I already answered this. Reread my original posts, or are you willfully not listening to anything that doesn't fit your viewpoint?

Please clarify how I am a hypocrite? Please prove your point.

Business is about making *money* and business that don't go bankrupt. The only institution that isn't sensitive to cost and return on investment is the government itself.

Nor am I greedy. I pay property taxes which keep going up which feed directly into the schools. United States has one of the highest expenditures per child on education, yet we have one of the worst literacy, mathematics, and scientific competency rates worldwide. Explain that.

I pay for road and infrastructure improvements. It's part of the gasoline tax. With the price of gas going up the government has been collecting a windfall for improvements. Yet our roads are crumbling and bridges collapsing. When I pass road crews I see about 12 to 20 people and 6 or so heavy machinery vehicles with only 1 or 2 people seeming to do anything.

Environmental mess? Get real. Do you realize that according to current EPA and OSHA rules, a cup of coffee is technically toxic pollution, and spilling it on the ground outside of our office technically needs to call in a full decontamination crew? Remember when that city in California spent $1,200,000,000 to move a bush to protect it? Does this sound reasonable?

I most certainly do pay for my raw material and for the training of my employees. I'd hire a $45,000 web designer and have to train them in Dreamweaver, basic CSS, MySQL, PHP, javascript, and CMS systems. Yes they said they had the skills and their resumes listed 4 years hands on experience. But they don't know it. One person had trouble with the basic math in making web measurements (if the web design is 1000 pixels wide, and the left menu is 180 pixels, with a 5 px margin on each side, how much area does that leave? Her answer "820 pixels?")

My point is that during training the business is depending on an employees performance after training to pay for the period while they were in training. This is to make up for the fact that they are under-educated in the first place. For the employee to demand a raise after training is grossly unfair to the business. Of course after a few times the business learns and refuses to hire those under-educated people in the first place. Good luck in getting that job fresh out of college.

I love your "All that should be FREE for the Almighty, sanctified business owner" statement. Yes, that is it exactly.

Our country was founded on raw grit. It was tough, it was hard, but it was a free wide open country. The textbooks are full of people that despite every hardship, despite cruel discrimination, an unfriendly environment, civil turmoil, and slow transportation still managed to prosper. They did not do it from government help, but in fact despite government interference. They worked 12 hour days, they innovated, retried, and branched out. And we remember them today.

I do have a sense of entitlement. I am entitled to start a business by whichever business model I prefer and believe that I am entitled to be left alone insofar as it doesn't hurt anyone else. I believe in free trade and the ability to hire the best and produce the best and make my products as attractive as possible so that people will buy from me. Yes, I believe that I'm entitled as an American to be GREAT, dammit.

That is what is right with the U.S. And I am proud of it.

I'm a small business in web development and am highly sensitive to costs. I work by myself in my home office. I do need tasks done - graphics, copywriting, and technical analysis. I can't do those myself and so I need to hire people to do that for me. I used to use a labor outsourcing website where jobs can be bid on and I can approve the bidders.

When using that site I submitted between 1 and 4 jobs per week. The people hired for these jobs were rarely from the U.S., and varied from Russia, China, India, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico. The work didn't always get done perfectly for which I blame myself. I learned how to manage a remote workforce and ensure that I put in testing criteria for the product beforehand.

I don't use those outsourcing websites anymore because I kept coming back to the same people that wanted the work. I got their contact info, and can send them a email with "Same thing, same way, new item, same price?". Much quicker than going through the website.

I do work in the U.S. (Pennsylvania) and theoretically could hire at least 3 people to work with me (I really need a fulltime graphic designer). I wouldn't consider doing it though.

First I would need to hire an Human Resources manager to handle all the government paperwork, then probably a lawyer because there are invariably workplace disputes. That is two non-productive (moneymaking) personnel just to set up a business. Then I need to worry about employees. If an employee gets "stressed" they can claim FMLA and get a free paid vacation. If an employee gets pregnant, same thing. If an employee wants to join a national labor union (yes, I've had this happen) I can't do anything to interfere and I have to be careful about handling that person.

