Yea, I agree there's something weird about that. Makes me wonder if he was actually just a "fall guy" (though possibly still complicit) and while the real perpetrator will never be found, they'll struggle to gather enough solid evidence to prove he did it, because it was actually some doppelganger or something like that.

Fun fact: Even Slashdot has achievements. Look for it in the configurable optional sidebar panels.

"+1 Interesting," but not "+1 Funny?" You people are weird.

Oh, I believe it's possible they were planning to hike prices whether the deal went through or not, but I also believe that they laughed like this while they did it: "Mwahahahaha!" ...and all held their hands up in front of themselves, alternately drumming their fingertips together excitedly or dry-washing them with a mischievous gleam in their eyes.

Well, dedicated/proprietary lines are a thing. I don't know about the cost:benefit ratio of deploying them for this in France would be, but it doesn't have to be RF like there's no other option. You can use regular wired network connections without routing through publicly addressable connections. That's a thing ATMs still sometimes do, at least in the US; it used to be ubiquitous but as encryption software has gotten better they've reportedly been relaxing this requirement, but banks still use dedicated lines for this. I used to work at a large investment bank that even used dedicated lines for international conference calls. AIUI, home DSL lines even typically (always?) start with a short run over a proprietary ATM backhaul.

Are you kidding? There's nobody he cares about.

Posting anonymously now just to get the last word in? Nice try but I see right through that as well as your sneaky attempt to put words in my mouth in order to make your fictional version of my argument either to discount.

A legacy of poor enforcement isn't the same thing as it being legal.

Or blatant lying in advertisements, for that matter. Or shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. And yes, as you say, there's plenty of precedent on restricting politicians and various government officials from unduly enriching themselves using the power and/or influence of their position. There's in fact tons of well-established legal precedents where public well-being preempts free speech rights. Anyone making this argument in this fashion isn't doing it in good faith.

Bullshit. You can't just characterize any business plan as a first amendment right. The first amendment doesn't protect pyramid schemes, or robbing liquor stores. Even just trying to make this argument makes you a bad person.

I was in an impoverished school still using textbooks that were published sometime in the 70's, and this "11%" rule of thumb rings a bell to me too. For what it's worth, I recall learning around the same time that the total energy conversion rate of the typical internal combustion engine being a mere 24%.

Let's train our AI on a bunch of fiction where AI goes crazy and kills everyone! What could possibly go wrong?

But note how when it comes to copyright infringement claims suddenly the argument changes to "but it learns like a real person so that's protected by fair use laws!" Somehow, somewhere, someone in charge of actually enforcing the law has to realize we can't let them have it both ways.

They did at some point, years ago, quietly remove that clause from their company charter. There was no press release about it when it happened, but it was reported here on Slashdot at the time. IIRC, it was right around the same time they got caught illegally photographing private property and mapping wifi network SSIDs for their "Street View" data.

Maybe that's just wishful thinking though.