Factor Man by Matt Ginsberg

Author:Matt Ginsberg [Ginsberg, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zowie Press
Published: 2018-03-19T22:00:00+00:00

14

The Factor Man blog

July 8, 2019

Bidding for a license to this technology is now open.

There are 40 qualified bidders. The second-place bid is currently $137 billion.

Bidding will close in two days.

Qualification has been denied to fourteen potential bidders. Most of them have accepted this decision with reasonable grace, but two have not.

The Alibaba Group is a Chinese corporation and, as such, is presumably a shill for the Chinese government. The nature of my relationship with the Chinese government is well known, and it is clearly not in my interests, let alone those of the American people, for the Chinese government to have access to my technology before the people of China do as well.

Facebook has also been quite vocal about its displeasure at being disqualified. I simply point out that whatever value Facebook has provided to the world, it would hardly be appropriate to describe them as championing the cause of individual privacy. I made clear in a relatively early post that a history of defending the interests of privacy was a prerequisite to qualification.

This web site has been visited 236,298,155,214 times.

Burkett

July 10,2019

The price of power

William Burkett, The New York Times

The Factor Man auction is now over. In the end, there were forty-one qualified bidders, and the final price was $147 billion. Apple was the winning bidder, and it is generally assumed that Microsoft or Google was second.

Apple’s price dropped slightly after the winning bid was revealed, but then the Street realized that at least 15% of the $147 billion – some $22 billion – would essentially be reinvested in Apple stock. Since Apple could issue this stock without actually paying for it, the net price was more like $125 billion in actual cash. Apple stock rebounded to near its highs for the year.

Factor Man required that the terms of the license be made public, and Hasday’s skills as a draftsman have been apparent. The document is written in something remarkably close to plain English, but has been confirmed by a wide range of attorneys as being bullet proof.

The license is for a two-year period beginning on the day that Apple won the auction. It is exclusive for the first year, although Factor Man himself retains the right to use or modify the software. The initial one-year period is followed by a second year of co-exclusivity with the United States government. After this, the code will presumably be in the public domain and no license will be needed. Apple is not permitted to share the code with any third party under any circumstances. It is also required to provide Factor Man with a description of all of the uses to which the code is being put; in the event that Factor Man feels that the code is not serving the interests of either privacy or the citizens of the United States, an arbitration procedure exists to decide who is right. No application can be fielded or even developed unless either Factor Man or the arbitrators approve.

It is generally assumed that

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