Hard News by Russell Brown

Read Post

Hard News: All your Trade are belong to us

115 Responses

First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 Newer→ Last

  • Craig Ranapia,

    I'd strongly debate that it was a "fishing expedition" -- they've sought information on people with a direct trading link to the suspects, and in some cases those people have provided evidence.

    But you'd think they could use public trading records to narrow the field before they execute their warrant for names and addresses.

    Fair enough, but don't the Police or the judge who was asked to issue the search warrant have the geek nous (or access to those who do) to ask the same question? I don't know if I'm ready to jump all over Trade Me or the Police, but I'm not going to blame people who received that e-mail and aren't happy.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • George Darroch,

    I cant wait for the 2.0 with online, feeds and collaboration, which is in development.

    WLG • Since Nov 2006 • 2264 posts Report Reply

  • Peter Darlington,

    rian Easton and Diana Wichtel only goodies left now you've gone Russell.

    Don't forget that nice Fiona Rae who does the TV pages!

    As well as the aforementioned I would include Jim Pinckney's music reviews. Nick Bollinger's a heck of a nice chap but Stinky Jim usually gets to the soul behind the controls in just the right way.

    Apart from that though, it's lean pickings in The Listener nowadays. And replacing funny with whiny on the back page is just plain sad.

    Nelson • Since Nov 2006 • 949 posts Report Reply

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    Some of your information was amongst that provided. There is no suggestion that you were in any way related to these events last year, apart from being one of 3000 who traded with someone that was a suspect in this investigation.

    I suggest that with population of Ruatoki being approximately 300 in the immediate area that all residents would be suspect until, by process of elimination,they were deemed otherwise by Police. After that it would be Wellington. It then would be prudent to collect the suspects trading details over the time the Police were investigating and they must have red tagged all weapons/military memorabilia enquiries, This could have covered a year but at the end of the day, it was established that Jamie Lockett was not friends with Police and Mr lockett's entitlement to disclosure, being that he was defending himself, exposed what goes on all the time and probably has done for as long as it was in the Privacy Act as mentioned .I actually appreciate Mr Lockett bringing this to the publics attention.He did also say, it could get into the wrong hands (which fed the media) and that he would not do that.The Police never tell us what they're up to so I would like to see better protection of disclosure documents.

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    Matthew: they could start with one degree (suspects' contacts) and make a second request to pursue others that seem worthwhile.

    What, do actual police work? Their job, in other words?

    You're asking a bit much there. They have protestors and dope-smokers (quick, break out the helicopter!) to arrest.

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • Suze Vermeer,

    Yeah, Craig, that was a bit flippant touching on the Clifton/McCully domiciliary arrangements. I was just being shallow about his not-so-goodlookingness. In no way do I think Clifton's Tory-thinking starting point is the result of pillow politics osmosis. I think she's a child of the establishment all on her own instincts.

    I'm not sure why you bring up Cate Brett, as I was not thinking of "poster girls for women in the media". Yeah, the SST is often tabloidy, relieved by some good pieces. Most print press tabloidy in desperate bid to hold on to circulation against electronic and digital media.

    Sorry Danielle. My language not very PC. Didn't mean anything anti-woman by using the word "girly". I should have put inverted commas around girly, but you know what I mean; things usually found in the so-called women's mags. I'm forgetting that y'all don't really know me so I shouldn't write things here that might appear suspect in tone.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 29 posts Report Reply

  • David Cormack,

    You're asking a bit much there. They have protestors and dope-smokers (quick, break out the helicopter!) to arrest.

    That's a helpful attitude. They tried to do some real police work in this instance - investigate, collect evidence, prosecute.

    Suburbia, Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 218 posts Report Reply

  • Suze Vermeer,

    Dammit, Peter, you're right. I forgot the Listener's music columnists and funny Fiona Rae. God, this looks like a complete climb-down. I have to admit the Listener does have some good stuff. My complaints really are I suppose about the editorial line and main stories.

    On Wikipedia. At my second-to-last job we were forbidden to use Wikipedia in any story research.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 29 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    One of my uni lecturers has announced that using Wikipedia as a reference means you will automatically fail the assigment

    Conversely, if a student makes up a reference in a paper to something like:
    Smyth et al, Journal of Applied Chronology, May 1973

    does the lecturer get sacked for not making a trip to the library to validate if the paper really exists?

