apology – Techdirt (original) (raw)
Hell Forms Bobsled Team After Police Chief Admits Fault In SWAT Raid Targeting Wrong Address
from the tfw-the-gold-standard-should-just-be-the-goddamn-standard dept
Something that happens far too often — police officers raiding the wrong house in search of criminals — has resulted in national headlines.
A police search warrant team going after a drug dealer targeted the wrong address and burst into the apartment of an innocent resident who shot and wounded two officers believing they were home invaders, Prince George’s law enforcement officials said.
It has been greeted by something that almost never happens.
Police Chief Hank Stawinski apologized for the error Thursday and said he has halted executing search warrants until the department reviews how it corroborates information to confirm addresses and the location of investigative targets.
There’s more. No charges will be filed against the man who shot two officers. The police chief said the man ambushed in his own home was a “law-abiding citizen.” Beyond that, he called the warrant itself into question, along with the information used to obtain it.
A confidential informant led investigators to the address at which they were serving the search warrant Wednesday night, Stawinski said. But the chief said he is “not satisfied” with the amount of information investigators used to obtain the search warrant and with the efforts to verify the information from the informant.
Here’s all the things that didn’t happen:
– No one suggested everyone “wait until all the facts are in.”
– No one blamed the media for rushing ahead with a narrative the PD didn’t find flattering.
– No one refused to comment until an investigation was completed.
– No one disparaged the victim of the raid by feeding his criminal record to local media.
– No one suggested the resident be more compliant in the future.
– No one defended the officers’ actions as reasonable.
– No one filed charges against the resident for shooting and wounding police officers.
This is an astounding reaction to incidents that are far too commonplace in this country. This is also an indictment of policing in America. There is no reason this reaction should be as stunning as it is. This should be standard operating procedure when cops screw up. Instead, we’re most often greeted with defense of indefensible actions combined with a multitude of efforts designed to make the SWAT raid victim appear as unsympathetic as possible.
Wrong address raids, killings of unarmed citizens, excessive force deployment… all of these events are normally handled by police departments with maximum defensiveness and minimal acceptance of culpability. A law enforcement agency immediately stepping up to take responsibility for its errors — especially ones with potentially deadly outcomes — is a breath of fresh air in the fetid, stagnant swamp of US policing.
But this shouldn’t be the ultra-rare exception. It should be the rule. The public law enforcement serves deserves far better than the condescending, self-serving crap it’s so often handed in the wake of incidents like these.
Filed Under: apology, hank stawinski, police brutality, prince george, responsibility, swat, swat team, wrong address
If The CIA Apologizes For Lying About Torture, But Doesn't Tell Anyone About The Apology, Does It Really Count?
from the 14-months-later... dept
Remember the Senate Intelligence Committee’s massive CIA torture report, that details how the CIA conducted a vast program of torturing people, which had no actual benefit, and then lied to Congress (repeatedly) about it? The same report that, when the heavily redacted executive summary was released, ex-CIA officials insisted would result in attacks on America that never actually happened?
This was also the same CIA torture report that the CIA vehemently disagreed with. Even prior to the (again, heavily redacted) executive summary being released, CIA Director John Brennan had responded to the report, insisting that it was full of lies and misleading claims. That initial response, which happened in the summer of 2013 took issue with many of the claims in the report. When the redacted executive summary of the report was finally released, the CIA apparently publicly posted a “correction” about its claims concerning the report, in which it noted that many of the statements the CIA had made in attacking the torture report were actually… not true.
And here’s the real kicker: while the CIA “released” this “correction” on its website as a “note to readers” it didn’t actually tell anyone about it. Instead, just as everyone was talking about the release of the executive summary of the terror report, and claiming that the CIA was contesting a bunch of key findings in the report, the CIA had actually posted a document on its own website detailing how its own denials were basically wrong. And some of them were big denials — including about the effectiveness of the torture program on Khalid Shaykh Muhammad (KSM). A key part of the Senate’s report was that KSM was repeatedly tortured, but didn’t cough up anything particularly useful. The CIA vehemently denied this and insisted that what KSM gave them was useful. But in this “note to readers” (again, which was never revealed to anyone), the CIA admits that it clearly overstated the value of KSM:
Rather than “the individual managing the plot,” we should have written “the individual who was in a position to advance the plot.” This terrorist had raised Canary Wharf as a potential target and was tasked by KSM to conduct surveillance of Heathrow Airport’s security, but the plot was shelved after KSM’s arrest….
