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Comment settlement with air quotes (Score 4, Insightful) 40

Neither side apparently said anything about the agreement in court on Friday, which Judge Arun Subramanian said today was âoeabsolutely unacceptable.â âoeIt shows absolute disrespect for the court, the jury and this entire process,â he said.

With this admin, nobody should be surprised. Corruption is standard operating procedure.

Submission + - How Jeffrey Epstein Ingratiated Himself With Top Microsoft Execs

theodp writes: In How Jeffrey Epstein Ingratiated Himself With Top Microsoft Executives, the NY Times begins, "For more than two decades, the convicted sex offender developed a network at the tech giant, making him privy to [CEO] succession discussions and other business. [...] The files from the Justice Department show that he spent more than a decade developing a network of Microsoft executives, including Mr. Gates; Nathan Myhrvold, a former technology chief; Steven Sinofsky, who ran Microsoft’s Windows division; Linda Stone, a former technology research executive; Reid Hoffman, a Microsoft board member; and employees of Mr. Gates’s personal investment and charity funds. [...] Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s communications chief, said the company was disappointed to read emails between Mr. Epstein and “former Microsoft employees acting in their personal capacities.” Without mentioning a name, Mr. Shaw acknowledged the emails showed that a former executive — who was Mr. [Steven] Sinofsky — had shared confidential company business with Mr. Epstein."

Email released by the DOJ related to Microsoft included: 1. Epstein being tipped off to the announcement of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's planned resignation announcement in Aug. 2013 by a forwarded email from the President of bgC3 [aka Gates Ventures], a personal service company for Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, on a day that saw Microsoft stock soar 7%., 2. Epstein being given a heads up by a redacted sender about a rumored 2011 Bill Gates return to Microsoft that never panned out, 3. Epstein being told in a 2013 Steven Sinofsky email about Ballmer's desire to buy a phone company that included some other juicy insider tidbits (when Microsoft's Nokia purchase was announced the following year, Microsoft stock sank 6%). In other correspondence, Sinofsky — who headed Microsoft's Windows Division — thanked Epstein for his advice in negotiating a $14 million exit package from Microsoft and later forwarded Epstein old internal email from top execs discussing the poor sales of the Microsoft Surface tablet.

In one Microsoft-related Epstein email, former Harvard President Larry Summers — who recently announced he's giving up his Harvard teaching appointments — sent Epstein a terse two-word email dissing Melinda Gates' Women in Tech initiative. "I'm gagging," Summers wrote, attaching an article about Gates' efforts (a search didn't find any reply from Epstein). Summers came under fire in 2005 when he said that women lack natural ability in math in science. Summers earlier resigned his OpenAI Board seat amid fallout over his Epstein ties that came to light following the DOJ's release of documents last November, which included the revelation that Summers and his wife were invited to dine with Bill and Melinda Gates at Epstein's NYC mansion in 2013 , Melinda's one and only Epstein encounter. Interestingly, Microsoft President Brad Smith — who coincidentally helped negotiate Microsoft's $14M exit package for Epstein-advised Sinofskycautioned OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about naming Summers to the OpenAI Board in November 2023. “Your future would be decided by Larry [Summers],” Smith texted. “He’s smart but so mercurial [...] too risky.” The advice went unheeded, with Altman saying the choice of Summers was non-negotiable.

Comment Re:Nevermind... (Score 1) 54

So chances are there are photos of your home out there

It doesn't bother me at all. The camera comes out, it's obvious that the camera is there, and is being used. I can ask people not to use it, if I so choose. (I don't because I honestly don't care that much if there are photos of my home "out there".)

What bothers me is a platform that enables video recording covertly. I'm not bothered by the fact that people can bring phones into my house, and elect to take pictures or record video. I *would* be bothered if somebody came in and dropped a secret camera sending video wirelessly in traffic that doesn't go over my network. Glasses with videocameras in them commoditize that capability. Just because covertly recording video inside my house is *technically* possible today doesn't mean it's stupid to object to the proliferation and normalization of a commodity device that makes it easier to do.

Comment Re:Nevermind... (Score 1) 54

Any of these can be activated without your knowledge.

They can't get traffic out of the house without my knowledge, which amounts to the same thing. These platforms tend to be widely scrutinized. What they are *not* are devices other people are bringing in to my home, and then recording me without my knowledge. At least a phone camera needs to have the phone out, generally facing in my direction

some people will even get out the phones while sitting on the toilet

Again, it's much more difficult to record me without me noticing. The whole "but there are cameras everywhere" argument treats every camera as the same thing. They are not, the differences int he platforms and formfactors that contain them matter.

Comment Re:Nevermind... (Score 4, Insightful) 54

"Cameras are everywhere to point"

Vast oversimplification for the purpose of your argument. They're not in my house. They're not in the washrooms at work. They are not in a number of other places where people have an expectation of privacy. But if glasses are secret cameras now, that drastically changes the kinds of expectations I can have about those places where I can reasonably expect privacy. There's also a different set of expectations as to the accountability and policies followed by those who have access to security cameras vs literally anybody. The potential for misuse and nefarious intention seems to go higher to me when we go from those who collect security footage and .. literally anybody. That security footage and its collection policies can be abused doesn't mean it's unreasonable to expect it's less likely to be abused than whatever some rando is recording when they head into a washroom or my house or what have you.

If the argument is "well maybe there are secret cameras in all those places" ... I mean, that's just a dumb argument against objecting to the introduction of covert potential recording devices into those places. I can't object to things I don't know about, but I can object to something that I know about.

Comment Re:Adverts and films? (Score 1) 96

They need not be talented artists or masters of their craft.

I mean clearly the ruling says that the parts that can be copywritten *need to be made by humans*

If what you said is true (you infer that you just need humans to *ask* for AI to do the work, absent talent) then that doesn't square with the conclusion.

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