January 11, 2021

"Hours after it went offline on Monday, the social media start-up Parler filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing Amazon of violating antitrust law..."

"... and asking for a temporary restraining order to prevent the tech giant from blocking access to cloud computing services. Amazon told Parler over the weekend that it would shut off service because 'a steady increase in violent content' on the site showed that the company did not have a reliable process to prevent it from violating Amazon’s terms of service. Amazon said it would ensure Parler’s data was preserved so that it could migrate to a new hosting provider. Millions of people turned to Parler after Twitter and Facebook barred President Trump following the riot at the Capitol last week. Apple and Google both kicked Parler out of their app stores at the end of the week, though users who already had downloaded the app could still use it. But the app relied on Amazon’s cloud computing technology to work.... Parler did not provide direct evidence showing Amazon and Twitter coordinated the response. Instead, it pointed to a December news release announcing a multiyear strategic partnership between Amazon and Twitter, and it made references to Twitter’s own challenges policing its content."

178 comments:

Joe Smith said...

Don't count on the coward Roberts to bail them out...

rcocean said...

Right on! I don't see how these 4 tech giants can collude and destroy any competitor who might take business away from their "Buddies".

I'm talking about Google, Amazon, facebook, and Apple. Just because Zuckerberg, Bezos, Cook, and whoever runs Google love each other and give each other backrubs doesn't mean they get to destroy Parler.

Of course, what the law clearly means is irrelevant these days. It will all depend on the Judges' politics and what he ate for lunch.

D.D. Driver said...

Apple and Google both kicked Parler out of their app stores at the end of the week

I mentioned this on the other thread, but this is the scariest part of all of this. Android and iPhone make up what percentage of the phone market? If you want an uncensored social media network on your phone you will need an operating system made by some other third party. Here's your chance at a comeback, Blackberry.

There is a real possibility of a digital schism: lefties use one technology platform and conservative use a different technology platform.

Achilles said...

This is going to go nowhere.

We haven’t had any real judges or courts for a long time.

It just took Trump to reveal this.

rcocean said...

Interesting how the first impulse of the center-right is always to run away and/or segregate. The first impulse of the Left is always Fight.

rcocean said...

Yeah, all is lost. we should just all move to Paraguay or that cabin in the woods that cons are always talking about. And their guns.

Achilles said...

Blogger rcocean said...
Roberts isn't a coward, he's a liberal. You got fooled by Bush and Specter.

He isn’t a liberal.

I am a liberal.

Roberts is a corporate fascist:

YoungHegelian said...

Parler will have another arrow in its quiver against AWS: it's data was leaked.

Now, there may be some technical chuckleheads out there think that 70TB of data can be exfiltrated by transfer over a WAN, but I'm not one of them. Maybe it can if quite a few people have nothing else to do with their lives for quite a long time.

No, some lefty asswipe at AWS leaked Parler's backups. No other way of doing it. AWS's lax security policies are responsible for this leak. They'll try and tell some tech noobie judge & jury that it was Parler's fault, but an IT expert witness will tear that to shreds.

70TB doesn't just get moved through the network backdoor.

Nonapod said...

I don't have high expectations but I can't blame Parler for at least trying I guess.

Vance said...

The left is loudly proclaiming that if you don't want to be censored, "build your own!" But they keep extending what you have to build. First it's an app, but now you cannot have an app on Google or Apple devices. So you build a website instead... but now Amazon shuts down your hosting. So you have to build your own hosting. But as Alex Jones got shown, you cannot have your own website name anymore either. And Visa, Mastercard, etc. are now banning payment processing.

So in order to have your own site, you have to host it, host a domain registrar for it, and also build a credit card system to take payments. What's next, your own IP network?

Eleanor said...

There are a lot of folks out there who are perfectly fine with Trump's being silenced, but shutting down Parler, even if they haven't used it, is a bridge too far.

Chennaul said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Owen said...

I bet Parler stock would be a good play. Damages for economic torts, breach of contract and the big one --antitrust TREBLE D-- would be a big number. Maybe a smallish probability and a longish time horizon but the expectation value is not zero...

Chennaul said...

Dangerous times.

The pot will not boil over it will explode if people feel they cannot be heard. Hell Marriott is threatening Republican representatives in the US House if they do not get in line.

Anonymous said...

Security Researcher = hacker

Anonymous said...

Owen said...
I bet Parler stock would be a good play.

Parler is privately held.

JaimeRoberto said...

"Parler did not provide direct evidence showing Amazon and Twitter coordinated the response."

I doubt there will be direct evidence other than the results and speed of their actions.

Sally327 said...

Per the article:

"David J. Groesbeck, a sole practitioner intellectual property lawyer in Olympia, Wash., filed the suit for Parler. Amazon did not respond to an immediate request for comment."

I wonder why the Times found it necessary to describe him in this way, that he's a sole practitioner.

KellyM said...

Parler was nothing more than another gatekeeper.

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2021/01/never-trust-gatekeepers.html

Nonapod said...

At the rate things are proceeding it's not impossible that Google could even take down this Blog for fomenting insurection.

Readering said...

Antitrust claim seems like nonstarter. A contract dispute at heart.

Readering said...

Sole practitioners lack resources for antitrust suits and for preliminary injunction litigation against huge companies. Assume he is looking for reinforcements.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

If they can cancel Parler, they can cancel Althouse. Blogger=Google.

I'd find a new platform.

Mikey NTH said...

It's just that darn Trump riling people up and causing all of this hysteria, righ?

I'm Full of Soup said...

Has even one liberal Dem pol spoken out against this? Althouse - what do you think about it? Perhaps call the WI election snatcher, Ben Wikler, and ask him what he thinks as a high ranking WI Dem official.

Sally327 said...

"Sole practitioners lack resources for antitrust suits and for preliminary injunction litigation against huge companies. Assume he is looking for reinforcements."

That's an answer to a different question.



JaimeRoberto said...

If the lawyer worked for a law firm, the law firm would be the next target for attacks.

Michael K said...

I quit Amazon Prime after reading about this. I still sell my books by Amazon but that is about $30 a month. I doubt they will notice but my wife says she saw the first ad she has ever seen on TV for Amazon Prime. Maybe be I'm not the only one. I was one of Amazon's first customer back in 1995. Disappointed to see this.

Clayton Hennesey said...

https://www.aleksandreia.com/2021/01/11/the-assassination-of-parler/

Ken B said...

It’s not just Amazon. There was clear collusion with other companies such as their payments processor and of course Twitter.

I hope Parler wins a big judgment. But You cannot solve this with anti trust. You need to declare these monopolies or near monopolies to be common carriers etc. Even that won’t be enough as they will just pay fines. So there is only one choice. Nationalization. Not all of Amazon, but AWS certainly. Then the Bill of rights applies.

Matt said...

The breach of contract claim looks facially good, although they need to get a handle on damages and it may be subject to arbitration. I'm not sure about the rest.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I wonder if any of the people involved in the criminal activity at the Capitol used their phone's basic messaging functionality to coordinate their efforts. If so don't Apple/Google need to remove the messaging apps from their phones?

Of course, some people might coordinated their actions via a phone call, so they better remove the phone app from their phones too...

DINKY DAU 45 said...

