
| do it safely but 5 minutes only leaves time to dump them
| unsafely. How do you assign blame to the manager or even
| higher systems which tell people to do these things
| without literally saying it.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| This just means there is nuance to correctly assigning
| blame.
| avianlyric wrote:
| In this scenario the CEO should be able to point to a
| body of evidence that show the Walmart has strong and
| robust procedures for dealing with type of waste, and
| they provide enough time and training to employees to
| follow those procedures.
|
| Thus this specific act was the result of an employee
| failing to follow procedure, despite being given the
| training and time to do so.
|
| This is the exact burden of proof that is used for health
| and safety. When an employee is seriously injured,
| there's a burden on the employer to demonstrate that took
| all reasonable precautions to prevent the injury. That
| mean procedures, training and evidence that those
| procedures and training is followed, enforced and enough
| time and space to provided for employees to follow them.
|
| This should exist through the entire chain of command,
| with each level ensuring that the level below isn't
| cutting corners, and it part of a CEO responsibility to
| build that management framework. I mean it already exists
| for controlling costs and ensure health & safety in most
| successful companies, why can't it exist for all legal
| and social obligations?
| beefield wrote:
| > it's unrealistic to expect the CEO to even know that
| that local walmart exists
|
| Maybe, just maybe we then should not have so large
| entities that nobody can be responsible for? Limited
| liability is a _massive_ handout from society to the
| owners of the Limited liability company and should be
| priced accordingly. (I do not propose banning limited
| liability. I propose being more selective how and which
| operations actually deserve limited liability. And tax it
| appropriately.)
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > just maybe we then should not have so large entities
| that nobody can be responsible for
|
| But who says no one is responsible? There are clearly
| guilty parties, just not the CEO.
| Symmetry wrote:
| That would be nice in a way but then we couldn't have
| complicated products like laptops or iPhones. Abstraction
| barriers aren't optional when managing sufficiently
| complex processes.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| But this is true even with companies that have only two
| stores. Even one if it's open for more than one shift.
| wpietri wrote:
| You are confusing "really guilty" with "really knows".
|
| The whole theory behind paying CEOs their current absurd
| salaries is that they are 5-D chess geniuses, responsible
| for the value created by up to millions of people doing
| actual work.
|
| How can a CEO be in control enough to deserve all of the
| profits but so out of control that they deserve none of
| the blame?
|
| The practical outcome is that high-level executives
| create plausible deniability. In your story, they issue
| edicts like "our chemical disposal bill is too high! Fix
| it!" or just "Our per-store costs are too high!" and ride
| roughshod over objections. "Don't bring me problems!
| Solve them!" The pressure rolls downhill. People trying
| to do the right thing get yelled at or fired; people
| doing the wrong thing skate on by, because the metrics
| look better. So everybody learns to do what the CEO
| implicitly wants: cutting corners to increase profits.
|
| If the CEOs don't know that's the natural outcome of
| their behavior then they're negligent or criminally
| incompetent. If they do, they're just criminals. But they
| have plenty of money to create enough deniability that
| they can walk away. Possibly using some lower subordinate
| as a scapegoat, when he was just responding to incentives
| that the CEO set up.
|
| In my view, whether or not a CEO has direct knowledge of
| a direct crime is irrelevant. At the CEO level, they
| don't have direct knowledge of anything, but they have
| power over everything. It's not clear to me positions
| like that should exist, but as long as they do exist,
| they should be responsible for the whole system that they
| have so eagerly taken charge of. Ignorance cannot be an
| excuse.
| tt217aa742 wrote:
| In this case:
|
| The worker should be incarcerated for doing the act,
| whilst knowing that it was harmful to the environment,
| instead of reporting the manager to the authorities and
| higher ups.
|
| The manager should be incarcerated, for directly ordering
| the said act to be done and due to therefore also being
| responsible for it.
|
| The CEO should be incarcerated for failing to set up
| proper procedures so things like these can't happen
| (unauthorized dumps where just one party is trusted with
| these substances), for failing to set up mechanisms of
| oversight and control (which would terminate said manager
| from the company) and as an example to prevent systemic
| inaction due to noone caring and having no motivation to
| do proper implementations.
|
| The particulars of how long these incarcerations should
| be, however, could be up for debate.
|
| Financial penalties, as a function of net-worth, should
| also be considered.
| PakG1 wrote:
| It is the CEO's job to set the organizational culture and
| expectations. CEO doesn't need to know what's going on
| farther down the food chain, but the CEO is responsible
| for setting the culture in which they make their
| decisions.
| CRConrad wrote:
| > I don't think CEO is the right level. It may be the top
| position with high pay, but a CEO is so high up the food-
| chain that they touch very little.
|
| Funny then how the CEO is the right level to take that
| high pay, which is generally defended as compensation for
| the ultimate responsibility.
|
| Either the CEO is responsible for what happens under his
| reign, or he isn't. If he is, why shouldn't he shoulder
| the blame for the bad parts; if he isn't, why should he
| be paid for the good parts?
| will_pseudonym wrote:
| OT, but "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"
| reminds me of a funny Mitchell and Webb sketch about evil
| villains using ambiguous phrases when ordering their
| henchmen to kill someone.
|
| (NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6cake3bwnY
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| One of the things I found incredible about the antitrust
| hearings this past year was how heavily every Big Tech
| CEO relied on "I don't know", "I don't recall", or "I'll
| have to get back to you". Often about things I, an
| outsider, know of.
|
| It strains plausibility they didn't know, they're just
| punting to a time they aren't under oath.
| onethought wrote:
| If it's a crime for you to misspeak wouldn't you err on
| the side of caution?
|
| Anti trust hearings of 4 tech companies at once...
| ridiculous... All 4 of you have a monopoly on...
| something!
|
| Bullshit politics. You aren't being forced to use ANY
| services from big tech in the US there is HEAPS of
| competition. Just US lawmakers shoring up constituents
| jjeaff wrote:
| While I very much dislike the anticompetitive practices
| of these companies, I have to agree they aren't really
| close to monopolies. Google and Facebook are not social
| media companies. They are advertising companies. They
| sell ad space. There are still a lot of different ways to
| spend as money.
| wpietri wrote:
| This would be more plausible if VCs weren't spending
| billions openly trying to create the sort of market
| dominance that lets them exercise outsized pricing power.
| The book _Super Pumped_ , for example, shows clearly that
| Uber was seeking a monopoly. They only got a duopoly in
| which they're the dominant player, but from a pricing
| perspective that's nearly as good.
|
| It follows from VC efforts that market dominance produces
| massive profits. That money comes from somewhere. Anti-
| trust enforcement is way too weak in the US. Congress's
| motives in going after the tech companies is decidedly
| mixed, but given decades of laxity, I'll take it as a
| good start.
| onethought wrote:
| ... are you assuming the US = world?
|
| Uber didn't get a monopoly... and there are a bunch of
| competitors in lots of different countries. And Uber is
| paying for this with epic losses every year... where is
| the anti trust?
| wpietri wrote:
| We were talking about US-based tech companies speaking to
| the United States Congress about possible anti-trust
| violations in US markets. A bunch of competitors in other
| countries doesn't mean anything for US markets. And epic
| losses are a sign of the antitrust violation: they're
| burning capital unsustainably to buy market share from
| which they can extract oligopoly rents.
| wieghant wrote:
| During my time in conscription, one thing that stuck with
| me was 'Forbidden Order'.
|
| If a superior gives you an order that violates set rules or
| laws (e.g shoot civilians). You HAVE to obey and BOTH
| parties will be accountable.
|
| It's crazy how severity of ignoring an order can be worse
| than tribunal. However I totally agree with accountability.
|
| Though corps would figure out a way to weasel past this
| regardless.
| Escapado wrote:
| And with (financial) protection for those who refuse to
| partake and report the crime. I guess the person pressing
| the dump button would usually make just above minimum wage
| and would be considered unimportant enough to fire if he
| stood up for what's right so there is no incentive except
| for a moral one which I would argue is not enough for most
| people.
