Posts made by Spintendo

Federal Appeals Court Makes Downloading Porn Safer
By Ian Millhiser of thinkprogress.org

May 28, 2014

A firm know as Prenda Law was, in the words of one federal judge, a “porno-trolling collective.” Through a shell company, the attorneys who ran this firm obtained copyrights to several porn films, identified the IP addresses of people who had downloaded those porn films, used the legal system to identify the individual Internet service subscribers associated with those IP addresses, and then — having identified hundreds or even thousands of people who secretly download pornography — extracted settlements from these porn users under the threat of a public lawsuit.

As it turns out, this threat was largely a bluff. When one of the people targeted by Prenda actually demonstrated that they were willing to go to court, Prenda would dismiss their case against this defendant. Many defendants, however, were cowed either by the costs of litigation or the potential embarrassment of having their porn viewing habits made public, so settlements were common. Prenda reportedly brought in $15 million in less than three years.

However, on May 27 2014, a federal appeals court erected a procedural barrier to Prenda’s business model that will make it difficult — if not impossible — for this kind of “porno-trolling” to succeed in the future. For Prenda’s tactic to succeed, it must be able to identify the specific defendants who allegedly downloaded copyrighted pornographic films. To do so, it initiated what are known as “John Doe” lawsuits, often suing hundreds of unnamed individuals that they knew little about other than the IP address they allegedly used to download porn.

After bringing this lawsuit, the porno-trolls would subpoena Internet service providers to identify the names of the subscribers associated with these IP addresses. By initiating massive, multi-defendant lawsuits — one case had 1,058 unnamed defendants — Prenda could minimize the expensive filing fees it had to pay every time it brought a case alleging a supposed copyright violation.

The opinion given by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, however, holds that these kind of multi-defendant lawsuits are not allowed. In short, the opinion explained that courts are only permitted to hear cases involving defendants who had some minimal contact with the region where the court has jurisdiction.

Thus, if Prenda or its associated companies wanted to sue alleged porn users in a federal court in Washington, D.C., they had to at least have a good faith belief that the defendants are “are residents of the District of Columbia or at least downloaded the copyrighted work in the District.” But it was unlikely, to say the least, that the overwhelming majority of the defendants targeted in this case had any connection at all to the District. Three of the Internet service providers subpoenaed in this case do not even offer service in the District of Columbia.

Of course, the court that decided this case only has jurisdiction over Washington, D.C., so it is possible that the porno-trolls will shop around for another jurisdiction where Tuesday’s opinion does not bind the local judges. Nevertheless, the D.C. Circuit’s opinion is both well-reasoned and sharply worded. It’s unlikely that many other courts will be more sympathetic to porno-trolling.

The Court's Opinion: Case# 12-7135

AF Holdings, LLC v. Does

http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/OpinionsByRDate?OpenView&count=100&SKey=201405

@cannonmc:

Logic suggests that if I 'over-seed' someone else's post, I'm being selfish.

When you seed to others, you are in effect reselling to them what you have previously bought (downloaded). This resale depends on your bandwidth, which may change in comparison to others over time, as seeders and leechers with improved bandwidth join and leave the torrent. Continuing to seed beyond a ratio of 1.0 (meaning you have resold to others the entire cost of the torrent you bought) does not necessarily mean that you are being selfish.

Management of the torrent's swarm is determined by the tracker itself in conjunction with the individual torrent clients. Since BitTorrent systems favor efficiency over fairness, that merely means whatever amount you have seeded was because your connection was the most efficient available at the time, in comparison to others in the swarm.

Judge Strikes Down Pennsylvania Ban on Gay Marriage
By Erik Eckholm of The New York Times

May 20, 2014

Continuing a rush of rulings that have struck down marriage limits across the country, a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Tuesday declared the state’s ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.

“We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history,” wrote Judge John E. Jones III of Federal District Court in a decision posted on Tuesday afternoon. Judge Jones, who is based in Harrisburg, Pa., was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002.  Judge Jones did not issue a stay, writing, “By virtue of this ruling, same-sex couples who seek to marry in Pennsylvania may do so, and already married same-sex couples will be recognized as such in the Commonwealth.”

Pennsylvania is the last of the Northeast states with a ban on same-sex marriage. Gov. Tom Corbett did not immediately say whether he would ask the Federal Circuit Court in Philadalphia to delay enforcement pending an appeal, and gay rights advocates said they hoped that marriages would start as early as Tuesday afternoon. Couples began rushing to obtain marriage licenses soon after the ruling was announced, according to media reports.

