DISQUS

@Ryan, whether the hackers guessed her password or forced their way in makes no difference. Analogously, it's still breaking and entering to push open an unlocked window and shimmy inside.

As for Palin's use of the account, it depends entirely on Alaskan law. My guess, and it is only that, is that there may indeed be disclosure issues but the use is probably not wrongful per se. Surely a governor could use her home telephone line, for example, to receive business-related calls now and again.

And third, yes, something like Tor could make it more difficult, though not necessarily impossible, to track down the offenders. That said, one criminal in a thousand is a genius; one doubts that a person engaged in a spur-of-the-moment non-economic crime like this would take the time (or even have the know-how) to cover his tracks effectively.

The argument w/r/t application rejections is very misleading for two reasons.

First, DOJ's OIPR works very closely w/ the FISC, to maintain that working relationship, must be above the board on all applications. OIPR holds up applications until they've been documented extensively and gone through exhaustive reviews. An average application requires hundreds of hours of lawyers' time to review. A regular warrant, meanwhile, may require an hour or less to draft and put before a magistrate. Maybe a bit longer under Title III.

Second, FISC review can be a back-and-forth process, with the court indeed micromanaging the details of the application, the evidence presented to it, and the means of surveillance and minimization. This is clear in the statute itself (50 U.S.C. § 1804 (d), I think).

In short, it's a good rhetorical point, but nothing more than that. An understanding of the statute itself and how the FISC operates (two recent CRS reports are particularly good on this) are crucial to knowing what the acceptance/rejection totals really mean.

Enigma,

I'm not a defender of RIAA, not exactly, just not much of a partisan either way. I'm probably becoming more of a critic, because it is inevitable that the recording industry will lash out as forces beyond its control spell its twilight. RIAA's legal tactics, from what I've read of its briefs, don't seem to me to be "questionable," though its strategy is probably, in the end, pointless and rent destroying.

In a sense, then, I agree with Carl above, that "The RIAA's battle is SO over, as we sit here in 2008." In Rainbows is probably not a viable method for unestablished musical artists, but thee are other options and surely more will spring up in the years ahead--that's what the market's good at, after all.

Tim -

I'm skeptical. Don't today's more-or-less all-you-can-eat plans reflect revealed consumer preferences? Keep in mind that most users go nowhere near the caps and so pay for more than they use.

And there is also the matter of social norms (more broadly, transaction costs of marginal pricing). Users might well feel that TV is something that ought to fit within the bounds of the "standard" plan, no matter how much bandwidth that takes.

Due to the endowment effect, they'll be reluctant to give up what they already have--virtually unlimited bandwidth, even if they're not using it all--and so the impact of something like Joost will be felt in more subtle ways: degraded service (especially by clever traffic shaping) and faster price increases. Everyone pays.

So could Comcast or any other consumer provider charge for bandwidth on a marginal basis? Yes. Is this likely to happen? Probably not.

Matt, you are right in that the actual cost increase could be less than $50, relative to a bundled scenario, but I would guess that it wouldn't be much less than that. Here's why:

1. MS hasn't had great success pushing customers into annual payments for the OS, especially non-corporate buyers. If a user buys an OS once, say, every 4 years, the cost increase would have to be the present value of 4 annual payments to equal out the cost. I don't think the market for OS's is necessarily that elastic--remember, MS is competing primarily against older versions of Windows.

2. Consumers don't buy Windows, OEMs do and then install it on computers that are then sold to consumers. MS could not possibly squeeze the full $50 (or the present value of n annual payments, as above) out of OEMs, who buy Windows far below its retail price. Bundling lets customers use OEMs to get a lower price.

3. Most customers don't value security all that much. Balanced against the security conscious, who would happily pay $50 / year, the optimal price to sell to this broader market, as part of a bundle, would have to be less than the present value of n years of $50 payments. If customers who value security little far outnumber those who put a great value on it, then the optimal price would be far less. (optimal==profit maximizing)

4. There are collective action issues w/r/t viruses and other malware. Total consumer welfare is likely to be greater if more people use tools that block viruses and the like--networks would be faster, there would be less spam from 'zombie' computers, etc. No individual consumer is willing to pay anything for this potentially great benefit, but it would still lower the net cost to consumers of the new software/service.

John Gruber debunks this argument in two blog posts that are too excruciating long to possibly read. See:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/08/parlay
http://daringfireball.net/2004/08/2004_wont_be_...

Enjoy!