| hchz wrote:
| CWA, CAA, CERCLA, and RCRA provide these protections for
| whistleblowers and a framework for financial incentives,
| though these incentives are paltry compared to SEC
| whistleblower rewards.
|
| https://echo.epa.gov/report-environmental-violations
|
| https://www.whistleblowers.gov
| ineedasername wrote:
| The problem is also that the power imbalance is severely
| stacked against the whistleblower. Sure, retaliation
| isn't allowed, but it's a far stretch to think it doesn't
| happen.
|
| I've seen it happen, or what probably was retaliation,
| but how do I know for sure? They said the person wasn't
| competent or doing their job when they got fired. I don't
| know for sure if that was true, but I do know they
| reported significant theft that would likely have
| involved someone higher up, and not long afterwards he
| was fired.
| hchz wrote:
| My point was only that such protections and rewards
| already exist.
|
| I find it obvious that such retaliation happens,
| otherwise it would be strange to have such laws.
| Spivak wrote:
| As much as the liberal-libertarian crowd on HN likes to
| be vocal against most forms of government licensure,
| protection from ethical breaches like this is one of the
| best things about them. You can tell your employer to
| pound sand because neither you nor anyone they could
| replace you with will be willing to risk their license to
| do something unethical. And even if they could find
| someone sketch to try and push it through you're
| protected by your professional review board.
| hurt_and_afraid wrote:
| I really love this term you've used: 'liberal-
| libertarian'. It succintly sums up the odd attitudes held
| by so many posters who barrack so strongly for near-
| radical left-wing views, and then balk at the idea of
| holding corporations even remotely responsible for their
| actions.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| I'm not leftist and I haven't observed any strong bias
| here. HN crowd is leftist only by US standards but then
| US is a country where most people think public health
| care is communism.
| adventured wrote:
| ~42%-45% of the US population is in Medicaid, Medicare or
| other government healthcare solutions. It's very clear
| that most people in the US do not think socialized /
| public healthcare is tantamount to Communism.
|
| The US is left leaning compared to the majority of all
| nations.
|
| Besides that, the US is far more progressive than eg
| Europe in many respects (and that's ignoring parts of
| Europe still ruled by actual fascism and dictatorship,
| countries where it's perfectly legal to beat your wife if
| you so choose and being gay is practically a crime). In
| the majority of Europe gay marriage is still illegal. How
| much more regressive and backwards can you get? The US is
| at least a decade ahead of Europe when it comes to gay
| rights and identity / gender matters.
|
| In Denmark they're committing vast human rights
| violations against minority Muslims while the world looks
| the other way. Is that left by US standards? I don't see
| the US forcing cultural eradication upon Muslims or
| taking their children away from them and indoctrinating
| them with nationalistic propaganda.
|
| Across Western Europe de facto Neo Nazi parties hold
| immense political power.
|
| In France Macron has practically declared open cultural
| war against Muslims.
|
| Formerly open immigration nations like Sweden have become
| hyper xenophobic and have locked down access. Neo Nazism
| is rampant in Germany and so is xenophobia. Meanwhile the
| US is one of the few affluent nations on the planet that
| still welcomes the poor and the non-skilled, you don't
| need to be rich or successful to immigrate into the US
| (and that's before Biden's Presidency begins, in which
| the Democrats will dramatically liberalize immigration).
|
| Progressiveness is vanishing from Europe, while the US is
| becoming more progressive by the decade. So where are all
| these nations around the world that are a lot further
| left than the US? There are maybe a dozen, tops.
|
| The US now spends more on its welfare state as a share of
| its economy than either Canada or Australia. In the next
| 10-15 years it'll catch up to Britain on that point.
|
| The US is also progressing much faster on drug
| decriminalization and legalization than Europe is. And
| half of Europe is guaranteed to remain backwards,
| regressive, on all of the previously mentioned items.
| africanboy wrote:
| > ~42%-45% of the US population is in Medicaid, Medicare
| or other government healthcare solutions
|
| Please, not this argument again!
|
| Medicaid is an health insurance, not free health care!
|
| They are completely different things (no, it's not the
| same thing as providing free healthcare)
|
| And btw, only 23% benefit from it
|
| _" providing free health insurance to 74 million low-
| income and disabled people (23% of Americans)"_
|
| > Progressiveness is vanishing from Europe, while the US
| is becoming more progressive by the decade
|
| The only progress US has made has been the number of
| homicides...
|
| A nation where a thousand people every year are killed by
| the police and that has almost 700 people in jail every
| 100,000 of population (25% of the global jail population)
| looks more like a dictatorships than a progressive
| country.
|
| As a comparison in Italy for the police to kill a
| thousand people it would take 333 years. USA has only 5.5
| times the population of Italy.
| CRConrad wrote:
| > [T]he US is far more progressive than eg Europe...
|
| This post is the craziest collection of misconceptions
| and outright untruths I've read in... A very, very long
| time.
| bserge wrote:
| Wow, uh, where do you get your news on Europe?
| bitcharmer wrote:
| This is a good evidence for what I refer to as the rise
| of redditism on HN (US-biased views pretty much detached
| from reality, but constituting the majority of up/down-
| votes). This is further supported by the dynamics of
| up/down votes. You will see GP comment up-voted when the
| US wakes up.
| africanboy wrote:
| You mean Americans being average Americans?
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is not a change, it has always happened here. Also,
| saying that HN is turning into reddit is so old that
| there's a rule about not doing it.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| > The US is left leaning compared to the majority of all
| nations.
|
| I stopped reading after this
| pessimizer wrote:
| "Liberal-libertarian" isn't "leftist," and that's pretty
| clear from the context of the comment. It's minarchist,
| free-marketeer, etc.
| nswest23 wrote:
| plausible deniability at every level makes this impossible.
| gameman144 wrote:
| I like the concept of this, but it seems like it'd be tough
| to validate that something was actually illegal from the
| individual actor's level. For instance, if management made
| clear that the hack here was illegal, the individual person
| doing the typing is just as culpable. It seems like it'd be
| very easy to mask that from above, however (e.g. telling a
| junior developer that there was a contract with Songkick
| and they needed to just do a database dump).
| saghm wrote:
| Okay, so whoever lied about there being a contract (and
| anyone who authorizatied the lie) should be culpable.
| canofbars wrote:
| I guess the problem is the higher ups know not to put any
| of this on record and the new person doesn't know that
| they should be recording this info so when it gets
| investigated its all "I never told him to do that".
| rectang wrote:
| > _I like the concept of this, but it seems like it 'd be
| tough to validate that something was actually illegal
| from the individual actor's level._
|
| By design. The corporate structure of plausible
| deniability protects executives, and ultimately
| shareholders, when lower level actors are subtly
| "encouraged" to commit criminal behavior which advantages
| the company -- and then cut loose if they get caught.
|
| The incentives provide a strong force ensuring corporate
| criminality in the aggregate which completely overwhelms
| the weak force discouraging it at the individual level.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| Should be that the board of directors is responsible.
| [deleted]
| ljm wrote:
| They get all of the benefits of personhood but literally none
| of the drawbacks.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| And other benefits too: Disney trying to shirk its royalty
| paying responsibilities
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25143926
| spoonjim wrote:
| Individuals are frequently given "life without parole," which
| effectively erases them, but corporations almost never get
| this.
| [deleted]
| akudha wrote:
| It is news like this that makes me want to go back to puppy
| videos on YouTube. In what universe 35 years in prison can be
| justified for Aaron's alleged crime?
| backtoyoujim wrote:
| It was a Stephen Heymann, Scott Garland, and Carmen Ortiz
| universe.
| ryanlol wrote:
| Not in this universe anyway, nothing close to 35 years was
| ever on the table. To suggest otherwise is deliberate
| disinformation.
