5 ms·

Nerds always want to interpret the law in some strict pedantic fashion, but in practice this is almost never how it works. Law is not applied stupidly or mechan

by TillE 5y ago

Nerds always want to interpret the law in some strict pedantic fashion, but in practice this is almost never how it works. Law is not applied stupidly or mechanically, you can't fashion yourself some ad hoc workaround unless you're extremely certain about what you're doing, preferably with a mountain of precedent behind you.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
Nerds always want the law to be consistent. Lawyers are Machiavellian professionals trained in getting it to say "heads I win tails you lose" for their clients, and often succeed. That doesn't mean the nerds are wrong to want what they want.
- evgen 5y ago
  No, it is just that most nerds are too ignorant to understand how law works and its purpose and mechanisms. They expect it to be some sort of API spec that can be mechanically manipulated. Their own efforts at such intellectual mechanics are nothing but a trail of tears and failure, with bug after bug making a mockery of any claim they have about the benefits of such a system. Law has had millennia to work out the kinks in the system and develop practices that are robust in the face of adversarial attack by actual smart people; coders can't seem to keep basic services operating in ideal conditions and yet you expect anyone to look to this group when it comes to actual life and death decisions? Hard pass.
  - phatfish 5y ago
    The is also why the Crypto-bro dream of having "smart" contracts manage the entire global financial system is insane.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    > No, it is just that most nerds are too ignorant to understand how law works and its purpose and mechanisms. People have a pretty good idea of its mechanisms. Powerful people break laws that are clear enough and then don't go to jail because of "prosecutorial discretion" or Johnnie Cochran or retroactive telecoms immunity for illegal mass surveillance. Powerless people break laws that are ambiguous, or most people don't even know exist, or people know exist but they're only enforced against the nameless and poor, and the US has the largest prison population in the world. This outcome is your great victory for "millennia to work out the kinks in the system and develop practices that are robust in the face of adversarial attack by actual smart people"? > trail of tears Really? > coders can't seem to keep basic services operating in ideal conditions and yet you expect anyone to look to this group when it comes to actual life and death decisions? We already have code running when it comes to actual life and death decisions. There is code running in aircraft and heart bypass machines, and it works, because then people care that it works. Nobody cares enough that some ad tracking code is perfectly reliable and efficient, so it isn't. You're also asking for a double standard. The OpenBSD people do a nice job on OpenSSH. It's pretty good, not perfect. There have been vulnerabilities in even that. Then they get patched. But you can't possibly be claiming that there are no "vulnerabilities" in the law. If that was the case then why do they have to keep passing new ones every year? The ask isn't that it never change, it's that it be changed by the legislature prospectively instead of being in a constant state of superposition until it's resolved by a court ex post facto.
rendaw 5y ago
"NSO can be sued under California law because they accepted the EULA" seems like a mechanical, strict, pedantic application of law though.
- woah 5y ago
  How does that seem pedantic? It's incredibly straightforward. On the other hand, creating some kind of convoluted, contrived paper trail to claim that mysterious third parties were the ones to have physically pressed the "Accept" button on your 100 fake accounts and so you didn't even know there was a EULA seems kind of like it might actually be fraud.
  - alasdair_ 5y ago
    I don’t see how this differs much from a common “clean room” reverse engineering strategy where one set of engineers accepts the eula and then writes down in excruciating detail exactly how the target item works, then a second set of engineers that have never seen the item in question (or accepted a eula) takes these detailed writings and uses them to reverse engineer the item in question. (A mere description of a device or software is not protected) This is standard practice at large companies when reverse engineering chips, devices and software and seems very similar to the above eula argument.
    - desdiv 5y ago
      In the clean room reverse engineering case: 1a. one team examines the device and products a detailed specification of it 1b. another team works solely off that newly produced specification; this team has zero contact with the actual device In this hypothetical case: 2a. a third party affiliate accepts the Apple EULA, and gives the Apple IDs to NSO Group 2b. NSO Group uses the Apple IDs as credential to obtain Apple services Notice that in case 2b, NSO Group has actual contact with Apple in two ways. They used Apple IDs, and that they obtain Apple services. This didn't happen in the reverse engineering case.
      - alasdair_ 5y ago
appleflaxen 5y ago
Your argument loses weight with the ad homonym attack.
- Zenbit_UX 5y ago
  Disagree. It was the cherry on top.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
shsbdncudx 5y ago
Speaking as someone who’s been on the unfortunate wrong end of it, the law is applied stupidly and mechanically. All the time. That’s the default. The judge will go to great pains to super pedantically apply the rule of the law, regardless of common sense and believe it or not in most cases also regardless of common sense. As it should be. It doesn’t always work well for all circumstances, but we don’t have a better system
- inopinatus 5y ago
  Irrespective of your personal experience, the law is nevertheless still not a programming language, thankfully. However, "common sense" is also not how it works, so sure, when people rely on what they expect "common sense" to mean, then they too get screwed (the meaning of "common sense" after all varying dramatically from person to person). Law has its own principles, philosophy, and practices, that's all. And judges, especially senior judges, do not like it one iota when folks try to circumvent the meaning, substance, and purpose of these elements.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  This isn't the case everywhere. In some countries it is the intent of the law that matters, in others it is the letter of the law, in some a mix of both.
golemiprague 5y ago
If the law not applied stupidly why the EULA is binding the client in the first place? We can't tell whether they clicked "I Agree" or it was just saved in the database as such. I think those EULA should be applicable to remove liability from Apple since they declare what they responsible for, but not to enforce rules on the clients which don't even read those EULAs and you can't prove they have "signed" it. Regarding the lawsuit itself, it is just politics, they want to pretend as if they are on the good side of whatever the woke culture is right now and bashing Israel always gives some good points among the extreme progressives of silicon valley. NSO haven't done anything different to any other company dealing with hacking and spying and used by almost every government around the world. It is just that Apple is racist and coward so they will never sue the actual countries who use such tools or companies from "stronger" countries. Israeli company is a perfect scapegoat while they themselves will keep spying on their own users.

