I read these kinds of articles and forgive me for being a little one eyed here, I mean, it is from the "Wikileaks party" website after all. Though it makes you think, anyone, American citizen or not, If they dwell on Slashdot and care about a free internet but at the same time have a nasty thing to say about Snowden. I have something to tell you.

You're a Dick. Plain and simple, you're a Dick and there is no cure.

Traitor or not and I feel the term traitor these days is about as controversial as the word terrorism (wonder how many PRISM flagged words I'm triggering now WHOAAA!!). In fact, the word traitor is fast becoming an outdated term the more the world becomes interconnected. So moving forward from the labels put aside here, lets look at the facts, this person's actions have caused this upheaval and whatever happens from here on we have HIM to thank for that upheaval.

Are we still questioning whether that upheaval was to our benefit or to our detriment? As far as I can see Russia and China are treating this as one big laugh and not giving the US Govt. the respect it demands but come'on Julian Assange did the very same thing, aren't they all used to it by now?

So back to the "you're a dick" sentiment for a second. I.E the Snowden haters out there. Do you think for one second that Russia and China were blind to the PRISM program before it's plastering in public domain? Do you think that any of the secrets out there such as the Pacnet ordeal was blind to China? Right here this very news article we are seeing US allies run and hide at the mention of PRISM.

Doesn't seem like that big of a secret to me if half the freakin world Govts knew about it!!

This is where I think most of us have it wrong. Not to say you're opinion is not valid, it's very valid but just take a look at these two news items which I've seen over the past few days my self.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-24/whistleblower-praises-edward-snowdens-magnificent/4777188
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/google-fisa-gag-orders/ (probably better articles about this issue but anyway)

It's no so much that power brokers (or people in power as such) are doing anything wrong. I see this as a form of "innocent corruption" I.E establishing mutually beneficial relationships between organisations for the self betterment with little regard of the benefit to others or simply put the standing philosophy of "everyone else should have the same shot".

Consider this as an example. Say I'm a boss / manager of an organisation. I need an employee and rather than advertising an available position publicly I chose a friend to fill the position. Have I acted unethically? I see a lot of this in the same light and since Govt. is supposed to be run in an impartial format and needs to be run according to what's fair publicly (because business is not held to the same level of accountability). However, regardless of these types of rules this likeness still takes place.

For me, I'd rather not pin it down and say these people acted illegally, in most cases "these people" are most likely kind hearted law abiding citizens who would never wish ill will upon anyone, yet, the situation is now such that is has gotten out of control.

Since when did /. become an aggregate of the Daily Show? News for nerds... stuff that matters?

http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russia-says-it-has-no-authority-to-expel-snowden/2013/06/24/325281f2-dcaf-11e2-bd83-e99e43c336ed_story.html

I'm not surprised by this. I have a friend whose an activist / environmentalist and he keeps telling me about how awful the world has become and how the Govt is taking away heritage listed rainforest for it's own financial desire. My response to him was clear. Go to the open forums that are held discussing the future of certain lands and ask the hard questions to the face of the people who are taking active part in the corruptive activities. See I have a theory why things are the way they are.

It isn't that world has "become" a bad place and all these shady goings on have started, oh no, the world "is" a bad place and it's because nobody knows what they are doing is wrong. Consider what the internet has done here with the whole Snowden situation. The internet is shining a light on the dark crevices on our society and we are seeing all the huddled groups of cockroaches who are used to the darkness step into the light for first time.

Isn't it better to assume that Google's employees simply followed the rules of their predecessors as their predecessors perhaps thought (being patriotic and all) that what they were doing at the time was the best thing and had the best of intentions?

What Snowden did was ask the tough questions and Google answered those tough questions with a "Golly you're right!". Don't crucify Google for having a moral sense when asked because those who are in positions of power that steal only do so because they get away with it, no one questions it and therefore "it's obviously okay to do". When they find out it's not 99% of the time they back peddle, usually without any argument.

If you're talking about sheer data size you're wrong, since the GP's statement was regarding data storage.