… Instead of “KSM provided information on an ai-Qa’ida operative named Zubair. .. ,” we should have written that “KSM provided information that led us to understand the significance of a Jemaah lslamiya operative named Zubair.” We acknowledge that in various representations, including President Bush’s 2006 speech, CIA introduced a sequencing error regarding Majid Khan’s arrest/debriefings, and KSM’s arrest/debriefings. We repeated that error here and on page 26 of Tab C (see next erratum). However, despite that error, our description of the impact of the information acquired from KSM in the Hambali case remains accurate. It was the combination of information from both terrorists that caused us to focus on Zubair as an inroad to Hambali….
… In our review of this case, we correctly acknowledged that CIA allowed a mistaken claim that KSM played a role in Majid Khan’s capture to appear in the Inspector General’s 2004 Special Review, and we correctly wrote that this claim was a one-time error. However, our effort to provide an example of a more accurate “typical representation” of the relationship between KSM’s information and Khan ran afoul of the sequencing error noted in the previous erratum. Although information from KSM was used to elicit further details from Khan, by then Khan already had provided the information that, together with what we learned from KSM, enabled us to advance our search for Hambali….
…We incorrectly stated that KSM’s information preceded Majid Khan’s information. We stand by our overall conclusion regarding the value of KSM’s information.
In other words, a bunch of things the CIA insisted were inaccurate in the Senates Torture Report were actually quite accurate, and it was the CIA that was being inaccurate. And, sure, the CIA “admitted” this in its “note to readers” but then failed to actually tell anyone about this “note to readers.” In fact, while the document was available on the CIA website no one even seemed to notice it until a few days ago. And that includes the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The document, entitled ?Note to Readers,? was not formally provided or flagged separately for the Senate Intelligence Committee, which only became aware of its existence in the last week ? more than a year since the document was publicly posted.
The ?Note? was also noticeably absent from the CIA website?s swath of December 2014 releases related to the Intelligence Committee study, and was not mentioned in either of the agency?s archived press releases on the subject.
Not surprisingly, Senator Ron Wyden, who has been one of the leading voices in getting this report out to the public, was not at all pleased to find out about all of this:
?The CIA justified this program by claiming that it produced otherwise unobtainable information. CIA officials have now admitted their go-to example was wrong,? Sen. Ron Wyden, a prominent Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told BuzzFeed News.
?These are significant admissions by the CIA that should not have been hidden in an obscure endnote,? Wyden said. ?Director Brennan has tried to insist that the CIA did not provide policymakers with false information about torture, but these corrections seem to be an admission that they did so, and did so repeatedly.?
It still seems worth asking why President Obama continues to allow CIA Director John Brennan to retain that role. He appears to have no problem letting him get away with lying and purposeful obfuscation over activities of the CIA to the Senate Committee that is in charge of overseeing the CIA.
Filed Under: apology, cia, lies, note to reader, senate intelligence committee, torture, torture report
CIA Accidentally Releases Apology Letter It Wrote, But Never Sent To The Senate For Illegally Spying On It
from the sorry-not-sorry dept
Jason Leopold — terrorizer of FOIA staffers throughout the US government — has again obtained documents many would have expected to remain out of reach for years to come. Certainly, the CIA thought one of the documents would remain its little secret for the rest of whatever.
On July 28, 2014, the CIA director wrote a letter to senators Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss — the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) and the panel’s ranking Republican, respectively. In it, he admitted that the CIA’s penetration of the computer network used by committee staffers reviewing the agency’s torture program — a breach for which Feinstein and Chambliss had long demanded accountability — was improper and violated agreements the Intelligence Committee had made with the CIA.
The letter was never sent. Instead of an apology, the Senate received accusations of impropriety after the CIA threw out its Inspector General’s report on the breach and performed an in-house “investigation” clearing the CIA of wrongdoing.
The letter was never signed by Brennan or sent. It was filed away somewhere in the CIA’s archives, hopefully never to be seen again. But it was mistakenly handed over to Jason Leopold much to the CIA’s chagrin. Additional chagrinment ensued.
After VICE News received the documents, the CIA contacted us and said Brennan’s draft letter had been released by mistake. The agency asked that we refrain from posting it.