In the last several months, judges have struck down marriage limits in seven states: Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Texas, Arkansas, Idaho and, on Monday, Oregon. Courts in several more have said that states must recognize same-sex marriages performed outside their borders. In most of the cases, courts have delayed implementation until appeals can be argued in federal circuit courts and, perhaps, the Supreme Court. But in Oregon, state officials said they would not appeal, and for now, Oregon becomes the 18th state, plus the District of Columbia, to authorize the marriage of gay and lesbian couples.

The lawsuit in Pennsylvania, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of 11 couples, a widow and two teenage children of one couple, is one of more than 70 cases filed around the country since the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act last June. “It’s kind of overwhelming, and wonderful at the same time,” said James D. Esseks, director of the union’s gay rights programs, who is involved in 11 marriage cases at once. Mr. Esseks said he expected decisions within the next few weeks on similar challenges in Wisconsin and Florida.

After the Pennsylvania case was filed last summer, state’s attorney general, Kathleen Kane, announced that she would not defend the restrictive marriage law, which was adopted by the legislature in 2006. Mr. Corbett, a Republican, hired private lawyers to argue on behalf of state officials named in the suit.

The state put forth arguments that have repeatedly been rejected by the courts. It argued that the legislature had chosen to protect traditional heterosexual marriage and that nothing in the Constitution established a fundamental right to same-sex marriage, which is not rooted in history and tradition. The state also argued that a 1972 decision, Baker v. Nelson, in which the Supreme Court declined to review a challenge to a state gay-marriage ban, remains the guiding legal case and that last year’s ruling in Windsor v. United States, holding that the federal government must recognize same-sex marriages performed legally in the states, was actually an endorsement of states’ rights.

But a succession of federal judges, now including Judge Jones in Pennsylvania, have instead relied on the Supreme Court’s finding last year that same-sex marriage bans were fueled by animus and inflicted stigma on gay and lesbian families. “The plaintiff couples have shared in life’s joys,” Judge Jones wrote in Tuesday’s decision, one of several in federal courts recently that have elicited soaring prose from the judges. But the couples have also shared financial, legal and personal hardships resulting from state discrimination, he went on to say.

He quoted one plaintiff, Deb Whitewood, who told the court: “It sends the message to our children that their family is less deserving of respect and support than other families. That’s a hurtful message.” Judge Jones, in his ruling, said: “We now join the 12 federal district courts across the country, which, when confronted with these inequities in their own states, have concluded that all couples deserve equal dignity in the realm of civil marriage.”

It's interesting to note people's enthusiasm and thoroughness in the "creation and uploading" part of torrenting (which if successful, allows the possibility for credit) and then contrasting it with the lack of enthusiasm and thoroughness in the "checking for duplicates before uploading" part of torrenting (which if successful, denies the possibility for credit).

I'd be more interested in knowing what percentage of anti-gay incidents were prevented by having marriage equality bestowed upon the French Republic. Unfortunately, counterfactuals are not easily quantified.  ::)

Needless to say, their society is more cosmopolitan today than it was yesterday.

@ploki777:

I use Chrome and Safari. Really useful when you have the plugin adblock installed.

If you like Chrome, you should try Aviator.

https://www.whitehatsec.com/aviator

Based on the same open-source Chromium code that Chrome uses, with privacy, security safeguards, and ad blocking already preconfigured.

@bjk1961:

How much difference can there be between two avi's of the same movie when on is 800MB and the other is 900MB?

Whomever approved it may have been misled in that the two files appear with different dates in their titles (the file names themselves, not the names listed on the two torrent page headers). Both headers correctly date the movie as 2009, but the original avi file is inexplicably named "Mr. Right (2006)". A disinterested new-approvals check-person unfamiliar with the film could easily overlook the difference, perhaps believing it to be a remake of some sort.

Regardless of titles, bjk1961 raises an excellent point in that the newer file should have been flagged as a duplicate, as a 10% difference is too negligible a size to not be considered anything else but a duplicate.

We can assume that you're not writing emails to actors who appear in videos having sex "with all they seen" shaming them for promoting acts which, although you detest them, are the same ones which brought you to this site.

The only thing consistently "wrong" about sex is blaming the act itself for failing to live up to our expectations.

@soulforged:

What do you think about him?

Mr. Walker's corpse notwithstanding, I think with 190 more crap topics to post before he's at minimum ratio, he certainly has his work cut out for him.

@Sepetiaraju:

If I hover the mouse over the username, the id number doesnt show up.