AMAZON will eat Parler alive, Bezos got all the bucks, it's always the $$$. They own the country, the serfs just have to obey,like it's been since beginning, all the whining and false revolutions will be shot down.Whats the "it is what it is".Be like Don Juan, keep searching for your spot, you may find it before your dirt nap but most likely not nit.

Mary Beth said...

Apple and Google both kicked Parler out of their app stores at the end of the week

Through yesterday you could still download the Parler app on an android device. (Use a browser on your phone to go to company.parler.com and download it from there. I assume that will work again once the data is migrated to new servers.) I don't know of a way to get it for Apple phones/iPads.

Leland said...

Amazon, Apple, and Google all act in the same manner within 24 hours, and the NYT goes with their go to "Parler did not provide direct evidence showing Amazon and Twitter coordinated the response." I think the evidence provided would be very compelling to an jury being asked questions about anti-trust.

DINKY DAU 45 said...

AMAZON will eat Parler alive, Bezos got all the bucks, it's always the $$$. They own the country, the serfs just have to obey,like it's been since beginning, all the whining and false revolutions will be shot down.Whats the "it is what it is".Be like Don Juan, keep searching for your spot, you may find it before your dirt nap but most likely not.Show me the $$$ :)

clint said...

I'm hearing that Parler's on-retainer law firm fired them as clients in the middle of all this, so they had to scramble to find new representation for this lawsuit.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

YoungHegelian said...
Parler will have another arrow in its quiver against AWS: it's data was leaked.

Now, there may be some technical chuckleheads out there think that 70TB of data can be exfiltrated by transfer over a WAN, but I'm not one of them.


I work with AWS daily, so I guess that makes me a technical chucklehead. You are right, it would take a very long time to download that much data. However if the data was in an S3 bucket that was configured with open permission, then it would be fairly quick for someone with an AWS account to copy the data to their own S3 bucket. Then you write a lambda searching the content for certain keywords within a certain time frame, and only download the matches for further analysis.

Readering said...

Sally 327, Rhetorical? What's your answer?

FullMoon said...

Seems like an opportunity for our lawerly commenters to take a chance and rep Parler for a shot at the big bucks.
Readering a govt lifer, so he out.
Steve and LLR might have the guts to do it.
If I had to bet, I would go with Steve 'cause he has enough balls to post with his real name. The titty twister, not so much.

Leland said...

Now, there may be some technical chuckleheads out there think that 70TB of data can be exfiltrated by transfer over a WAN, but I'm not one of them

#MeToo

When I saw people bragging about this, I kept thinking; who do you think your kidding? Amazon blocks access, says they'll archive the data, and the next day we learn that the data was hacked? And then, the glee the braggards have that the data will show Parler allowing inciting of violence. Except, since no one can independently verify this information (except Amazon, which isn't much of an independent and unbiased third party at this time), how does one expect a jury to accept that data?

Earlier this year, there was fake complaint made that Schumer complained about Trump's halt of flights from China as related to Covid. The fake looked like a legitimate Twitter post by Schumer. It was the open and available access to Twitter and Schumer's feed that allowed that fake to be debunked. Parler is no longer accessible to the public, so nobody can verify hackers claims.

They are hackers. If they really can access and manage all of Parler's data with fake accounts; then they will only prove the ability to fake the data they present.

Mark said...

Lawsuits might work if the judiciary were still fair and unbiased and not thoroughly politicized in their jurisprudence.

FullMoon said...

All the businesses that dumped Parler are headed by human beings. The people in charge are afraid. A minority may actually believe they are doing the right thing but no doubt the majority are in fear for their livliehood, their social life, or even their childre and families.

The reason most commenters here and elsewhere use alias's is fear.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Ignorance is Bliss said....

I work with AWS daily, so I guess that makes me a technical chucklehead. You are right, it would take a very long time to download that much data. However if the data was in an S3 bucket that was configured with open permission, then it would be fairly quick for someone with an AWS account to copy the data to their own S3 bucket. Then you write a lambda searching the content for certain keywords within a certain time frame, and only download the matches for further analysis.

And watch your clients stampede for the exit? Who's going to want to do business at a place where your stuff is under threat from leak within?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I assume, in accordance with their stated policies, Facebook and Twitter will lock accounts of anyone who posts any content hacked from Parler.

You know, since there aren't double standards or anything...

FullMoon said...

Don't forger, it was immediately after Obama called for censorship that the purge happened.

The same people who led the destruction of Roseanne Barr for joking about Obama's friend Valarie.

Roseanne quit her show and gave up rights to the show so the actors and techs working the show would stay employed. The actors stabbed her in the back for her kindness.

The writers killed her character by drug overdose.

Readering said...

Sounds like I gave the correct answer to why the Times thought that tidbit of info was relevant for the story.

Readering said...

I'm at a firm that would no doubt have a conflict.

Mark said...

Anyone paying attention -- or listening -- should know that this is exactly what America voted for.

Francisco D said...

I wonder why a law firm would drop Parler when it would make money regardless of the outcome. Intimidation?

Fascism is descending more quickly than I expected.

Any liberals here willing to stand up for freedom?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

And watch your clients stampede for the exit? Who's going to want to do business at a place where your stuff is under threat from leak within?

I'm not talking a leak from within. Anyone can set up an AWS account for free. If Parler misconfigured the protections on their data it would be fairly easy pickings for a knowledgeable hacker.

Note: I'm not saying this is what happened. It is certainly possible it was an inside job. But I think it much more likely it was an outside hack made possible by security mistakes on Parler's side.

FullMoon said...

LLR &Chuck.
No excuses neccessary. Your fear is justified, in my opinion. You don't want to lose friends, status, or income. Not to mention vandalism and early morning and late night protests at your front door.

Readering said...

I litigated an IP case in LA against a solo then turned around and asked him to represent my brother for an IP problem. No disdain of solos here. Of course he later joined a firm because limit to what a talented solo can do.

Sally327 said...

"Sally 327; I believe you may have the wrong David Groesbeck. There are two; you will want to double-check."

Could be, I was relying on the WA state connection and the intellectual property references. And that it's not a very common name.

Owen said...

Drill Sgt @ 3:55: "Parler is privately held." O poop.

Actually I kinda figured that. But there are other ways to "invest" in this dispute, as some commenters point out. A brave VC would bankroll the plaintiff in exchange for a piece of the action. I think Paul Allen (of MSFT fame) used to do that? But in his case they may have bought IP that allowed them to assert claims of infringement etc. ...My point is, the quaint UK concepts of maintenance and champerty do not preclude buying a stake in other peoples' trouble.

But I don't think funding is likely to be the issue here. Animal fear of deranged followers inflicting injury or worse: that's a big motivator.

Sally327 said...

"Sally 327; I believe you may have the wrong David Groesbeck. There are two; you will want to double-check."

I deleted the post with the bio so that I don't inadvertently cause problems for someone.

Ken B said...

Readering said “ Antitrust claim seems like nonstarter. A contract dispute at heart..”

So was “Back of the bus, ma’am.” Rosa Parks knew the rules when she bought the ticket, amirite.

Static Ping said...

So, Ann, how is "boring" working out for you so far?

I suppose waking up and discovering that a half dozen tech companies essentially own the country now could be boring. Nerds, am I right?

Oh well.

Achilles said...

YoungHegelian said...


70TB doesn't just get moved through the network backdoor.

The measure is still to compare the download speed to how long it would take to drive a truck full of hard drives across the distance.