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    I'm not sure why you bring up Cate Brett, as I was not thinking of "poster girls for women in the media".

    You certainly weren't, but she is the only woman in the editor's chair of a major newspaper. (Since Sue Chetwin got 'kicked upstairs' into management a couple of years back, before going to run the Consumers INstitute.) I don't know a damn thing about Brett's personal life -- and don't want to -- but IMNSHO Fairfax should have sacked everyone connected with the Operation Leaf farce. It would be utterly irrelevant to her professional credibility if she's shagging Satan Himself.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole,

    So that would indicate that the 3000 is one degree of separation from the suspects. That's an astoundingly high figure, assuming that it's only those that are facing trial that are 'suspects'.

    I wouldn't make that assumption. Evidence gathered by warrant can rule a person out from being charged. Also remember that 17 were initially arrested, and a great many more were mentioned in the affidavit.

    I decided to do a very quick, distinctly unscientific survey of some of the categories on TradeMe that were mentioned as having been "of interest" to the cops during their investigation - scopes/mounts, ammunition, and balaclavas. For the first two, I went to the relevant section under hunting, sorted by lowest-price-first. For the third I first went to the headgear section in menswear and selected any vaguely military- or balaclava-related listing. Failing to get my 10 entries I then searched all of clothing for "balaclava" and "ski mask" and added an extra three entries.
    In all cases I used the number of feedbacks from unique sellers, until I had 10 (or 9 for the third category), and averaged them. The category averages were 5328, 292, and 787. The overall average is 2136. That means that over those categories, each seller has completed an average 2136 transactions. Even if there's 50% repeat business, that's still over 1000 unique purchasers.
    Suddenly 3000 people doesn't look like very many. Yes, my numbers are skewed, particularly in scopes/mounts, by some very high-volume traders (one in that category has > 22k feedbacks), but I never said it was scientific. Outliers, standard deviations, etc, I really can't be arsed. It's indicative. And it indicates that 3,000 people is easily within the realms of possibility for associations with 17 (or more) people.

    Correct me if I'm wrong but if documents or WHY are deemed not relevant to evidence they do not have to be revealed for discovery and are therefore deemed inadmissible?

    Oh, more than likely. But when you're talking about something as nebulous as TardMe trading records, and many, many thousands of them, it's going to be a challenge to actually narrow down what's "relevant" and what's not. After all, what makes any of it relevant once you get beyond the purchases "of interest" by persons under investigation?

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • Bryan Dods,

    The Listener's been going downhill since the women took over

    Very subjective opinion in the Editorial and not enough courage to declare the writer does not enhance the credibility of what is usually a strong political view.

    It helps if one can make allowance for the individual writers preferences, but The Listener prefers to keep them nameless.

    If I wanted anonymous spew I would listen to talkback radio.

    As for journalistic technique, it seems that the idea is to put out an article and then wait until an authority on the subject writes to supply the facts.

    Northland • Since Nov 2006 • 46 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole,

    I would like to see better protection of disclosure documents.

    In which case you'll need to get a law passed regarding what those who have been charged can do with disclosure documents. After all, the documents are their property, not just in their care. They can do with their property as they see fit.
    Once you start down the path of restricting what people can do with their property, where does it end? They may not own the copyright in those documents, but that doesn't mean much. I don't own the copyright in anything released under the Official Information Act, either, but I can still publish it on a website or give it to a newspaper. I could sell it, if I so chose, but only the original not a copy. Discovery documents are very similar to OIA documents, in that they're the work of government employees, in the course of their employment, released under statutory requirement. It's very, very risky to start trying to restrict discovery, because the principles are easily shifted to OIA. It can already be a real struggle to get official information out of departments, and the last thing we need is for that to be legitimised in any way.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Matthew: they could start with one degree (suspects' contacts) and make a second request to pursue others that seem worthwhile.

    I presume that the amount of work on both sides in doing this would have been immense - both the police in coming up with a list, and then trademe in giving them the results. Just manually entering say 500 people by a trademe employee, and then printing all their trades (maybe 25,000 pages at 500 x 50) might have taken a month at least?