I don't have these problems with overseas workers. They work, and they work well. I've spoken to them (yes some of them have strong accents) and they are happy and eager to do business. I've heard the stories about abuses but haven't seen anything to cite specifics. Sure there are past cases from years ago that have been corrected, but to be fair the U.S. has had its share of its own labor abuses in the past.

Now I hear that there is a political figure that wants to penalize business for doing business overseas and move the tax-rate higher. Good luck with that. I am currently a Delaware LLC, but it isn't that expensive (about $5000/yr from what I can find) to become a foreign-owned corporation (Kingstown, in St Vincent is particularly attractive). I would then change myself from listed president to the single paid employee (yes you can tax that $25000), and keep all assets and profits overseas (no, you can't tax what I haven't taken). Yes, this is legal.

America is uncompetitive. We have labor unions that has run manufacturing into bankruptcy (US Steel, textiles, GM, Boeing). Americans are too poorly trained, greedy (once they are competent they want pay raises or leave for other jobs), and arrogant (one employee wanted a room to smoke marijuana in for an hour each day because he had a legal "prescription" for it (stress-related)). Labor in the U.S. has become a nightmare for business owners and a running joke for international observers. This is even written up in current business books about U.S. labor.

It is not just me that is doing this. I'm not the only one using these job outsourcing web sites. I'm seeing signs that there are a lot of companies that are submitting dozens of jobs at a time, or complex jobs that require teams of developers and thousands of man-hours.

When the U.S. become more competitive things will improve. Pretty speeches won't do it.

Actually, there is a couple of degrees for that...

One is majoring in Political Science ("I do not do this for me, nor for my community, but because it the right thing to do for our CHILDREN.")

The other is getting a degree in law (any specialty) ("Is it true that you still beat your wife?")

Solution: configure your email server to scrub all active content in emails.
The original article states that there wasn't any active content in the email. The email was just a social engineering ploy to cause a person to go to an innocent looking but actually malware loaded web page. The email that the person in Epsilon received mentioned a forgotten friendship and recent wedding. Everyone has forgotten past friends, and wedding photos can be nice to look at. Certainly an employee would not worry about violating the company's acceptable use policy on this site.

The part I'm curious about is how the website managed to install the malware on the computer. Most company computers now days have the administration functions locked out and cannot be changed by the computer user. Even if Epsilon did not secure the PC's against installation I cannot figure out how the webpage delivered a malware payload that would disable the anti-virus without any warning. After that installing the keyloggers and remote administration is easy.

I'm also surprised that Epsilon did not have any network analyzers already installed. A good system administrator keeps watch over even tiny leaks like Microsoft Office products checking their versions (and serials numbers) with the Microsoft site. System Administrators keep watch to see where their fellow employees have been browsing (www.somethingxxx.??? will get you fired, www.timewastingfunsite.??? will get you a warning, a family site like www.weddingphotos4u.net (the malware site used against Epsilon) will be ignored). How did they miss this traffic going back and forth on their network?

Anyone can be fooled into visiting a hostile site if the attack and site are constructed to be as attractive as possible. I do blame Epsilon for missing the impact and changes that such a site will have on a computer and network.

I don't totally agree with you. He has been working on this code/cipher for years so his personal algorithm has probably gone through several revisions, becoming tougher with time. It is complicated enough that even with his years of playing with that cipher he still makes mistakes.

This really has the look of a code done completely in the persons head without the need of a sheet to do calculations on. There are too many mistakes, and the writing shows haste and carelessness, not the slow process of copying out the resulting code blocks as they are calculated. The three simplest codes that people start using is the simple substitution cipher (ex A becomes Z), transposition ciphers (ABCD becomes CABD) and the Playfair cipher. Next comes the Vigenère cipher, but that is usually too difficult to do in your head.

This doesn't look like it uses a one-time pad since there is too many weird repetitions, notably NCBE and WLD. I'd say something like a combination of a Playfair cipher, simply because there are some things in the message he couldn't encrypt like the 's at the bottom, and the inc near the top of page 1. The circled bit in the top right really looks like a key (and I'd bet the key is obscured by a substitution cipher).

