Judge rips apart RNC's law suit vs Gmail filtering out Republican fund raising

The RNC filed a lawsuit against Google for Gmail sending RNC fundraising mail addressed to Gmail users directly to spam folders, saying that they had an anti-conservative bias. Of seven claims they made, the judge thoroughly squashed five of them, and is letting the RNC amend two. However, the basic underpinnings of the two claims were knocked away and they'll have to be significantly readdressed to be refiled.

Here is perhaps my favorite utterance from the judge. The RNC claimed that Google committed fraud, I guess for failing to deliver the solicitation mail to the mailing list inboxes? The judge said: "The RNC lacks standing to bring the fraud claim because it is not a Gmail user, ... The RNC uses Salesforce and a separate email-delivery platform called Everest."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Plus, Gmail is a free service! How could Google defraud me if I'm not a business-class customer paying for it? Yes, they do have a business tier.

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that Google might buy a business-class subscription and start spraying their Google email address base direct that way?

Oh, and here's another beauty of a quote: Google previously ran a pilot program that let political emails bypass the Gmail spam filter. Google said in a January 2023 court filing that "the RNC has chosen not to participate in Google's FEC-approved Pilot Program."

And here's a comment for the article from a mail server administrator: "Speaking as a mailserver admin: more GOP fundraiser emails wind up in the spamtrap because the GOP uses more spammer tactics, more aggressively. I've seen everything from spoofed to and from lines to entire messages in the subject line to white text on white background to bayes poison to substituting letters for numbers to try to evade money-related spam filters to you name it.

A brand new install of spamassassin with default filters only will also block far more Republican fundraiser emails than DNC ones, for exactly this reason... And the disparity only gets worse if you let it train its Bayes filter (which, quick reminder, the GOP sometimes attempts to poison)."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/judge-tears-apart-republican-lawsuit-alleging-bias-in-gmail-spam-filter/

A crypto startup goes bankrupt after losing password to a physical wallet with $39 mill US in it

Are we surprised? I hear the sounds of lots of heads vigorously shaking 'no'.

There are two types, largely speaking, of crypto wallets: online and offline. An offline wallet is where the information is written to some sort of physical media and disconnected from any computer or internet connection unless you need to access the keys. Then you have to enter a long password or recovery phrase.

Well, these 'brilliant' people at Prime Trust created an encrypted physical key into which deposits were made, ultimately totaling almost $40,000,000US, including Etherium and Bitcoin. And the actual keys were burned onto titanium objects. At no time were paper or apparently electronic copies of the keys or recovery keys made.

And the physical recovery keys were lost.

And they didn't record the recovery phrases.

And now the money held in that wallet can never be recovered. You can only make X number of attempts before the device wipes out all the data.

Now, here's the great part. The company marketed itself as a "...crypto fintech company designed to help other startups offer crypto retirement plans, know-your-customer interfaces, ensure liquidity, and a host of other services. It says it can help companies build crypto exchanges, payment platforms, and create stablecoins for its clients. The company has not had a good few months. In June, the state of Nevada filed to seize control of the company because it was near insolvency. It was then ordered to cease all operations by a federal judge because it allegedly used customers’ money to cover withdrawal requests from other companies."

I would scream so loud if I found out that my retirement plan had any portion being invested in crypto!

https://www.404media.co/crypto-startup-prime-trust-files-for-bankruptcy-after-losing-password-to-38-9-million-crypto-wallet/

https://slashdot.org/story/23/08/26/0318207/crypto-startup-bankrupt-after-losing-password-to-389-million-physical-crypto-wallet

Remember all of that Foxconn manufacturing for Wisconsin? They're putting buildings up for sale.

So when it comes to Foxconn, the emphasis is on the CON.

Two sets of offices are going up for sale in Green Bay and Eau Claire. There is some manufacturing going on, but contrary to the 10,000 jobs promised, FoxCONN says they've created around 1,000.

There's one problem with these going on the market right now. I don't know if this holds true for the Green Bay or Eau Claire commercial real estate markets, but commercial real estate is in a very sad state right now. The Return To Office movement after Covid showed the office drone work force that working from home was not only viable but good, has made it hard for businesses to get their workers back into the office. This has led to lots of businesses selling office space, not renewing rents, cancelling construction, etc. In other words, LOTS of empty office space.

Which leads us to the question: what will happen with another two large areas of office space hitting the market in WI? Even prime space in San Francisco and San Jose is not moving quickly - people like working from home! And newer, more flexible companies are capitalizing on it at the expense of companies that are showing themselves to be more rigid and demanding face-to-face time with their employees.

It will be interesting to see how long this space will remain on the market.

They got huge incentives from then-Gov. Scott Walker for a big industrial plant, ground was broken by then-Prez Trump, and that plant never produced what was promised. FoxCONN then promised design centers all over the state. Looks like another CONN.

How many of us are surprised?

https://www.wpr.org/foxconn-sell-green-bay-eau-claire-properties-development-jobs