Thankfully nature finds its balance, as now millions of people can sue David Pitchford for choking whilst laughing and coffee all over their keyboards.

One important implicit side effect I got from the article is that the influence of governments wishing to exploit open source software will by implication help open source software fight off attempts by closed source companies to undermine open source software.

One big and growing problem the article highlights is that governments are becoming more directly involved in what goes into the software, not least of which backdoors for their own spying. But then the US has brought this to a head due to the FBI asking for backdoors to be put into software, which has freaking out other countries. But it seems all the countries are playing this same game.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of the article is how it highlights how the division between government and business is blurring. This is shown in how money is lent from one country to other countries on the basis they take certain technology from that one country. The governments are playing global games of controlling and influencing other countries, each trying to control resources, such as natural or even technological resources such as communications infrastructure, in the case of China's moves into African countries.

I wonder if the divisions between government and business are really blurring or are we now (thanks to the Internet) now finally starting to see more of the truth, that governments and their businesses are much closer than they would like us to believe and that countries use their businesses as pawns, for their political ambitions to influence other countries. (It would also help explain how governments are voted in by the people yet spend most of the time listening to the wishes of companies (via their lobby groups) and so its businesses and not the people who really influence government. So are we now finally starting to see, in much more detail, what has been really going on for centuries? (Its no wonder the governments want to hide so much from us). I (like a lot of people) have suspected a lot of this duplicitous power games for years, but the Internet is helping us to confirm with more evidence these games are really being played behind our backs by our own governments.

On a positive note, its a fascinating thought provoking article. On a more negative note, its hard not to see the close ties between governments and their businesses as they seek to push backdoors into technology (and use technology as a means of inflence and control) is therefore a pressure that is pushing the world towards an increasingly more Orwellian Authoritarian world, where governments are increasingly trying to watch us all, but as usual we are still prevented from hearing so much about what they do in secret behind our backs. (But then even Wikileaks has been highlighting our government representatives have been repeatedly lying to us and hiding what is really going on (even though with 3 million people with access to that information, all countries are likely to have spies in that many people, so all countries knew what was in the documents, before the leaks. So that means the only people who don't really know is all of us!, the public, who are the only people really kept in the dark!). So this article adds more jigsaw pieces to help us see the global chess moves being played by governments, as they seek to manoeuvre their businesses into influential positions whilst also seeking to prevent other countries businesses from gaining influential and potentially damaging positions in their own countries.

As the old saying goes, "Oh what a twisted web we weave". So much for just make a great product and selling it. All the politics is really an irritating distraction, even without adding in all the growing Authoritarian shit that’s inevitable given their relentless behaviour, as they seem determined to try to find ways to spy and block spying on each other, with all of us caught in the middle and likely to end up spied on relentlessly.

Anyway a very thought provoking article. Now where's the brandy bottle, I need a drink!. :)

@"where several spermatozoa work together to crack the female egg shell. This process is in no way a battle between the little guys to see which is the strongest but a joint effort"

That's my favourite bit of your description, as you make the "little guys" sound like a special forces team on a mission. :) ... I can imagine one of them shouting to the others, "Hey, cover my guys, I'm going in!" ... the idea makes me feel so proud. I feel like I want to shout some encouragement to them, from the side lines, so to speak! :)

@KingSkippus, I totally agree. The Fourth Amendment died along with any real privacy years ago.

Although reading some of the posts on here I'm amazed some people still don't get that simple fact. Where have some of these /. readers been? ... I'm amazed anyone would need to ask if the US also spies on what is these days simply called open source Intelligence. Its the norm these days to spy on us all. (What was once considered just paranoia by a few freaks in society, has for the past few years become reality to the point where its just normal for them to spy on all open source Intelligence. We have no privacy. Privacy died at least 5 years ago!. Where have some people been?!

For example:
"FBI brass ask Google, Facebook to expand wiretaps"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/17/google_facebook_wiretapping/

Overview of the whole subject of open source intelligence gathering from many sources...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_intelligence

Project Vigilant - "monitors the traffic of 12 regional Internet service providers" and "hands much of that information to federal agencies."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/02/privacy/index.html

Facebook even has a government API used for datamining its users. Here's some more info on Facebook data mining connections with government. http://www.examiner.com/canada-internet-in-canada/facebook-conspiracy-data-mining-for-the-cia

Some people really need to wake up.