|
| The prosecutors had offered Aaron _6 months_ , he could've
| got less.
| modo_mario wrote:
| >Not in this universe anyway, nothing close to 35 years was
| ever on the table. To suggest otherwise is deliberate
| disinformation.
|
| The prosecutors office was working to pile on even more
| charges for a theoretical max of 50 years. The offer was a
| plea deal which the prosecutor thought was an appropriate
| sentence yet she hounded him with as many charges as
| possible anyway guaranteeing him years in jail if he did
| not accept and waive the constitutional rights he'd have
| during a trial. He declined and his counter offer was
| rejected.
|
| This illustrates how it is a legal fiction that plea
| bargaining is a voluntary negotiation between the
| prosecutor and defendant
| akudha wrote:
| _yet she hounded him with as many charges as possible
| anyway_
|
| Why? What does she get out of it? I honestly do not
| understand. It is one thing pile charges on a violent
| murderer - not that it makes it right, at least it is
| debatable. Why would she think decades in jail makes
| sense in this case?
|
| I honestly do not understand. How do these people sleep
| at night?
| ryanlol wrote:
| > The prosecutors office was working to pile on even more
| charges for a theoretical max of 50 years
|
| The theoretical maximum is utterly irrelevant.
|
| > guaranteeing him years in jail if he did not accept
|
| So you acknowledge that he definitely did violate the
| law, no? Sounds like the prosecutor was very generous
| with their plea deal offers.
|
| "According to Swartz's lawyers, the prosecutors in the
| case offered two different pleas. First, they would agree
| to a sentence of four months if Swartz agreed to plead
| guilty to the felonies. And second, they could agree to a
| deal in which Swartz agreed to plead guilty, the
| government would argue for a 6 month sentence, and Swartz
| could argue for a lesser sentence (presumably including
| probation). In all likelihood, the judge would have then
| sentenced Swartz to 4 months under the 1st plea and
| whatever the judge thought appropriate, up to 6 months,
| under the second plea."
| ryanlol wrote:
| Aaron never received any penalty at all. The government offered
| him 6 months in jail, with the opportunity to argue for further
| leniency. There's a very good chance that he would've walked
| away with essentially nothing.
| f430 wrote:
| and then 10 years later web scraping is fully legal and CFAA
| cannot be abused to go after them.
| bdowling wrote:
| At least one of the individuals involved in this TicketMaster
| hacking pleaded guilty to the hacking.
|
| "The charges against Ticketmaster come 26 months after Zeeshan
| Zaidi, the former head of Ticketmaster's artist services
| division, pled guilty in a related case to conspiring to hack
| the rival company and engage in wired fraud."
| 0goel0 wrote:
| Unless some high-level execs are convicted and put in jail,
| and the company is given a high-enough file[1], this is the
| cost of doing business.
|
| [1] 2 years of net profits? 50% of gross revenue? IDK. It has
| to be meaningful amount to truly deter criminal acts.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Zaidi has been convicted. He's awaiting sentencing.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Arguably a single conviction won't achieve anything. If
| it's just one sucker who gets taken out (years later) as
| a result of an incredibly profitable scam, it's easy to
| convince your employees that they won't be the one to
| take the fall. If you have a significant portion of the
| executive team or other leadership getting punished it
| sets a clearer example.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| It's fairly frustrating that no one is going to prison over this
| 100% greed-motivated, brazen corporate crime.
| roywiggins wrote:
| At least one actual human has plead guilty: "The charges
| against Ticketmaster come 26 months after Zeeshan Zaidi, the
| former head of Ticketmaster's artist services division, pled
| guilty in a related case to conspiring to hack the rival
| company and engage in wired [sic] fraud."
|
| He appears to be awaiting sentencing.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| > At a San Francisco meeting attended by at least 14
| employees of Ticketmaster or its parent company Live Nation,
| the employee used one set of credentials to log in to an
| account to demonstrate how it worked.
|
| I think 15 conspiracy charges are appropriate, bare minimum.
| yummypaint wrote:
| Let's say this guy gets 2 years for conspiracy. Not even
| doing the crime. He loses 2 of about 45 years in the
| workforce, or vaguely 5% of his lifetime income.
|
| For this to be proportional, ticketmaster should lose either
| 2 full years worth of income, or 5% of all profits in
| perpetuity. The amount they were fined for actually doing the
| crime was a rounding error by comparison.
| snakeboy wrote:
| Discussing the length of a prison sentence strictly in
| terms of income lost is also greatly understating the
| actual severity of the punishment.
|
| I would gladly give up say 10% of my lifetime earnings for
| all sorts of things, but I wouldn't trade 4.5 years of my
| healthy adult life for anything.
| ohyes wrote:
| > I wouldn't trade 4.5 years of my healthy adult life for
| anything
|
| But you probably do, just not on purpose. It's smaller
| decisions that you don't realize involve trading 'healthy
| adult life' for money/convenience/pleasure/release. And
| of course, the work hours you put in are very directly
| trading healthy adult life for money.
|
| Opportunity cost is not something that we, as humans, are
| particularly good at. It is of course possible that you
| are exceptional, in which case you can assume I'm
| speaking from my own fallible experience of existence.
| snakeboy wrote:
| You're correct, I should have been more precise. 4.5
| years lost all at once is what is unacceptable. I
| recognize work and all of life's "chores" take time, and
| that every decision I make cuts off an infinitude of
| other choices. Though most chores have a positive reward
| for doing them, while prison has very little.
|
| The larger point I intended was that for most people
| (especially handsomely-paid professionals like software
| devs) time is a more constrained resource than money.
|
| Lastly, time lost all at once is worse than time loss
| incrementally, i.e. if I could serve my 4.5 year sentence
| 40 hours a week, that doesn't sound so bad, or that
| unfamiliar... ;)
| richardwhiuk wrote:
| No, marginal cost of free time gets very expensive for
| most people.
|
| While I'd be willing to do my current job for X, if you
| wanted to double my hours, you'd need to pay me than 2X.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I agree, but unfortunately, bribery, I mean, _lobbying_ has
| a great ROI. It 's cheap to buy your way into Congress.
| spoonjim wrote:
| And nobody will change their behaviors because all but one of
| them suffer no personal consequences. They got the benefit of the
| crime and have to pay no price.
|
| Corporate crime needs to be prosecuted like personal crime, with
| 20-year-jail sentences in a jail full of Crips and Bloods and
| Aryan Brotherhood. Your Harvard MBA dude truly knows that he
| doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving a place
| like that.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The article says that an executive was charged with wire fraud
| and conspiracy to violate the CFAA, pled guilty, and is
| awaiting sentencing.
|
| It's up to the judge whether he sees the inside of a jail cell.
| markovbot wrote:
| sounds like the system is working as intended
| Nacdor wrote:
| > Ticketmaster has agreed to pay a $10 million criminal fine
|
| Live Nation is worth $16 Billion. This is like a person with a
| $100k net worth having to pay a $62 fine, basically an expensive
| parking ticket.
|
| They might as well tell them to write "I will not hack my
| competitors" on the blackboard 100 times.
| tschwimmer wrote:
| A street cleaning ticket in SF is $79 and is probably one of
| the cheapest fines you'll pay.
| whalesalad wrote:
| A parking ticket in Chelsea, Michigan is $8. I forgot to pay
| it for 6 months and they didn't even care.
| enkid wrote:
| Some places parking ticket is revenue, some places it's
| just a reminder.
| sixothree wrote:
| I think I paid > $150 for parking too close to a
| driveway.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| The cost of going to a judge for an arrest warrant and then
| arresting you would cost an least an order of magnitude
| more than that!
