TPP really appears to suck AND Supreme Court to hear case on Obama's Executive Action on Illegal Aliens - What I am reading 1/19/2016

The Hacker News - FBI Has Named Hacker Allegedly Responsible For The Fappening Leaks -

The Fappening was the result of the hack of thousands of Apple's iCloud accounts, including those belonging to Hollywood actresses, models and major celebrities.

However, now two years later, new court documents reveal the name of the FBI’s top suspected hacker: Ed Majerczyk.

Since this is coming to light now I can only assume that some sort of court proceeding must be happening in regards to The Fappening ( :-P ).  I would bet a plea bargain will be announced soon.

Wired - The Silk Road’s Dark-Web Dream Is Dead -

The result has been that the libertarian free-trade zone that the Silk Road once stood for has devolved into a more fragmented, less ethical, and far less trusted collection of scam-ridden black market bazaars. Instead of the Silk Road’s principled—if still very illegal—alternative to the violence and unpredictable products of street dealers, the dark web’s economy has become nearly as shady as the Internet back alley politicians and moralizing TV pundits have long compared it to.

...

Christin argues that the dark web markets have been in a state of ethical decline since the moment Ross Ulbricht was arrested in late 2013. Ulbricht had, at least in theory, restricted the Silk Road’s sales to only “victimless” contraband, positioning the site as the seed of a non-violent anarcho-capitalist revolution. (Never mind the six murder-for-hires of enemies he’s been accused of commissioning in secret.) He treated his users as a community, and wrote them love letters and ideological manifestos. All of that made him a trusted administrator whose political ideals assured his followers that he wouldn’t rip them off for a quick bitcoin. “What we’re doing isn’t about scoring drugs or ‘sticking it to the man.’ It’s about standing up for our rights as human beings and refusing to submit when we’ve done no wrong,” Ulbricht wrote to me using his pseudonym, the Dread Pirate Roberts, before his arrest in 2013. “Silk Road is a vehicle for that message … All else is secondary.”

I am not quite sure how it can be asserted that theft, identity theft and fraud are victimless crimes or see The Silk Road as some sort of utopia.  It sold drugs and murder (hit men advertised there) and profited off of them.  That isn't a political statement it's a business model.

Tech Dirt - World Bank Report: TPP Will Bring Negligible Economic Benefit To US, Canada And Australia -

despite the impact that TPP's measures will have on how the US and other countries do business, there are astonishingly few studies on whether it will indeed have a positive impact overall. Just over a year ago, we wrote about one of the rare attempts to model TPP, commissioned by the US Department of Agriculture, which came up with the following result for countries like the US and Australia:

TPP is projected to have no measurable impacts on real GDP

 ...

Fortunately, we now have a new report from the World Bank, no less, which took into account all aspects of the proposed deal. Here's the summary of what it found (pdf): 

The model simulations suggest that, by 2030, the TPP will raise member country GDP by 0.4-10 percent, and by 1.1 percent, on a GDP-weighted average basis.

Of course the US comes out with the short end of this stick.  0.4% cumulative growth attributed to TPP over by 2030.

Tech Crunch - Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy -

The article explores why companies have trouble exploiting their core competencies to move into another market segment.  Well worth reading.

NYTimes - Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Obama Immigration Actions -

The Supreme Court said Tuesday that it would consider a legal challenge to President Obama’s overhaul of the nation’s immigration rules. The court, which has twice rejected challenges to Mr. Obama’s health care law, will now determine the fate of one of his most far-reaching executive actions.

Fourteen months ago, Mr. Obama ordered the creation of a program intended to allow as many as five million illegal immigrants who are the parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents to apply for a program sparing them from deportation and providing them work permits. The program was called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.

Even though the court asked for a brief on the constitutional requirement for the President to faithfully execute all laws I don't think this case is going to go the way most conservatives want it to. Even if they don't reject the challenge outright the decision will probably leave enough wiggle room that as long as things like comment periods are adhered to the program can go forward.