And that haircut won't be fun for many but I think the balance sheet had them at around $200 billion in deposits with $175 billion in assets. Obviously the question now becomes liquidity but I think the sky is not yet falling (unless more dominos start to tumble)
Main reason to make the distinction is that most systems that parade themselves as "low-code" today are IME indistinguishable to high-code development to your average joe.
Even taking this example, the level of value totally depends on the degree of abstraction you can trust the computer to perform for you. There is a tremendous amount of nuance to human language and while we've come a very long way in that field of study, it's still a hard nut to crack.
As of September 20, 2020, the following transactions are prohibited:
1. Any provision of service to distribute or maintain the WeChat or TikTok mobile applications, constituent code, or application updates through an online mobile application store in the U.S.;
2. Any provision of services through the WeChat mobile application for the purpose of transferring funds or processing payments within the U.S.
As of September 20, 2020, for WeChat and as of November 12, 2020, for TikTok, the following transactions are prohibited:
1. Any provision of internet hosting services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.;
2. Any provision of content delivery network services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.;
3. Any provision directly contracted or arranged internet transit or peering services enabling the function or optimization of the mobile application within the U.S.;
4.Any utilization of the mobile application’s constituent code, functions, or services in the functioning of software or services developed and/or accessible within the U.S.
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That last piece especially is quite concerning, and seems like a clear overreach of federal authority, no? Don't know that I've ever seen execution of software alone as an enforceable offense, and as written it seems to outlaw even opening up the app if you previously have it downloaded.
>> 2. Any provision of content delivery network services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.;
That's the big one. That would suggest blocking by ISPs, something that is technically not easy and legally troubling. Do ISPs now have to block the activities of Chinese phones traveling to the US? That will take effort.
Canada and the US are pretty integrated. Do US ISPs need to block WeChat traffic that is transiting the US, say coming from China to a user standing in Canada or the UK? That sort of blocking could have serious impacts beyond wechat/tiktok.
Apple reviews apps anyway, so that last bit could be enforced at the review stage.
Android? You're right. I'm not seeing how they enforce that? Of course, one obvious solution is to force all the app stores to have some sort of review process that verifies all of the apps are functioning in a manner consistent with, um, "US government policy". Just depends on how far the guys in the Trump administration want to go.
>1. Any provision of service to distribute or maintain the WeChat or TikTok mobile applications, constituent code, or application updates through an online mobile application store in the U.S.;
Does that mean the two apps are essentially banned from iOS?
This is analogous to saying it would be impossible to have an effective federal government if what people say is somehow exempt from their oversight. That would be a giant loophole.
Which, true, is in fact an argument often made.
Software execution itself is not the issue. Criminal intent is the issue.
Fully agreed - and the necessity for the client here can't be overstated: was doing some research into nearby apartment buildings and searching the exact name of the building I was looking for returned an ad with their neighboring competitor as the top result, above the site of the building I was looking for.
The monetary value of the median hotel guest record to the sort of nefarious powers that be that scoop up hotel guest databases is ~$0. It may even be a negative amount.
The monetary value of a particular person of interest's guest record may be more than that, but those people are few and far between.
If you disagree, please let me know who I can get in touch with, who will pay me $4/guest record. I'll quit my day job, and set up camp outside a hotel lobby, recording guests and license plates.
The benefit to the nefarious buyer is not the same as the damage to the hotel guest. In fact, there's no reason to even expect them to be similar in value. And the relevant measure of central tendency is the mean, not the median, since we're looking at the sum of all the damages from all the records being copied. Keeping one gay Egyptian dude from getting outed and killed justifies protecting hundreds or thousands of boring middle-class vacationers from Ohio.
The personal, quantifiable damage to me of every one of my guest records in my past five years getting stolen by some shadowy cabal is zero. That's because I haven't done anything particularly interesting. Neither have most people. If you're ready to wire me a few hundred dollars, I'll be happy to share records of my, and my wife's stays with you. It'll be a waste of your money, but who am I to judge?
A few people have done some very interesting things. For them, those numbers are substantially higher than zero.
You haven't disproven my point. The quantifiable, median damage is zero. This is relevant, because this sub-thread tries to quantify the harm by taking the fine, divides it by the number of records, produces $3, and posits that the leak has done more than that amount of harm. Because, obviously, if any harm comes, the harm is over three dollars.
Well, yes. It is. If you can measure the harm, of course it's more than three dollars.
For most people, though, the harm is immeasurable. Pointing out that the median harm is zero exposes the absurdity of the original argument.
So you're saying that, because the median damage is zero, the mean could be arbitrarily small, and in particular might be less than US$3? That's probably true, but your original argument about the purchase price of the data doesn't help to support that.
There's also a problem we haven't brought up in this thread, which is that the main damage from privacy invasion is not to people individually, but to human society as a whole. Increasing the price of doing anything particularly interesting can condemn an entire society to domination by mediocrity.
> So you're saying that, because the median damage is zero, the mean could be arbitrarily small, and in particular might be less than US$3?
I'm saying we have no idea, and we're not going to get there, by doing arithmetic. But, if you ask me, I do believe (based on nothing more then a worthless napkin calculation) that it's more likely to be between $0.3 and $3, than it is to be between $3 and $30. Remember, the recipient of this data is incredibly unlikely to cause maximum possible worst-case damage to even the interesting people on the list. Most likely, they just want to steal credit card numbers.
> There's also a problem we haven't brought up in this thread, which is that the main damage from privacy invasion is not to people individually, but to human society as a whole. Increasing the price of doing anything particularly interesting can condemn an entire society to domination by mediocrity.
The nice thing about the GDPR is that even if it doesn't address the damage of a particular leak, it's a swift kick in the ass of the IT departments other companies, who are really keen to not end up on the receiving end of the next fine.
Honestly a ferry across the Potomac could make a lot of sense if it runs frequently enough. Could be a release valve for a lot of that Metro congestion, and otherwise the 14th St bridge would be nightmarish for 4+ hours a day.
Well, there is no good commute in the DMV for one, but Dulles/Herndon/Tysons at least has new metro stops and more highway infrastructure than to Crystal City. Plus, Google, Oracle, Microsoft, AWS, et al are all already off the Dulles toll road. If you are in tech, there is a high probability you are headed out that direction anyway.
The next paragraph outlined a federal tax of 100 percent on subsidies that don't lead to taxpayer benefit (like infrastructure improvements to accommodate 50k+ new residents).
The two also don't have to be mutually exclusive. You can look at what Amazon did and say "That's not a business practice that should be followed," while still saying "State and Local governments shouldn't be allowed to offer funds in this manner."