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| A speeding ticket in Southern California was over $600 for me
| a few years ago.
| codereflection wrote:
| ... and they'll call it "The cost of doing business".
| Disgusting.
| xmprt wrote:
| Are fines tax deductible?
| jedberg wrote:
| No, fines aren't deductible.
| CerealFounder wrote:
| LOL A criminal fine. Is there anything more insane than nobody
| being personally responsible for committing a crime. Like an
| institution woke up and developed cognition.
| byset wrote:
| But per the article, a Ticketmaster employee has pleaded
| guilty to a criminal offense related to the hacking
| soupson wrote:
| Your point still stands, but a better comparison I think is
| cash on hand, since valuation doesn't mean much in terms of
| paying fines. You can't pay the government in stock.
|
| LYV had $2.6b on hand last quarter.
| arcticbull wrote:
| You totally can pay the government in stock, you just have to
| sell it or set it aside in a trust.
|
| There's prior art, this is what the IRS makes folks who are
| attempting to renounce their citizenship (or give up a green
| card held for over 8 years) do for illiquid assets when
| paying the expatriation tax.
| brokensegue wrote:
| but LiveNation doesn't hold stock worth $16B and cannot
| easily issue new stock.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| That's not the right way to think about it. Enterprise
| value is some number say $19B (shares plus debt less
| cash; think of the equity in your house). Assume existing
| debt is $5B. You "give" a debt-like instrument to govt,
| say $10B.
|
| Debt is ahead of stock. The stock is now "worth" a few
| billion. No new stock issued.
|
| The Nobel prize in economics was won for this concept in
| 1990 iirc: the value of the firm is independent to how
| it's financed. Just like how the value of your house has
| nothing to do with what interest rate you pay in your
| mortgage.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I didn't realize paying criminal penalties was supposed
| to be fun and easy ;) this is literally restitution for a
| crime.
|
| "Uh, no Judge, I don't think I should be forced to go to
| prison, that's _hard_ "
|
| [edit] Maybe this is controversial, I dunno, I might just
| be old fashioned that way, but my opinion is if you find
| the punishment too onerous maybe _don 't do crime_.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It is not restitution if the money doesn't go the harmed
| party
| arcticbull wrote:
| You are correct, I misspoke. Thanks!
| munk-a wrote:
| Restitution is one of the comparably less important
| facets of our legal system (IMO), the important strength
| of a good legal system is deterrence. Restitution should
| (again IMO) in fact be severed from judgement, harmed
| parties should be reimbursed by the government and the
| government can excise penalties on the offending parties.
| There are a lot of cases where defendants should be hit
| with serious fines due to the potential and foreseeable
| damages of their actions but the claimants suffered
| comparatively little - in these cases an imbalanced
| judgement where the defendant is hit with a strong
| penalty that is only partially awarded to the claimant is
| fair... Then again (in the US at least) the legal system
| is essentially privatized with very little government
| intervention in cases so this would require some other
| changes to do properly.
|
| The other side of the coin is quite damaging to our
| society as well - a defendant being judgement proof
| (having nothing to penalize or fine) can deprive
| claimants of funds needed to repair the damage of the
| crime - this, again, is a case where the government
| awarding funds and then regaining those funds from the
| defendant independently would be quite beneficial.
| nickff wrote:
| Aren't people constantly arguing that deterrence is
| ineffective against individuals, and that rehabilitation
| is best? I don't take a personal view on these things,
| but I would imagine that the people arguing for more
| severe 'punishment' of corporations and white-collar
| criminals are the ones arguing for lenience in violent
| and other individual crime.
| hansvm wrote:
| It's possible for both of those views to coexist. I have
| no idea if the data fits such a model, but off the top of
| my head here are a few factors which might matter.
|
| 1. White-collar criminals might be more significantly
| deterred by the threat of any prison time, perhaps
| because they have more to lose or because such crimes
| have more premeditation.
|
| 2. Prison might work as a deterrent in general, but if
| 20yrs will already ruin your life then the additional
| threat of another 80yrs might have little to no impact.
|
| 3. Rehabilitation might have a stronger effect than
| deterrence, which could point to hybrid solutions
| leveraging both effects, supposing they mix
| appropriately.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| At a high level, I think it would be silly to say that
| deterrence is entirely ineffective. I think most
| individuals making serious arguments against it state
| that it is only effective in certain circumstances, it
| has diminishing returns, and as a country, the US errors
| on the side of sentences which are much longer than
| necessary.
|
| For example, If a crime is punished with incarceration,
| it seems unlikely that a person would make a calculated
| decision that 5 years in prison is an acceptable risk but
| 10 is not.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| People say all sorts of things. How often do you drive 90
| mph on the highway?
|
| Most people learn over time when they are young that it
| is a losing proposition.
| nightcracker wrote:
| The idea that companies and humans are in any way
| equivalent is preposterous.
|
| Companies can not be rehabilitated because they aren't
| moral beings. They only understand one thing: profit.
| Thus for companies the financial deterrent is effective
| and appropriate.
| not2b wrote:
| Exactly. If fines are less than the profit gained, the
| only price is the bad publicity and that often fades away
| after a few news cycles. This verdict sends a message
| that you might as well destroy a competitor in this way
| because the price will be insignificant even if you're
| caught. There might be personal risk if an individual is
| charged, but they can give some flunkie the job, make
| sure nothing is in writing, and then blame the employee
| or contractor if anything goes wrong.
|
| We really need the "death penalty" for companies:
| dissolve the corporation after a certain number of
| offenses, sell the assets off to raise money to
| compensate the victims.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The parent post was talking about restitution. I was
| addressing this point.
| cookie_monsta wrote:
| I think there are some extradition lawyers who would
| agree with this
| james-skemp wrote:
| Punishment is meant to deter others from doing the crime
| (whether or not that works is another issue), so I think
| you're correct.
|
| If people/organizations are committing a crime, then one
| reason may be that the punishment/deterrent is too lax.
|
| (There's of course other reasons, like the law making the
| act a crime is bad in some way, or the
| individual/organization has no, or knows of no,
| alternative.)
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| This was a deferred prosecution agreement between
| Ticketmaster and a DOJ lawyer, not the court's decision.
| In the US, courts have limited power to review these
| agreements and generally judges just approve them every
| time. In other countries that allow DPE's, courts may
| have the power to limit their use.
|
| The agreement might state what Ticketmaster must do or
| refrain from doing after the effective date to avoid
| being prosecuted in the future. Paying a fine might be
| only one part of the agreement.
|
| One can only make assumptions about what the court might
| have found regarding the CFAA claim. The fact is, it did
| not get the opportunity.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Maybe this is an opening for a new startup: Frictionless,
| delightful resolution of criminal charges for the
| ultrawealthy. Simple automated payment of slap-on-the-
| wrist fines, and with the optional Uber-for-inmates
| premium add-on we'll find somebody to serve any jail time
| in your place.
| hhggfdss wrote:
| I don't think that's what the person you are replying to
| meant by not easy, I think they meant blood from a stone
| not easy.
|
| The stone might've committed a crime for which it should
| bleed, but that doesn't mean you can make it do that. Get
| it?
| sscotth wrote:
| My cash on hand is significantly less than my net worth too.
| not2b wrote:
| If you commit an offense that has a large financial
| penalty, no one will care about that, you'll have to sell
| assets to raise the cash.
| SN76477 wrote:
| Fines for such acts need to be much larger. In addition I would
| like to see such funds turned into appropriate federal grants.
| paxys wrote:
| It isn't even an expensive parking ticket. Traffic fines in the
| Bay Area are in the hundreds even for minor offenses.
| nOObie1 wrote:
| The Bay Area and expensive are already synonymous
| cbsmith wrote:
| This is the not-quite-last (there's a deferred prosecution
| agreement that is part of this) in a series of consequences in
| a case that goes way back in time.
|
| I'm not sure I follow the logic of looking at the net worth of
| a conglomerate when assessing a fine. If someone parks the
| corporate car in a no-parking zone, or spits out chewing gum on
| the sidewalk, you're not going to fine them x% of net worth. At
| least in terms of consequences for the corporation, you'd they
| would be (punitively) proportional to the economic impact of
| the criminal activity.