70TB isn't all that much anymore though. Still a bag full of Seadrives. But you could fit 70TB into a small handbag now.

It was still obviously a purposeful act.

But that doesn't matter. Parler wont have standing. After a month or two they can maybe find some standing but it will be too late and laches will be invoked.

We don't have courts anymore. Only a facade.

YoungHegelian said...

@Ignorance,

I'm not talking a leak from within. Anyone can set up an AWS account for free. If Parler misconfigured the protections on their data it would be fairly easy pickings for a knowledgeable hacker.

Or, it was an inside job where an AWS staffer went in and changed the permissions to permit the internal transfer to another VM of Parler's info.

If I was an AWS client, I don't see how your scenario is any less terrifying than my scenario of an inside employee releasing a backup. To tell an AWS customer,"Well you better have those VM permissions set EXACTLY right or just anyone in the universe can log in, create an AWS account, and then copy over your VM in a matter of minutes."

That is not comforting, to say the least.

Lewis Wetzel said...

FullMoon said...

. . .

The reason most commenters here and elsewhere use alias's is fear.


I don't believe that "fear" is the best word.
I am retired. I have no close family who would be affected if my name were made public. But I am concerned that if my name were known, some crazy person, perhaps some crazy person living in my town, would harass me.
Also my online persona is not me. My comments are me writing a story in the first person.

Achilles said...

Owen said...

I bet Parler stock would be a good play. Damages for economic torts, breach of contract and the big one --antitrust TREBLE D-- would be a big number. Maybe a smallish probability and a longish time horizon but the expectation value is not zero...

No firm will take this case.

Can you guess why all of the large powerful law firms would refrain from taking on the Oligarchs?

YoungHegelian said...

Oops, sorry to assume geek-speak is shared by everyone. A VM is a Virtual Machine, in other words a computer system (e.g. like a Windows Server) where many Virtual machines are run on one physical server. The Master Operating System that runs these Virtual Machines is called a hypervisor. Examples of a commonly available hypervisor product is VmWare.

Needless to say, especially in massive environments like AWS it is muuuuuuch cheaper in terms of server hardware, environmental controls such as air conditioning & humidity, and electrical consumption to run as much as possible as a VM.

Readering said...

Comparing Parler to Rosa Parks? Ok. I guess maybe that means Parler has a 10 year vision?

Wince said...

Parler did not provide direct evidence showing Amazon and Twitter coordinated the response.

Is this the standard to get into court on a conspiracy claim before being granted discovery?

In some ways I think AWS management probably wants the court to grant a temporary order to take decisional control out of their hands while preventing the irreparable harm that could drastically increase damages, even on a contract claim.

Michael K said...

Blogger DINKY DAU 45 said...
AMAZON will eat Parler alive, Bezos got all the bucks, it's always the $$$. They own the country, the serfs just have to obey,like it's been since beginning, all the whining and false revolutions will be shot down.Whats the "it is what it is".


Somewhere, there is a Tim McVeigh watching this. Not me. I'm going to avoid trouble until they come to my door. Clinton and Reno invited this and it looks like Biden and his handlers are inviting it again. I just hope whoever he is does not blow up an Amazon warehouse with all those minimum wage slaves. Bezos must have personal security. I wonder how good they are ?

DavidUW said...

Bezos must have personal security. I wonder how good they are ?
>>
They're only as good as their pay.

Classic tactic would be to buy them off but whatever.

Readering said...

Interesting you don't worry for folks on right. Which is correct.

mccullough said...

Wince,

Complaints don't provide "evidence," direct or circumstantial.

All they provide are allegations. And you don't need specific allegations that Executive A from Amazon told Executive B from Twitter in a telephone conversation on January 7, 2020 that Amazon agreed to Twitter's request that Amazon stop hosting Parler's website.

Parler just has to allege enough facts to make the antitrust claim plausible.

Readering said...

Dollars to donuts AWS opposes TRO, which will not be granted absent admissible evidence. Verified complaint insufficient.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Misconfigured permissions on Amazon AWS buckets are a well known, and oft-warned-against, problem.

And it certainly does happen that people misconfigure their settings.

However in this case, if Parler says, well we know what we are doing and we setup our S3 correctly, and Amazon says, Well, that may be, but on the day in question, someone at your shop updated the settings incorrectly, what recourse does Parler have? If Amazon is on the other side, their logs mean nothing.

Achilles said...

YoungHegelian said...

Oops, sorry to assume geek-speak is shared by everyone. A VM is a Virtual Machine, in other words a computer system (e.g. like a Windows Server) where many Virtual machines are run on one physical server. The Master Operating System that runs these Virtual Machines is called a hypervisor. Examples of a commonly available hypervisor product is VmWare.

Needless to say, especially in massive environments like AWS it is muuuuuuch cheaper in terms of server hardware, environmental controls such as air conditioning & humidity, and electrical consumption to run as much as possible as a VM.


I think you are highlighting a problem that will realize in the near future.

How computers work is basically magic to 99.9% of the population.

I have a Masters in Computer Science and work as a software engineer. A large percentage of people with software degrees have no idea what the Kernel space is. If you start talking about how VMWare uses Hardware API Error messages and other shenanigans to pretend to be a part of the hardware access layer in the kernel almost all Geeks who have studied this for years would look at you in bewilderment. I implemented Virtual Memory very poorly in an assignment and I have trouble explaining how it works though the concept is simple enough.

I had a friend who was going hard into quantum computing. I tried to follow along a few times a week. But there will be years of study to be reasonably competent in that field.

We are soon going to enter a period of time where there is a small group of people that are referred to as Wizards and Sorcerers and be looked upon by the population as wielding magic.

mccullough said...

Since the contract has a 30-day notice of termination, the TRO should be granted.

Jeff Weimer said...

"Sally327 said...
Per the article:

"David J. Groesbeck, a sole practitioner intellectual property lawyer in Olympia, Wash., filed the suit for Parler. Amazon did not respond to an immediate request for comment."

I wonder why the Times found it necessary to describe him in this way, that he's a sole practitioner."

Because their previously retained legal representation dropped them under pressure, and he was likely the first (or only) lawyer willing to take this on. They literally lost every form of support in a day. That's almost proof of their complaints right there.

YoungHegelian said...

I think Amazon will settle for "an undisclosed amount" and take their winning as political favor won with the Democrats.

I think discovery for Amazon would produce for the public record messages that could harm Amazon's business prospects with not just a large fraction of the American, but also the world, public. It will show, in ink on the page, that Amazon, like Alphabet, has a large stratum of managerial staffers who are simply Stalinist nutjobs.

Clayton Hennesey said...

"Michael K said...

Somewhere, there is a Tim McVeigh watching this. Not me."

Not me either, but BLM demonstrated the complete vulnerability of brick and mortar storefronts.

Google is safe, but Apple is not.

Come to think of it, it wouldn't hurt Google a bit to launch their own Apple store strike teams.

Joe Smith said...

"Roberts isn't a coward, he's a liberal. You got fooled by Bush and Specter."

I wasn't fooled...trust me. I learned my lesson after Souter.

Readering said...

Trying to picture a stalinist nut job in a 21st century American office park.

mccullough said...

The Complaint is well written. A few typos, which is expected given the short turnaround time to write the Complaint.