The weird repetition really makes me think of Playfair ciphers, but the problem is the grouping. Playfairs always result in 2-letter groupings, and this message shows a lot of five letter groupings (ex page 1, line 2, block 1 "TFRNE") and even using Playfair would not result is so many NCBE.

That NCBE really puzzles me. Anyone who knows enough about codes to use one would know about the problems with such an obvious repeating element. As other people have mentioned it almost looks like a symbol for the period, but why use a four character replacement, and why be so obvious about it?

I did test out a few Playfair blocks to see if I could get anywhere, but obviously I am missing a few steps somewhere.

Anyone else think that the lines in the middle that have 71, 74, and 75 are steps/directions? It almost looks like the first phrases there are "first", "second" and "third". The part at the bottom almost appears to be an address (194 XXX's (NCBE) XXXXX) the last five either being "drive" or "court"

This PsyOps division engaged in heavy persuasion sounds like what everyone else does everyday. Lets see...

"compiling detailed profiles of the VIPs, including their voting records, their likes and dislikes, and their "hot-button issues."
Okay. To some degree this is what a lot of people do before a romantic date. You try to find out what the other person will like by checking their Facebook page, checking with mutual friends, and maybe floating a few vague questions to the date. People going to a job interview does their back research on the president of the company, the company history, and any industry issues so that they appear professional, competent, and knowledgeable. How can it be wrong for the army to do the same commonsense action?

"deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds." "What do I have to plant inside their heads?"
So what? This is called management. Anyone that has ever been given a job performance warning or given one to an employee has had the same thing. The message is clear. You will do better. You will work harder, longer, and smile while doing it. You are lucky to have a job, and we can fire you. The police are training on how to give clear voice commands to keep order. Mothers constantly work with just this technique to train their children not to do what's fun like hurting the family pet, breaking furniture, and generally dangerous behavior (no, you WILL NOT jump backwards down the stairs. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!? Good. Now TELL ME what you WON'T DO.) Is the article seriously expect the army not to use the most basic management techniques?

"CIA to put together background dossiers on congressional opponents"
Yep, and employers routinely run background checks on all job candidates. Drunk driving, sorry, no job for you. Bad debt means you are irresponsible and untrustworthy.

"exploiting new technologies like blogging and Wikipedia"
Companies now monitor all social media sites. I know of one that has software key loggers on all company computers to get the blog passwords and monitor the content. Any negative posting about the company and the person is fired within three weeks for general performance issues (including the use of non-work related blogging on company computers). This is not illegal. Should it be illegal for the army to do the same?

"Holmes learned that he was the subject of an investigation, called an AR 15-6"
Yep, and hopefully Holmes will be thrown in prison. In business this is called either insider trading (in finance), or ethical misuse of corporate information (business). It is a felony and there have been a lot of people that have gone to jail for it (ex, Martha Stewart). In the military Bradley Manning (Wiki leaks) has been facing military court martial for basically the same thing. Apparently Holmes feels he special and that he is immune from investigation for exposing serious military intelligence.

"After being reprimanded, Holmes and his team were essentially ignored for the rest of their tours in Afghanistan"
Yes, that sounds about right. Who in their right minds pays attention to a general screw-up? In relationships that break up the people remain separated and generally ignore each other afterward. People that are fired are escorted carefully to the door and then forgotten (and replaced). If you switch from one bank to a different bank you don't keep going to the previous bank to make sure they are doing okay. This is only common sense. Holmes is indeed very special.

"there is no way to tell what, if any, influence it had on American policy."
Little to none, certainly not illegal or even questionable.

Sure, it has been done. Most notably demonstrated here. I only mentioned that the camera metadata protects me in case of a lawsuit.

There is a stock photography provider called Getty Images that looks for people that have been using their images without approval or payment. To those that infringe they send a RIAA-like letter offering a settlement if a fine is paid. I use a lot of stock photography (mostly through a different but well known and very legitimate site). When possible I use my own puny 6 megapixel camera (and sometimes my 3 megapixel droid) to take stock photos. I always proof that the photos are mine. These photos of mine save me a lot of money.