|
| What was the impact of this conduct? It's not mentioned in the
| story. If they paid a $10 million fine on criminal activity
| that gleaned them a $1 billion advantage, then yeah this is a
| slap on the wrist. If it's a $10 million fine on something that
| gave them a $10 advantage, it's arguably overly punitive.
| confidantlake wrote:
| Some countries actually do this, charge variable fines
| depending on net worth. The fine in this case is to de-
| incentivize bad behavior like reckless driving.
| jobu wrote:
| Fines for corporations should be a percentage of revenue,
| otherwise massive companies will keep doing heinous shit and
| write it off as a cost of doing business. The GDPR penalties in
| the EU are done this way (up to 4% of revenue).
| hansvm wrote:
| That still just seems like a band-aid (sorry, I don't have a
| constructive alternative in mind).
|
| If Massively-Evil-Plan(tm) increases profits from 10% to 20%
| then even after a 4% fine on revenue, real profits are still
| 15%. A company only motivated by profits and fines (which
| seems like a reasonable assumption if we're using laws like
| GDPR to deter "heinous shit") would be crazy not to continue
| with MEP(tm).
|
| It's really the same kind of calculation as with fixed fines
| or fines based on damage done. When profitable, they're still
| written off as the cost of doing business. The only material
| difference would be that a fixed fine effectively allows
| large companies to do "heinous shit" while imposing fines so
| large that a small company can't compete, whereas with a
| revenue calculation you instead just need to make sure that
| your "heinous shit" is scalable. That doesn't apply in
| practice though, since GDPR has an alternative EUR20M fine
| which would go into effect, so in reality GDPR just says that
| to do "heinous shit" you need to be able to do a lot of it
| scalably and profitably.
|
| The natural direction one might take this is just to say that
| the fines must not be big enough, but until you approach 100%
| of revenue the potential always exists for a new form of
| profitable "heinous shit" to crop up. If fines of that scale
| are on the table then that brings us to the other side of the
| coin: A single violation of any anti-MEP(tm) law will nearly
| certainly end the business. If a violation of an anti-MEP(tm)
| law necessarily meant that a corporation was doing "heinous
| shit" then that could plausibly be acceptable (definitely up
| for debate), but merely not appointing a data protection
| officer in the EU violates GDPR and potentially subjects a
| business to a 2% of revenue fine. The law will not perfectly
| align with what a reasonable person would consider "heinous
| shit," and too severe of a penalty in such situations seems
| prone to abuse.
| nightcracker wrote:
| > This is like a person with a $100k net worth having to pay a
| $62 fine, basically an expensive parking ticket.
|
| > They might as well tell them to write "I will not hack my
| competitors" on the blackboard 100 times.
|
| Not even. I bet a person with a $100k net worth will probably
| rather pay $62 than have to do the blackboard punishment.
| femto113 wrote:
| Worth noting that TicketMaster also paid $110MM to "acquire"
| SongKick in order to settle the original (civil) lawsuit.
| m463 wrote:
| This could be a business model.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| The world is turning more and more into neuromancer /
| shadowrun everyday..
| superfrank wrote:
| It basically is a business model for dating sites. Get big
| enough to be annoying and then wait for Match Group to make
| an offer.
|
| Match Group owns Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid, Hinge, and
| PlentyOfFish as well as a metric fuck ton of niche sites.
| varispeed wrote:
| This seems like a huge gaping loophole in capitalism. I
| think companies should be disallowed to buy competing
| companies (even via proxy) and companies beyond certain
| threshold should by law be divided into smaller
| companies.
| tim333 wrote:
| It's been noted. It's what the
|
| > The Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission was
| set up on 1 January 1949
|
| was for, now the Competition Commission. How well that
| works is debatable.
| RIMR wrote:
| Counterpoint: This isn't a "loophole" or a "flaw" in
| capitalism. This is just capitalism working exactly as it
| was designed.
|
| The entire point of capitalism is to acquire as much
| capital as possible, not to be the best at what you do.
| It's not a meritocracy. The best idea doesn't win - the
| best FUNDED idea wins, which means whichever dumb idea
| that benefits the rich the most is what you're going to
| get.
|
| And if the rich people who own Match.com decide that
| buying up every competitor and rolling them into their
| platform is what's going to make them the most money,
| that's what they are going to do.
|
| Don't view it as a flaw of capitalism that needs to be
| fixed, think of it as a feature of capitalism that
| necessitates a conversation about alternatives.
| harpiaharpyja wrote:
| I'm sick of this meme. The purpose of any institution -
| economic, political, social - is to serve some function
| and if we can modify it to better serve whatever function
| we desire, we should be able to do so without
| disingenuous a __holes in comment threads bitching
| through their 1-dimensional ploy to shut down all
| conversation that doesn 't include their pet solution of
| "burn down everything so we can implement the system __I
| __want "
|
| How about this: Improving what is there IS an
| alternative, and one that must be seriously considered.
| ct520 wrote:
| Sounds like some solid DD to me
| [deleted]
| pedalpete wrote:
| I had always thought Warner bought SongKick, but further
| investigation shows they did not buy the pending lawsuit or
| the ticketing business.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Why are the people who did the hacking and those who ordered it
| not being brought up on criminal charges? How the heck is it that
| we have a legal system that shields criminals so long as the
| crime is in service to a large corporation?
| dvtrn wrote:
| The article, when we read it tells us:
|
| _The charges against Ticketmaster come 26 months after Zeeshan
| Zaidi, the former head of Ticketmaster's artist services
| division, pled guilty in a related case to conspiring to hack
| the rival company and engage in wired fraud. According to
| prosecutors, the former rival employee emailed the login
| credentials to Zaidi and another Ticketmaster employee._
| NeverFade wrote:
| A corporation criminally hacked a rival for profit and got away
| with a small fine.
|
| A person doing the exact same thing would be heading to prison.
|
| Seems like the same crime has a very different outcome when a
| corporation commits it.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The article notes that Zeeshan Zaidi, a Ticketmaster exec,
| plead guilty to violating the CFAA and to wire fraud in 2019,
| and is apparently still awaiting sentencing.
|
| You can read the criminal complaint:
| https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nyed.439451...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > still awaiting sentencing
|
| Aside from the usual explanation (white collar crime), any
| idea why someone can be found guilty and then still not given
| a sentence for more than a year. AFAICT he isn't even
| incarcerated at the moment.
| [deleted]
| xwdv wrote:
| A corporation regular committing crimes is a good revenue
| stream if they pay the fines consistently. So yes, the outcome
| is expected to be different, this shouldn't be mind blowing.
| maedla wrote:
| They should be nationalized to become an even better revenue
| stream
| buran77 wrote:
| While superficially a good idea, it would probably punish
| shareholders more than the actual perpetrators and would
| most likely lead to a far lower performing company, so a
| weaker economy. How many state run companies do you know
| are performing great?
|
| Tesla may do any number of shady or illegal things but
| without Musk and his vested interest in the company it
| would probably be a footnote in some corporate obituary.
| 8note wrote:
| The shareholders are the right people to hold accountable
| though.
|
| Otherwise you incentivize hiring fall guys to do a crime
| and go to prison, while the shareholders profit off of
| their crimes
| buran77 wrote:
| Because there are many investors that have no input in
| day to day operations or simply had no influence or
| knowledge of the particular offenses. If the state takes
| over they will certainly have to take a huge loss.
|
| Take your bank as an example. You gave them the money
| they used to commit whatever illegality and you profited
| from it. Now imagine the state takes over and only pays
| you a fraction of your deposits.
|
| Worse yet, it incentivizes the shareholders to try to
| keep things hidden where today they would likely sue the
| company or CEO.
| newen wrote:
| Why? It's not like shareholders are the ones doing the
| work inside the company.
