Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2016 January 15

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January 15

Copyright and Snowden

Why was Snowden charged with "theft of government property"? I understand why he was accused of being a spy, but isn't any document produced by the government automatically in the public domain, even if not on the internet? Unless he indeed stole some computer, I don't get why the theft charge. --Scicurious (talk) 14:42, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Public domain relates to copyright only. Despite what all those ads from the MPAA etc say, people aren't charged with theft over copyright issues. Nil Einne (talk) 15:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, copyright infringement does not lead to a theft charge, it leads to a copyright infringement charge, besides civil penalties.--Scicurious (talk) 15:31, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, so the point is public domain is likely irrelevant. There's no suggestion copyright is involved, plenty of reasons to think it isn't. Nil Einne (talk) 16:40, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure anyone knows. Aside from the mere list of charges, I think the details of the allegations are still sealed. It could be alleged that he took a hard drive, or physical papers, or just about any object really. Dragons flight (talk) 15:19, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah was going to say the same thing. I did a search, and while I found one or two searches criticising the charge like [1], the best comment I could find was by a commentator here [2] left at June 23, 2013 at 3:39 pm which says something similar to Dragons flight. We don't know precisely how the government claims to have established the elements for the theft charge because they haven't publicly revealed it. From what I can tell, this hasn't changed, and probably won't change until Snowden either returns to the US to face the charges, or perhaps if the government drops them for some reason. Nil Einne (talk) 15:27, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

It seems then, that's all the non-speculative information we can get. Scicurious (talk) 15:31, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I did find [3] from 2014 which seems to confirm that at the time the case remained sealed. (N.B. I'm not endorsing other aspects of that source.) I'm fairly sure it must remain sealed now, otherwise I would have found something new. Besides the possibilities I mention above, if an extradiction proceeding ever gets under way and is challenged by Snowden, it's likely some details would have to be revealed to the foreign court. This doesn't guarantee it will be made public, but in a number of countries it may be difficult to prevent an outline being made public unless there's a very good reason. Consider the Megaupload legal case for example. Nil Einne (talk) 15:51, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Mr. Snowden was charged with theft of government property because attorneys for the United States Government believe he stole government property. In this statement, the Justice Department outlines its charges, which were made in a criminal complaint to the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia. Among the complaints were charges that Mr. Snowden committed unlawful acts as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 641. There are lots of ways to violate the law, and it is not yet clear which laws - if any - were violated; this is why the case must be tried.

Have a look at §641. One could commit unlawful acts by embezzling, purloining, stealing, "knowingly converting," ... receiving, concealing, or retaining, ... property of the United States. All the attorneys must do is prove that the defendant did any of those things, and they can convict him of a federal crime that may carry a prison term.

Nimur (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

"...because attorneys for the United States Government maintain he stole government property". We don't know what they believe, and in this particular case, my good faith does not extend very far any more (it took a first big hit when, shamefully, moral failure John Yoo drafted and despicable human rights violator Jay S. Bybee signed the Torture Memos without causing the mass armed uprising we are promised when the government violates basic freedoms). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Persons accused of espionage have always also been charged with theft of government property, the classified information, since the Daniel Ellsberg case was dismissed. Ellsberg's defense was that the Pentagon Papers should not have been classified. The US espionage act does not refer explicitly to classified information, but contains a long list that is essentially a classification guide, identifying types of information that should be classified. Ellsberg argued that, since the Pentagon Papers should not have been classified, he was not committing espionage. (Don't attempt this defense in the United Kingdom.) In order to deal with defenses of this sort, since the dismissal of the charges against Ellsberg, the accused spy has always also been charged with theft (of the documents). (By the way, the charges against Ellsberg were dismissed, not because of the issue of whether the papers should have been classified, which never came to trial, but because of misconduct by the prosecution at the instructions of the Nixon Administration.) That is why he was also charged with theft. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Online Money

How to earn money by creating a website and where does the money gets deposited? Also what are the other ways to earn money online? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.88.196.26 (talk) 17:40, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