We declined the CIA’s request.
So, the CIA has yet to officially admit any wrongdoing (as in a document — such as the one it didn’t want released — entered into the public record), and yet, there’s an admission of guilt in the public’s hands. Makes it a bit harder to defend actions Senator Feinstein claimed violated pretty much everything that could be violated in a single act.
Feinstein wrote to Brennan on January 23, 2014 and told him she consulted with the Senate’s legal counsel, who informed her that the CIA’s search of the Senate’s computer network “may have been inconsistent with the separation of powers principles embodied in the Constitution and essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities.”
“Second,” her letter continued, “the search may have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution, various statutes (including federal criminal statutes, such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Executive Order 12333,” which says it’s unlawful for the CIA to conduct domestic spying.
In short, it appears that while some in the CIA knew what it did was clearly wrong (and potentially illegal), top management so insisted on denying it, that it wouldn’t even send an apology letter — and that would have stayed completely secret if someone hadn’t slipped up and handed over the unsigned letter accidentally in a FOIA response dump.
Filed Under: apology, cia, foia, jason leopold, senate, spying
NSA's 'Apology' For Backdooring Crypto Standard Really A 'Sorry We Got Caught' Kind Of Apology
from the not-buying-it dept
Update: While the article in question claimed that Dr. Wertheimer was the Director of Research for the NSA, an email from the NSA alerts us that Wertheimer left the NSA before writing the article.
As you may recall, one of the big Snowden revelations was the fact that the NSA “took control” over a key security standard allowing backdoors to be inserted (or, at least, a weakness that made it easy to crack). It didn’t take long for people to realize that the standard in question was Dual_EC_DRBG, or the Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator. It also came out that the NSA had given RSA $10 million to push this compromised random bit generator as the default. That said, as we noted, many had already suspected something was up and had refused to use Dual_EC_DRBG. In fact, all the way back in 2007, there was a widespread discussion about the possibility of the NSA putting a backdoor in Dual_EC_DRBG, which is why so few actually trusted it.
Still, to have the details come out in public was a pretty big deal, so it also seemed like a fairly big deal to see that the Director of Research at the NSA, Dr. Michael Wertheimer (also former Assistant Deputy Director and CTO in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence), had apparently written something of an apology in the latest Notices of the American Mathematical Society. In a piece entitled, “The Mathematics Community and the NSA,” Wertheimer sort of apologizes, admitting that mistakes were made. After admitting that concerns were raised by Microsoft researchers in 2007, and again with the Snowden documents (though without saying why they were raised the second time), here’s Wertheimer’s “apology.”
With hindsight, NSA should have ceased supporting the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm immediately after security researchers discovered the potential for a trapdoor. In truth, I can think of no better way to describe our failure to drop support for the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm as anything other than regrettable. The costs to the Defense Department to deploy a new algorithm were not an adequate reason to sustain our support for a questionable algorithm. Indeed, we support NIST?s April 2014 decision to remove the algorithm. Furthermore, we realize that our advocacy for the Dual_EC_DRBG casts suspicion on the broader body of work NSA has done to promote secure standards. Indeed, some colleagues have extrapolated this single action to allege that NSA has a broader agenda to ?undermine Internet encryption.? A fair reading of our track record speaks otherwise. Nevertheless, we understand that NSA must be much more transparent in its standards work and act according to that transparency. That effort can begin with the AMS now.
However, as security researcher/professor Matthew Green quickly shot back, this is a bullshit apology, because he’s really only apologizing for not dropping the standard when they got caught red handed back in 2007.
The trouble is that on closer examination, the letter doesn’t express regret for the inclusion of Dual EC DRBG in national standards. The transgression Dr. Wertheimer identifies is simply the fact that NSA continued to support the algorithm after major questions were raised. That’s bizarre.
Green also takes on Wertheimer’s weak attempt to still defend pushing the compromised Dual_EC_DRBG as ridiculous. Here were Wertheimer’s arguments for why it was still okay:
* The Dual_EC_DRBG was one of four random number generators in the NIST standard; it is neither required nor the default. * The NSA-generated elliptic curve points were necessary for accreditation of the Dual_EC_DRBG but only had to be implemented for actual use in certain DoD applications. * The trapdoor concerns were openly studied by ANSI X9F1, NIST, and by the public in 2007.
