He talks as though his key mistake was personal ownership of the paypal account, but I think that really just focused the fallout on him rather than across multiple business entities. His key mistake was breaking the TOS/EULAs of the accounts that he was (re)selling, and rolling the dice that Blizzard would never catch on.

They did catch on. Personally, I think it is very difficult to prevent this sort of thing and that your best bet is to either just live with it, or change in-game things to make the motivation for it less enticing. Star Wars Galaxies had accounts for early jedi unlockers (being able to play as a jedi was originally a very rare thing) sell for multiple thousands of dollars also. Since jedi as a class was so attractive and so rare, you'd have to expect that such account sales would happen -- that is just bad design, assuming that you want to prevent such activities.

Still, it is hard to fault him too much since this was relatively uncharted territory. And, it makes for quite an interesting story!

Paypal has otherwise friction free lodged itself quite deep in my asshole on several occasions. Bring on the non rectum violating alternatives!

Great find, i can't believe that 16 people got arrested for crashing the unlawful activities of Paypal against activist websites such as wiki-leaks, yet were is all this police presence when the corporations in the financial sector brought the entire economy to the brink of collapse & walked away Scott-free. truly unbelievable.

IMHO Revelations is easily the least spiritual book of the bible, but here's the passage for those who can't stand the bible:

Re 14:9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Re 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

@longde

People e.g. engineering the Paypal backend contribute more to society than people e.g. doing simple tasks that would be easy to automate. California doesn't automate some areas like agriculture that the most efficient countries in Europe and Asia automate because we have so much more uneducable labor than those countries have.

More students going to college relative to 1985 doesn't mean more useful workers in society, it means more students studying dumb, easy areas of study. Silicon Valley always has a shortage of talented 21st century workers, regardless of the incredible compensation we offer.

>> ^hpqp:

Do you ever see something in the news and NOT see a conspiracy? (rhetorical question btw)
>> ^marbles:
>> ^cosmovitelli:
@marbles
For me you miss the point.
On a fundamental level allowing mastercard and visa and paypal to decide which organisations are allowed to exist is so INSANELY DANGEROUS that it makes most of the arguing about the constitution for the last couple of centuries redundant. If this stands, it's all over.

allowed to exist? facepalm
You're missing the point. Assange is a government pied piper.
You even claim now "The effectiveness of their actions is irrelevant". Then that means this whole ruse is irrelevant.



Considering "the news" is a mass propaganda machine, one should be skeptical of anything it says. (concise answer btw)

Do you ever see something in the news and NOT see a conspiracy? (rhetorical question btw)

>> ^marbles:

>> ^cosmovitelli:
@marbles
For me you miss the point.
On a fundamental level allowing mastercard and visa and paypal to decide which organisations are allowed to exist is so INSANELY DANGEROUS that it makes most of the arguing about the constitution for the last couple of centuries redundant. If this stands, it's all over.

allowed to exist? facepalm
You're missing the point. Assange is a government pied piper.
You even claim now "The effectiveness of their actions is irrelevant". Then that means this whole ruse is irrelevant.

>> ^marbles:

>> ^cosmovitelli:
@marbles
For me you miss the point.
On a fundamental level allowing mastercard and visa and paypal to decide which organisations are allowed to exist is so INSANELY DANGEROUS that it makes most of the arguing about the constitution for the last couple of centuries redundant. If this stands, it's all over.

allowed to exist? facepalm
You're missing the point. Assange is a government pied piper.
You even claim now "The effectiveness of their actions is irrelevant". Then that means this whole ruse is irrelevant.


The bottom line is rogue elements inside the US Government are commanding private companies to interfere with the expression of constitutionally protected rights in order to destroy an organization that is proving politically awkward for them. What you think of Assange or WL is not the issue: unilateral extrajudicial besieging of lawful political groups is, well, roughly Germany at the start of the 30's.

>> ^cosmovitelli:

@marbles
For me you miss the point.
On a fundamental level allowing mastercard and visa and paypal to decide which organisations are allowed to exist is so INSANELY DANGEROUS that it makes most of the arguing about the constitution for the last couple of centuries redundant. If this stands, it's all over.


allowed to exist? *facepalm*

You're missing the point. Assange is a government pied piper.