by TillE 5y ago

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

Nerds always want the law to be consistent. Lawyers are Machiavellian professionals trained in getting it to say "heads I win tails you lose" for their clients, and often succeed. That doesn't mean the nerds are wrong to want what they want.

evgen 5y ago
No, it is just that most nerds are too ignorant to understand how law works and its purpose and mechanisms. They expect it to be some sort of API spec that can be mechanically manipulated. Their own efforts at such intellectual mechanics are nothing but a trail of tears and failure, with bug after bug making a mockery of any claim they have about the benefits of such a system. Law has had millennia to work out the kinks in the system and develop practices that are robust in the face of adversarial attack by actual smart people; coders can't seem to keep basic services operating in ideal conditions and yet you expect anyone to look to this group when it comes to actual life and death decisions? Hard pass.
- phatfish 5y ago
  The is also why the Crypto-bro dream of having "smart" contracts manage the entire global financial system is insane.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > No, it is just that most nerds are too ignorant to understand how law works and its purpose and mechanisms. People have a pretty good idea of its mechanisms. Powerful people break laws that are clear enough and then don't go to jail because of "prosecutorial discretion" or Johnnie Cochran or retroactive telecoms immunity for illegal mass surveillance. Powerless people break laws that are ambiguous, or most people don't even know exist, or people know exist but they're only enforced against the nameless and poor, and the US has the largest prison population in the world. This outcome is your great victory for "millennia to work out the kinks in the system and develop practices that are robust in the face of adversarial attack by actual smart people"? > trail of tears Really? > coders can't seem to keep basic services operating in ideal conditions and yet you expect anyone to look to this group when it comes to actual life and death decisions? We already have code running when it comes to actual life and death decisions. There is code running in aircraft and heart bypass machines, and it works, because then people care that it works. Nobody cares enough that some ad tracking code is perfectly reliable and efficient, so it isn't. You're also asking for a double standard. The OpenBSD people do a nice job on OpenSSH. It's pretty good, not perfect. There have been vulnerabilities in even that. Then they get patched. But you can't possibly be claiming that there are no "vulnerabilities" in the law. If that was the case then why do they have to keep passing new ones every year? The ask isn't that it never change, it's that it be changed by the legislature prospectively instead of being in a constant state of superposition until it's resolved by a court ex post facto.