| buran77 wrote:
| Not sure "why what" but I made 2 points:
|
| - The shareholders shouldn't necessarily be held
| responsible because most have no input or knowledge when
| it comes to any shady business.
|
| - The company would perform worse because without the
| drive for profit (and whatever gray means they use to
| achieve them) that most private entrepreneurs have, the
| company would almost definitely perform worse. Privatized
| companies usually run better because the state might be a
| good minority shareholder but not the best when it comes
| to driving a company.
| xwdv wrote:
| Because the company's growth story which much of the high
| valuation is built on is instantly eliminated, sending
| prices plummeting while the people working inside the
| company just go on to get new jobs somewhere and make
| more money.
| pengaru wrote:
| It's as if you've never been told "you should incorporate to
| limit your liability" before.
| Railsify wrote:
| Crime pays for the already rich.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| This is why the public should never support self driving cars:
| the corporation will kill people without consequences.
| gruez wrote:
| >the corporation will kill people without consequences.
|
| ...except the corporation being fined and/or sued in civil
| court, along with the executives/engineers responsible facing
| criminal charges.
| buran77 wrote:
| Except they rarely punish individuals, and as long as they
| are large enough or with plenty of government contracts
| companies rarely get a punishment that's more than "the
| cost of doing business".
|
| Look at the GM ignition switch scandal where executives
| knew explicitly the likely consequences of their decision
| and yet no real punishment was enacted even after
| repeatedly lying about the death toll (initially by at
| least one order of magnitude) that eventually officially
| reached 124 deaths and likely much higher in reality.
|
| Look at Boeing's 737MAX scandal where executives also knew
| the likely consequences and worked to go around rules,
| regulations, certification in order to pretend those
| consequences won't happen. Both Boeing and authorities
| either buried or turned a blind eye to reports that this
| happens. No real punishment here either.
|
| Autonomous cars or not, as long as corporations pay for
| your laws you will always be on the lower rungs of the
| ladder.
| pacamara619 wrote:
| It's gonna be the same thing as it is now:
|
| "Tragic. Thoughts and prayers. Software problem. Nothing we
| could do."
| gruez wrote:
| That literally describes the situation now with human
| drivers. The only difference is that human drivers get
| more sympathy because most voters are also drivers.
| babycake wrote:
| Remember not long ago when Uber killed a pedestrian?
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54175359
|
| > Ms Vasquez was charged on 27 August, and made her first
| appearance in court on 15 September. The trial is now set
| for February next year.
|
| > Despite the decision not to levy criminal charges against
| Uber itself, the company did not escape criticism.
|
| > Days before the crash, an employee had warned his
| superiors that the vehicles were unsafe, were routinely in
| accidents, and raised concerns about the training of
| operators.
|
| > Following the crash, authorities in Arizona suspended
| Uber's ability to test self-driving cars on the state's
| public roads, and Uber ended its tests in the state. It
| received permission to carry out tests in the state of
| California earlier this year.
|
| So despite all the safety failures by the company, just the
| hired driver was charged...
| gruez wrote:
| >> Days before the crash, an employee had warned his
| superiors that the vehicles were unsafe, were routinely
| in accidents, and raised concerns about the training of
| operators.
|
| >So despite all the safety failures by the company, just
| the hired driver was charged...
|
| A thought experiment: if a municipality was warned about
| safety failures about its streets (high speed limits,
| poor lighting/signage, lack of pedestrian crossings), and
| some kid got killed in a car accident, should the
| municipality be liable? What if everything that uber/the
| municipality did was within the law, and the only thing
| they're guilty of is not taking _additional_ safety
| measures? eg. dropping the speed limit to 20mph in
| suburbs will probably eliminate all pedestrian deaths,
| should the municipality be liable if it set the speed
| limit to 30mph and the kid died?
| andrewzah wrote:
| There are an insane amount of car accident-related deaths &
| injuries every year. At least 30,000 deaths/year in the USA
| alone. Because humans drive tired, drunk, while texting, etc,
| and sometimes just make mistakes.
|
| With fully automated driving the number of crashes (and
| therefore injuries & deaths) will go down -dramatically-. So
| you can argue all you want about the ethics & morality of the
| ~100 deaths/year or so from automated car crashes. But that's
| far preferable to the current situation. Even if we still
| have 10-20k deaths/year from automated driving systems,
| that's still a large improvement.
|
| This argument about the ethics of contrived car accident
| scenarios totally misses the boat. In my opinion the only
| ethical argument is to move over to fully automated driving
| systems as soon as -safely- possible.
| jonathanyc wrote:
| > With fully automated driving the number of crashes (and
| therefore injuries & deaths) will go down -dramatically-.
| So you can argue all you want about the ethics & morality
| of the ~100 deaths/year or so from automated car crashes.
| But that's far preferable to the current situation.
|
| Why do people (in particular people without robotics
| experience) keep assuming this will happen any time soon
| without any evidence whatsoever? "We must move over to self
| driving cars as soon as they are safer" is fair but it's
| almost tautological.
|
| The only numbers we have so far show that _despite_ only
| testing in near ideal conditions (e.g. Waymo choosing to
| test in suburban Arizona rather than Manhattan or rural
| snowy Midwestern areas), the accident rate for autonomous
| vehicles is actually _significantly_ higher, _not even_
| counting "interventions" which every company measures in
| its own inscrutable way.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Nothing in my comment implied this will happen soon. I
| don't think a safe, fully automated system will arrive
| anytime soon.
|
| What I was discussing was the supposed ethics of fully
| automated driving vs human driving when crashes happen.
|
| I'm tired of seeing these contrived, hypothetical
| examples about what an automated car may or may not do in
| a very specific scenario, that completely ignore the fact
| that crashes & deaths will go down by orders of
| magnitude.
| jonathanyc wrote:
| But the other commenter's "corporations will kill people
| without consequences" isn't a contrived example. It is
| just an extrapolation of what happened already when
| Uber's self driving car killed a woman because the
| management and executives decided to manually disable the
| automatic braking on the car.
|
| Maybe crashes and deaths will go down by an order of
| magnitude one day. But my point is that that's hardly an
| argument in favor of not worrying about the ethical
| implications of self driving cars _today_.
| kelnos wrote:
| I feel like you're moving the goalposts, though.
|
| My view is that even if self-driving car corporations
| kill people with zero consequences (due to poor laws and
| poor oversight), as long as they're doing so at lower
| rates than human drivers are, that's still a net win.
| It's still not an ideal scenario, because those deaths
| could be _further_ reduced under the threat of real
| consequences. But by and large, it 'd still be better
| than what we have today.
|
| If they're killing people during testing of experimental
| tech that hasn't been approved for general use (like the
| Uber case you mentioned), they need to be smacked down
| hard. If they're killing people at a higher rate than
| human drivers, they should not be approved for general
| use in the first place. If they're approved, but release
| an update that ends up killing more people, they again
| need to be smacked down hard, with the update immediately
| reverted.
| paulgb wrote:
| > Why do people (in particular people without robotics
| experience) keep assuming this will happen any time soon
| without any evidence whatsoever?
|
| As someone who spends more time cycling than driving,
| watching videos like this[1] give me more confidence in
| _today's_ self-driving technology (assuming good
| conditions) than in most drivers on the road, even
| knowing that any internal video is bound to have a dose
| of propaganda. It's not entirely even that drivers are to
| blame; our infrastructure puts cyclists at risk as does
| the human limitation of only having two eyes.
|
| https://youtu.be/sliYTyRpRB8
| rantwasp wrote:
| you answered your own questions. people that don't
| understand the nitty gritty details of technology (any
| technology) will put more faith in it than people that
| understand it.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > Because humans drive tired, drunk, while texting, etc,
|
| But I don't. I don't care about 30k deaths a year if I'm
| killed by a floating point exception or an image
| reconnaissance glitch making my car think the truck in
| front of me is part of the sky.
| andrewzah wrote:
| And I care about dying from being hit by lightning and
| airplane crashes. It's statistically so unlikely that
| it's ridiculous to worry about it.