The antitrust claim might be a bit of a stretch since there's no allegation that Amazon conspired with other companies that provide webhosting services to microblogs like Parler and Twitter. And it doesn't seem that Amazon has a monopoly in webhosting services.

Parler might have a decent antitrust claim against Apple and Google for barring Parler from their app stores.

If Amazon had just honored the 30-day termination of its contract, they would be in a much better legal position.

Temujin said...

The only way to defeat Big Tech is to remove Democrats from office. And establishment Republicans. It's a large task, to be sure. But nothing will happen until we get a large majority in the House and Senate and probably the White House. At that point, breaking these companies up, or resetting them as publishers at the very least, can have a chance. Nothing will happen under Democrats. Dems work for these people.

We can comment here all we like, but the target and focus has to be the mid-term 2022 elections to start. Everyone should be focused on that and looking for the best possible candidates. People who can get others to want to go out and vote for them.
The House and Senate both need to be taken back. And it's very doable. Very doable.

YoungHegelian said...

@Readering,

Trying to picture a stalinist nut job in a 21st century American office park.

Why is that difficult? Were they not available in large numbers in any communist country or in communist labor unions toiling away on factory floors or collective farms? Isn't Big Tech just another 21st C "big industry"?

Do I think they're really "Stalinists"? No, to be a real Stalinist would involve much more ideological knowledge & discipline in Marxist dialects than they could muster. But, are they post-Marxist (Identity Politics) Lefty nutjobs. Oh, yes.

chickelit said...

I would like to se a class action aspect of his suit. I joined Parler months ago but failed to download the app. Now Safari refuses to connect to Parler.

Owen said...

Achilles @ 5:15: "...Can you guess why all of the large powerful law firms would refrain from taking on the Oligarchs?"

Of course. I used to be in that world. Conflicts of interest --real and potential-- are a big deal.

Maybe I should have added a "pretend naive font" marker. But my purpose was just to highlight my sense that Parler's case might have real merit. Which tends to focus attention on why, if the case is not garbage, respectable firms are running away as fast as they can. They are probably willing to be scolded or even shunned for their pusillanimity*, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve it.

That is all.

*I love that word but so rarely get to drop it in.

Vance said...

I wonder how many businesses that use AWS are now wondering "Gosh, what happened to Parler--could it happen to me if I wake up on the wrong side of Amazon? Maybe I'd better find a different host."

Every smart business owner will look at history and note that these leftist purges always start out with the "Deplorables" but never, ever stop with just them.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

YoungHegelian said...

To tell an AWS customer,"Well you better have those VM permissions set EXACTLY right or just anyone in the universe can log in, create an AWS account, and then copy over your VM in a matter of minutes."

AWS tells their customers exactly that. Repeatedly

That is not comforting, to say the least.

It is not intended to be comforting. It is intended to be true.

If I was an AWS client, I don't see how your scenario is any less terrifying than my scenario of an inside employee releasing a backup.

If you are developing an application that deals with private data, and you are terrified of implementing proper security, you have no business developing such an app.

MountainMan said...

Vance said..."I wonder how many businesses that use AWS are now wondering "Gosh, what happened to Parler--could it happen to me if I wake up on the wrong side of Amazon?"

A lot of companies have moved their core systems, like their enterprise system (like SAP) or their web-based sales channel. to AWS or a similar hosting service. Where I worked before I retired we got lots of pressure from our ERP software vendor to move our system off-site like this and we did for some things (to either AWS or Azure) but kept our ERP in-house. This kind of situation always concerned me. This could cost AWS some business, I think.

Browndog said...

Funny how everyone wants to apply the old rules; the rules they were taught and still think everyone lives by.

One last time: we live under new rules. Those rules, simply stated, are whatever the left applies at any given moment in time to others that results in them having more power.

There is no "if you do this, or the court that" we can win.

Readering said...

Agreed that it is doable for GOP to take back Congress. Just look at Clinton and Obama administrations. But not based on return to Trumpism.

YoungHegelian said...

@Ignorance,

you are terrified of implementing you are terrified of implementing proper security, you have no business developing such an app., you have no business developing such an app.

Given all the data breaches that have occurred at even the largest and one would think most secure of vendors, I'm not sure what "proper security" is. We think we know what it is, and a lot of guys make good money selling themselves as "security experts" for hire or internally, but yet it still keeps happening, doesn't it?

There's a side of me that when I hear these things, thinks of how Marxist regimes always covered for their failures by asserting that the problems were coming from a lack of ideological purity, or from not following the 5 year plan close enough, or from hoarders & wreckers. Anything but how their basic model was flawed.

I think that's what we got here, too.

chickelit said...

@readering" What is "Trumpism"? Is it related to Obama worship?

Achilles said...

Readering said...

Trying to picture a stalinist nut job in a 21st century American office park.

Not hard.

Look in the mirror.

D.D. Driver said...

Sole practitioners lack resources for antitrust suits and for preliminary injunction litigation against huge companies. Assume he is looking for reinforcements.

I assume that this lawyer is local counsel and that lead counsel has not yet been admitted before the court. Just my guess.

daskol said...

We are soon going to enter a period of time where there is a small group of people that are referred to as Wizards and Sorcerers and be looked upon by the population as wielding magic.

Almost. Puppetmasters, maybe. It's all about the bots.

Readering said...

In that situation lead counsel listed as pro hac vice application pending or forthcoming. Maybe clearing conflicts.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

YoungHegelian said...
Anything but how their basic model was flawed.

I think that's what we got here, too.


What do you see as the flaw?

It is trivial to make a secure app. Just lock everything down. The downside is your app then can't do anything; no data in, no data out.

The quickest way to get a functional app out is to open everything up so that you don't have to spend time setting up secure access where needed. Many companies take this shortcut to get to market sooner.

Even once the app reaches the market, there is always new functionality with a new deadline. Shortchanging security is not uncommon.

So is this a flaw of AWS, or a flaw of human nature?

Achilles said...

Vance said...

I wonder how many businesses that use AWS are now wondering "Gosh, what happened to Parler--could it happen to me if I wake up on the wrong side of Amazon? Maybe I'd better find a different host."

Every smart business owner will look at history and note that these leftist purges always start out with the "Deplorables" but never, ever stop with just them.


The top 10 companies control 80% of the market.

After that you need to look at the CDN Market

The problem with this is that all new tech grads are coming out of a training system that is more fascist than the average college. More than that though most people with CS degrees are smarter than average people and they know they are smarter.

They all think this means they should be telling people what to do because they are smarter than everyone else. I don't really think you are ever going to find a place where you are safe from this sort of short sided myopia.

There is no humility in the CS world. None.

This is a systemic problem. It is probably the biggest problem our society faces moving toward the future.

daskol said...

Owen, you're in luck because there's a lot of that pusalinifsdaf stuff going around these days, so keep it at the ready.

Rusty said...

reqadering said, "
"Trying to picture a stalinist nut job in a 21st century American office park."
You do a pretty good impression of one.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Also, while it may be possible to copy someone else's VM, it is far more likely just the data was copied, probably from S3, possibly from a database. Data storage options that are inherently designed to be shared. And this is true whether it was an inside or outside job.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Everyone - Please support Andy Ngo.
buy his book.

Leftwing antifa fascist brownshirts are trying to ban it.

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1348757722142023682

Quayle said...