But, again, those don’t make much sense and actually make Wertheimer’s non-apology that much worse. As Green notes, even though there were other random number generators, the now infamous RSA deal did lead some to use it since it was the “default” in a popular software library and because NIST had declared the standard safe, meaning that people trusted it. Green also goes into great detail describing how the second point is also incredibly misleading. It’s worth reading his full explanation, but the short version is that despite some people fearing the NSA’s plan would have a backdoor, the details and the possible “alternatives” to avoid that were completely hidden away and more or less dropped.
And that final point, well… really? Again, that’s basically saying, “Well, people thought we might have put in a backdoor, but couldn’t prove it, but there, you guys had your chance to debate it.” Nevermind the fact that there actually was a backdoor and it wasn’t confirmed until years later. And, as Green notes, many of the concerns were actually raised earlier and swept under the rug. Also, the standard was pushed and adopted by RSA as a default long before some of these concerns were raised as well.
This might all be academic, but keep this in mind: we now know that RSA Security began using the Dual EC DRBG random number generator in BSAFE — as the default, I remind you — in 2004. That’s three years during which concerns were not openly studied by the public.
To state that the trapdoor concerns were ‘openly’ studied in 2007 is absolutely true. It’s just completely irrelevant.
In other words, this isn’t an apology. It’s an apology that the NSA got caught (and didn’t stop pushing things the first time it got caught), and then a weak defense of why they still went ahead with a compromised offering.
Wertheimer complains that this one instance has resulted in distrust from the mathematics and cryptography community. If so, his weak response isn’t going to help very much.
Filed Under: apology, backdoor, cryptography, dual_ec_drbg, elliptic curve, encryption, matthew green, michael wertheimer, nist, nsa, random number generator, standards, surveillance
Maryland Council Member Kirby Delauter Admits He Was Wrong To Threaten To Sue Newspaper For Using His Name
from the well,-at-least-you-figured-that-out dept
Earlier this week, we wrote about Kirby Delauter, a Frederick County, Maryland, Councilmember who got angry about some press coverage he didn’t like, telling the reporter on Facebook that she was not allowed to use his name without “authorization” and threatening to sue.
The story went a bit viral, especially after the newspaper in question, The Frederick News-Post, put up a very funny editor’s note entitled Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter in which it discusses the nature of freedom of expression and muses on the idea of publishing an entire editorial that was just Kirby Delauter’s name repeated over and over again. As eagle-eyed readers spotted, the first letter of each paragraph in the article spelled out — you guessed it — Kirby Delauter.
This made some people wonder if Delauther would keep digging or admit his error. The wise move is to admit being wrong — but all too often we see people in these positions keep digging, somehow hoping that standing by their argument will somehow magically make them pop out on the other side of the world where everything is right again. This never works.
So, at the very least, kudos to Delauter for taking the other option and actually admitting he was wrong:
?The first amendment is alive and well in Frederick County. As a public figure working to maintain and improve the county, it can be very frustrating to feel misrepresented or misinterpreted by a local media outlet.
?Over my career I have fired off my fair share of angry e-mails, which in hindsight I wish I hadn’t. I can’t think of one that had a positive effect. Usually, they only served to escalate the conflict. I thought I had long ago learned the lesson of waiting 24 hours before I hit the send key, but apparently I didn’t learn that lesson as well as I should have.
?Of course, as I am an elected official, the Frederick News-Post has the right to use my name in any article related to the running of the county — that comes with the job. So yes, my statement to the Frederick News-Post regarding the use of my name was wrong and inappropriate. I’m not afraid to admit when I?m wrong.
It does seem a little late to recognize the basic fact that, yes, anyone can use your name in a news story (even if you’re not an elected official), but at least he decided to admit his mistake rather than choosing the alternative.
Filed Under: apology, free speech, kirby delauter, wrong
Bradley Manning Apologizes For The Harm Everyone Admits He Didn't Actually Cause
from the messed-up dept
As you may have heard, Bradley Manning took the stand at the sentencing part of the trial and issued an apology.
First, your honour I want to start off with an apology. I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I’m sorry that they hurt the United States.
At the time of my decisions, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues, issues that are ongoing and continuing to effect me. Although a considerable difficulty in my life, these issues are not an excuse for my actions.
I understood what I was doing, and decisions I made. However I did not fully appreciate the broader effects of my actions.