Even so I've gotten 1 photo infringement letter from a San Diego law firm informing me of pending action. Even though I knew I was right it was extremely worrisome. I did not want to fight the good fight and win a Pyrrhic victory by going bankrupt in legal fees. I sent full details to the firm about the photo, that it was mine, and that I had the raw camera footage for it (including one that had me in the picture). This was a little before camera metadata but that would have been additional proof to make it easier. Regardless I never heard from that firm again.

In a perfect world, yes. However this is not a perfect world so security measures need to be opt-out. All software security measures are opt-out. This includes everything from serial numbers that must be entered so that the software will work to phone-home information that is used by everything from on-line games to the latest version of MSOffice (it must contact MS online every 6 months or it stops working). If this wasn't done the pirates would be disrupting software sales more than they are. Right now pirates are honestly a major nuisance to software developers. If everything was opt-out by default it would be impossible.

However you never really address my original point - that being that these automatically enabled features are helpful and hardly hurt my freedom to do what I want. In fact those are helpful features.

I read the article, and see nothing in the so-called "traitorware" that is objectionable.

I *like* cameras that incorporates metadata. This protects me from lawsuits and proves that the picture is mine and can be used however I want and as often I want. Because I can prove that the photo is mine through the metadata I have an easy way to defend myself in copyright and infringement lawsuits. For me the metadata is a selling feature and a benefit.

Printers that include tags on the paper that can be traced back to the person doing the printing I can also understand. People misuse printers to print out pedophilia (you are scum, and hope you are caught), counterfeiting (I like being able to use money, and hope you are caught), and threatening letters (my sister got several, and I hope you are caught). I just can't get that excited about anyone being able to trace what I print back to me. I can't think of a situation where I would care.

I don't own an IPhone (Droid), but I *like* the idea that it can send my location and heartbeat back to Apple. I'd have liked this on my laptop that had gotten stolen. I'd just call the police, and send Apple the police report. It would make tracking the device actually feasible, and maybe get some of these thieves to be arrested. Cars to some degree have this (called OnStar) and it's a big selling point. I refuse to get concerned about Apple wanting to listen to my heartbeat. Now if they would be so kind to implant the phone, monitor continuously, and notify medical help (and tell them where I am) if the heartbeat becomes arrhythmic and/or stops I would really appreciate that (heart problems is the leading cause of death).

How is this so-called "traitorware" an issue?

I view this change with regret

Barnes and Nobles has significantly helped me.

I remember saving up my allowance as a kid so that I could go to the bookstore in the mall (to be fair I think it was a Waldenbooks) and buy new science fiction. I remember the first time I read Dune by Frank Herbert, and more so the White Plague. Later I started buying programming books (no, they aren't cheap) and got a good job. More recently I needed books on business and management, and am now reading "Made to Stick - Why some ideas survive and others die". This was purchased as B&N.

I don't have the opportunities with e-merchants that I do with physical booksellers. I enjoy looking at the flyleaf (sometimes possible at Amazon) and turn to the middle of the book and see how I like it (not possible with Amazon). I like to heavily browse the book before I buy it, which is just not possible with Amazon. This book has been very informative, but I do not think I would have been able to know enough about it to choose it by going to Amazon.

Do I pay more by going to B&N? Sure. Will I be able to find useful books at Amazon? Maybe. Will I enjoy visiting a web site for a bargain basement book that I have to wait 3 days to get as much as seeing it, browsing it, buying it and reading it when I go to the store? Of course not. After I add shipping costs the price works out the same between me going to the bookstore and having Amazon ship it.

On a bigger scale I worry about the power of bookshops being reduced to just a few outlets. Washington has been vastly increasing its power and taking over major industries. Washington is not kind or tolerant to the media. Washington has been caught in altering experts reports to fit its pre-made conclusions. The government now has the power to pick up the phone, call Amazon, and strip books from the shelves. We will be told "It is for the public good".