There is little humility anywhere these days, it seems to me. I recognize it is a constant problem for each of us to voluntarily stay humble, and I include myself in that effort. But we must each try, otherwise events will overtake us all that will compel us to be humble and it isn’t likely to be pretty.

Gusty Winds said...

Does Ann want Parlor to win or lose this one? Cruel neutrality.

FullMoon said...

Hopefully the geeks are still here.

After the dotcom crash, I saw servers in peoples garages. Bought cheap at auctions.

Can a service like Parler simply set up it's own servers?

Achilles said...

Ignorance is Bliss said...

It is trivial to make a secure app. Just lock everything down. The downside is your app then can't do anything; no data in, no data out.

The quickest way to get a functional app out is to open everything up so that you don't have to spend time setting up secure access where needed. Many companies take this shortcut to get to market sooner.

Even once the app reaches the market, there is always new functionality with a new deadline. Shortchanging security is not uncommon.

So is this a flaw of AWS, or a flaw of human nature?


Joe Biden was Vice President when OPM was hacked by the Chinese and they got my SF-86.

So it is a flaw of any information you store on a device in 1's and 0's. That was probably an inside job too.

But that almost certainly isn't what happened to Parler. We don't know for sure, but AWS acting illegally in breach of contract already puts them in the position of being the assumed perpetrator. Also the fact that AWS and the other Oligarchs are acting in concert is more circumstantial evidence.

But like I said before, Parler wont have standing. After long enough laches will kick in.

We don't have courts anymore.

Michael K said...

Blogger BidenFamilyTaxPayerFundedCrackPipe said...
Everyone - Please support Andy Ngo.
buy his book.


Pre-ordered. I have quit Amazon Prime so it will cost me about 5 bucks to have it delivered.

Quayle said...

Certainly. But it will take time. And that presumes that the hosting centers don’t refuse to handle or kick it out also, which would cost it more time.

Michael K said...

Blogger Readering said...
Agreed that it is doable for GOP to take back Congress. Just look at Clinton and Obama administrations. But not based on return to Trumpism.


It is no surprise that you don't get it. There is no Republican Party without Trump. That's why Pelosi et al are scared shitless of him. I think it is 50-50 he will be assassinated. Sort of like Austria in 1938. Dolfuss was killed by the Nazis and Schuschnigg survived to live in the US back when it was still free.

Achilles said...

FullMoon said...

Hopefully the geeks are still here.

After the dotcom crash, I saw servers in peoples garages. Bought cheap at auctions.

Can a service like Parler simply set up it's own servers?



The way the internet is set up these days you can. Sorta.

But if you host it on your own servers you likely have them hosted on the internet with one Gateway. Any 12 year old can probably take you down randomly with a boring DDOS attack.

Almost any commercial site uses some sort of CDN service that distributes your access to the internet over a broad area with multiple gateways and hides your IP behind a cloud or a wall. I don't know how to describe it. Then you need to set up a firewall. An Email Service. A Database. The Database by itself requires experience. A large percentage of Hacking attacks that actually get you saleable pilferings are SQL injections.

Basically you will have 2 businesses. Your original business and your website. And internet security engineers get paid 6 figures.

So if you are good enough to set up your own servers, website, storefront/way to accept money, database, and firewall/security and CDN you will have the experience and technical skill to get at least 3 different 5/6 figure jobs.

320Busdriver said...

“Stop the Steal”

Now doubleplus ungood wrongthink being scrubbed from Facebook.

It’s all happening so fast

Mikey NTH said...

MichaelK at 7:02

If that's the case then they are mistaking the symptom (Trump) for the csuse (middle and working class discontent). Killing Trump would make a martyr, it wouldn't solve the discontent and anger.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

the cop who was battered by Antifa (dressed as maga) - why don't we know the identity of the perpetrators? ?

because they were Antifa.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Thanks Michael K! You are awesome.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Michael K said...

It is no surprise that you don't get it. There is no Republican Party without Trump. That's why Pelosi et al are scared shitless of him. I think it is 50-50 he will be assassinated.

I'm surprised he made it this far without an attempt!

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Trump supporters support police.

Antifa HATE police.

Why would any Trump supporter try to kill a cop?

Makes no sense.

Browndog said...

We need to set up some sort of underground communication system so we can speak freely in America!

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Antifa attempt to break into police nations all over Portland and Seattle.

Capitol: There is evidence of false flag operations where Antifa dressed up as MAGA.

Browndog said...

Woj Pawelczyk
@Woj_Pawelczyk

"Good morning. This is Radio Free America and we are broadcasting live from Poland..."

Achilles said...

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Michael K said...

It is no surprise that you don't get it. There is no Republican Party without Trump. That's why Pelosi et al are scared shitless of him. I think it is 50-50 he will be assassinated.

I'm surprised he made it this far without an attempt!

I am not.

They know what would follow.

Rabel said...

Speaking of being violated, in a few moments the righteous but ill-tempered warriors from Tuscaloosa will commence an action that is still criminal is several jurisdictions upon the eternally evil spawn of Woody Hayes at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

May they rest in peace.

Drago said...

Readering: "Agreed that it is doable for GOP to take back Congress. Just look at Clinton and Obama administrations. But not based on return to Trumpism."

Your incredible historical ignorance is showing.

Once again.

As always.

There is no such thing as "Trumpism".

Trump was simply the only politician running who picked up pretty standard populist themes that have been around for hundreds of years and married them to his America First policy set.

That Trump fought so aggressively for those themes/policies is essentially what you are mislabeling "Trumpism".

Was it Trumpism that gave the Brits Brexit? Was it Trumpism that led to anti-EU governments across the EU, the results in Brazil or in Australia?

No.

It was a recognition across the globe by free peoples that power had been consolidated at never before seen national levels (or in the case of Brussels, EU "federal" levels) and those establishment types at the center of those centralized organs of power were now more interested in selling out their national interests in order to cater to a globalist team of crony capitalists and ChiComs while making a nice buck doing it.

How else does one explain how the anti-Brexit morons within Britain were so happy to hand over 90% of British fishing rights to the French and the Belgians at the behest of Brussels? (Just one example of about a thousand)

Even more ironic, there was about a 20% policy overlap between left of center populist Bernie and right of center populist Trump, primarily dealing with immigration and foreign wars...until Bernie sold out...again!

So that is what the great crackdown is all about.

Its not about Trumpism. Its about any and all populist/non-globalist-sellout beliefs being crushed by the unprecedented centralized power of our tech/military/govt/establishment pols who have clearly decided that their utopian visions (and elevated positions) must never again come under serious political threat from any quarter.

And here we are.

I'm Not Sure said...

"The left is loudly proclaiming that if you don't want to be censored, "build your own!""

You mean the people who told everyone "You didn't build that!"?

YoungHegelian said...

@Ignorance,

What do you see as the flaw?

What I see as the foundational flaw is the settling on the "Port" design of inter-process communication as the standard for all WAN application to application communication. The concept of ports comes from Unix, and as much as I love Unix/Linux, it bears its Thompson & Ritchie heritage of being dedicated to "openness" as opposed to what we need now, which is locked down and mean as a junkyard dog process to process communication.

I honestly don't know the way around this. I don't know how interprocess communication can locked down and still work. I can see I'm paralyzed by the paradigm, but that doesn't mean I know my way past the paralysis.