Those factors are clear to me now, through both self-refection during my confinement in various forms, and through the merits and sentencing testimony that I have seen here.
I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.
There’s more to the apology, but that’s basically the first half. There’s just one problem with it. There remains no evidence that he hurt anyone or the United States. We’ve discussed some of this before, but Rainey Reitman, over at the Freedom of the Press Foundation has a detailed breakdown of how the US government admits, quite clearly, the lack of any real damage or harm from Manning’s actions:
Even when the WikiLeaks hysteria was in full swing, government officials from the State Department briefed Congress on the impact of the Wikileaks revelations, and said that the leaks were “embarrassing but not damaging.” U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said that, while some of the information may have been embarrassing, “I don’t think there is any substantive damage.”
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has admitted the leaks caused no serious damage, telling Congress that the reactions to the leaks were “significantly overwrought.” He went on to say: “Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.”
At the same time, Reuters reported that other officials were admitting in private that they were exaggerating the damage that resulted from the leaks in order to bolster the legal efforts against WikiLeaks and Manning.
This has born out in Manning’s trial and sentencing hearing. It’s why the government fought so hard to keep its official WikiLeaks “damage assessments” from being revealed in court. It’s why, despite all the government’s overwrought pronouncements early on of “blood on the hands” of those responsible, a U.S. official was forced to admit under oath in Manning’s sentencing hearing that not a single person died as a result of the releases.
In fact, she notes that Manning’s original assessment that he was trying to help not hurt is borne out in what actually happened thanks to his leaks:
The truth is, the public has benefited tremendously as a result of Manning’s disclosures to WikiLeaks. Over the least three years, the disclosures have helped shape an international discussion about America’s foreign policy. They showed Americans the true face of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — from accurate body counts in Iraq to journalists killed by American soldiers to the government blocking investigations of CIA extraordinary rendition to U.S. turning a blind eye to torture in violation of the Geneva conventions. They’ve exposed corruption and lawbreaking in dozens of countries around the world. They contributed to democratic movements in the Middle East, and helped spur a movement in defense of free speech online. One State Department cable was even instrumental in helping precipitate the end to the Iraq war.
Her concluding paragraph makes the point quite clearly. Embarrassment may feel like “harm” but when that embarrassment is from doing something wrong and exposing that wrongness is part of the necessary process of stopping it, that’s not “harm” at all. That’s the process of helping:
Bradley Manning didn’t hurt us any more than a dentist hurts a patient when removing an abscessed tooth. The brief discomfort that resulted from the WikiLeaks disclosures was necessary to begin the process of healing and reform. It is a process that we do not yet know will be successful, but which began with Manning’s decision to leak vital documents to WikiLeaks. And for that, we owe Manning thanks; no apologies necessary.
Obviously, the apology is effectively Manning throwing himself on the mercy of the judge — a last gasp effort to prevent having to spend most or all of the rest of his life in jail. But, as Kevin Gosztola points out, while there are people who should have to plead for mercy from a judge, Manning should not have to, given the total lack of harm, and the tremendous help that came out of his leaks.
The conviction of Bradley Manning will go down in history as an embarrassment for the US — much more harmful and embarrassing than anything that he leaked. The prosecution and conviction show a country that doesn’t stand up for its own principles and looks to massively and disproportionately punish whistleblowers who call attention to government and military wrongdoing and coverups.
Filed Under: apology, bradley manning, harm, mercy of the court, wikileaks
Med Express Apologies For Suing Customer, Says It Was A Mistake, But Doesn't Mention The Long List Of Similar Lawsuits
from the what's-the-opposite-of-truthful? dept
Earlier this week, we posted about eBay seller “Med Express” suing a customer for leaving accurate, but negative, feedback on eBay. We found the story from Paul Levy’s original post on the Public Citizen website, and a bunch of other sites picked up on the story, including our friends at Popehat and Ars Technica.
