Actually, *total* theatre is what I experienced in a Greyhound terminal a few years ago. They "beefed up" security following a totally insane and horrific decapitation on a bus.
Everyone lined up around some pillars, geriatric screeners unzipping backpacks to peer inside, not even opening luggage or duffel bags.
And the wanding... oh lord the wanding, which I swear, looked like a Radio Shack coin finder without any batteries, and didn't detect so much as my belt buckle.

The theatre only existed in major terminals, because 15 minutes out of town you can board the bus by standing at the side of the highway with just a piece of ID for collateral until the next ticket agent stop.

At least there probably weren't any Greyhound security guards masturbating to backscatter images.

Please try to keep in mind, these laws are old, and not being under the reign of a monarch is new. These issues will affect every former UK colony.

Australia and NZ are still hashing it out, actually.
http://www.baldwins.com/australian-and-new-zealand-copyright-law-for-databases-compilations-and-directories/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright#Canada
"Permission to reproduce Government of Canada works, in part or in whole, and by any means, for personal or public non-commercial purposes, or for cost-recovery purposes, is not required, unless otherwise specified in the material you wish to reproduce."

The "otherwise specified" part would seem to be the $5000 Canada Post wants to charge for its directory. Which it has the right to do. Statistics Canada also charges for its data, one of the few places where government documents are not free. Why? Because information has value. The Do Not Call List has a trivial price attached to it, and has been exploited to high hell because foreign telemarketers can afford to do it and are not bound by our laws. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Do_Not_Call_List#Criticism

Ok, now you're just starting to look silly and ill informed...
http://searchengineland.com/proposed-uk-law-would-immunize-search-engines-against-copyright-claims-33336
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/04/08/industry-google-afp-dc-idUSN0728115420070408
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1457-Search-Engines-Indexing-and-Copyright-Law
http://www.blogstudiolegalefinocchiaro.com/wordpress/?p=258

It's not the engine, it's the data. Postal codes were *authored*, there is no question about that.

No. That would imply it has privatized, and it has not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Post_Corporation#Privatization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_corporations_of_Canada#Federal

You might be thinking of Air Canada?

Indeed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window

I propose a new mascot for this chauvinistic counter-culture.

Don Drupal.

Ah, so it was my fault that I didn't read Quantum's fine print on the box that said "Fireball (consumer throwaway edition)", because in 1995 that information was only a CompuServe search away? So I should have expected that drive to fail under warranty, as well as the THREE RMA REPLACEMENT DRIVES they sent me *also* failing under warranty?

This took place over the span of 3 years, so it wasn't a "bad batch"/ I had to give up on the brand just to stop the cycle of pain, because they would always send a replacement drive no questions asked. Never had a similar issue with another brand before or since (and their shipping was totally fine).

I receive some tutor funding for my university classes. I don't need to attend a confused study group if I don't want to.
You should see the looks on some grown adult faces when they realise someone else has a leg up on them.
Despite the fact I have learning disabilities that already make them more capable than me, they perceive me as privileged, not as someone striving for equity.
How much more compassionate do you think a 9 year old will be? If children understand *anything*, it's favoritism.

None of that answered the spirit of your question though. Helping poor children from poor families, does nothing to help middle-class children with parents who don't give a shit about technology (or their education). You cannot solve these inequities within our current society by giving everyone a web browser.

It's absolutely far-fetched. But so were black swans. ;) I certainly agree with your conclusion.

1) I'm not making any realistic claims about the technology or the engineer's actions. I'm devil's advocating that Director of X is so worried about losing a sale they insist on a ridiculous layer of redundancy. It's not likely, but it is most definitely plausible. (Unless you're defending the intelligence of Microsoft management? oh snap!) And even though this story is about Xbox, information gets exposed elsewhere all the time. If you're not willing to blame the technology, then it comes down to poor decisions and human error.

2) That minuscule case is a $10-$50 loss, plus negative word of mouth and mindshare damage. I don't have a tidy economics formula for it, but That's Bad. Talking about 5 year expiry dates doesn't enter into it, given that before the 360/PS3 no console with an online marketplace had a lifecycle lasting longer than 5 years. And the user knows that it's their job to update when they receive a new card.

3) Employees under stress decide not to bother doing a lot of things. Everyone was the new guy once. Everyone has a senior moment eventually. Let's pretend this issue has existed since 2006, and it has just been discovered in 2012. Sounds like many security patches I've applied.

A lot of /. comments are the search for logical justification of how shit happens. That's a very engineer thing to do. But businesses are no more logical than the fallible people who run them. How many stories do we read about the valiant IT crusader trying to sway their luddite management into awareness of The Right Way? :) Shit happens, because people.

That's what consumer protection laws that declare EULA clauses invalid are for.

Don't have one? Write your politician.

Neither has that Director.

The point, I think, is that it's naive not to assume some engineer decided to store the info in *both* places. If you were trying to make the customer experience as smooth as possible, and you had 99% confidence that the home box was in possession of the Real User, you might want to make the process a little more "foolproof".

Say the billing server glitches and corrupts their copy of the CC... Poll the console, get the number, transaction approved. The alternative is pop up a CC entry screen, which has a non-zero chance to frustrate the Real User to the point of cancelling the sale. Bad for a market built on instant gratification.

Any goodheart engineer who cries foul from a system security training point of view, has probably never had to answer to a Director more concerned with their department operating at a loss for years. Xbox division regularly dipped into and out of the red until the last couple of years.

And the bigger point is, with all the revisions to the Dashboard, it may be impossible to know when this purported "feature" was added, taken away, or actively used. I bet you 2800 MS Points that the next dash update roots out and purges this data. Won't stop the class-actions though.

Yes, we know. That was true in 2006 and it's true today.

I'm sure MIT has an academic advocacy group for students with disabilities (most North American universities do) and I'm sure that these kinds of articles leave desk marks on their executive foreheads. Whether or not they have stodgy dinosaur professors who actually believe disabilities are simply physical limitations, the perception that they are is a constant struggle internally and externally.

Why so skeptical? If you can't trust an internet comment from THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER, what *can* you trust?

P.S. Clams got legs!

Wish I had some mod points for you good sir.