@KingSkippus"I know it, the government knows it, and apparently you didn't get the memo."... yes exactly, the government must be laughing that some people still don't get it. Yet /. readers are usually much more technically minded people than the general public, so its no wonder that many of the non-technical general public (who never read /.) don't have a clue how Orwellian its all becoming. Plus this is the levels of spying we have now, as nothing here is even attempting to discuss where research is taking these capabilities!.

Here's a glimpse of just one area of research. Google for, pre-emption precrime, no not as in Minority Report, this is real Pre-crime as in data mining and predicting who *may do something wrong*, not who is doing something wrong, its who could do something wrong.

If that's not freaked you out enough, try adding in the whole social influence research area, for example, just google for, Social influence detection research.

@”Will nobody rid us of these lawyer politicians, whose only understanding of communication is how it can be used to control others? “

@Darkman, Walkin Dude ... Brilliantly said. Your whole post sums up so many centuries of problems, repeated all around the world, caused by these same kind of greedy, corrupt, two faced, lying, control freaks that each generation has to suffer.

But then from so many diplomatic leaks, regardless of what we think of the leaks, one fact remains. We now have absolute confirmation our control freak governments (in almost every country) lie endlessly to us (so our leaders can get their own way and so they show they don't really work for us), yet they say they represent us even though their actions prove they are really seeking to deceive us. That isn't Democracy. It shows we are really dealing with an increasingly Authoritarian lying greedy Kleptocracy which is increasingly showing signs of becoming an outright Totalitarian Dictatorship. Worse still its becoming a global problem.

But then the act of seeking power over someone else, is the act of seeking to dictate their will over the wishes of others. So is it any wonder people who seek power over others end up seeking to dictate their will over us on the Internet. After all, the Internet is helping to highlight how much our power hungry leaders lie to us and so don't really represent us. They know if we see the truth, we can argue against them, so they lie to us, for their own greedy gain.

If that isn't bad enough, here's a shocking dictionary definition that shows how bad our lying greedy leaders actions really are against all of us. See if you can guess the word it defines. "A violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state. The betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery." The word it defines is Treason. Its shocking to think of it, but our leaders really our in complete betrayal of our trust and confidence; breach of faith; treachery against their entire country, all for their own greedy gain. They really are showing acts of Treason!. They don't represent us, even though they say they do, when they want us to vote them into power.

Some countries still have the death sentence for Treason. So is it any wonder more people are getting angry at all our leaders in most countries and why our leaders seek to control the Internet even more, to cut off ways for us to see the truth and discuss what our leaders are doing.

The Internet has revolutionised many industries already so perhaps its time it also revolutionised the management of everyone where openness is forced into our two faced leaders, to stop them being able to lie to us all. After all if they want to represent us, then they take the job on that basis.

Getting a tan on holiday is often expected, but I don't want to come home from holiday, glowing in the dark!

Wooshh... which ironically is also the sound of wanting the additional benefit from "projectile vomiting over my boss's desk"

What's a few minutes mild suffering, for some payback that just keeps on giving ;)

Great I can program up projectile vomiting over my boss's desk, to get a few days off work as sick leave and then get the Programmable E. coli to stop 2 minutes after I leave the office. :)

I thought your joke was going to go down the E. coli is another name for bugs route. At which point everyone can then make up their own bug/Microsoft jokes.

I would say, if "Netflix is swallowing America's bandwidth" then America bandwidth needs to increase.

@parent post, I know you are joking about ISPs but this story is really a covert PR story by the anti net neutrality people. This same kind of story was tried in the UK using the example of the BBC iPlayer bandwidth, trying to say it was a major drain on UK Internet bandwidth ... which they then followed up with along the lines of “so hey, how about we charge extra for iPlayer bandwidth”, when the real problem was the UK bandwidth was and still is too low (just like America bandwidth). In countries with much faster internet access, these video services take up far less of the overall percentage of bandwidth and so do not swallow all the bandwidth.

Scare stories like this are used as a marketing chess move by the anti net neutrality lot of lobbyists. They want to charge for specific kinds of data and in the UK the next move they are playing is also aiming to earn even more from then also spying on the data (via deep-packet inspection) which is also needed to kill net neutrality. (The growing Police State in the UK is also seeking to use deep-packet inspection for its 24/7 spying on everyone). Deep-packet inspection has to be made illegal globally or they will continue to push to exploit it.

So to the idea "Netflix is swallowing America's bandwidth", I say, bullshit!, America needs and in time will have more bandwidth, so these reports are bullshit, no one needs to worry about these scare stories. Its like the old saying, follow the money, and the money people are behind stories like this.