Hover the mouse above the icon just to the left of the user's name.

@Sepetiaraju:

it doesnt give me access to their profile page

I'm sorry but I'm not wrong.

What it does give you access to is the member's six-digit user number, which one needs to view profiles.

Once you find the member youre looking for, hover your mouse over the user's name. This will provide you with the link to ignore the user (as is the purpose of that list) from which you note the six-digit number, and place it at the end of the following link:

https://www.gaytorrent.ru/userdetails.php?id=xxxxxx

(delete the last 6 x's and insert the user's number)

This will take you to that members profile page, provided they have elected in their user settings to display it to others.

You're welcome.  :blind:

@Sepetiaraju:

The forum used to have a "member" button where we could find a specific user profile.

This function still exists.

From the Forum, go to your profile page https://forum.gaytorrent.ru/index.php?action=profile

In the left column click "Personal Message Options"

Click "Find Members" to bring up a searchable list.

There are two possibilities:

1. During the time you were seeding there may have been a disconnect between your client and the tracker. Since any disconnect from seeding will reset the sum total displayed, the totals given on your profile are from that disconnect point, and not the entire amount.

2. Another person with a higher bandwidth has that same completed file, and seeded it to others alongside you, albeit at a faster rate.

@hornynyc:

They are connected but there are no peers or traffic."

If there are no peers, ipso facto there is no traffic.

@Bonk:

As always, you mods from GTru deny any mistakes. If every user tells you that they only have problems uploading/seeding on your tracker, doesn't that ring a bell?

The questioner is asking for the forum community to provide him with a knowable statement about his problem (i.e., "I know what caused your problem.") It has been said that a well-asked question is already half-answered. The forum's failure to provide this knowable statement is a failure shared with the questioner himself, as key information about the problem was omitted from his query. His problem was thus presented as the following:

@shiftless:

When I'm downloading a file, I'm able to upload at full speed just fine. After the download has completed the upload rate crashes to no activity at all most of the time.

He has presented a scenario whereby uploading rates mysteriously change during the uploading of certain torrents. Missing here are key details about the torrent being uploaded when the occurance was noticed by him.

The age of the torrent at the moment he entered the swarm was a detail not provided. Since any gainful return on seeding depends on bandwidth and torrent age, upload rates tend to be significantly higher when the user arrives early to a torrent, and tend to increase linearly with bandwidth over a given period. What was the duration of this particular event? Was this noticeable drop in upload speed an event with a short duration of time, or was it graduated, occurring over a wider and more cumulative breadth of time?

If these instances of "drop off" were noticed on only a few occasions, should that, in itself, be suspect? People are prone to see patterns where there are none (such as in occurrences of "upload speed drop off") and the mind may attempt to attribute them to some sort of correlation (claiming it's a problem with the client, the tracker, or the ISP) when in fact it may be part and parcel of the normal bandwidth variability inherent in all torrenting.

This "pattern bias" aside, the most important thing to realize about the questioner's issue is that the torrent's age should always factor in any discussion of upload bandwidth (speed). Being able to determine the age of the uploading torrent at the moment the drop off occurred may likely have been the critical component to providing this questioner with the knowable statement he sought. Since we were not provided with it, the only knowable aspect of this questioner's problem is that we will never know what caused it.

Dolan Says Church Is ‘Caricatured’ as Antigay
By Michael Schwirtz of The New York Times
November 29, 2013

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan said on Friday that the Roman Catholic Church was being “caricatured as being anti-gay,” even as he lamented the continued expansion of same-sex marriage in the United States and vowed to keep fighting it.

The remarks were made in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in which Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York, discussed the church’s positions on abortion and the Affordable Care Act in addition to gay rights. The interview is scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday; excerpts were released on Friday.

In the interview, Cardinal Dolan said the church had been “out-marketed” on the issue of same-sex marriage by Hollywood and by some politicians who have tried to paint the church in a negative light.

“We’re pro-marriage, we’re pro-traditional marriage, we’re not anti-anybody,” he said.

The cardinal’s comments on same-sex marriage come amid a recalibration of tone in the church on the issue of homosexuality, a move led by Pope Francis, even as the substance of its position remains largely unchanged.

In July, Pope Francis surprised many when he suggested that he would not judge priests for their sexual orientation. He has since cautioned against succumbing to moral relativism, and on Tuesday endorsed a document written by the bishops of the United States that insists that those with a “homosexual inclination” be held to “objective moral norms,” even if this is perceived as prejudiced.

