Quite so. Law enforcement, with sufficient motivation to investigate a person, will tend to get the information they need from other sources, using available facts, clues, and investigative logic. It's time consuming and expensive to actually work things out, of course, and they only do it when there's a strong reason to do it. And that is a desirable outcome.

On the other hand, having my internet history, my transactions and medical information, my relationships, any affairs I may be having, rough financial status, sexual preference and political views directly accessible to who knows who simply because it is politically convenient... That is not acceptable. That is open to abuse. Access to that kind of database will be available to, for example, tabloid reporters for a price, because access to databased information that is widely available to a law enforcement community is always available for a price. And that's NOT ok.

When you make just a little effort to hide what you are doing, I agree, that you are not anonymous. However, that information then requires effort to obtain. It requires co-ordination, intelligence, time and effort. It's only used when there is a strong reason. And a strong reason, even in this day and age, is usually a good reason.

In many ways, consistent use of obfuscating technology serves merely to put the warrant back in to the process. We should all be doing it.

What changed in the market was that everybody started using computers, and a lot of those people are using them because they *have to* use them, for work or school, or what have you. They don't care about X or Y, because more fundamentally, they don't care about the computer at all, other than its utility to perform the functions they purchased it for. They're not interested in computers, any more than an average commuter is interested in engines.

But don't let the numbers blind you. There are ****millions**** more people who care about the precise same things you care about than there were in the 70s, 80s, and 90s combined. I've been around for much of that time too, and I feel like there's never really been a better time for expandability, or configurability, either.

Building computers isn't just a money saver, these days. Heck, it isn't *even* a money saver. It's a hobbyist thing. Has been since the late 90's. What further vindication could you need?

I don't consider myself a luddite. I usually have an open mind about change. I don't mind if the start menu changes. Heck, I don't need a start menu. I don't feel like there's something missing in Mac OS X when I use the Dock, Spotlight and Finder together to get where I need to be.

*But* the 'Metro' launcher is an abomination. Having something fill my entire screen with glaring colours and toybox tiles when I am looking to launch an application is the exact opposite of the discreet, unintrusive interface that I'm looking for on a workstation desktop.

What did users complain about with Vista? UAC. They hated that every five minutes all your colours went grey, and you couldn't continue without clicking yes on a box in the middle of the screen. But UAC did that because, love it or hate it, there was a reason for it to demand your attention and draw you out of whatever you were doing.

The 'Metro' launcher has no such reason. It completely breaks my flow of thought every time it swallows my desktop. It breaks the illusion that I am working on a constant surface. It is a jarring alteration to the consistency of the desktop experience. It causes the eye and the mind to pause, to catch, and to wonder what the fuck is going on. It might as well be a BSOD for the effect it has on my concentration.

Now with time, I accept that the 'where did all my stuff go?' feeling will dissipate. The interruption will become familiar and not shocking. We'll get used to it. But I fundamentally refuse to accept that a glaring fullscreen, interuption is a step forward in UI. Stick it on a tablet by all means. But it is simply not suited to genuine cognitive multitasking.

Let's just hope it doesn't ship with Windows 8, because Joe Average is going to shit in his pants trying to find the button that lets you lift the lid.

And incredibly it will be the first toilet ever to have a seat with smooth, rounded edges. Not like all those barbed wire versions the rest of us have been using for 20 years.

Reading that law, it seems clear to me that that 'communicating to the public' is being used to describe the act of reproduction without license (the infringement itself, to be a little circular about it), but not the act of directing another party to an external thing which infringes, even if you willfully intend for copyright to be infringed as a result.

I imagine the word communicating is used as a catchall for whichever form of transmission is used to reproduce or recreate the work without license, but it is NOT about describing to another party *how* to reproduce the work, or *where* it might unlawfully be reproduced, no matter how specifically you describe such a thing. Otherwise you would fall foul of that law for discussing how to copy a novel with a typewriter, for example. Or for performing factual reporting on the site in the first place. (If linking to crimes is a crime, then linking to linking to crimes must also be a crime, after all.)

By the Kevin Bacon principle, if linking to infringing content is a crime, then all websites are guilty before the 6th degree of separation.

Yes, quite so. But then, copyright infringement is not a crime when it is 'done between friends'. It becomes a crime at around the value of £1500, if I remember correctly. And there's a law dealing with criminal copyright infringement which has a maximum sentence of two years. So there's the distinction you were looking for, and I would say that two years is harsh enough.

However, linking to infringing content is NOT copyright infringement. So even though this guy helped a lot of people infringe copyright, he didn't actively copy the content himself, which means he's not guilty of that crime. And there is no crime of contributory copyright infringement. So they can't do him on that.

If that's all clear, can you tell me in what world do you think it is OK to scour the lawbooks and find someone guilty of a crime with a higher maximum sentence than the crime you'd like to get them on but can't because they didn't commit it.

Doesn't that seem just a little bit, I don't know, corrupt?

That works fine while you're serving to people in X-stan. Once you start serving globally, and once you're on the radar, I think you'll find that the over-reaching arm of the law will be quite long enough.

If you're in a country which is suitably civilized, you'll be extradited. See Kim DotCom. If it's not suitably civilized, I'd imagine worse things happen.

No. Clearly not. Those people are important

Actually though, the conspiracy to defraud bit is important. He can't be charged with Copyright Infringement, because he didn't do it. He can't be charged with contributory copyright infringement, because that's not even a crime. So instead he's been done on 'conspiracy to defraud', a law which is considered wobbly at the best of times.

But it gets worse. The sentence handed down is double the maximum possible sentence for copyright infringement.

We've done him worse than he would have been done for the crime he didn't even commit.

Microsoft haven't looked douchebaggish for years. They've looked by turns incompetent and lost. If they had ever built up any goodwill with me, I'd feel sorry for them.

Apple are showing the world that competent evil is truly something else.

When I finally got around to uploading my Creative Commons licensed book to usenet, and then noted this on a popular usenet index, it was also deleted as spam.

Apparently, this was because it was a dupe. Sure enough I did a search and there it was. The previous poster beat me to it by several weeks. The best part was that the copy that was already uploaded was better than mine. It included additional information and metadata (including a blurb!) that made it more useful to import into ebook libraries.

Fucking pirates, and their continually superior products.

Aside from any directly negative effects of long term submersion in water, and aside from the typically poor way in which large amounts of water mix with computer workstations, and aside from the hygeine implications and the hassle of getting in and out for meetings, bathroom visits (see above) and other?

Well, aside from all that I suspect that you would atrophy important balance muscles, and weaken important joints, leading to various chronic pain conditions.

But I'm not a doctor.

That is some genuinely world class word play. Kudos.

When it has finished adjusting, I fully expect to be able to copy as many things as I want as often as I want. And I still expect art to be created, and many artists to make a living wage. All this will take time. Meanwhile, pretending I've bought something when I can hardly even use it, is a farce.

Another vindication for technological progress, and another steely blow to the right of first sale.