if you wrong your employer, for example by failing to do your job well, you are not a criminal to be prosecuted by the state. you may well deserve to lose that job though.
here, wronging your employer is considered a criminal act.
> if you wrong your employer, for example by failing to do your job well, you are not a criminal to be prosecuted by the state
This is going out of one’s way to abuse the employer’s trust. Moreover, it’s stealing their stuff. If I take cash out of a till, my employer should have the option of pressing charges.
Where I agree with you is that this isn’t computer fraud and abuse. It’s closer to theft. The law used to prosecute should be more banal.
cant be theft, as it he copyed from one format to another...different video standards/resolutions...and if he gave a copy, of the copy away and the third party(cnn) has not been charged, even though they published the footage, and profited by that, then yes him getting criminaly charged for what is an indiscression at best is unusual.
what would be of interest is if the same organisation that "owned" the cameras and footage has ever demanded that employies share footage taken on there phones, or requires employies to carry a personal phone for work, as that would further muddy any notion of personal/private
....all to cover up what is egregious behavior on the part of military pilots in civilian airspace....but realy part of an attempt to intimidate the public into not documenting military and police crime.
Mr. Mbengue plead no contest to a trespass charge. He was represented by an attorney with some prosecutorial experience so I think we can assume he received qualified legal advice based upon the facts of the matter. Under terms of his no contest plea, if he stays out of trouble for a year he can have his record expunged.
It sure looks like a plea bargain, in which case we’ll likely never know the actual charges the prosecution was prepared to proceed with. But there’s a clue in the article - when the report was provided to the Intercept, the locations of the security cameras were redacted. When CNN aired the clip, they apparently aired information that identified where that camera was located.
We’ll most likely never know the original charge the prosecution was prepared to proceed with, but the US takes airport security very seriously (as every country should). If taking a no contest on a trespass was considered an out, I wonder if the other charge started with a vowel like ‘e’.
What's unclear, exactly? Whether video documentation obtained privately belongs to the person who owns the camera and storage media? Because I think it's about as clear as it gets.
I’m Canadian so I’m trying really hard to avoid saying anything that could be perceived as anti-American. I like Americans a lot as half my family hid out in the United States after getting kicked out of Canada, so I’ve struggled with a reply to this for a few days.
The part that is unclear is that this is a Black man named Mohamed who exfiltrated footage that could be used to plan an attack against an airplane. I trust you can draw that out on your own.
Different but comparable example. Some jobs, if you mess up you just get fired. Other jobs you could end up in prison, for doing the same/similar thing.
A prison officer has a sexual relationship with a prisoner, should they simply be fired or also have a jury heard criminal court process then a record?
.. Not that it should be relevant, but now factor in the prison officer is female, newly qualified and the training college wrote to the prison to warn that the prison officer is not suitable to be a prison officer because they are not robust enough. The prisoner is also highly manipulative and has a documented history of romance with vulnerable females.
Why would it lead to more than them getting fired? What would be the crime? If the idea is that they've coerced/raped a prisoner, presumably that prisoner is making that allegation, and it's the rape allegation that gets investigated/tried, as with any other serious allegation of a crime. If it's consensual, that sounds like they're just not trustworthy to do their job and should be let go.
But this is the point I am making, if I have a relationship with someone at work, particularly when one person is subordinate or position of authority, then we'd simply be fired... but a prison officer will face a criminal prosecution of Misconduct in Public Office, and possibly face prison time themselves. Seems somewhat unfair for a low paying job.
There is nothing in the word “theft” that implies depriving someone of physical property.
Theft of private data deprives the owner of privacy. Theft of corporate secrets deprives the company of competitive advantage (and if not prosecuted, economy at large of incentives to innovate). IP theft deprives IP holder of ownership claim (and if not prosecuted, arts at large of incentives to create). Identity theft deprives the identity holder of whatever access to their identity provided to them. This can be continued infinitely.
These scenarios are not the same, and using “theft” for all of them is not precise. However, it is 2025 and in developed countries this sort of crime happens more often than basic theft of physical property, and the detriment from it is often much, much more severe than from basic theft of physical property. (I am sure I don’t need to explain how depriving IP owner of ownership claim can cost the original creator much more than depriving them of some single physical asset, both literally financially and in terms of psychological damage.) It’s therefore important to have a short, mainstream, easy to understand and non-legalese term for these scenarios.
Without any suitable mainstream term the word “theft” is a good enough intuitive approximation—if anything, it’s a bit too mild of a term.
