Stickin' it to the man - Apple hit with $14.5 billion tax bill - What I am reading 8/30/2016

Ars Technica - Apple must pay Ireland $14.5 billion in taxes, rules European Commission -

“This is not a penalty, it is unpaid taxes to be paid,” said Vestager who was scathing about Apple’s activities. “The so-called ‘head office’ did no business. It had no employees, no premises. But under the tax ruling the so-called head office was attributed all the company’s profits for sales throughout Europe Africa, Middle East, and India,” she added.

“Tax rulings cannot endorse a method that fails to reflect economic activity or reality, for that matter,” the commissioner said.

Now see if I was Britain I would set up Northern Ireland as the same sort of tax haven and since they won't be in the EU i would tell them to screw themselves.  But that's just me.

Tech Crunch - France Passes Copyright Law Demanding Royalties For Every Image Search Engines Index Online -

The Disruptive Competition Project is detailing yet another bad copyright law change in Europe -- France, in particular, this time. Called the Freedom of Creation Act, it actually passed a few months ago, but people are just beginning to understand and comprehend the full horror of what's happening. Basically, it will now require any site that indexes images on the internet (i.e., any image search engine) to pay royalties for each image to a collection society.

Everyday I am a little more convinced the Brits made the right choice with Brexit.  I can't wait for the EU to collapse and burn under it's own stupidity. 

Dark Reading - DoD Taps DEF CON Hacker Traits For Cybersecurity Training Program -

So what was Frank DiGiovanni, director of force training in DoD’s Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness, doing at DEF CON? “My purpose was to really learn from people who come to DEF CON … Who are they? How do I understand who they are? What motivates them? What sort of attributes” are valuable to the field, the former Air Force officer and pilot who heads overall training policy for the military, says.

DiGiovanni interviewed more than 20 different security industry experts and executives during DEF CON. His main question:  “If you’re going to hire someone to either replace you or eventually be your next cyber Jedi, what are you looking for?”

How about someone who doesn't use the term jedi or ninja?

DiGiovanni compiled a list of attributes for the cyber-Jedi archetype based on his interviews. The ultimate hacker/security expert, he found, has skillsets such as creativity and curiosity, resourcefulness, persistence, and teamwork, for example.

A training exercise spinoff of DEF CON’s famed capture-the-packet (CTP) contest also will become part of the DoD training program. DiGiovanni recruited DEF CON CTP and Wall of Sheep mastermind Brian Markus to repurpose his capture-the-packet technology as a training exercise module. “In October, he will submit to the government a repackaged capture-the-packet training capability for DoD, which is huge,” DiGiovanni says. Also on tap is a capture-the-flag competition, DoD-style, he says.

I get where they are going with this, and I appreciate it, but the problem I see is that this is the DoD.  Once something is written down it is almost impossible to change and everything is reduced to a set of measurable steps - wo what is currently an innovative exercise wil soon become an series of Go / No Go steps and all that creativity etc. that they are talking about will be lost.