With Illinois this month becoming the 16th state to legalize same-sex marriage, the host of “Meet the Press,” David Gregory, asked whether Cardinal Dolan thought that “regardless of church teachings” same-sex marriage would soon be legal in every state.

“I think I’d be a Pollyanna to say that there doesn’t seem to be kind of a stampede to do this,” he said. “I regret that.”

Asked whether he thought the battle over same-sex marriage in the United States was settled, he said: “No. I don’t think it is. Uh-uh.” On the issue of the Affordable Care Act, Cardinal Dolan reiterated the church’s opposition to requirements that insurance provide coverage for contraception. He also criticized it for not including undocumented immigrants.

“We Catholics, who are kind of among the pros when it comes to providing health care, do it because of our religious conviction, and because of the dictates of our conscience,” he said. “And now we’re being asked to violate some of those.”

He said that the Roman Catholic Church had been pushing for universal health care for decades, but would not support the health care law without changes to address these concerns. “Mr. President, please, you’re really kind of pushing aside some of your greatest supporters here,” he said. “We want to be with you, we want to be strong. And if you keep doing this, we’re not going to be able to be one of your cheerleaders.”

@charlesperr:

I'm looking for a BF. Why is it so hard "

You seem to have already answered this question in your first post:

@charlesperr:

Have been hitting the gym hard and the hard work has really paid off"

Your observation about the gym is absolutely correct. If the things we wanted in life were so easy to obtain, they likely would not be seen as worth the investment of our time. It is precisely because the results are so valuable that the work to obtain them is so difficult.

@meliliou:

you will get 2 results with the same url and same Id.  this is just one example of multiple duplicates that I have been seeing."

My search of "fishing trip" revealed 7 torrents of that name, each with a different URL and file size.

Torrents of the same title that differ in size or format (e.g., avi, mpg, mov, mp4, etc.) are not true duplicates in the formal sense of the word. They are allowable on the site.

In 2010, Pope Francis, then known as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, wrote a letter to the Carmelite Nuns of Buenos Aires discussing the upcoming vote on gay marriage in Argentina. It deserves to be read in its entirety.

June 22, 2010

From: Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires
To: The Blessed Carmelite Nuns of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires

Dear Sisters,

I write these lines to each of you who are in the four monasteries of Buenos Aires. The Argentine people will face in the coming weeks, a situation whose outcome may seriously injure the family. This is the marriage bill on same-sex.

Here identity is at stake, and the survival of the family: father, mother and children. At stake is the lives of so many children who will be discriminated against in depriving them of the human growth that God would be given to a father and a mother. At stake is the outright rejection of the law of God, also engraved in our hearts.

I remember a quote from St. Therese when talking about his childhood disease. He says the envy of the devil wanted his family to be charged, upon entrance to the Carmel, of his older sister. Here also is the envy of the devil, by which sin entered into the world, who cunningly seeks to destroy the image of God: man and woman who are mandated to grow, multiply and subdue the earth. Do not be naive: it is not simply a political struggle, it is a destructive claim to God's plan. It is not a mere bill (this is only the instrument) but an evil lie – the father of the lie that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.

Jesus tells us to defend ourselves against this accuser, the liar, so that we may send the Spirit of Truth. Today in this country, in this situation, you need the special assistance of the Holy Spirit to put the light of Truth into the midst of the darkness of error; You need His lawyer to defend us from the spell of so many sophistries with which this project seeks to justify the law, and to confuse and deceive even people of good will.

For this I turn to You, and ask for prayer and sacrifice; the two confessed invincible weapons of Therese. Cry out to the Lord to send His Spirit to Senators who have to give their vote. They must not be moved by the error of situations; only the situation of natural law that God's law says. Pray for them, for their families, that the Lord would visit; that He may strengthen and comfort. Pray for them to do much good for the country.

The bill will be discussed in the Senate after July 13. Look to Mary and the Child, and ask Them fervently to defend the Argentinian family at this time. Let's remind what God himself said to His people in a time of great distress: "This battle is not yours, but God's." May they find succor in this defense, and join God in this war.

Thank you for what you will do in this fight for the Fatherland. And, please, I ask you also to pray for me. May Jesus bless you, and the care of the Holy Virgin.

Sincerely,

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio SJ,
Archbishop of Buenos Aires,
Cardinal Primate of Argentina

@asdfghqwer:

What I want is a program I can install that will let one player's audio continue to play through the speakers, but send the audio of another program to the headphones."

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-pictures/output-to-2-sound-cards-simultaneously/4e57dd01-a68c-4ffe-af3e-66d7f895584b?page=3