|
| If you die from a car crash it doesn't matter if it was
| from a drunk driver or an ai glitch. What matters is
| which is more likely- and humans are assholes. It will be
| orders of magnitude more likely to die by a human's hand
| than a random glitch.
|
| > "But I don't"
|
| I'm glad. Crashes still happen even when 1 party
| practices defensive driving techniques. Driving sucks.
| rantwasp wrote:
| nah. it sounds like you're arguing what the odds are but
| let me ask a question: what are the odds that a self
| driving car has a "glitch"?
|
| At what threshold should one be willing to bet their
| lives in this probability every time they drive?
|
| Right now we are speculating what the odds a self driving
| car has to make a mistake. But there aren't any truly
| self driving car out there. So how do you determine the
| actual odds? If you replaced all the cars with self
| driving cars how many accidents would we have?
| andrewzah wrote:
| We're not there yet, but at some point we will be. It
| probably won't be within the next 5 years, maybe even 10.
| All that matters is that the # of deaths from automated
| driving ends up less than the # of deaths from human
| driving.
|
| If 1,000 people a year die from software glitches, that's
| still a 30x+ improvement from the current situation.
|
| I really don't see how people focus so much on "potential
| glitches" and not the current reality: drunk drivers,
| angry/hostile road-ragey people, people on the phone,
| people texting while driving, people on medication,
| people driving while sleepy, etc. A few glitches here and
| there is objectively superior to the current state of
| affairs.
| xmprt wrote:
| > If 1,000 people a year die from software glitches,
| that's still a 30x+ improvement from the current
| situation.
|
| This isn't true. The odds of me dying in a car crash is
| lower than the average as a result of precautions I take
| to be safe. For me 1,000 deaths/year _might_ be a
| improvement (or it might not) but to say it 's a 30x+
| improvement just by looking at the total number of deaths
| is just false.
|
| The focus on potential glitches is because it's something
| the driver has no control over. Is there a similar
| measure for number of completely accidental deaths (eg.
| someone swerving into your car or t-boning you at an
| intersection)?
|
| Finally, until we have better laws that ensure companies
| are liable for their mistakes, companies won't take all
| the precautions to ensure vehicles are safer than a good
| driver (not just the average driver). Does anyone
| remember the Ford Pinto explosion issues because the
| company decided to use a cheaper gas tank and figured
| they would save more than they would pay from settling
| the few lawsuits that might emerge as a result?
| kelnos wrote:
| > _The odds of me dying in a car crash is lower than the
| average as a result of precautions I take to be safe._
|
| I'm not specifically accusing you of this, but consider
| that more people than is numerically possible believe
| that they're better/safer than the average driver. There
| are a _lot_ of people who believe they are much safer
| drivers than they actually are.
|
| Regardless, just because you believe that you personally
| will be a safer driver than a computer, we should scrap
| the whole thing? What about all the people who _aren 't_
| better drivers than the computer? Let's assume for a
| moment that you actually are safer than the eventual
| self-driving systems that are approved for general use --
| which is by no means a certain assumption to make -- then
| maybe you just don't use or ride in a self-driving car?
| It's your choice, after all (especially in a place like
| the US, where I imagine manual-drive car ownership in a
| self-driving world will end up nearly as closely
| protected as firearm ownership). And sure, maybe someone
| else's self-driving car might hit you and kill you, but
| someone else's human-driven car might do the same. And if
| self-driving cars are doing that at lower rates than
| humans are, it's still a net win.
|
| I think many people are taking this weird view that even
| though a self-driving car might make fewer mistakes (and
| cause fewer deaths) overall, it's somehow a worse
| situation that they'll likely make _different_ mistakes
| than a human would; that is, a self-driving car might
| kill you in a situation where a human driver would save
| you. And that somehow makes the whole thing not worth it.
| I just find that line of reasoning to be flat-out wrong.
| It 's an emotional appeal to some illusion of control.
| (Of course, unfortunately, logic doesn't write laws when
| it comes to contentious issues... emotion does.)
|
| > _The focus on potential glitches is because it 's
| something the driver has no control over._
|
| This is pretty short-sighted, because there are a ton of
| things that you have no control over when you drive your
| own car, and yet you've decided (in many cases likely
| unconsciously) that those things are acceptable risks.
|
| I'm not saying you should ignore the possible risk of
| glitches, but focusing on a number that we don't even
| know yet, and immediately assuming that it will be too
| high for your risk tolerance is... a bit weird?
|
| And that's the thing: I don't expect self-driving systems
| that have equal or worse crash records than humans do
| will be approved for use. And if they are, people will
| (rightly!) reject them. So any approved, accepted self-
| driving system will end up causing fewer deaths. Some of
| those deaths will be caused by outright bugs, and others
| will be caused by situations that a human driver would
| not be able to recover from either. All deaths are
| tragic, but fewer deaths overall is what we should be --
| must be -- aiming for. Not playing games with control
| illusions. Not arbitrarily deciding that certain failure
| modes are somehow less acceptable than others when they
| cause the same (or even fewer!) deaths.
|
| My position -- and what I believe to be the only logical,
| community minded position -- is that the glitch rate does
| not matter one bit. The only thing that matters is the
| overall death rate, and if self-driving cars have a lower
| death rate than human drivers, that should be enough. And
| if they don't, they should not be approved for use, and
| people will rightly reject them anyway.
|
| I do agree with you that companies building self-driving
| systems need to be liable for mistakes and negligence to
| the same degree as human drivers are. Unfortunately
| that's harder to prove, but it's a necessary thing to
| figure out.
| kelnos wrote:
| But you do make mistakes. All humans do. Maybe you had an
| argument with a family member earlier in the day, and
| your mind wanders and you don't notice a red light. Maybe
| it's night, and raining, and some unexpected glare
| combined with debris in the road causes you to crash.
| Maybe you do drive tired, just once, even though
| generally you're strict about not doing so. Having a
| perfect driving record requires both luck (that no one
| else around you screws up) and constant vigilance on your
| part. Blemishing that record only takes the tiniest
| mistake, just once. No one, literally no one, is immune
| to these factors.
|
| As much as I dislike the term "accident" when talking
| about car crashes (because, to me, the implication of the
| word is no one has to take responsibility), sometimes
| things just happen, because we are imperfect beings with
| imperfect nervous systems and imperfect perceptions and
| imperfect reaction times.
|
| Self-driving cars will be better at a lot of things, but,
| yes, possibly worse at others. They have the potential to
| eliminate many causes of crashes, but might add a few new
| ones.
|
| When you're on a plane, you're trusting not only the
| pilots, but a ton of complex avionics software. Why is
| that ok, while trusting self-driving isn't? I get that
| the two tasks are very different, and self-driving will
| require more sophisticated, nuanced software, but in both
| cases you're turning your safety over to a computer. That
| didn't work so well with the 737-MAX, but no one is
| talking about scrapping modern aviation because a bunch
| of people died due to bad software decisions.
|
| The problem is the illusion of control. People think that
| driving their own car means they're in control of nearly
| every possible outcome, but in reality, they're not.
| Plenty of things can happen in a car that are out of the
| driver's control, even without another vehicle involved.
|
| Another part of it is that people (Americans especially)
| can be excessively individualistic. Many people will balk
| at a solution that will result in (just making up numbers
| here) 25% fewer deaths if it means they personally will
| have a 0.001% greater chance of dying. Frankly, I find
| that mindset really worrying in a society, even if it can
| be understandable.
|
| (Somewhat relatedly, I recall an episode of Star Trek TNG
| where one possible solution to the problem du jour was to
| give the computer full control over propulsion in order
| to save the ship. And we're talking about a futuristic
| computer that could probably flawlessly simultaneously
| self-drive every car currently on Earth without breaking
| a sweat. But in the end, blatantly pandering to our
| "human control is always superior" biases, the computer
| was found to be not good enough, and humans saved the
| day. Even more telling, I believe it was Captain Picard
| who took manual control; they didn't even have Data, the
| android, do it!)