> There is nothing in the word “theft” that implies depriving someone of physical property.
Of course there is. It's origin is the crime of taking of tangible property owned by someone else without consent. It did not apply to intangible property because it predates any concept of legally protected intellectual property that can be duplicated without loss.
Now, there was also the metaphorical use of theft for non-criminal / non-tangible things but poetic use of language shouldn't be confused with primary meanings. For example, "plagiarism" comes from the Latin for "kidnapping" coined playfully by a comic. It was never a crime or ever resembled actual kidnapping. If you call your poem "my baby" because of how precious it is to you, it doesn't become one. Badly editing your poem is not murder either yet you might complain in such dramatic terms.
You might want to argue something about metaphors and secondary meanings but we shouldn't consider the crime of kidnapping to mean reciting other's verses any more than a summer's day should mean temperate people. If we start taking metaphorical uses literally then you also have to start claiming silly things like most kidnapping being legal.
Only in later industrial society did the metaphor become less metaphorical in written law for criminal acts that emerged post-printing-press that were being called fraud, deception, infringement and piracy.
> deprives the owner of privacy
It's pretty metaphorical to describe such things as property that can be stolen.
With this latitude you can frame every injury as theft e.g. stabbing is the theft of good health, murder is theft of life, perjury is theft of a fair trial etc. You might choose to use such language because it's how we roll, but we also know that, as offences, they are not theft.
When an item cannot be traded or restored to the owner, is it property that can be owned and stolen or are concepts of injury, damage and destruction more legitimate?
When it comes to intellectual property, it's closer to contract law where citizens are compelled to abide by contracts the state issues and enforces. The movement of intangible theft from metaphor into law for breaching such a contract was popularised by the beneficiaries to rhetorically inflate an illusion of loss and justify severe sanctions for acts not considered unlawful for most of human history.
> It's pretty metaphorical to describe such things as property that can be stolen.
Stealing is a pretty wide term meaning deprivation of a good, asset, property, service, etc. If it means deprivation only of physical goods at some point in time, sure; this is 2025 outside now. Theft of physical goods is so first millenium.
Theft (from Old English þeofð, cognate to thief) is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
The word has become overloaded in recent decades to mean other things as well, but for over a thousand years theft has mean taking something from someone permanently
> Theft (from Old English þeofð, cognate to thief) is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
> for over a thousand years theft has mean taking something from someone permanently
Nothing in your comment is in contradiction to mine, or suggests that the word has been “overloaded”. That’s what theft is. Intellectual property is property, trade secrets are property.
> with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
You denied that deprivation was ever part of the term
Your statement was
> There is nothing in the word “theft” that implies depriving someone of physical property.
Where it’s literally there in dozens of definitions across the English language.
“Intellectual property” is a new legal construct, at most 500 years old, compared with physical ownership which dates back millennia. The term itself is a mere 200 years old, but mainly ignored in the US until just a few decades ago.
This is interesting, I definitely use "theft" colloquially for all these things.
For the digital assets, I mentally bucket copyright infringement and theft differently. For instance, if I copy someone's photography and sell it, that's copyright infringement (not theft). However, if I hacked into someones Google photos and sold the contents, I'd consider that theft (since there was no intent for the material to be available)
Granted, it's fair to disagree here, so I'm not adamantly against the definition that requires removing access or anything.
Actually it attempts to shift liability from the victim (the bank, who was defrauded) to an unrelated party who may or may not be affiliated with the bank at all.
I think the above things are commonly considered theft. Totally fair to contend that the definition is wrong (and IMO that's a reasonable-minded contention), but I don't it's particularly double-think to bucket these digital "thefts" in the same category as physical thefts, either.
“A. It is unlawful for any person, with malicious intent, or through intentionally deceptive means and without authority, to:”
And Mr. Mbengue plead no contest to this charge, so he did not admit guilt but agreed to be punished as if he was guilty. He had an attorney with prosecutorial experience retained for his criminal proceeding so we can assume he entered that plea upon receiving qualified legal advice. Under terms of his plea, if he keeps his nose clean for a year, he can apply to have the charge expunged from his record.
So, this looks like a plea bargain. But since he plead no contest, the prosecution doesn’t have to prove anything.
I'd be eager to know if these layoffs are cover for firing "inconvenient" employees. Google's fired Timnit Gebru, labor organizers, and recently folks who protested a contract with the Israeli Defense Forces. It's kind of their thing at this point.