    Whereas '1/2 degrees of separation, print everything out' would have maybe been an hour or two of coding for trademe, and an hour or two of work for the police.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • A S,

    I presume that the amount of work on both sides in doing this would have been immense -

    I would have thought for TM, it would have been the work of about five minutes once they knew the identities of the people they wanted to look at.

    I'm going to be very interested to hear what the Privacy Commissioner has to say about this once it is all over.

    Maybe the moral of this story is: don't tell the truth when signing up for anything online, unless of course you don't mind your personal info being handed around.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2007 • 269 posts Report Reply

  • Karen Crisp,

    Ok, here's a banal question. I have been weaning myself off The Listener very gradually over the past year or two due to disappointment, so now I am looking around for alternative TV listings and critique and so on. I quite liked the star ratings given to films broadcast on tele in The Listener, for example.

    Where else do people look? Or have you all given up on the teev?

    Auckland • Since May 2008 • 28 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Very subjective opinion in the Editorial and not enough courage to declare the writer does not enhance the credibility of what is usually a strong political view.

    It helps if one can make allowance for the individual writers preferences, but The Listener prefers to keep them nameless.

    If I wanted anonymous spew I would listen to talkback radio.

    You presumably don't read any newspapers, then? And how about The Economist, which hasn't run a by-line since its foundation in 1843 (except for occasional 'by invitation' columns, surverys, and the traditional last piece by an outgoing editor). Of course, in 1843 that was the norm as opposed to the rather toxic cult of personality and ego that passes for modern jourbnalism.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    It's very, very risky to start trying to restrict discovery,

    No, that wasn't where my head was at. Sorry, obviously not explaining myself correctly, but I felt a protection of documents that the police seize.If they are not relevant to the case, they should be destoyed.

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    . . . as opposed to the rather toxic cult of personality and ego that passes for modern journalism.

    And how different again from teh interhosen, where anonymous and pseudonymous commenters are regularly scolded for their failure to fully front up.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    Karen - SKY magazine (I got the dish for Maori TV - because that's the only way I can get Maori TV on the Coast.)

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    And how different again from teh interhosen, where anonymous and pseudonymous commenters are regularly scolded for their failure to fully front up

    Yes, Joe. Because if The Herald or The Economist runs an (anonymous) editorial or (signed) column accusing you of - for the sake of argument - trying to extort a six figure sum from a high profile broadcaster by threatening to make a false allegation of savage domestic violence they're relatively easy to hold to account.

    And I don't know about you, Joe, but Michael Laws is a fatuous fuckwit with or without a photo by-line.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Terence W,

    I can think of plenty of situations where it would be appropriate to cite from an encyclopedia in an essay. Basic demographic, historical or statistical information, for example. Sure, if your essay is on the history of Southern Brazil, you wouldn't want to be using the encyclopedia as your source but, if as part of an essay on the rise of the populist left in that region, you wanted to refer briefly to the war with Paraguay* then why not?

    As for the Wikipedia: agreed it's not acceptable in essays, but an automatic fail? There are a heck of a lot of other bad sources out there, does he fail them too?

    ==

    * Anyone seeking a quick gotcha ought to get Googling and see whether there ever was an actual war between Brazil and Paraguay.

    YesWeCanberra • Since Mar 2008 • 41 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    And I don't know about you, Joe, but Michael Laws is a fatuous fuckwit with or without a photo by-line.

    Y'know, I used to think that NZ-style demagogue-puffery hadn't descended to the depths of tackiness evident in Australia, but at least the terminally self-important Alan Jones has the decency not to affect drag-queen-heavy eyeliner.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Brazil v Paraguay:
    War of the Triple Alliance, see:
    Chris Leuchars. To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance
    also
    Guerra do Paraguay, [18?]. National Library of Brazil
    (Brazil & allies won)

    South American Qualifiers, 2008
    (Paraguay won)

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    Where else do people look? Or have you all given up on the teev?

    BitTorrent kindof makes it redundant, except for the six o'clock news.

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 Newer→ Last

Post your response…

Please sign in using your Public Address credentials…

Login

You may also create an account or retrieve your password.