You even claim now "The effectiveness of their actions is irrelevant". Then that means this whole ruse is irrelevant.

@marbles
For me you miss the point.

On a fundamental level allowing mastercard and visa and paypal to decide which organisations are allowed to exist is so INSANELY DANGEROUS that it makes most of the arguing about the constitution for the last couple of centuries redundant. If this stands, it's all over.

>> ^cason:

This guys is right. We should use our middle finger more for conversational hand gestures.


In the comments section on YouTube, he points out that this action was a lulzy stab at E-Bay/Paypal Cason

YouTube quote:- "my subliminal message to the faceless corporate money changers. People have been given these scumbags the finger since Jesus was a kid"

Yep, pretty common. Even if you post to the PayPal address, you're hardly better off, buyers generally have everything in their favour. He can get those eBay fees refunded (PayPal will be harder) but it takes admittedly more time than it's worth and isn't guaranteed, sometimes you get a good service rep, other times you don't.

That's just eBay, it ain't a perfect system but when you want to sell something quick...it's hard to find anything else.

You can paypal me and I'll downvote. I sell them in packs of 1000

>> ^peggedbea:

i fully support fuckin shit up for the lulz. because some parts of me are mostly a 16 year old virgin boy.
but... see link in the description. they gave 17 alternatives to paypal. at least some of them aren't bitcoin.>> ^DerHasisttot:
http://www.little-gamers.com/2011/07/28/a-rainy-day/



hehe the comic doesn't reflect my opinion, I just posted it as secondary literature ;-)

15 people were arrested for taking part in ddos attacks, which are the virtual equivalent of walking into a store with a 1000 friends and buying nothing. they're facing $500,000 lawsuits and 15 years in prison.

how do you propose we, the people, hold a board of directors accountable for their actions? what steps exactly can we legally take? usually when a group of people disagrees with the actions of a corporate entity, they organize a boycott of the goods/services said entity is providing. your entire last paragraph was not thought out entirely. and a reeked of a typical protofascist cop-out. turn off your corporate medias, son.
>> ^critical_d:

what in particular are you talking about when you say "virtual version of walking into a store and not purchasing anything?"?
The hillbilly analogy was used as an example of punishing an individual (the drunk) versus punishing a faceless company like PayPal. By punishing Paypal (taking down their site) you are punishing the people who work there and the investors who own the company. Do they deserve punishment because of the decisions of a few at that company? Shouldn't we hold the leaders or directors responsible instead?
>> ^peggedbea:
>> ^critical_d:
When will we stop romanticizing the vigilante acts of a group of people who aim a LOIC at a website and press go?
I am in no way defending the targets or their actions that caused them to fall under the crosshairs. But PayPal is not a hillbilly with a who drank too much at the bar, got a blowjob from a hooker, and came home to beat the wife cuz dinner wasn't ready. People who don't deserve to be punished are...and that sucks.

romanticizing? or supporting? ...and hopefully never.
the drunk hillbilly analogy makes very little sense.
who exactly is punished? people who couldn't access their paypal accounts for a few hours?? inconvienced maybe, punished? not quite.
or are you talking about the 20 year old kids who are facing $500,000 law suits and 15 years in prison for what is the virtual version of walking into a store and not purchasing anything? beacuse yeah, that does fucking suck.

when will people stop sounding like protofascist drones and reclaim their innate ability to think critically and be free?
what's happening here is so much bigger than bored teenagers fucking shit up for a day. it's a new current in radical movements. there's always been radical activity under the surface of any dominate power structure, and hopefully their always will be. this is the fist time in history it's been so able to truly be a global force. and that my friend, is fucking huge... a few hundred thousand kids, world wide, understand the technology so much better than any corporate/governmental IT division. they're writing the fucking code. this is the kind of movement that i think really has staying power, and it will be impossible for either political party just absorb some of the ideology into their platform to placate it, like they do with all movements that gain any sort of momentum.