> folks who protested a contract with the Israeli Defense Forces
I encourage anyone who believes this was somehow unjust or an overreaction to pick a pet cause and go disrupt executive offices at their own company to see if your company would act differently.
True, It is not unjust. It is justified. Unlike the occupation and genocide assisted by Google, that they were protesting. I mean if you could getaway with working and aiding a genocidal apartheid regime, you could getaway with a lot of things.
I think you could make a case that if any of these fired employees were employed at google prior to project Nimbus contracts they were already complicit by their silence and unwillingness to perform a terminate-able protest stunt against quite a few other shady google deals with problematic governments.
It’s a murky world out there and Google is a global company that gave up the “Don’t be evil” motto nearly a decade ago. If you expect to work for an altruistic org—go work for one. That ain't Google and your fat TC package you enjoy is going to come with some taint and stink.
For sure it is a murky world. It becomes less murky by not doing business with genocidal regimes, who are actively committing crimes against humanity now. I think we both agree that a less murky world is better?
Altruistic org, nah, these people just wanted less blood on their paychecks, maybe. Or just that the organisation they work is not complicit in these heinous crimes.
> these people just wanted less blood on their paychecks, maybe. Or just that the organisation they work is not complicit in these heinous crimes
They succeeded in their mission then. They have the option of having both of those things which Google provided to them vis-á-viv their termination. Google made the decision they couldn’t make on their own.
What's wild is that a lot of that equipment (or barely newer versions) is still standard fare at flight schools. It's possible to get a fancy glass panel if you look. But you'll probably still fly a 172.
It'd be nice if the regulations would make designing clean sheet airframes a viable business again.
Consider part 43, appendix A: It is legal for an owner to change a worn out tire. It's also legal to service wheel bearings. If, however, in the course of reassembly a new brake rotor or pads are installed instead of the old ones, illegal work has been performed. Part 43 also says nothing of actually inflating tires, so it's unclear— in the letter of the law— whether or not filling flat tires is approved.
There's probably an advisory circular around somewhere that expounds on this, but it illustrates well the over regulated[0] nature of GA in America[1] where the results of regulation do not necessarily effect safety. We have 50 year old (on average) airframes flying around with engines designed in the 1940s (on leaded fuel, no less). It costs $40,000+ to rebuild these engines, due largely to laws about who can work on them and the monopolies on who can provide which engines. It's only like this because the FAA is, for whatever reason, unable to work to a real solution.
[0] This is a specific complaint, not an argument for a general rollback
[1] Yes, I am aware that aviation is even more regulated elsewhere-- and that costs are increased while participation is decreased in those places
A refreshing exception to this is the Experimental Amateur-Built (EAB) category, basically home-built aircraft. Subject to a different set of regulations, the owner or pilot of an EAB category airplane has surprisingly wide latitude to install equipment, perform maintenance, experiment with the power plant, and so on. I can't so much as run a USB charger out to the panel of a Cessna 172, but I can make major engine and airframe modifications to an EAB airplane and do the annual condition inspection if I was the builder.
Consequently, a lot of the innovation that's happening in General Aviation, including avionics, safety systems, ignition and fuel systems, is happening in the EAB world, with the Certified world catching up later.
With pretty onerous restrictions on how fast the plane can go, how powerful the engine can be, and once sold, a lot of those restrictions on Certified aircraft apply to you as the new owner.
Everything that you just said is incorrect, at least in the USA, where the overwhelming majority of all E-AB aircraft are built and operated.
There are no airspeed restrictions on experimental amateur built aircraft, other than the 250kt limit under 10,000 feet that applies to all aircraft.
There is absolutely no restriction on engine power output for E-AB aircraft.
The only significant restriction for the second owner of an experimental amateur built aircraft is that they cannot get a repairman’s certificate for the aircraft. This means they will have to hire a licensed A&P mechanic to perform the annual condition inspection. Other than that they can still maintain or modify the aircraft exactly as the original builder could.
I refer you to FAA advisory circular AC 20-27G for further info.
In the EU pilot-owners can self-certify their aircraft for unleaded fuel, provided that the engine is unmodified and that its manufacturer has approved the use of Avgas UL 91. Print an AFM supplement page and put on new fuel quality placards and you can release the aircraft to service yourself. EASA has a set of "standard changes and standard repairs" (CS-STAN) that offer simplified procedures for some common modifications and repairs and this is one of them. CS-STANs have been around for about a decade now.
In the US you still need to go and purchase a supplemental type certificate for your specific aircraft type for this, I believe.