Plus oh what a surprise, Sandvine, the creators of this so called report, (Two faced PR marketing move more like), already use deep-packet inspection, so they would gain from killing net neutrality and selling their services.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandvine

Sandvine you two faced bastards, we can see through your chess moves.

"If you create a subversive organization it has to be led by someone no one knows except organization cell leaders."

The way the world is going, with the endless undermining of privacy, in the future there isn't going to be anyone that will be able to stay secret enough to be the leader of any subversive organization. Therefore in time, all political protesters will be able to be got at in any country. Sadly it will make even the concept of freedom of speech meaningless in practice as fear of reprisal will silence anyone even thinking of speaking out. But then people who seek political power are almost by definition seeking the power to control others and so its no wonder then that they are collectively moving the world towards a state where they can truly control everyone. People who seek power are determined to gain control over everyone.

We are therefore rapidly moving towards outright collective world control, where there will be no where to run from repression because everywhere will be repression. If that isn't bad enough, history shows not all people who seek power have the best interests of their people at heart. Worse still, the very act of seeking power over someone else is implicitly an act of Narcissism and Narcissism is characterised by a self interested lack of empathy towards others. So much for any fairness in a world so controlled by the unquestionable wishes of a powerful minority who are almost by definition self interested and so lack empathy towards others.

We are certainly heading into interesting times :(

Its not about what parents purchase for their children, its about biased results from pollsters who are paid to be biased by utterly misguided watchdog groups forcing their self important views of greater control onto everyone else and so lobbying to increase controls on everyone!

Also I see it as a continuum of control, where we slide as a society into ever more state control over time, often driven by these lobby groups (who play into the hands of the control the NPDs in society want which is ever more power over everyone).

We should be specifically targeting the problems yet these watchdog groups totally fail to even see the real problems. They attempt utterly wrong straight associations between violence in media to violence against others. That is totally false.

"Hell, it's celebrated in reality shows."

The formula for a reality show, is take a room full of Histrionic Personality Disorders (HPD, i.e. attention seekers), and then throw in a few Narcissistic Personality Disorders (NPD) to mess with the HPD's. Both HPD and NPD are cluster B disorders and their behaviours centre around their insecurities, namely need for attention in HPDs, in a room with NPD's who need power over others. Therefore is it any wonder we have endless reality shows that are filled with people who lack empathy for others whilst they are more preoccupied by their own insecurities. The reality shows thrive on exploiting these behaviours and we have other media people who in their work seek attention through their work (see the pattern of seeking attention again, i.e. predominately Histrionic) and so these people hold these reality show attention seekers up as role models of good ways to be like them! ... the media channels over time have become infested with Histrionic and Narcissist people who are attracted to the attention media gives combined with the power to influence buying choices and political choices of people.

The cluster B disorders are dominating society and they put down anyone who is not like them. The attention seekers put down others so they can gain more attention by humiliating others and as I noted, the NPDs also put down others, to in their case, feel more in control over others.

Yet all this behaviour is driven by their Personality Disorders and not violence in any media, i.e. video games!

@DJRumpy: "And if the parents are just bad parents, or not engaged with their children's development, should they still be trusted with the keys, so to speak "

Just because some in society are bad parents we shouldn't all have to suffer every more controls in life, just because they are useless. You are suggesting a course in life that leads to ever greater state control over everyone. That isn't the solution. We need as a society to target the problem makers, not blind blanket rules and laws that force everyone into ever more totalitarian controls over their lives. There is an answer but you clearly don't see the real problem, so the rest of this post is for you as well.

@Sonny Yatsen, this news is as you say utterly biased by the group funding this meaningless poll. A good example of the opposite view of video games would be to ask the same parents a reworded question such as: "Do you think parents should be responsible for allowing their children to learn in a safe environment about the competitive nature of life which helps them to develop their problem solving skills, protected from the real dangers of life" ... at which point that poll would give the totally opposite answer to this meaningless poll.

But then the group behind this poll, the so called "watchdog group Common Sense Media" are basing their whole point on an irrationally biased point of view, so I don't hold out much hope of seeing much Critical Thinking from them, when they prepare their polls.

I am however dismayed at how often this myth of violent games is endlessly perpetuated by groups like them, that seem incapable of solving the real problem, because they seem ignorant of the real problem. They cannot seem to see that, people are violent to other people, because they actually choose to be violent to other people. Yes some people really do choose to inflict violence on another person and they are doing it, not because they saw that violence in any media, they simply are doing it, because they enjoy the power their violence gives them over other people.

We don't need these useless self important misguided watchdog groups. What we need as a society is simply better education about the more extreme and harmful personality disorders to give everyone some much needed protection in life.

