Did your driving test cover that?

If they didn't want to have legal problems they should have pointed it at Amazon.com or Walmart

So they point it at amazon.com and it buys some drugs from some seller that managed to get them listed, using a code name that the bot just happens to hit at random. What now? (Actually, since magic mushroom spores are legal in large portions of the US I'm a little curious if they can be found on amazon.com, but not curious enough to actually search for them and screw up the already terrible suggestions)

If they had made a gun that randomly shoots moving objects

The problem with all these gun bot scenarios is that in all of these examples, the gun bot is harming someone else. If a corporation shot someone else, it would not be arrested for murder, but it WOULD be sued for the damage it caused.

In this case, the drug bot generally harms no one, and might violate criminal law - if the law says that unintentionally buying drugs is illegal.

Here's a question to really beat your brain on: what if the bot found a hitman and bought a contract, then filled in its owner's address in the "delivery" form. Would this be [assisted] suicide?

You need an -ism to describe privately owned means of destruction.

requires physical access to the car.

Good thing my car stays in a locked server rack in a room with a security guard posted at the door requiring a finger print and an RFID card to access.

that will only travel on certain routes at slower speeds and with less options

Hey! That sounds like my daily commute! Thanks Forbes dude, you've sold me!

A Consumer's opinions OUGHT to be the authority on that consumer's consumption.

Given that the bankruptcy is mostly due to the lawsuit demanding that Aereo pay them a bajillion dollars, they'd basically be paying that money to themselves. If they turn down a $1 billion dollar offer for the gear, then they don't get a billion dollars, because there's no other way they're going to get this money legit.

Personally I think the first post is the most insightful for once: they'll create a front company, put in an offer to buy the gear for $1 or whatever, reject everything else, kill off Aereo, then open CBSeo at ten times the price and half the features then when everyone quits they'll whine about piracy until the feds pass new laws giving the government more power. Wins all around! (except for us little people, but who cares about us little people?)

Because your choice is to live in the middle of nowhere, where you can have whatever trees you want and enjoy blistering fast dialup speeds, or you can live in the city where you have zero trees, or you can live in suburbia where you can do whatever the real owners of the land tell you to do.

Echoing previous suggestions may influence a person here or there to plant an extra tree

Sorry, my subdivision bylaws say there is to be exactly one tree in my backyard, no more no less. If my house doesn't fit the cookiecutter mold, it might make my neighbors' less valuable if mine is worse or more taxable if mine is better.

Shame I'm out of mod points.

Fact is, even the government hasn't got a clue who you are, other than the fact that you've got a card from them with a photo and a name printed on it. You probably got that card by showing them some other card with a photo and a name printed on it. That card, you probably got because you convinced your electric company and the library that your name really WAS Bobba Fett. They probably didn't care too much as long as they got paid and the books came back.

Are you implying that this was a publicity stunt planned by Sony?

False dichotomy.

The hack was obviously not a publicity stunt.

Turning the hack into a promotion for a shitty movie that wants to be Inglourius Basterds but can't pull it off? Well, when life gives you lemons...

Welcome to what awaits the internet post-neutrality: more of the same, only online, and with fewer scrolling banners letting you know it's the other guy's fault.

when they have a 3D printer in their garage?

How are you going to afford to run it? When production is automated and labor costs $0, goods will cost the price of raw materials plus the CEO's pay plus shareholder dividends.

So we are supposed to believe that Google does not have some bot crawling as much of Tor as possible?

With the right key and cipher, it could be an encrypted message to pick up milk and eggs on the way home from the store.