If you're talking about individual bits of data, it's almost impossible to measure against eachother (unlesss both companies released figures). Facebook would host a lot of data in relation to messaging services but that alone brings up more problems in gauging the size and activity of Facebook. Every time I log on to my PC Gtalk and Skype runs the background. People who use Facebook occupy Facebook for prelonged periods because of how the service is devised. I'm almost certian that if it was a desktop app that ran in the task tray FB's page duration time would falter (right now my friend is using Facebook right next to me, she's having to sit on a website to "chat" to her family overseas, she'll log off Facebook and call them via Skype later in the day to have a conversation, a conversation that will cost her real money) *.

Consider, the average size of a WMV or MPG is far larger than wall posts and resized JPGs. Further, the Play Store (which is a part of YouTube) supports distribution of movies and music and does so to SmartTV's, SmartPhones, Gaming Consoles even most new BlueRay players sport a YouTube player of some sort.

* I do realise that Facebook is upping its game regarding these forms of services, the issue is that alot of it sits on 3rd party platfroms (like Skype), in actual fact a lot of Facebooks interactive services (such as Maps / Translations services) rely on the Microsoft.

P.S I wont even go into Facebook pages, many people may have them, many people may use them. I have now setup several of the things with paid adverising surrounding them, Google Adwords still drives more relvant and better customers to business sites. FB pages get likes, FB pages dont get $$ in peoples pockets and the latest figures show that nearly 2 / 3's of advertisers do not know how affective FB pages / FB advertising is for their companies - but this is another rant for another day.

Hardly, comparing what Google does vs what Facebook does. Remember Youtube alone sports 1bn+ uniques per month. What is Facebooks entire user base again? 1bn users in total. So you take just one part of Google's kingdom and it amasses to more use and value to the internet then the entire Facebook kingdom. Infact I'd go as far to say Facebook and Youtube are comparibly similar companies, size and value wise.

Social Graph is just another unstandarised dtd and tag subset the internet can do without. We hated it when Microsoft did it but it's okay for Facebook to get away with it? I think not.

Facebook should of stayed with innovation regarding photo and photo distribution services. That's its niche and its most popular service. Instant Messaging, App development and location services are all been and done and the ones that do it, do it at an OS level, therefore there's no room for a middle man and why Facebook Home was a failure.

Please, if you're going to steal something you should check to make sure it's of real value to someone first. Donkey Kong Junior is perhaps the biggest ticket item you've mentioned!

PRISM as a concept does not scare me, it doesn't come as much of a surprise to me, really. However ... and there are a few problems where it's all heading.

a) Lets consider the value of PRISM to the NSA in the first place. Going back to the episodes of Hogan's Heroes we all know that the "enemy" would in many circumstances communicate in code to obfuscate their messages. Now, last time i checked the internet is a pretty big place. Even with some of the best code breaking software out there, there is no difference between tapping the information in and out of say Google vs tapping the information in and out of telecommunications companies. So PRISM's inherent value, to me, seems pretty minor. In fact it seems just down right lazy in the first place and pretty useless considering the amounts of data that would need sifting.

b) Precedent of accepting this as a people. There are plenty of activist groups today trying to constantly stamp out privacy concerns over the internet. They are so afraid that eventually "the other side" will win regardless. Isn't this simply a huge disregard for due process? Isn't this just a static example of no matter how hard people fight, the internet will eventually become regulated without the consent of the people? It's already monitored and sponsored by the major players if you look at the PRISM chart/timeline it's all there.

c) And now for the two headed snake and a perfect example of the Google "Do no harm" facade in play. Regulation, It currently exists in a pretty acceptable form already for the most. If I was to type any manner of profane keywords into Google the chances are that Google has already censored them to some extent. I'm almost certain that you may find the occasional nasty here or there but all in all I feel Google has a pretty good form of regulation as it is.