You can earn money as a web developer - that is creating a website. The money will be deposited wherever you want it to be deposited. There is no such thing as web pages that magically create money and hide it in a magical pot at the end of a rainbow somewhere. You will need to do some work. As for other ways of earning money online - just get an online job and do some work. If you are looking to make money without working, there are millions of people looking to make money without working. There isn't much free money to go around, so you need to do a hell of a lot of work to make avoiding work profitable. 199.15.144.250 (talk) 17:54, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

You could (possibly) create a website with enough useful content that a lot of people would want to visit it...then you could go to a company like Google and have them pay you to place advertising on the website. However, you need a HUGE number of visitors (tens of thousands per month) to earn even a tiny amount of money that way. I believe Google will direct-deposit money into your bank, or mail you a check once they owe you more than $100 - or monthly if you're earning more than $100/month. However, if you think this is going to earn you a ton of money - you're severely mistaken. That'll only happen if your content "goes viral" and is viewed by millions of people.

You could also use a website to serve as a 'storefront' for some other business (involving products, sales, services - actual work of one kind or another) - in which you could have people deposit money via PayPal or something similar.

But there is nothing magical about making money on the internet...it's not that the internet generates the money for you...you USE the internet to get money from whatever work you put into it. There's no such thing as a free lunch. SteveBaker (talk) 18:23, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Nonprofit confidence trick

I have a website that I haven't worked on for years (alternativegiving.org), and most of the mails I get for it nowadays is spam. Now I just got a type of mail I have not seen before:

We need not mention the obvious signs that point to a confidence trick. I removed the name (which did not yield any pertinent information) because there is an off chance that it's just a very selfless person who also is clueless. (I'm following my own variant of AGF here, which is why I'm taking your and my time with this message.)

I would like to help protect others, especially since this is targeting nonprofits, for which, as a contributor to wikipedia.org, I obviously have a heart. Should I report this? If so, where? There is http://www.stopfraud.gov/report.html, which says "Fraudulent activities should always be reported to your local law enforcement office.", but I don't want to bother my local police with something like this. The same site also refers to https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx, but that's only for when you have become a victim. http://www.ripoffreport.com/ seems to be only for consumers. I once reported some suspicious activity on some other site, I forget which, but I never learned what became of it. — Sebastian 17:53, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

It is a waste of time to report it. The only organization that actually tries to help in these cases is the Better Business Bureau. They are very picky on what they do with online businesses. They online company must be owned and operated in the United States, or all they will do is file your complaint away and ignore it. 199.15.144.250 (talk) 17:58, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you; there's no indication that there is a company behind it, nor that the sender even is in the US. — Sebastian 18:04, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't reply to any such e-mails unless they tell you which organisations they have helped (so that you can find out how much they "helped"). There are many fraudsters who wish to get their hands on genuine websites to add malware. Dbfirs 09:32, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

That is what your junk folder is for but you can use an organization like Spamhaus so others have aren't bothered with the rubbish. Anyone actually doing stuff like that anyway well will be plied with quite enough work in their local area. Dmcq (talk) 14:29, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

In many cases, these people just generate a stock webpage from some automated tool. The webpage itself may be free - but I guarantee there are other charges for "maintenance" or search-engine-optimisation or some such junk. Just ignore them. SteveBaker (talk) 18:06, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The reason why I posted this was not to ask whether I should reply, or where to move spam, nor to speculate what the senders might do (although that's interesting; what Steve suggested is actually marginally honorable; an option which hadn't occurred to me). No, I posted this here because I believed it's most likely a confidence trick targeting nonprofits, and I want to help protect others and warn them. — Sebastian 20:41, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: Here are a few other places you could report it [4], I would try at antiphishing.org, their aim is mostly to get the word out. You could also try forwarding to nonprofit consortiums and resource centers on social media or listservs. If you google /nonprofit [resource, consortium] [your location]/ you should find a few people who would appreciate the note. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:53, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, SemanticMantis, that's exactly what I was fishing for! — Sebastian 19:16, 18 January 2016 (UTC)