I see the failures of network security over & over again at the largest companies & I ask myself: Are we talking about a repeatable business process here, or are we talking about something akin to Catholic sainthood -- we keep hearing it's possible & some people have actually made it (so we're told), but is it something me & my buddies at the pool hall can ever really do?

So, to answer your other question -- it's not human nature. It's systems of unbelievable complexity & tools that are not really up to the job.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Ports are not a Unix thing, they are a TCP/IP thing.

YoungHegelian said...

@Churchy,

Ports are not a Unix thing, they are a TCP/IP thing.

Yes, in historical detail that's true. But in terms of the history of the computer market, it wasn't Xerox systems and their use of TCP/IP that made ports the standard. It was the adoption of TCP/IP as the default for Unix systems, and the subsequent building of the internet around UNIX, especially Sun Solaris sytems, that cemented ports as the standard.

Mark said...

are they post-Marxist (Identity Politics) Lefty nutjobs. Oh, yes.

I'd say no. Rather, they are post-Marxist Lefty next-door neighbors and regular people. The ideology passed from the fringe to the mainstream long ago, reinforced by at least a generation of school indoctrination. It's the new norm.

Iman said...

Blogger Readering said...
Trying to picture a stalinist nut job in a 21st century American office park.


It’s easy, think John Podesta... or a million other Donk swine.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Certainly we can agree that because Congressman Steve Scalise's attempted assassin was radicalized by the teachings of Rachel Maddow and Bernie Sanders, they and their followers should be banned.

Remember all the outrage over that domestic terrorism & insurrection? Me neither.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Antifa attempt to break into police STATIONS all over Portland and Seattle... FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS...while media ignore it.

Capitol: There is evidence of false flag operations where Antifa dressed up as MAGA.

YoungHegelian said...

@Mark,

The ideology passed from the fringe to the mainstream long ago, reinforced by at least a generation of school indoctrination.

Mainstreamed nutjobbery is still nutjobbery.

True to my Hegelian moniker here, I believe that ideologies have consequences, and that incoherent ideologies produce societally incoherent results. Understand, I do not believe that classical Marxism is philosophically incoherent. I believe it is wrong in its description of reality & that it has produced some of the most evil regimes in human history, but it's not incoherent.

I have read enough post-modernism to know that what Identity Politics seeks to build on that postmodernist/post-Marxist foundation is philosophically incoherent. It's why these people can't say the name of their ideology in public, unlike e.g. classical liberals or classic Marxists. It's why the Party Line changes from day to day. It's why they can't stand up to any sort of critical examination from adherents of any other ideology. It's a metaphysics (& a bad one at that) that can't admit it's a metaphysics. Oh, no, it's the raw expression of the Consciousness of the Oppressed!

Achilles said...

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Ports are not a Unix thing, they are a TCP/IP thing.

Or UDP. But it is optional with UDP.

The Wiki on ports is good enough.

The ports are on the Network layer interacting with the Transport layer. There are 7 layers to the OSI protocol.

Usually I like typing these things up to refresh my own understanding but I am going to cook some dinner instead so I offer reading.

Like everything else in this our modern networking technologies are basically magic to almost everyone including software engineers. Even binding a port and creating a socket in C is so abstract to the actual physical machinations it is daunting.

Enlighten-NewJersey said...

Facebook is getting rid of everything referring to "Stop the Steal". How about "Halt the Heist" instead.

chuck said...

Can a service like Parler simply set up it's own servers?

I know very little about networking beyond the basics, but I've been listening to Viva and Barnes. They set up Locals with multiple fallbacks in preparation for an event like this. They also point to Alex Jones (InfoWars) as having found ways around the blockages. Not that they admire Alex Jones, it was more a case of "first they came for Alex Jones". They also point out that Parler was warned, but yet unprepared. So yes, it is still possible to work around the system, but not everyone has the skills and time to do it. I expect howtos will be coming out in the not too distant future and that sites better prepared for the coming flood will be expanding. The best short term strategy is probably to stay informed.

stevew said...

Glenn Greenwald reports that the number of people arrested for improperly entering the capitol that were also Parler users is, zero.

All the planning, such as it was, for the trip to protest in Washington was done mainly on Facebook.

Clayton Hennesey said...

" Browndog said...

We need to set up some sort of underground communication system so we can speak freely in America!"

You can lease your own email server with half a dozen mailboxes for under $100 a year, and GPG is FOSS.

https://gnupg.org/

Everything old is new again.

Realistically, it probably won't be that long before elephantine Party social media systems become as quaintly archaic as rocket fins on cars.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

twitter cannot have competition.

It's against the Hunter Biden law school of stripper fucking and tax payer rape.

Dr Weevil said...

There is a much better alternative to Twitter than Parler or Gab: quodverum.com. I believe it was Thomas Wictor's idea, and I know that Saul Montes Bradley built it, and owns the servers himself. They did so because they were both kicked off Twitter many months ago on ridiculously fraudulent pretexts. SMB is very strict about keeping racist assholes off QuodVerum, though anyone pushing Q-conspiracy crap is given a warning or two before being kicked off. Lots of intelligent Trumpers have moved there after being kicked off Twitter (e.g. 'Imperator Rex' and the Cates brothers, Brian and Duane). Others have moved since Friday: in fact, they were down a couple of hours Saturday morning while SMB bought and installed more servers to handle a sudden surge (doubling?) of members. They have no ads, and no fees, though SMB occasionally asks for contributions from readers and especially posters to help pay the bills. It works pretty much like Twitter, though they call a tweet a 'toot' and a retweet a 'boost'.

If you want to check it out, SMB's account is https://social.quodverum.com/@debradelai/ - change the last bit to @ThomasWic for Wictor, @Rex for the former Imperator Rex, @drawandstrike for Brian Cates, @DuaneCates for his brother. You don't have to read all five to get an idea of what they are: they all boost each other's best stuff, so there's a fair amount of redundancy.

By the way, I'd like to stake a claim here. These five guys and a very few others not yet banned from Twitter (mainly @RattlerGator) still think Trump's going to be reinaugurated in 8 1/2 days, after a multi-megaton document-and-videotape-and-audiotape dump that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the election was stolen, that a huge number of politicians are owned by the Chinese or other foreign powers, and much more.

I think they're right, and it will likely begin in the next few days, quite likely tomorrow. It's only taken so long because the rot is so pervasive.

We shall soon see. You all have permission to gloat if I'm wrong, but not until noon on the 20th.

Dr Weevil said...

By the way, saying that "Stop the Steal" is a call for violence is an obvious lie. If they wanted violence, they would have called it "Kill the Election Thieves" or at least given a strong hint with "Stop the Steal By Any Means Necessary".

Speaking of which, I'm amazed that anyone finds the BAMN slogan non-threatening: my policy is 'By Any Legal, Moral, and Ethical Means Necessary'. Leaving out all three adjectives is deeply sinister.

Mark said...

By the way, saying that "Stop the Steal" is a call for violence is an obvious lie.

Come on, Doc, you know better.

Even saying things like "men are not women" is a vicious, malicious, call for violence, just like saying that "2+2=4" is obvious white supremacy.

Sebastian said...

"I expect howtos will be coming out in the not too distant future"

I see an opportunity for further Russian meddling. If they are really smart, they'll help--to foster more division and animosity, of course.

5M - Eckstine said...

Ignorance is Bliss said...
YoungHegelian said...