rendaw 5y ago

"NSO can be sued under California law because they accepted the EULA" seems like a mechanical, strict, pedantic application of law though.

woah 5y ago
How does that seem pedantic? It's incredibly straightforward. On the other hand, creating some kind of convoluted, contrived paper trail to claim that mysterious third parties were the ones to have physically pressed the "Accept" button on your 100 fake accounts and so you didn't even know there was a EULA seems kind of like it might actually be fraud.
- alasdair_ 5y ago
  I don’t see how this differs much from a common “clean room” reverse engineering strategy where one set of engineers accepts the eula and then writes down in excruciating detail exactly how the target item works, then a second set of engineers that have never seen the item in question (or accepted a eula) takes these detailed writings and uses them to reverse engineer the item in question. (A mere description of a device or software is not protected) This is standard practice at large companies when reverse engineering chips, devices and software and seems very similar to the above eula argument.
  - desdiv 5y ago
    In the clean room reverse engineering case: 1a. one team examines the device and products a detailed specification of it 1b. another team works solely off that newly produced specification; this team has zero contact with the actual device In this hypothetical case: 2a. a third party affiliate accepts the Apple EULA, and gives the Apple IDs to NSO Group 2b. NSO Group uses the Apple IDs as credential to obtain Apple services Notice that in case 2b, NSO Group has actual contact with Apple in two ways. They used Apple IDs, and that they obtain Apple services. This didn't happen in the reverse engineering case.
    - alasdair_ 5y ago

appleflaxen 5y ago

Your argument loses weight with the ad homonym attack.

Zenbit_UX 5y ago
Disagree. It was the cherry on top.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

shsbdncudx 5y ago

Speaking as someone who’s been on the unfortunate wrong end of it, the law is applied stupidly and mechanically. All the time. That’s the default. The judge will go to great pains to super pedantically apply the rule of the law, regardless of common sense and believe it or not in most cases also regardless of common sense. As it should be. It doesn’t always work well for all circumstances, but we don’t have a better system

inopinatus 5y ago
Irrespective of your personal experience, the law is nevertheless still not a programming language, thankfully. However, "common sense" is also not how it works, so sure, when people rely on what they expect "common sense" to mean, then they too get screwed (the meaning of "common sense" after all varying dramatically from person to person). Law has its own principles, philosophy, and practices, that's all. And judges, especially senior judges, do not like it one iota when folks try to circumvent the meaning, substance, and purpose of these elements.
jacquesm 5y ago
This isn't the case everywhere. In some countries it is the intent of the law that matters, in others it is the letter of the law, in some a mix of both.

golemiprague 5y ago

If the law not applied stupidly why the EULA is binding the client in the first place? We can't tell whether they clicked "I Agree" or it was just saved in the database as such. I think those EULA should be applicable to remove liability from Apple since they declare what they responsible for, but not to enforce rules on the clients which don't even read those EULAs and you can't prove they have "signed" it. Regarding the lawsuit itself, it is just politics, they want to pretend as if they are on the good side of whatever the woke culture is right now and bashing Israel always gives some good points among the extreme progressives of silicon valley. NSO haven't done anything different to any other company dealing with hacking and spying and used by almost every government around the world. It is just that Apple is racist and coward so they will never sue the actual countries who use such tools or companies from "stronger" countries. Israeli company is a perfect scapegoat while they themselves will keep spying on their own users.