Personally, I have no quarrel with the way Steam is run. It offers me a great deal of convenience, some excellent sales, and the ability to download and play my games on just about any computer I want to. When I buy games digitally, I buy through Steam because I feel that they've done DRM "right", or at least well enough that I don't have any problems.

Steam's customer support has also been fantastic to me over the years. I sent them an email inquiry just this afternoon about a purchasing question and they responded within a few hours - on a Sunday. The response was polite, succinct, informative, and written in perfect English.

Valve itself has also done a great deal to command my respect. When I sent an email to a member of the Team Fortress 2 team regarding an issue with the game overlay I was having, I was put into contact with one of their programmers who examined some stack traces I sent over and helped troubleshoot the issue. Their executives also have a sense of humor and personally respond to emails frequently. Every single time I've contacted Valve and the Steam team, they've been respectful, helpful, and treated me like a customer rather than a criminal. As a result, I shop almost exclusively at Steam because I feel they've earned my loyalty as a customer. That is what I feel most software/music/movie companies fail to realize: if you treat your customers like criminals, they'll certainly consider acting like them.

I agree that this is probably part of it, but it's also probably to discourage people from registering tons of fake/malicious accounts to make malicious extensions. It's like the idea of charging a fee to send email - the reasoning there being that if it cost spammers even $0.01 per email, they'd cut down the volume to avoid losing money.

Is it just a problem on my end, or did he delete the entry? (See first link in TFS; I get a 404 now).

Google Cache to the rescue! And just in case, Coral cache of Google cache. :P

Now asbestos-free!

I actually like the parent's Doritos analogy - it's true when you think of it that way; there would be all sorts of uproar if physical goods were advertised and sold the way broadband is.
"Up to" a dozen bagels in your order, or "up to" two patties on your burger would never fly. And who would work for pay on an "up to" scale? I'm sure companies would be happy to pay someone "up to" four hundred dollars an hour.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, is the fact that a sizable portion of the population is not terribly computer-literate or technically savvy. They want "an Internet" or "a Google" or (my new favorite) "the Facebook" and don't really care much about how they get it.
The average end user, in my experience, has difficulty distinguishing between a slow computer and a slow connection. To many, they might as well be one and the same. I get asked for help all the time with people saying "my computer is slow" and it turns out they actually have connectivity problems. ISPs not only take advantage of that mentality, they count on it. I'm sure many of you have seen the commercials for those sites like "FinallyFast" or "MaxMySpeed" or whatever they're called, where they advertise a "free scan" to tell if you're "infected" or "experiencing registry errors", and by purchasing their product, you can avoid having to buy a new computer. That is basically the same demographic ISPs are targeting; the population that knows they want a computer and an internet connection but doesn't know much beyond that. I would honestly describe it as predatory.

I know I'll probably get modded down for not taking a more pro-capitalistic stance, but in my opinion this is a case where consumers are being taken advantage of - and there simply are no better options. It's very easy to say "vote with your dollar and don't buy their services", but an internet connection is critical for many people nowadays. I know several people who run businesses out of their homes using websites, VOIP lines, etc. For them, canceling their internet connection is just not an option. If there were an ISP that actually provided good service and had consumer-friendly policies, I would be more than happy to switch to their service and recommend all of my friends. The problem is that my options right now are "bad", "worse", and "even worse yet". Comcast blocks all torrent upload data in my area (disclaimer: I don't pirate content, but I do use torrents for FOSS/Linux downloads and similar uses); Verizon has declared that they plan to test a 150GB (if I remember correctly) monthly cap on FIOS in this area; and there's basically no one else around because they've been driven out of business or out of the area. Again, with the nature of the internet and the role it plays in communication and commerce, I would almost consider supporting it being regulated like a public utility, or at least with more oversight. It's all well and good to say "don't give them your money", but when I need the internet to obtain that money, I don't have many options.

I would like to learn more about how this actually works, though...I'm kind of disappointed that TFA was more of an informational piece about the developer than about the tech itself, though I guess I should have expected as much from the headline.

Oh, will you look at that... theres a tin foil hat on my head...

The government put it there!

This is honestly a pretty fun way to test, in my opinion. I take it as a challenge to see if I can manage to break anything. A good place to start is to look for any assumptions you've made - that a user is going to enter a number in this field, for example - and try attacking those. I also like the idea of trading code, though I haven't tried it myself. Having another pair of eyes looking over your work is always a good thing.

Maybe it's the fact that it's 3AM here, or perhaps the fact that I've just finished a long study session for upcoming final exams, but my gullibility is much higher than usual. I actually thought this would be related to zombies. I am massively disappointed.

Assuming you're in the US, the cop is not required to read you your rights during an arrest. See Wikipedia for basic information (IANAL, so feel free to look it up if you don't trust Wikipedia to be correct).

The problem with this: Why would the MPAA ever want to do that when they can still get away with charging ten times as much for DRM'd movies and just sue anyone who dissents into bankruptcy? They need incentive to change, and if it takes cyberlockers and other people getting paid to do it, then maybe they'll finally get their act together.

It seems to me like this is a strange requirement. I couldn't tell you the last time I actually went to a brick-and-mortar store and bought an antivirus product. And what about lesser-known or free antivirus solutions? Unless you're going to find someone with an internet connection and download them onto USB/an external drive, it seems like this requirement would negatively impact their marketshare (which, if they're lesser-known, would admittedly be small).

I wish I could clarify, but I've honestly never gotten a satisfactory explanation for this either. I've talked to former and current government employees with knowledge in this area, but none of them have really been able to give me a good answer as to why this is even possible.

Unfortunately, that's not enough to reassure me. How many times have we seen laws "creatively interpreted" to allow someone to do something that might otherwise be considered illegal?

Back when I was in elementary school, all you did was tell the librarian your name and she'd look you up in the system. I don't recall if there was anything to prevent abuse of the system - they might have asked for a birthday or something. Either way, this just seems unnecessary more than it is concerning.