D.C. leads nation in cyber-criminals

By J. DeVoy

According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2009 report on internet crime, the District of Columbia is home to more cyber-criminals per capita than any other state or district.  With 116 cyber-criminals per 100,000 residents, D.C.’s concentration of such perpetrators is higher than neighboring Maryland (29.72 per 100k) and Virginia (24.12 per 100k). More information is available in the full report.

Some other facts from the Internet Crime Complaint Center:

Cyber-crimes are so common victims often neglect to report them. But the number of complaints to IC3 jumped more than 22 percent last year to 336,655. The amount of money victims lost more than doubled to nearly $560,000 from $265,000 in 2008.

Non-delivery of goods or services is the most common crime, accounting for 1 in 5 complaints. Identity theft was next at 14 percent, followed by credit/debit card fraud and auction fraud. Each of those accounts for 10 percent.

The most costly crimes involved investment fraud, with $3,200 as the median dollar loss.

Men lost more to cyber-crooks than women overall, with the median loss to men at $650 per complaint. For women, it’s $500.

Court sentences Erin Andrews’s stalker to 30 months

By J. DeVoy

30 months? That's it?

 

Yesterday, Judge Manuel Real of the Central District of California sentenced Michael Barrett, a 48-year-old insurance executive from Chicago, to 30 months in prison for his infamous peephole video of ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews.  Barrett had agreed to a 27-month term, but Real imposed the harshest possible sentence under the Federal guidelines.

Barrett offered a teary apology to his victim. Andrews wasn’t having it.

“You violated me and you violated all women,” Andrews told Barrett. “You are a sexual predator, a sexual deviant and they should lock you up.”

After the sentencing, she said, “Thirty months isn’t enough.”

All women? Tatiana Von Tauber previously considered this issue, and I think she’d disagree.  The issue is that voyeurism invades another person’s privacy — “grrl power” is irrelevant.

Andrews’s comments come across as cold and misandrist.  The only thing missing are the allegations that Barrett is “creepy” or “weird,” those erstwhile undefinables that girls only know when they see it, but have such broad application that they can stick to anyone.  Among young women, creepiness has been reified as a verb – “creeping.”  Still, there is no consensus as to its true meaning.

The lesson: Women hate weak men.  Here, Erin Andrews eviscerates a peeping tom in Federal court and the media.  In contrast, Scott Peterson killed his pregnant wife and was showered with love letters.  Within the sports universe, Kobe Bryant was accused of rape by a woman he admitted to having sex with,  yet the charges were dropped and his career continues.  (The ultimate effects of Tiger Woods’s indiscretions are to be determined.)  Ultimately, a 48-year-old insurance executive from Chicago lacked sufficient star power to escape controversy’s gravitational pull.

Memo to the Left: The Right now has your playbook

Ken at Popehat critiques the Texas State Board of Education’s decision to soviet-style remove Thomas Jefferson from the state’s history curriculum. You see Jefferson was a deist, and that fucks with right wing dipshits’ fairy tale that we are a “christian nation.”

But… Ken stabs right through the Right wing, and hooks around to skewer the left too:

What happened before the Texas State Board of Education is appalling. But to the lefties of academia who are particularly incensed, I must paraphrase the pothead kid from the anti-drug advertisements: they learned it by watching you, okay? They learned it by watching you. The academic left has contributed at least equally to the crass politicization of education, knowledge, and epistemology. The scorn you see on the Texas board towards wrong-thinkers like Jefferson is just the Left’s sneer of “dead white males” repackaged and re-spun for modern conservative tastes. The lefty tropes of the sixties through the eighties — that a biased educational system has suppressed the truth about the groups we sympathize with in favor of the groups we don’t like — have been adroitly scooped up and brought to bear from the right. (source)

Judicial Hi-Five of the Day

by Christopher Harbin

Kratos filters out the unprotectable elements of some dude.

