Since, you know, the whole debacle about them writing scripts about for the police. And, the general creepiness of not having to have a warrant to grab video from the devices themselves.

If nothing else comes from it, at least there will be a snapshot of the current level of biodiversity in the lake. Which could be useful for future planning if there is ever a algae bloom or other problem that arises. They could look back at the test and track where the problem first showed up.

There is a PoS coin that solves that issue. Gridcoin for example.

It would be interesting if it picked up the "gunk" while hanging out there.

If you want to serve a purpose AND get a monetary reward, you could use something like Gridcoin.

My personal view is that most western societies seem to be on a trajectory of ever closed groups, while the hardware we live on seems to be becoming more and more open.

If a major world power were to go to war with another, what is a multinationals responsibility? Especially if one of those nations demand access to their resources. In this instance, Microsoft was initially a American company. And they have been known to work with American agencies in the past. But they also market to Russia. Really, the question would apply to Wal-mart or any other company that has large databases.

According to google, 50 gigabits equals 6.25 gigabytes.

I'm being serious, I'm not sure what a proportional response would be. Attacking any their infrastructures would seem heavy handed, if not a invitation to war. Such as using something like stuxnet. At the same time, attacking their financial institutions would just invite a similar response.