If they are compromising sysadmins without due process, then a sysadmin like Snowden compromising them is just desserts.

Absent government enforcement, NO ONE would be in the software business so the contribution to monopoly is ultimately neutral. So much for that argument.

Not true at all. The business would be very differently structured, but it would still exist, and would likely be much more productive.

Anti-trust was government DOING ITS JOB, serving the public good over the private evil. It was CORRUPT government (republican in this case, though there are plenty of examples of Democrats doing likewise) and all you can argue there is that Capitalism CORRUPTS and absolute Captialism Corrupts Absolutely.

The Anti-trust trial was a legitimate action of the government, it failed in that regard due to corruption, but political corrupttion has nothing to do with absolute capitalism. It's cronyism that is the problem, and copyright and patent based businesses are very much antithetical to capitalism. Free markets are free as in freedom, after all.

Government contracts are issued BASED ON WHAT BUSINESS OFFERS, not the other way around. I give you the Osprey as an example.

I was saying that parties with closer ties tend to get a lot more government contracts regardless of the actual quality and features of their products and services.

The question is who commited the greater violation of trust, weev or AT&T?

Not reproducing is by definition an evolutionary dead end, no matter how many times you do it. There's no way for that trait to become dominant because it does not spread itself well. The trait is literally "NOT COMING BACK", which is something that does not keep coming back BY DEFINITION. Evolution favors reproduction. The inevitable failure related to terminator crops is not that the terminator genes will spread, but that the other genes will.

If the consequences for weev and Apple/AT&T were roughly proportional, there would probably be a lot less outcry. However, as far as a cursory search reveals, they didn't receive any kind of reprimand other than looking like idiots.

Actually, it is a big concern when the justice system is perverted against its fundamental ideals. We used the whole 'ends justify the means, so fuck the rules' crap to take down some mob bosses, and now we have all the RICO crap and civili forfeiture is commonplace. This allows unjust and impractical laws to stand unchallenged because the state can nail anybody if they really want to, and they have the leverage to make most people plea bargain out. We commit crimes on a regular basis because of our incredibly complex legal system, the NSA tracks every time we wipe our ass, and they drop information to locals for 'parallel construction.' That means that, absent sufficient public outcry and scrutiny, they can put anyone in jail whenever they want.

Our justice system was set up the way it is for a very good reason, and it's incredibly naive of you to think that this is okay because weev is an asshole.

The notion is more that AT&T has a responsibility to its customers to diligently protect its customers' sensitive information. It's not really saying that there is nothing wrong with the actions, but rather that the far greater concern is the irresponsibility of the party whose security was so poor.

Let's take this idea to an extreme scenario, albeit one that's not too improbable. For a very long time, a nuclear launch code was actually '00000000.' Let's say some hacker had accessed their network, determined this was the case, and made all of the machines with displays on the network say 'Change the fucking password before you doom us all, you stupid fuckwits.' Who are you going to be angry at, the hacker who intercepted their network, or the party that ignored their responsibility in protecting something that could have potentially destroyed civilization as we know it?

One, Microsoft's monopoly is very much tied to copyright and patents, which very much do need government. Two, you seem to not be understanding that 'a lot of good friends' doesn't equate with complete control of the government, it means that they can nudge things in their behavior from time to time, which they clearly can, and the anti-trust trial is a pretty good example of that.

no, getting huge is a result of the monopoly practice of business and does not need government.

It usually does. Government contracts bring in a lot of money, and end up causing everyone working with anyone working with the government to be compatible with you. That's pretty much the only thing keeping fax machines alive today.

Fortunately, life finds a way, and time bombs are an evolutionary dead end. I'm not saying that GMOs shouldn't be scrutinized, but you don't seem to be looking at this properly, and also seem to be conflating what the GMO industry is doing right now with the underlying technology.

Except being drunk is actually a benefit in a car crash. You are relatively relaxed, which reduces the extent of injury.

It only took them a few decades to figure this one out.

You are actually suggesting the dominance of the cheapest in the market. I won't disagree with that, but what I'm saying is that when you get as large as Microsoft, you tend to make good friends with a lot of people in the government or you don't stay as large as Microsoft.

The odds are not in your favor either way. A creative career has never been a stable choice, and models that are less dependent upon copyright tend to have more reasonable wealth distribution. Also, it's quite hilarious that you bring up the potential for artists producing non-representative works to please a small powerful group of wealthy people as if we aren't already in a state where that is rampant.

It's a great business opportunity. You can sell that land at a high price to gun nuts.

That's an extremely narrow perspective on heroism, and it would likely exclude the winners of many prestigious military medals. Your definition of hero would exclude even Robin Hood, practically an archetypal hero. You are basically speaking of a strict militaristic honor code, which is not something the general public applies to heroes.