In an order granting defendant Sony’s motion for summary judgment on a copyright infringement suit, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel drops this choice nugget:

Notably, some of the characters that plaintiffs allege to be similar across the stories are Greek gods like Ares, Zeus and Athena. These are stock figures not only of many contemporary stories, movies and video games, but also of the Western collective unconscious. In such a case, it is particularly important for the court to use its own “Blades of Chaos” to slice or filter out the unprotectable elements. Greek gods, dialogues among them about mortal affairs, rivalries among the gods, and mythical beasts such as the Hydra or the Nemean Lion are unprotectable elements; it is uncontroversial that they have been used widely in both ancient and modern artistic works, in the naming of astronomical bodies and spacecraft, and in other fields.

So, judicial hi-five for using “Blades of Chaos” in an opinion.

What does law school really cost?

By J. DeVoy

This weekend, my facebook and e-mail discussions focused on a New York Times piece about for-profit trade schools and their questionable value to students.  Many likened the trade schools at issue to law schools, which require a substantial investment for returns that, even in the best of times, are uncertain for all but the most elite law students.

While much is made of the financial cost of law school, that information is readily accessible.  With income-based repayment and the mounting reality that Something Must Be Done (TM) about ballooning student loan burdens, the financial slavery that would normally accompany mortgage-sized debt is diminishing — but not yet eliminated.

Too little attention is paid to the opportunity costs entailed in three years of law school.  I posit two reasons: First,  people who come to law school are exiting careers as teachers, engineers, or other white-collar McJob holders, and don’t see anything wrong with spending three years developing a new skill set.  Second, undergrads without any other options – the philopshy, psychology and sociology majors of the world who lack designs on academia – tend to default into law school without considering the life experiences they’ll forego.

I spent some time on facebook seeing what my non-law friends have done in the time I’ve been here, particularly those who graduated college with me in 2007.  Coupling these observations with law school-related data and other information, hopefully this paints a meaningful picture of just what the comprehensive cost of law school truly is.

Foregone income (@ $25,000/yr, post-tax): $75,000

Engagements: 36

Marriages: 20

Newborn babies: 7

Separations/Divorces: 3

Deaths: 0 (At least not permanently – it’s hard to keep down a Cornellian.)

Trips back home since beginning law school: 7

People who have moved cities in that time: 51

People who have moved cities more than once in that time: 12

School-wide GPA median: 3.1

Personal percentage of A-range grades: 47%

Rejection letters: dozens, at least

Summer associate hours billed, 6/1/09 – 8/7/09: ~440

Hours billed by teacher friends during that time period: none

Hours requirements of friend who just moved in-house to a MLB team’s PR department: none

Sent e-mails (.edu account): 1124

Hours in law library: hundreds

Median course outline length: 32 pages

Median final exam time: 3 hours

Average hours of sleep per night: 5

Eyesight change: -.25

Weight change: +<5 lbs.

Observed average weight change in others: +15 lbs.

Bench press change: -15 lbs.

Estimated miles walked to and from law school: 693

Apartment furnishing budget: $1,500

Pictures or other artwork displayed in apartment: 0

Times air conditioner has been used: 5

Times George Foreman Grill has been used: 7

Times feeling inadequate in class: many

Times wishing I’d chosen to work in another field: 1

Number of friends working in media who have been laid off: 0

Friends I’ve recommended attend law school: 1

iTunes library change (in GB): +73%

Change in suits: +25%

Change in dress shirts: + 65%

Change in neckties: +100%

Amount spent on delivery: $0

Amount spent at Chipotle Mexican Grill: unconscionable

Do I regret it?  Not a chance.  But, at 21 years old, upon pulling the trigger on this life plan – even before the economy collapsed – I did not realize the things that would happen in life, both to myself and others, between then and now.  Fortunately, I was suited for it.  Many aren’t.

Young people considering law school should consider the significant consequences legal education can have on their lives, potentially pushing back numerous milestones and accomplishments.  At a minimum, law school may be the difference between students moving back into their parents’ basements and moving back into their parents’ basements three years older, bearing six-figure debt.

