16 Oct 2006
Criminal Records Erased by Courts Live to Tell Tales

It's not just criminal records that are a problem here, it's civil ones as well.

Back in the 80's, I operated a company called Oaklandon Computer Research. I sold the company in 1991, but the process of the sale was botched, as the accountants failed to close the state tax accounts properly. Since the mailing address was closed, too, nobody every received the sales tax delinquency notices that were mailed.

When I went to buy a new home in 1993, the mortgage banker told me about it: "We're sorry, Mr. Haxton, but there's no way we could make a loan to somebody who owes the State of Indiana over $250,000!".

I was flabbergasted, to say the least, but almost immediately located the source of the problem. One trip to Indy and the State revenue folks gave me a bundle of releases for all the bills and liens that had been placed. I got the house and forgot about it, until 1997.

That's when we moved to Minnesota and tried to buy another house. Same problem, but this time the source was the credit bureaus. I found the old releases, and got the house. I also mailed copies of them to every major credit bureau in America.

When we tried to buy a new car the following year, same problem. By this time I was getting pissed off, so I hired a lawyer and sued the bastards. We won, and they removed the stuff from the records. Or so they said. Because the next year, all those tax liens had mysteriously re-appeared.

And to the best of my knowledge, they're still there. How they get back in is a mystery, and why they can't be permanently removed is a mystery as well. But I simply don't have the time or money to continue filing suits and winning, only to have to repeat the process next year.

So I just carry a big folder marked "Indiana Tax Screwup" whenever I apply for a loan. I guess it's easier that way, but it's still aggravating.

Enormous commercial databases are fast undoing the societal bargain of expungement, which allows people who commit minor crimes a fresh start.

(link) [NYT > Home Page]

22:21 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

Never met a rule they couldn't break ...

Hel, why'd they go to all that trouble? I can play any music I'd care to on my iPod, my Apples, my Wintel box or even my SuSE machine. Without any "special" software or DRM stripping required.

My technique? It's called the "analog hole" (look it up for yourselves), and it will exist as long as humans have ears. The RIAA had best get used to it.

Ruckus, the new downloading software aimed at preventing illegal file-sharing, arrived at Ball State University less than a month ago--but students have already found a loophole that allows them to break copyright as they like. Ruckus was supposed to allow students to download songs but not play them on an iPod. But by using software that strips files of their "digital rights" coding, students can get around the restriction, the Daily News reports.

(link) [U.S. News & World Report]

07:50 /Copywrongs | 2 comments | permanent link

Bush aides 'mocked evangelicals'

The phrase that immediately comes to mind is "boundless hypocrisy". Have these people no shame at all?

US President Bush's top advisers ridiculed evangelical leaders while publicly embracing them, a new book says.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

07:44 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Email Servers Will Choke, Says Spamhaus

SPAMYesterday, from midnight to midnight, I received over 850 SPAM messages. In that same period, I received less than 100 legitimate emails, mostly from mailing lists.

If the spammers win, email will become useless. Like Usenet. And that would be a disaster for all of us - business, government and individuals.

The legal battle between antispam organization Spamhaus and e360 Insight is heating up. Spamhaus has a user base of around 650 million, and its lists block some fifty billion spam emails per day, according to the project's CEO Steve Linford. Spamhaus CIO Richard Cox says the immediate issue is that if the domain is suspended, the torrent of bulk mail hitting the world's mail servers would cause many of them to fail. More than 90% of of all email is now spam, Cox says, and he doubts that servers worldwide would be able to handle a ten-fold increase in traffic." Others estimate Spamhaus's blocking efficacy as closer to 75%; by this metric spam would increase four-fold, not ten-fold, if Spamhaus went unavailable.

(link) [Slashdot]

07:43 /Technology | 2 comments | permanent link

China erects fence along N. Korea border

Deeds speak louder than words.

AP - China has been building a massive barbed wire and concrete fence along parts of its border with North Korea in the most visible sign of Beijing's strained ties with its once-cozy communist neighbor.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

07:28 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link