Yesterday, Richard Radey, the President of Med Express made the rounds on all of those sites, including ours, issuing what may appear to be a heartfelt apology, saying that he never intended the customer to be a target, that the company fully supports any and all feedback, and that he had not read the actual lawsuit until the issue got attention. He also claims that he was trying to deal with a separate, but related issue in getting eBay to remove a “Detailed Seller Rating” which impacts how much Med Express has to pay. He claims that the “low ratings caused us to lose our Top Rated Seller Plus” standings, which could lead to “a potential fee increase of tends of thousands of dollars over the course of the year.” And, he claims, the only way to remove those “is by court order” and he “was told that such court orders were not uncommon.” He concludes:
The only person to blame here is me. You have spoken and I have listened. A terrible wrong needs to be righted. I am instructing our attorneys to drop the lawsuit. I want to assure everyone that you may feel free to leave any feedback on our company without fear of reprisal. I have learned my lesson.
That certainly sounds sincere. But is it? The first thing that struck me was that he said low ratings, plural — not the single low rating we had heard about. And, indeed, Paul Levy has presented a compelling argument that Radey’s apology raises more questions than it answers. First off, he discovered that Med Express has been filing similar lawsuits for years, all against customers who leave ratings that Med Express does not like. In one, quite incredible, case, they even sued a guy who left an accurate neutral review. Yes, it wasn’t even negative. And the company still sued.
Of the current crop of lawsuits, the suit against Nicholls isn’t even the worst. I haven’t yet been able to see the original documents from the transaction on which Med Express’ lawsuit against Guam resident Tan Jan Chen is based, but the lawsuit against Scranton-area resident Dennis Rogan is over a two-word “neutral” buyer feedback stating “Order retracted.” Apparently, Rogan bought a piece of equipment on eBay but Med Express had to refund his money because, as it explained in a message accompanying the PayPal refund, “This should not have been still listed—we removed this item a few weeks back-it broke.” As in Nicholls’ case, the statement over which Med Express sued for libel was true, but even worse than in Nicholls’ case, Rogan had not even left “negative” feedback.
Rogan could have suggested that the advertising and sale of an item that the seller knew it could not deliver violated FTC rules for mail-order merchants, but he gave the company the benefit of the doubt while concluding, at the same time, that other customers ought to learn that Med Express cannot always be trusted to have the goods that it is advertising. His generosity did not prevent Radey from signing an affidavit averring that the neutral feedback and negative statement were “false,” attempting to get an injunction requiring that the feedback be taken down, and demanding an award of compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorney fees—not the $1.00 in nominal damages that Radey claims are all that he wanted his lawyer to seek against Nicholls.
Yeah, also, that signing an affidavit thing is a problem. Radey suggests in his apology that he didn’t know what was going on, and seems to imply that this was a one off thing. But based on Levy’s research, we see a long list of similar lawsuits — and they include affidavits signed by Radey. So for him to claim he was unaware of what was going on seems quite questionable.
In the meantime, it appears that the customer who was at the center of the original lawsuit, Amy Nicholls, has found highly qualified pro bono help in the form of Tom Haren and Jeffrey Nye, and they’ve already filed a response and counterclaims. That also means that, even if Radey wants to dismiss this lawsuit, he can no longer do so unilaterally. If Nicholls, represented by Haren and Nye decide to pursue this, Radey may really regret trying to silence customers.
Filed Under: apology, defamation, paul levy, reviews, richard radey
Companies: ebay, med express
Maxis: Your Reward For Buying Our Horribly Launched SimCity Is The Previous, Better Version Of It
from the one-step-forward,-one-version-back dept
Many of us are still waiting for a Maxis mea culpa following the horrible release of their always-online SimCity game. When last we checked in with Maxis, they were busy pretending that all of the backlash surrounding this complete mess of a release didn’t exist and that tons (tons!) of people just loved all the features in the game that didn’t work. Well, they’re back to blogging again, and while it is only an apology in the barest sense of the word, they are offering up some freebies for their throngs of pissed off fans.
Our SimCity Mayors are incredibly important to the team at Maxis. We sincerely apologize for the difficulties at launch and hope to make it up to you with a free PC game download from Origin.
This, of course, falls short of the full apology they should be making, which would be to say that lying their faces off about why the game always needed to be online (since it didn’t) was wrong, as was their presumption that their fans needed to be treated like criminals. But, hey, baby steps, I guess. So what games are you offering up for free?