Sometimes law students and prospectives discuss these costs and considerations, but seldom in one place or in quantitative terms.  Each data point, however, is a valid consideration; ties and shirts cost money, and certain things, like life experiences and health, are too valuable to be considered in purely monetary terms.

Hopefully 0Ls considering where to go and even what to do with their lives in September 2010 mull over this information.  Though unlikely, others could prevent regrettable and expensive decisions by contemplating these facts.  Indeed, law school is not for everyone.

James Brown as the second coming and other weekend updates

By J. DeVoy

He is risen?  James Brown’s body is missing, and his daughter claims it’s to prevent an autopsy.  LaRhonda Petit, the 48-year-old progeny of the singer, said

“My daddy’s body has disappeared. I have no clue where it was taken, but I need to know where…I’m convinced his death was suspicious and I want the people responsible brought to justice.”

A strange story indeed, given Brown’s high profile in life.  Still, he looks downright christly in this photo:

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USAspending.gov has been failing lately, reports the L.A. Times.  A review by the GAO stretching from June 2009 to March 2010 revealed “inconsistencies” between the government’s contracts and the information displayed on the website.  Additionally, more than a dozen contracts had never been reported on the site.

The bill creating the site, signed into law in 2006, also provides no mechanism for including subcontract data.  At present, there are no plans to begin reporting that.

In comparison, and for the number-crunchers who read this blog, a whole piping-hot batch of information recently made its way to data.gov.  In addition to holding a wealth of Federal government data, the site has information from state and local governments as well, including California, Massachusetts and New York City (but not New York state, to the surprise of nobody who lives there).

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Finally, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is mulling over whether to require black boxes in new cars.  Despite Drudge’s hysterical “SNOOP:” preface, designed to enrage self-styled libertarians and privacy kooks, the black box would have no tracking capacity.  Instead, it would operate like an airplane’s black box, storing data essential to recreating accidents.  In light of Toyota’s recent woes, this may be a good idea.

At least your kids aren’t playing with this

By J. DeVoy

From Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job.

“I don’t need your dinner, I have Oh-Hungee!”

I guess the Yankees don’t all suck

Letter from the Yankees to Mickey Mantle

And Mickey Mantle's reply.

How to take a profile picture

One of the many reasons that I am glad that Jennifer took me off the market:

The French can’t handle their buzz

On August 16, 1951, the inhabitants [of a quiet French Village] were suddenly racked with frightful hallucinations of terrifying beasts and fire.

One man tried to drown himself, screaming that his belly was being eaten by snakes. An 11-year-old tried to strangle his grandmother. Another man shouted: “I am a plane”, before jumping out of a second-floor window, breaking his legs. He then got up and carried on for 50 yards. Another saw his heart escaping through his feet and begged a doctor to put it back. Many were taken to the local asylum in strait jackets.

So the CIA put a little LSD in their bread, and a whole French village freaked out. Try spending a weekend at Hampshire College, you lightweights.

Do you think it is a coincidence that this happened 27 years to the day that Elvis disappeared?

Is a third creative commons-licensed Nine Inch Nails album forthcoming?

By J. DeVoy

Something’s happening at the official Nine Inch Nails website.

In the past, such pictures portended the release of Ghosts I-IV and The Slip (available for free download).  Both of those albums were released under a creative commons license, a move praised by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig.

The band’s move to creative commons licensing and self-distribution isn’t particularly shocking.  In 2007, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor told fans all around the world to steal copyrighted music distributed by his then-label, Interscope, rather than buy it.

The band has also taken a particularly open approach to its live concerts, securing permissive recording device policies at a number of venues.  Additionally, the band released HD footage from its 2009 tour for fans to remix into a tour DVD.  This has resulted in a fan-made live DVD of the 2009 Lights In The Sky Tour and The Downward Spiral Live, a DVD of the band playing its 1994 release from start to finish.  Generally, recording live performances is prohibited for copyright reasons, and the recorded presentation of concerts are released, for profit, by a distributor.  Nine Inch Nails previously released concert DVDs under that regime, but no more. 

Then again, whether an album is released remains to be seen.  Reznor is notorious for refusing to release his material, even after it’s done — especially music videos.

