Technology

Journalism is basically beyond saving at this point...

I mean, it's basically a no name website. It's not like this is a NYTimes, AP, or The Atlantic headline.

Edit: I guess what I'm really asking is, it's a bad headline from a small publisher (it's surely happened many many times for decades), can't we leave it at that without the dramatization?

Exactly. They wanted to highlight the dumb “sleeper” line for some reason, even though it’s probably the least newsworthy part of the message. “Geek Squad faces huge layoffs, members call it ‘going sleeper’” is much clearer but still a waste of time and space.

Babbages, Software Etc., EB Games, and Funcoland all got absorbed into what is now Gamestop, but who knows how long they'll hold on.

Game releases this year have been super light, unless there are some major announcements coming up, it's not looking great for them. :(

I remember software etc. They had a big event for the dreamcast being released. 9/9/99. I wore that free shirt with the date that I got there from playing sonic adventure for like 15 years

lol yeah, in the 90s you could go in there and buy a couple resistors, a couple capacitors, and a couple (expensive, crappy) LEDs

I can see how that didn’t work out for them though

They did indeed, and the Radio Shack in my town was one the last ones I ever saw to still sell individual components although the selection did shrink rapidly in the final years. The other locations around and about seemingly all turned into basically exclusively cell phone stores, right around the time the cell phone boom was happening. The problem with that: So was every other retailer on Earth, but most of those other retailers also had other product lines to fall back on. The inevitable tanking happened shortly thereafter.

There are somehow apparently still around 500 Radio Shack stores still operating, I believe all of which are privately owned. I have seen a couple in my travels, all of them located far out into the sticks in Appalachia and the Midwest, presumably all locations that are not served well by larger competitors or the internet.

Not to any meaningful degree. You're better off at Vintage Stock tbh

Can't think where I've seen any there, some software but not even really games since those have largely gone for distribution via Steam or similar.

An exec being able to do that without being questioned is not healthy. OP's point stands.

They’re going to get bonuses anyway.

Without having looked at any of the subscription changes, my guess is they increased subscription costs with minimal if any increases in offered services. Is that correct?

The problem isn't that the computers had CP, it's that the techs looked through the data.

Yes, if they happen to see CP while doing their normal work, they should report it. But their normal work shouldn't involve looking through pictures at all in the first place.

Are you thinking of this instance? It's an instance that could happen to any of us. The CSAM in question was found (and only found) in garbage data in unused storage. And it means our GS tech had actively scan (go out of his way), rather than just fix the machine.

It also means it's inconclusive, since that kind of stuff can end up in your webcache through malware vectored through advertising. CSAM is weaponized in malware. Heck, there are CSAM images in the Bitcoin blockchain file (or were, if they found a way to scour them). Not that innocent websurfers have not been falsely convicted due to invisible crap in their cleared webcache, but we should know better by now.

It does raise a question about what you believe regarding the limits of our civil rights. Do you believe evidence illegally obtained by law enforcement should be wholly admissible if the crime is heinous enough? SCOTUS does, and ruled that even drug possession discovered during an illegal search should be admissible. But that pretty much means you and I cannot rely on constitutional protections from unreasonable search and seizure.

Here in the States, preserving our protections and our privacy sometimes means defending the worst people. See, it's supposed to be a penalty against the state for poorly executing the law when someone can't be convicted due to inadmissible evidence. If a guilty citizen is improperly treated by law enforcement (according to the legal theory that supposed Blackstone's ratio) then they should be acquitted, and the public has only the incompetence of state actors to blame.

Law enforcement is supposed to respect your protections, and if we let them conduct illegal searches (such as buying data from brokers, or using IMSI spoofers without a warrant, or asking Google for everyone within a mile and an hour of a criminal incident) then they're going conduct those same illegal searches when you're working with your mutual aid organization or are protesting against injustice. If serial killers and child molesters aren't protected from overpolicing, then you aren't either, and if you happen to be nonwhite, LGBT+ or part of another marginalized group (Juggalos!) then you're in far more danger of illegal searches, false convictions and prison time, assuming you're just not the victim of an officer-involved homicide.

If you live in the US, it's very difficult not to commit crimes, particularly federal felonies. There but for your privacy (and / or the grace of prosecutorial discretion) goes your freedom and reputation.

That said, the FBI has been super sloppy in its pursuit to hunt down CSAM traders, even letting their high-end malware leak into the public to be dissected and used by black-hats, and interests of rival nations.

Hey man, you're kinda narrowing down the entire problem of the right to privacy being consistently shat upon by your government into "well I knew one person where it was justified so this means those who argue against it fuck kids"

I understand what you mean and if you want to carve an exception into the law for CP I'd be all for it - maybe everyone is a mandated reporter of child porn, and all suspicions MUST be reported to the FBI and the evidence handed over. But I don't wanna get swatted just because my wife and I are into BDSM and we photographed a particularly rough session. Or because I took some pics of some clear plastic bags filled with flour that I put in my trunk to prank a friend. Or a million other things a geek squad guy might misinterpret and call the police for.