GA is a much smaller phenomenon in Europe than it is in the US but that's not because regulators are out to make it more complicated.
People are always surprised when I tell them I want to defund the FAA. They have irreparably harmed a beloved hobby of mine for generations. The list is quite frankly endless.
So, someone complained about some audit. Like almost wveryone else who went through whatever audit, myself included at time (I went through EASA audits, SOX audits, non-SOX accounting audits, customer audits). If people wouldn't complain, the audit would be to lax to begin with.
I guess most of it is because these light aircraft just won't die. These are simple, well built machines, and treated well and with the appropriate maintenance, they can last essentially forever. Because they have been in use for so long, we know just about every failure mode, and they were build in a time where the idea of safety was comfortable margins and aerodynamic stability. It results in robust machines suitable for training.
Sure, they are slow and inefficient, but these are not airliners where the point is just to get passengers to their destination as effectively as possible. Here, flying is the entire point, who cares if it is slow? And the fuel costs are less than buying and maintaining a more modern airplane when you already have a 50 year old but still usable 172.
Clean sheet airframes exist of course, like carbon fiber, high performance machines, good for those who want high performance, but usually, that's not a priority for flight schools.
A 172 might be a luxury. I flew mostly C152's during my flight training. The only times I got to fly a 172 was when my instructor had to fly morning traffic patrol and invited me to fly for him.
Nicer airplane, though. Nowhere as cramped as a 152.
I remember walking up to a 152 for my first flight lesson, peering inside, and then laughing. You can just reach over and touch the other side of the plane without leaning inside, it's only as wide as your arm is long (well, I suppose it depends on your arms, but you get the idea).
I haven't switched. I still mostly do software engineering. But I did burn out on my job in a toxic workplace and quit with nothing quite so formal as a plan.
Before picking up more software work ~6mo later, I got certified as an EMT and started volunteering on the ambulance at a local service. It has been a really great choice. I work with excellent people in a job very different from my remote software one. I wouldn't call it manual labor by any stretch, but it has a very different physicality and interpersonal nature than engineering that makes it very rewarding for me.
There's no reason on paper to spend whole days volunteering doing something you're not the best at. Doesn't matter.
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Ideal candidates are great communicators who can share examples of their past research (posts, articles, etc.). We prefer folks with a related graduate degree and are open to hiring postdocs or funding academic research.
OpenArchive helps human rights defenders to document and archive abuses. Our app, Save, empowers those capturing important mobile media to archive it securely. We plan to incorporate decentralized storage technologies into our portfolio of supported backends in the next year.
We want your help in deciding exactly which decentralized storage solution (e.g. IPFS, Filecoin, bittorrent...) we adopt and how to do it best.
This is a hard problem requiring the technical expertise to assess existing and emerging technologies beyond the "marketing hype" and to square what these offer with the needs of real people in unforgiving situations. Much of what you'll learn and document is interesting to a broad audience and we expect you to engage with the community at large via conferences, blogs, or articles.
Ideal candidates are great communicators who can share examples of their past research (posts, articles, etc.). We prefer folks with a related graduate degree and are open to hiring postdocs or funding academic research.
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Technical pros and cons. They way it works is that when you use their login you get prompted to register with them, which is done using a phone number. From what I understand they do not keep the phone number, they just send my site a token that says "yep, this person = that phone number"
Sorry - my company is an audio social network. Because we don't use a camera for our live streaming many of our members tend to be shy and possibly privacy focused.
This is a shame, and says more about the consolidation of the tech industry than Hipmunk's product.
One of Hipmunk's founders spoke to a course that I was in about their experience as a founder and how they were running their business. A few weeks later, a well known founder of another travel search company visited the class and said outright that if Hipmunk did have any success, that they would copy those features and that Hipmunk couldn't threaten their position. That is exactly what happened.
To boot, Hipmunk was acquired and shuttered by another travel conglomerate.
> says more about the consolidation of the tech industry than Hipmunk's product
I kinda disagree. Hipmunk did not have access to the data that gave users a complete pictures on all travel routes. Even if they had a nice UI/ux, the underlying data was incomplete.
People naturally gravitated to sites where they found a route they wanted for the price they wanted.
That's true but it's also true that getting access to flight data is far easier the larger you get. Therefore the flights metasearch industry (and travel metasearch in general) will tend to consolidate to an extent.
if you wrong your employer, for example by failing to do your job well, you are not a criminal to be prosecuted by the state. you may well deserve to lose that job though.
here, wronging your employer is considered a criminal act.