Nine Inch Nails is the kind of band that everyone seems to like, but few follow.  The amount of music that the group has released since 2005 is staggering.  It’s refreshing, though, to see someone like Trent Reznor bring attention to technology and copyright issues.

9th Circuit Reverses its Position on “Under God”

Apparently, acknowledging the existence of someone else’s imaginary friend is a “patriotic exercise.”

I find few things that make me feel less patriotic than the sight of a group of kids lined up into rows fetishizing a piece of cloth while acknowledging the existence of a fairy tale.

The opinion is an abomination, but not something that surprises me when it is authored by a double-Bush nominee. Clearly, Judge Bea put his hand on the Bible when he took his oath of office, and considers his religious beliefs to be more important than his duty to the Constitution.

Let us hope that the 9th grants an en banc hearing and trashes this bullshit decision.

Indian Court Rules Against Blanket Prohibition on Sexually Themed Websites

Hey, there will be none of that around here. Section 67 prohibits it!

An Indian NGO filed a petition before the Bombay High Court seeking a blanket prohibition on websites that display any “material pertaining to sex.” The justification for the proposed ban was that this material “is harmful to the youth of this country in their formative years.” (Op. at 1).

The Indian Information and Technology Act (ITA) prohibits sexual content in a manner that might be seen as akin to American bans on obscenity.

Under Section 67 of the ITA, publishers can be sentenced to three years imprisonment for dissemination of any material “which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest” or “if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons” who are likely to read or see the material.

The Petitioner sought to have the court direct the Indian government to pro-actively shut down any websites containing sexually explicit themes. However, in rejecting the petition, the High Court ruled declared that the Court is a “protector of free speech to the citizens of this country.” (Op. at 2).

The Indian Court did not go so far as to say such websites were protected speech in India (they are not). The court reminded the petitioner that if there were specific websites at issue, then they could bring a direct complaint under the ITA. However, the Court would not compel the Indian executive branch to begin a campaign of seeking out and shutting down sexually themed websites.

H/T: Larry Walters

Biglaw Bignews

balls

One of my most famous misquotes was in an otherwise awesome interview with Bitter Lawyer. I was quoted as saying:

I’d rather drive a stake through my balls than work in BigLaw, where it’s all about being a billing machine and ethics aren’t important.

What I actually said was

I’d rather drive a stake through my balls than work in some big firm where it’s all about being a billing machine and ethics aren’t important.

The difference is subtle, but significant. The printed quote seems to suggest that I think that way about all of Biglaw. I don’t. I feel that way about an awful lot of Biglaw… most of Biglaw. What I actually said, however, is more accurate — that if the Biglaw firm is all about billing and no ethics, then I would rather drive a stake through my balls than work there.

I can certainly point to a few Biglaw firms that I would choose over a stake through the balls. For example:

Davis, Wright, Tremaine. I simply have so much respect for so many lawyers in that place, and Bob Corn-Revere in particular. Jenner & Block is another — same reason. Don Verilli - Nuff said.

Up until today, I was neutral about Quinn Emanuel & Urquhart. I have a lot of respect for lawyers I have known from there, but nothing to the degree of hero worship that I have for the DWT and J&B crowds. Today QEU added Kathleen Sullivan to its letterhead and became Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.

So anyhow… I get a lot of mail (fan mail even) about that “stake through my balls” quote. Don’t put too much stock in it. Of course, I don’t think I will ever be joining my heroes at any of their firms. I think I got things going pretty good the way they are.

Hmm… This post was supposed to be about Kathleen Sullivan, and how she’s my hero. It turned out to be about stakes and balls. Go figure.

Well, lets all hear it for Kathleen Sullivan!

Short, cool video on black holes

By J. DeVoy

Around age four, I had great anxiety about black holes and their ability to destroy the planet.  Some parents have to convince their children that they won’t be eaten by monsters; mine had to constantly reassure me that I, along with the rest of the world, wouldn’t be torn apart on an atomic level and sucked into a gravity well at faster-than-light speed.