-Battlefield 3 (Standard Edition) -Bejeweled 3 -Dead Space 3 (Standard Edition) -Mass Effect 3 (Standard Edition) -Medal of Honor Warfighter (Standard Edition) -Need For Speed Most Wanted (Standard Edition) -Plants vs. Zombies -SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
…Really? As an apology for selling a game with an always-online requirement for a city building simulation, which we now know doesn’t actually need to be online at all, you’re offering up the previous version of the game which didn’t have that requirement? And, based on what I can see from the general reviews, received far superior reviews? Why bother releasing the new SimCity at all, if the result is pointing people to the last iteration, a better overall product? Have we gotten to the point where you guys are just trying to make us laugh?
Filed Under: apology, free games, simcity
Companies: ea, maxis
Apple Quietly Removes The Need To Scroll To Its Samsung Apology
from the foot-stomping-nonsense dept
Oh, Apple. As someone who (as yet) has no children, it’s been an educational experience watching the company’s reaction to a UK judge ordering them to put a public apology on their website over false claims that Samsung copied them. From the very beginning, it felt like Apple had gone out of its way to prepare me for raising children. It all started with a little “But, Daaaaad! He’s copying me!” Then, once parental admonishment is administered, Apple went into what child psychologists call “pouty-pants mode,” with the kind of apology statement that was almost literally playing one parent/country off of another, by which I refer to their referring to the fact that all of the other countries’ judges that had ruled opposite of the UK courts. And when the UK courts were less than thrilled with that petulance, they issued another apology, with a link buried at the bottom of the page — using a little javascript magic to ensure that you wouldn’t see it unless you were specifically looking for it. If this isn’t a perfect analogy for a young child mumbling a half-hearted apology to his little brother for kicking him, I don’t know what is, but I thank Apple for all the lessons in child-rearing they’ve given me. I feel, having watched the judge in this case, I have a good understanding on how to handle a petulant child.
“Cry all you want, no dessert until you issue your mother a web-based apology, you little poop-machine”
Image source: CC BY 2.0
The good news is that Apple has quietly removed this digital monument to foot-stomping, but only after Hacker News and Reddit blew up about it. Apparently, at some point since Monday, amidst the kind of backlash normally reserved for US Senators discussing women’s health issues, Apple pretended like the whole thing never happened.
As pointed out by CNET, the Javascript code in question is still on Apple’s site, but it just isn’t being used any more. The code ensured that the iPad mini advertisement would take up the whole page; regardless of your resolution, you would’t be able to see the statement without scrolling down the page.
While the code’s main purpose wasn’t necessarily to hide the apology (Apple has been pushing a more vertically-responsive design on its international sites for a while now), it’s very likely that putting the text in question at the bottom of its UK site, where the code would hide it, was on purpose. Apple’s decision to stop using the code, in fact, points to this being the case.
Way to go, Apple. You managed to get to the place you should have been all along in the most petulant, drawn out way possible. Exactly what I would have done…back when I was six years old.
Filed Under: apology, scrolling
Companies: apple, samsung
Apple Changes Its UK Samsung 'Apology,' But Makes Sure You Have To Scroll To See It
from the but-of-course dept
Apparently Apple didn’t need two weeks to put up a new “apology” statement on its UK website after the first obnoxious one was deemed not good enough by the UK courts. As you may recall, Apple was told by the court that it had to tell the world that Samsung didn’t copy Apple’s design on some of its devices, after a judge ruled that Apple’s devices were simply much cooler.
Apple has now put up its new statement and linked to it from its UK home page in a large font. The full statement is a lot shorter and doesn’t include anything about how “cool” Apple’s products are or the other court cases around the world. It has also admitted that the first statement was “inaccurate and did not comply” with the original court order:
Of course, it appears that Apple couldn’t resist an attempt to continue to be slightly petulant in doing this, though it did so in a way that it hoped the judge wouldn’t notice, by hiding it in the javascript. However, as the eagle eyes at Hacker News and Reddit quickly pointed out, Apple had added a bit of javascript to make sure that, no matter how big you enlarged the browser window, the link to the apology and the statement about it were below the fold. That is, there is no way to view that statement without first having to scroll down on the Apple page.
To be honest, I find it a little silly that the judge is requiring this statement at all. It seems to be going beyond what’s reasonable already (and it seems wrong to require Apple to put a statement on its own website). Anyone who really cares about this stuff will see the news. That said, I find Apple’s response to this ridiculous and that much more perplexing. Each attempt to somehow not fully comply with the judge’s demand just calls that much more attention to the situation and the fact that Apple lost and Samsung didn’t copy it. If Apple had just complied normally, this story would already be over.