Now, there may be some technical chuckleheads out there think that 70TB of data can be exfiltrated by transfer over a WAN, but I'm not one of them.

I work with AWS daily, ... it would take a very long time to download that much data. However if the data was in an S3 bucket

** How would the copier find the S3 bucket so easily? How would the copier have their own 100 T of storage to hold the copy? How would Amazon service deamons not realize content on their site had a permissions change that was a security risk?

It's an inside job that includes some big actors.

5M - Eckstine said...

Lets just solve this easily and cheaply and get on with our lives.

Award Parler 51 percent stock shares in Amazon, Google, and Twitter.

Problem solved from many elevations.

5M - Eckstine said...

One of the lessons of non Christian spirituality is that "good" people have greater access to creativity and open mindedness. Especially when acting as a group.

One reason Hitler was defeated. Evil people cloud themselves over with fears and distractions that are relative illusions. Once they try and walk on water then they all of a sudden realize they can't swim. If @jack is taking drugs then the situation is amplifies in his consciousness. The drugs are destroying his sense of boundaries and inducing emotional states that aren't rooted in the real world.

Marianne Williamson can back me up on this. Oh I forgot she is one of the distracted.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Amazon has a lot of delivery vans. Would be such of shame if a bunch got a flat tire every other day or so. I hope that never happens.

5M - Eckstine said...

BidenFamilyTaxPayerFundedCrackPipe said...
why don't we know the identity of the perpetrators? ?because they were Antifa

** there is a note that any antifa attending should wear a maga hat and turn it backwards when in the thick of things.

** there is a video of the first two people trying to pull the police barriers down. One of them is just that. Makes a large theatric show of pulling his jacket off, flexing, then turning his hat backwards before he assaults the police barrier. Some bigger Trump guy tries to dissuade him and he ignores it, then pulls the barricade down.

He could very well be a Trump supporting hot head but he is also easily recognizable in the videos. I might lean to him being a Trumpster because he wasn't masked up. He should be held accountable.

It was a peaceful demonstration stoked for anger for months by AOC and the Squad, BLM in Portland, Kamala Harris spoken words, and an aging fear ridden Pelosi. The instability is being planted by the left. Trumps fault was he let the crowd go organic relying on their common sense they had exhibited at all of their rallies. The majority of the Trumpsters take extreme pride in being nice and kind people. Plenty of interviews on Jan 6th showing that.

Violence is not a solution anywhere. Who is OK with it today? Who doesn't want to talk honestly about it? When it becomes a solution you get desperate solutions like a Kyle Rittenhouse. The events of the past weeks by the DNC have hatched a lot of Kyle Rittenhouses.

Owen said...

Enlighten-New Jersey @ 8:13: "Facebook is getting rid of everything referring to "Stop the Steal". How about "Halt the Heist" instead."

Also?

Throttle the Theft
Lock the Larceny
Block the Burglary
Repel the Robbery
Fix the Felony

etc etc

Zach said...

The Sherman Antitrust Act case will be interesting.

Maybe it's just me, but employees of Big Tech don't strike me as people who are accustomed to monitoring internal communications with an eye toward antitrust.

If you read The Informant (the book the movie was based on), the executives at Archer Daniels Midland went to great lengths to make sure they wouldn't get caught by the Sherman Act. They were engaged in a price fixing conspiracy, of course, but there were lots of details. They would have conferences in Japan rather than Hawaii, for example, because if they discussed price fixing in Hawaii they would be subject to US law.

Here you have five giant companies -- Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon -- behaving in concert on a few days notice. They nuked Parler because Twitter wanted to ban Trump, and feared that he would move to Parler if the app wasn't killed first. Nobody's leaving the country, and business is being conducted by email and instant messaging.

Do you really think the electronic record is clean? I don't. I'll bet there's a ton of electronic messages between employees of the different companies, coordinating their actions. They just don't strike me as people who think of themselves as engaging in illegal conspiracies in restraint of trade.

5M - Eckstine said...

I'm Full of Soup said...
Amazon has a lot of delivery vans.

** I hope no one graffities their pickup lockers and leaves the kiosk computers in them alone.

Owen said...

I'm Full of Soup @ 9:33: "Amazon has a lot of delivery vans. Would be such of shame if a bunch got a flat tire every other day or so. I hope that never happens."

Totally agree. Also worried that the Amazon Prime model ($99 a year, I think) provides zero-cost shipping (and return for things not wanted after all?). But that deal depends on customer behavior: how many purchases over the year, what weight/bulk, what value, what number of cancellations.

What if people's behavior were to change fundamentally? Wouldn't that mess up the algorithm that ensures Amazon makes enough, or doesn't lose too much, on this service?

I mean, God forbid somebody might sign up for Prime and then order many thousands of heavy bulky (expensive to ship) items of low revenue value, and then keep returning them for free.

That would be...wrong.

Just wondering here.

5M - Eckstine said...

Achilles said...
Churchy LaFemme: said...

Ports are not a Unix thing, they are a TCP/IP thing.

** ports like domain names and protocols are public sqaure activities that Twitter profits from at the expense of all Taxpayers. Disallowing them a port or protocol they have abused shuts them down. or vice versa shuts Trump down.

What are there? 13 DNS regional lists? The simple rule Deny *.Trump.* or Deny *Trump* halts everything online Trump in the world. He would have to go to using static IP Addresses. Which would also then be caught and filtered out on routers.

Zach said...

The Archer Daniels Midland people *did* think of themselves as engaging in an illegal conspiracy, which is why the story of their downfall is so entertainingly strange.

I think this will be something closer to the Enron energy traders who gave a running commentary on instant messenger about how they manipulated the energy markets, just because they were feeling jazzed about it.

n.n said...

Violence is not a solution anywhere. ... When it becomes a solution you get desperate solutions like a Kyle Rittenhouse

Rittenhouse responded to violence that posed an immediate risk of his death.

5M - Eckstine said...

Zach said...
The Sherman Antitrust Act case will be interesting.

IMO the idea of ANTI trust has to be expanded and modified for something as vast as a Google or an Amazon. What metrics do they use to describe their online activities? How do reach and klout affect monopolistic activities? What impact do AI and Google Ads have on suppressing competition?

Its economy of scale. Once Amazon got big enough it could use its economy of scale and economy of information to create a new online environment only they could exist in. It seems like classic monopoly behavior violating the public good will to me.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

I saw Ben Shapiro's interview with Parler's Chief Policy Officer. According to her Amazon hosts for Twitter, any of the legal minds on the board want to opine on how that would affect the lawsuit against them?

5M - Eckstine said...

Violence is not a solution anywhere. ... When it becomes a solution you get desperate solutions like a Kyle Rittenhouse

Rittenhouse responded to violence that posed an immediate risk of his death.

** Agree. but he was there because he was hurt by the social media views of the BLM violence and understood it was going to tear his good world apart. Yet he went to help anyway.

Something like what he perceived and felt is something all kids now are feeling. And amplified by COVID restriction. I don't think many parents are capable of stabilizing those types of fears. We are going to get some extreme thinking kids out of this.

n.n said...

I see an opportunity for further Russian meddling. If they are really smart, they'll help--to foster more division and animosity, of course.