| riffic wrote:
| you've described crimes and bad decision making processes
| (humans drive tired, drunk, while texting, etc, and
| sometimes just make mistakes).
|
| The outcomes of those choices are known and have causes
| which are preventable; they are by definition not
| accidental in nature.
|
| I know it's not intentional but words matter. Crash is a
| better word 99% of the time than "accident".
| chipgap98 wrote:
| An accident is just something that occurs without
| intention. In the cases you're describing people don't
| intend to hit another car or person. That makes accident
| a reasonable label.
| kelnos wrote:
| I agree with that, but I think "accident" in this
| particular context has the undesirable property of
| allowing people to weasel out of taking responsibility.
| Just because you didn't intend to do something, it
| doesn't make it not your fault if you do. But the system
| and culture around this is set up to try to disclaim
| blame, even to the point that insurance companies tell
| you to never ever admit you were at fault after a crash.
| riffic wrote:
| Behaviors and design are themselves an intention.
|
| This post addresses "The Semantics of Intention":
|
| https://laist.com/2020/01/03/car_crash_accident_traffic_v
| iol...
|
| excerpt:
|
| Drivers aren't out there aiming for pedestrians and
| cyclists, so how does intention factor in?
|
| UCLA's Madeline Brozen argues it can be traced back to
| both failure to follow road safety laws and a lack of
| understanding about how dangerous driving a car is --
| especially since unsafe speed is the top contributing
| factor in L.A. traffic deaths.
|
| Research shows that a pedestrian struck by a driver going
| 20 mph has an 80% chance of survival. If that driver
| accelerates to 40 mph and hits a pedestrian, the victim's
| chance of surviving drops to just 10%.
|
| "The act of going above the speed limit or going fast [in
| unsafe] road conditions...that is an intention," Brozen
| said. "When someone is driving in a way that can kill
| someone, they are creating a risk."
|
| According to John Yi, another "degree of intention" in
| traffic deaths falls on car-centric society and L.A.'s
| leaders, who are "intentional about what we're building
| and what we're not building."
|
| City officials have stated clearly that L.A.'s mission to
| eliminate traffic deaths is informed by the fact that
| "underserved communities are disproportionately killed in
| traffic crashes." But Yi argues that the historic neglect
| of those communities can be viewed as intentional.
|
| "To take that away, I think, is really not looking at
| some of the most disinvested communities and what they're
| going through," he said. "To put it squarely on the
| shoulders of drivers and say it's their fault and they're
| the ones who should be moderating behavior is overlooking
| the situation altogether."
| triceratops wrote:
| Going by that logic transportation of any sort should never
| be provided by any corporation.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Vehicular homicide is already rarely punished. I don't know
| if it would make that much practical difference.
| Eridrus wrote:
| Drivers often do not face any consequences for killing people
| as it is. Unless the driver was intoxicated, it is generally
| written off as an accident.
|
| If only the people who get outraged about self-driving cars
| were as outraged by this fact and applied pressure to improve
| street design and speed limit enforcement.
| Eridrus wrote:
| And to be clear, this largely makes sense: humans are not
| good at preventing long tail failures that require constant
| vigilance and are not responsive to unlikely punishments,
| no matter how severe. The thing we have to do is improve
| the systems in which people operate.
| unreal37 wrote:
| A lot of car fatalities are accidents that don't involve
| alcohol - around 70%.
|
| One time I lost control of my car while driving on the
| highway and hitting a patch of black ice. Luckily, nobody
| died. But that happens all the time.
|
| Presumably, a self-driving car will drive slower in adverse
| weather than a human might, as well as being able to
| control the car if it hits an ice patch better than an
| untrained human can.
|
| Also, the car can notify other cars on the same road of the
| ice patch, instantaneously.
| aaron-santos wrote:
| Surely someone performed the hacking. Would this person(s) not
| be criminally liable?
| na85 wrote:
| >Seems like the same crime has a very different outcome when a
| corporation commits it.
|
| Of course it does. There's a separate justice system for the
| rich and powerful.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Some of the "sovereign citizen" folks have a whole mythology
| based on "incorporated people", it has some appeal in that it'd
| be nice if there was just one law and it applied to all.
|
| Why can't we have our own personal corporations, which can
| stiff our creditors, cheat customers, etc etc with impunity?
| Surely all the social benefits of allowing this behavior from
| groups would only multiply if these liberties extended to
| individuals as well.
| gruez wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil#Fa.
| ..
|
| >Factors that a court may consider when determining whether
| or not to pierce the corporate veil include the following
|
| >[...]
|
| >Was the corporation being used as a "facade" for dominant
| shareholder(s) personal dealings; alter ego theory;
| moftz wrote:
| Right, if they think your "corporation" is just a shell to
| shield you from justice, they will just prosecute you
| instead of going with the charade of trying to punish your
| shell company. The feds rarely have trouble prosecuting
| someone when they want to, they've got somewhere between
| 95-99% conviction rate.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| That's only for really obvious cases. Part of the problem
| is that a corporation can effectively distribute
| liability across different people/groups, so no single
| individual can have a really good idea, or is even aware
| of what's happening collectively, to facilitate bad
| behavior, so to speak.
|
| Doing this allows them to effectively engage in the same
| bad behavior an individual can, but without the risk
| associated with a single individual doing all of those
| things themselves. It also may allow them to scale better
| too. :/
| 8note wrote:
| Isn't that conviction rate based on not pursuing cases
| that aren't a sure shot?
| kelnos wrote:
| Well, sure, conviction rates only cover cases when
| charges were filed, so we'll never know when they decided
| not to bring charges in the first place because the
| strength their case didn't meet some internal threshold.
|
| But I think the Feds are pretty good at building cases.
| Since it's a crime to lie to a federal investigator, all
| they have to do is find some fact they can prove about
| you that you'd be likely to lie about, and get you to
| lie. (Technically the lie has to be material to the
| investigation, but in practice any vaguely related lie
| seems to do.) Apparently it's often not that hard to do;
| they're trained to exploit the psychology of the
| situation to their advantage.
|
| And once you've lied, they have something on you, and
| they can use that as leverage to get more.
| singlow wrote:
| I am not sure if I disagree with your main point. But the
| conviction rate is only proof that they don't prosecute
| cases when they do not have the evidence to win.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I have a certain sympathy for the SovCit people, because
| while 99 times out of 100 they're trying to evade their legal
| responsibilities, they are making a valid point that such
| evasion is in many ways institutionalized in our society as
| long as you can throw some money at the problem ahead of
| time.
| kelnos wrote:
| I have sympathy for the concept, but not the people. All
| the videos I've seen of them arguing their cases are so
| mind-numbingly _stupid_ that it pisses me off just that
| they 're wasting taxpayer money taking up law enforcement
| and court time with their bullshit "tactics".
|
| Reality doesn't fly out the window just because they want
| something to be true.
| mmaunder wrote:
| So Anthony Levandowski got 18 months in prison for stealing self
| driving car secrets from Waymo (Alphabet) and passing them to
| Uber. Live Nation did $10B in revenue in 2017 and they're fined
| 0.1% of annual revenue for a CFAA violation which has sentences
| up to 20 years for individuals.
| hsod wrote:
| The individual who did the hacking was criminally prosecuted
| and pled guilty to a CFAA violation
| https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nyed.439451...
| Merman_Mike wrote:
| What was their sentence?
| mandevil wrote:
| Not sentenced yet, even though he plead guilty in October
| 2019. Apparently there have been some things that delayed
| his sentencing since then?
| Triv888 wrote:
| In China, the CEO would probably disappear for a few months
| mhh__ wrote:
| Only if you stole it from the CCP
| mav3rick wrote:
| Is he actually serving time ?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-01-06 23:03 UTC)