In summary, regulation in its ideal sense is fine, just as how society is portrayed in Star Trek as really a good way to live life as well. It's just too bad we are 200 - 300 years behind social evolution wise to live in such a common good society and we are stuck with the crap way things are today. What this PRISM thing shows is that we should, as a society, grow up a little because this childish "get away" with everything because we are above everything for the "greater good" is far more dangerous than SOPA or what any other grab at regulative control ever done. It's now a situation of take control at all costs because a small faction's "I know better" philosophies without checks and balances in place and an uncertainty of really knowing which way is up any more.

It's a demonstration of how mindless we all operate. We're not good enough for the Star Trek way of life and nor are the legislative rule benders either, even if they think they are.

I just find it amazing that no one has raised the argument that the Stop SOPA, PIPA, etc protests were a tremendous waste of time.

The PRISM program looks like the Govt has been making their own rules for some time now and with the surveillance revelations of the EAGLE program which Assange addressed in the past (but nobody really cared about because it may or may not of been speculative). I'd say with better judgement that that NSA is not the only organisation doing this.

BTW I recommend the Ghostery app for Chrome, great little tool, wont help with any of this but still an eye opener on what big business does.

I remain sceptical here because Apple isn't known for it's tremendous amounts of R&D. It is known more so for its joint R&D programs such as AIM or its works with ARM. Saying that Apple is the linchpin to the design of the iPhone "I believe" never came from R&D per say. It came from somewhere else, Steve Jobs.

They did put it together prior to the iPhone and it did work. The problem wasn't that they couldn't make it work, it was they couldn't make it consumer friendly. The mobile industry was hampered much like the car industry with incremental dosages of innovation strictly controlled to ensure that manufacturers did "the least" for "the most" which is why I revert back to the prerequisite innovation argument regarding this.

What makes Apple good at what they do is not their ability to invent. It's rather their ability to find a product which exists but is unpopular or specialised, strip out the features and components that bog down the device or make it too complex for general consumption. They package it and create a form factor that disrupts the market and appeases the masses. What Apple did was not invent something new rather what they did was keep the rest of the sharks honest. And good for them for doing so because as a result the bar has been set so high that we as consumers can now enjoy a myriad of devices that can achieve far more than what was ever considered back in the early 2000s.

The competitiveness generated from what the iPhone has done in market these days is what has keep the form factor even better than what Apple could of ever done alone. Samsung is not just competing with Apple, they are competing with 10 other Android suppliers and if one of them can gain enough traction that could cause all sorts of issues for Samsung's podium place on the Smartphone food chain.

I see this litigation process as Apple trying to bring back some sort of control over the smartphone market. Apple struggles to compete with the dozens or so manufacturers out there, they aren't keeping up with the insidious level of one-upmanship they have to contend with, which Android has placed on them, and this is so blatantly seen by the strictest type of litigation that was initiated on Apples behalf, I refer to the Judge Koh case.

I get that but for me the problem always goes back to the fact that something had to come from somewhere beforehand. The wheel dawns the horse and cart, the horse and cart, horse and cart dawns the car.

Take Kodak for instance. They kept selling film and photo developing services all the way up to bankruptcy. Sort of like selling horseshoes in today's society when they should of gone with the times and started selling rubber tyres.

Look at Nokia for example. They were a massive company before smart phones. They were on the top of the ladder and Apple was looking up at the likes of them. The tables have turned and now Nokia is at the bottom of the pecking order and have gone into submission almost.

One can speculate that Nokia's new product line differ significantly from the iPhone. Yes, this is true. I argue that Samsung really is no different, the end product Nokia or Samsung are both very good products. As all cars have inherent features which are alike.

Personal preference, I prefer the two over the iPhone myself and when there is a legal escapade against either brand I ask myself "when does ford start suing everyone else, they did after all commercialise the first car" and I know the answer as would most people.

Way back when it wasn't and issue but if move that situation into present day and they would of had the ability to do the same as Apple has. We as consumers don't shun GM or even Toyota because that competition is what has kept the car industry innovating (though I'd like to say in a very piss poor fashion).

Isn't the law in place to serve what's right and wrong about societies ills rather then be used as a form of remuneration based on legislation and "the times"?

It was a dumb typo, I know that, most level headed people would see that. I'm concerned that you don't.

east