For example, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is due to a need to gain and maintain power over other people and they want to hold people down in life so they feel powerful. Its why they have a "pervasive pattern of grandiosity", because they want to be seen as better, more powerful, beyond everyone else and they do all they can to maintain that. Anyone dares to tell them otherwise, even just to put them in their place, so to speak, and they will bitterly hate it, but how they react depends on what specific type of Narcissist they are. There are actually two types of a NPD, where one type is the Aggressive Narcissist who we all know and recognise as the typical bully kind of person. These are the violent people in society who want others to know they are more powerful than them and groups like this watchdog are utterly useless in recognising them. (The other form of NPD is a Passive-Aggressive form of Narcissist, who will hate you for opposing them or risking over shadowing them with better ideas at work etc.., but they are not violent, they instead seek to undermine you with endless duplicity but they are passively hiding their real intentions. They will seek to obstruct any chance you succeed over them, and they are very good at procrastination if its not their idea, so they will let your ideas fail, so they can point blame at you, but to your face they act like a normal person. (They have a hidden pervasive pattern of negative attitudes towards any idea which isn't their own).

NPD's behaviour gives them a competitive advantage in life, which allows them to gain power over others and they end up undermining everyone else until they end up dominating in society. (Which sadly explains both politics and corporate hierarchies of power. Worse still these are the kind of people who choose what laws we all must follow. They shape and control society, therefore is it any wonder they don't really want to stop behaviour that is their own pattern of behaviour. So as a society we never get to the real solution because they don't want people to really understand how they behave, because if people did it would undermine them and that's the last thing they want, so to speak. They want to dominate and they do dominate in society).

@"The Internet was so much better before corporations/business was significantly interested."

Plus now they are interested, they show through their own actions, they have no moral limit to how far they will go. This action by them is blatantly effectively punishing Thought Crimes. I guess talking about AdBlock is against what the business wants, which is effectively compliant consumers who don't learn how to block advert bombardment.

I guess they have never heard of the Barbra Streisand effect.

But it does makes me wonder what kind of world we are heading into where corporations gain ever greater control of the major web sites when they show they are so willing to behave like this.

"Likewise the formation and evaporation of micro-black-holes is not very well theorised" and from the other poster "what if in reality it's going to grow exponentially"

* Also what happens if two or more black holes are created that can then collide with each other?
* Can one black hole like particle influence the decay of another black hole particle?.
* Could 3 or 4 acting together grow exponentially more easily than one on its own?
* Also how would micro-black-hole particle groups behave in other collisions with other non-black holes like particles?

We have current theories that tell us what to expect, but we won't know for sure until we try it. But is it even to dangerous to try it?

Also its extremely unlikely for multiple black hole like particles to (almost) ever collide in space or in a planet or in its upper atmosphere, but due to the grouping of collisions in the LHC its very possible and it certainly cannot be ruled out or even prevented. Therefore we cannot use the single collision in the upper atmosphere idea as a guide to assume multiple collisions are safe.

Ultimately scientific discovery is a process of trial and error. We think we know what we are doing and our theories work very well so we really do think we know precisely what we are doing, but ultimately for us to make any discovery, it can result in showing us something we didn't expect. So there is an element of trial and error leading to a discovery. (Its partly what makes it so interesting).

The process of discovery is vital to science to find more evidence to support or disprove our current theories, but the almost unique problem we are faced with the LHC and the possibility of creating black hole like particles, is that for the first time, the process of discovery of finding something bad has potentially globally horrific results.

It comes down to a problem of deciding the risk/reward ratio of doing any experiment. It would be nice to say with almost all experiments in the history of science, there have never been any global scale hazardous repercussions to consider of them going wrong, (although thats obviously not entirely true). But in the case of the LHC the almost unique risks are on such a huge scale, we have almost never encountered anything like this before, so its very hard to imagine and easy to dismiss, as its way beyond the norm of what we usually have to consider.

I don't have answers, just ever more questions. But I very much think its a very important philosophical question we are all faced with. Is there ever going to be an experiment that is too dangerous for us all to try and will we even know before we attempt to try it?

Also with such huge prizes of world glory of Nobel prizes (and so on) combined with the ever present endless fascination of whats possible and seeking that new discovery, I very much suspect there will always be some people who want to push and gamble for such huge prizes whatever the potential risks. But then almost no one in science really wants to hold back discoveries. (We are like a bunch of discovery junkies, always wanting that next fix of another discovery). But then who will say no, its too dangerous around so many of us who want to say yes, go for it?