Why Russia? China has so much more (e.g. trillions in redistributive change, unfettered aggressive expansion, unperturbed domestic policies) to gain from muzzling America. Iran, too, can safely secure the Obama/Biden legacy of wars without borders, transnational terrorism, shared/shifted environmental responsibility, and catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform a.k.a. refugee crises. They have even evolved... progressed from Great Leap to one-child to selective-child and social justification of concentration camps for deplorables. In retrospect, selective-girl was a poorly conceived policy.

5M - Eckstine said...

Google will visit here. They will ask Althouse to remove certain commenters. Which she should do. It's Googles rules.

5M - Eckstine said...

n.n said...
I see an opportunity for further Russian meddling.

Why Russia? China

** I used to review my router/firewall logs. The majority of foreign traffic to my location was Chinese based. By a large degree. Russia was almost nothing.

I'm Not Sure said...

"They just don't strike me as people who think of themselves as engaging in illegal conspiracies in restraint of trade."

When your enemy is literally Hitler, your cause is righteous.

5M - Eckstine said...

Well Blogger is flagging me for posting too much. Not sure how the posting vets here get past that all the time.

Owen said...

Night: regarding the antirust case against Amazon (for throwing Parler off its servers, right?) the first thought that came to me was "essential facilities." A monopolist (which Amazon pretty much is?) which controls a facility essential to competitors (and Parker isn't even a competitor?) is required to provide access to that facility unless some aspect of it precludes shared access (here, access to the server farm would be easy: it's already being done. Do Parlor's competitors not have access?). If the competitors can replicate the facility at reasonable cost and in a reasonable time, then maybe they cannot insist on continued access. But is that our case here? Hardly. Parler is utterly screwed by this summary ejection.

n.n said...

Something like what he perceived and felt is something all kids now are feeling.

He came for a lifeguard job, he stayed to render aid and stand with people who needed help. The violence was there, it followed... stalked him through the streets, neighborhoods, and businesses. It was partially but ineffectually hidden by the press over a four year period. There is a lesson here.

Owen said...

Sorry for the typo's in the foregoing comment. Parlor and Parker = Parler. O I hate spellcheck.

More substantively I have to think Amazon could afford some decent lawyers here. I wonder what their advice was? "Balls to the wall, Mr. Bezos."

iowan2 said...

"Gosh, what happened to Parler--could it happen to me if I wake up on the wrong side of Amazon? Maybe I'd better find a different host."

I don't think people are realizing the full impact. You dont have to get crossways with big tech.
They will be the mob selling protection. "It's nice you support the idea of BLM, but a $half million donation by the 1st will assure your servers don't have a couple of 2 day lapses of service."

They wont silence your speech. The will dictate what you must say.

The Ag supply company I retired from is a $2billion company. I am almost positive all their backups and some computing is done by facebook in Altoona IA. So if facebook doesn't like them involved with modern hog production, where is a company that size going to find another provider?

Original Mike said...

"I hate spellcheck."

You can turn it off.

"More substantively I have to think Amazon could afford some decent lawyers here. I wonder what their advice was? "Balls to the wall, Mr. Bezos.""

What have they got to fear? After this election they own everything.

Mutaman said...

"On Monday afternoon, Judge Barbara J. Rothstein said Parler had not served Amazon with its complaint, as court rules require, and ordered it to do so by 5 p.m. Pacific time. The deadline passed with no updates on the court docket indicating that Parler had served Amazon in time."

Guess Parler is being represented by Rudy and Sidney. Free advice- don't skimp on paying the process server.

Openidname said...

"Owen said...

"God forbid somebody might sign up for Prime and then order many thousands of heavy bulky (expensive to ship) items of low revenue value, and then keep returning them for free."

Amazon has an algorithm that flags that behavior, and boom, you're banned. Bet they keep what you paid for Prime, too.

Readering said...

Companies are served through designee through state secretary of state. Foolproof. Sounds like PR stunt.

Owen said...

Openidname @ 10:30: "..." Well, I certainly am glad to hear that Amazon has got its business processes all squared away! I would hate to see it hurt by such antisocial behavior!

*looks at mike with a furtive expression*

Francisco D said...

Mark said... Rather, they are post-Marxist Lefty next-door neighbors and regular people. The ideology passed from the fringe to the mainstream long ago, reinforced by at least a generation of school indoctrination. It's the new norm.

The bigger problem is that reasonable liberals cannot imagine that they are manipulated on a daily basis by the Democrat media. Althouse is prey to that manipulation (e.g., the Kavanaugh hearings) but fights it because she is smart and well informed. She doesn't join the Mob, but she neuters her opinions with "cruel neutrality".

The average person is less capable and is at the mercy of what is becoming the State Media.

Francisco D said...

Readering,

I understand that you are a lawyer.

Are you retired?

Darrell said...

Readering,

I understand that you are a lawyer.

Are you retarded?

gadfly said...

Not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the Parler attorneys must have read the signed contract:

AWS Customer Agreement
7.2 (b) (ii): We may also terminate this Agreement immediately upon notice to you (A) for cause if we have the right to suspend under Section 6, (B); [ you are, or any End User is, in breach of this Agreement;] if our relationship with a third-party partner [Apple, Google] who provides software or other technology we use to provide the Service Offerings expires, terminates or requires us to change the way we provide the software or other technology as part of the Services, or (C) in order to comply with the law or requests of governmental entities.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Night said...

How would the copier find the S3 bucket so easily?

I don't know, but I do know that it has happened in plenty of other cases with no reason to believe they were inside jobs. And who said it was done easily?

How would the copier have their own 100 T of storage to hold the copy?

By creating an S3 bucket in their own account. Not that expensive to store 100T for a relatively short time, and you don't even need to pay up front, Amazon will bill you at the end of the month.

How would Amazon service deamons not realize content on their site had a permissions change that was a security risk?

Who said there was a permissions change? Improper settings are usually the result of initial choices, which too often are the result of favoring getting something working. And any permission setting that allows access is a security risk, as far as I know Amazon does not attempt to determine which are the result of careful weighing of choices and which are not.

Chest Rockwell said...

The solution to all this censorship and termination is putting your social network on the block chain. You can’t sensor a decentralized system.

Much like the pandemic accelerated a lot of trends, this event will accelerate a decentralized version of Twitter or Facebook. It’s already happening. Check outTwetch. http://twetch.app/welcome

Their ceo predicted this fiasco last year. http://twitter.com/twetchapp/status/1346975940321157122?s=21

Also, it looks like blogger does not accept embedded links anymore.

Anonymous said...

I'm an Amazon shareholder.

I hope Parler wins a billion dollars.

Amazon is an amazing company, and I really like it's service and how good it is to its customers.

But when Amazon does evil shit things in the dark, they should be flogged in public. By which I mean they should be stripped of the thing--money--that drives their soul.

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Gravel said...

"If they can cancel Parler, they can cancel Althouse."

There's exactly zero chance of Althouse ever upsetting her hosting provider.

Darcy said...

Scary times for everyone except leftist nut jobs. But they've lost their minds so they won't recognize the danger. They think the Nazis won't come for them. Or, like the disgusting 20 year old who turned in her mother and aunt over the Capitol riots, they think they can survive by outing their family members. Good times.

Probably a good idea to make sure you are protecting your online identities.

Darcy said...

There's exactly zero chance of Althouse ever upsetting her hosting provider.

On the contrary, I think there's a decent chance. She's a clear-thinking liberal. Have you noticed how prominent clear-thinking liberals are faring in cancel culture?