Well from a Europeans point of view I can't see how you could accept blocking all payments from an organization that has not had charges raised against it. I understand it follows the same path of locking up people without a trial and even ordering execution of citizens etc, but that sounds like something China or Russia would be doing (so not that far fetched).

So what you are saying is that if the US decides to go against all common sense and due procedure, we should abide to your laws even when no charges have been raised... Actually it seems that the whole case would be based on what is considered as "press", so I guess it would fit your whole current view on the law and freedom that you would retroactively make a definition that Wikileaks does not fill or require all press organizations to get a yearly governmental approval to be covered by the legal protection "press entities" are entitled to.

So where they charged? If not, what is the basis of the embargo? I understand that in the US you might actually have a system where you can block somebody from doing any financial transactions without any kind of law order, but in Europe the rules can be quite different.

A probable outcome will be, that the financial organizations will be ordered to forward all payments originated from Sweden to Wikileaks or face a possible ban from operating in Sweden, and if so they will all comply. It could also be, that they will do it before a ruling to lessen the chance that other EU countries will follow. However, from a Europeans point of view I don't see any reason why a non-US company should be blocked from receiving money from non-US people for being suspected of breaking a US crime when no charges have even been raised, and unless I remember incorrectly there is a general sentiment that non could even be raised...

This.

You don't want to give any technical details or use any terms like "smtp" or "headers". You don't want to try to fet them to understand the technical reasons, just the concept of how the sender address is just whatever is configured in the email client and no more a guarantee then what's written as sender on a traditional email.

I found the fastest way to get somebody to understand was by walking through configuring their email to send from a bogus address, it opens up their eyes faster then an explanation.

- How he feels success in your field should be measured, what would be good indicators - What he thinks are positive and negative aspects about outsourcing whatever you do - Try to get a feeling if he will openly admit when he does not understand something, or rather act as if he understands

And other payment processors take 80% (mobile payments in south America). Sure it's the other extreme and quite out there, but no more then the 1-2% figure which really is a low comission.

The parent was correct. How are you going to counter such foreign tax laws? The answer is that you can't control what a sovereign country sets as their laws; only your own ones, and it is their country and their rules. If your local tax law allows your companies to channel profits to other countries then they will, the question is when are the laws being abused so badly that the damage is higher then the benefit you get from being able to be flexible?

As in really run their operations from Bermuda, depend on their public infrastructure, health and education system? Subside development with Bermudan government perks instead of the ones offered in whatever country the products are developed and sold in?

My guess is that a lot of companies not abusing the system will end up suffering from the outcome of this. It really seems like a lot of countries are discussing this lately, even here in Finland. We have a lot of international private health care companies taking over the market lately. The system works in a way that the government often pays for all (or most) of the health care expenses even when it's a private company, and in a recent investigation hardly any of them pay any tax here... So it's not even only the profits that are moved out, it's even the tax payers money used to support the health system.

Of course it's no surprise. A company has to think of it's stock holders, not of the tax payers. I'm just guessing that we are close to the snapping point when very drastic measures will be taken, it's going to be interesting to see the outcome.

I do if I'm really due those deductions. I won't lie about my income to gain deductions though, and this is what's happening here. The companies will be claiming huge losses to tax authorities and record earnings to their investors. It's not about "following the law", it's pure lying and cheating and has nothing to do with normal tax deductions.

As mentioned, the reason they did not pay tax is that they told the tax authorities they had huge losses. This was a lie, as can be verified from what they told their investers, meaning they are actually due for the taxes. If the only reason you are not paying is a lie, then how can you talk about following the law? If you kill somebody, claim not to have done it and still describe the act to others you will be charged even if there is no physical evidence...

Well actually the police are partially to blame here. While a warrant is not required to confiscate computers from somebody's home in Finnish law, search is researved for cases that could produce 6 months in jail and cause "significant damage". The police has decided that downloading 1 cd caused significant damage and could result in 6 months of jail which required quite creative reasoning from them.

Unfortunately most countries seem to be in the situation where the "old parties" are doing their best to make it hard for new parties to join the game.

So you are saying that if luck is involved in making a hit game it's the only thing that counts?

I'm not sure I'm following your logic... Sure, some great games have flopped, and some shitty games have made it big. Luck was surely a great factor here, but I find it hard to believe it's the only one. A good game with sloppy programming could fail. A well programmed game with a sloppy concept could fail. A well programmed game with a good concept but graphics that don't work could fail... And when you get everything right you could still fail! But even then it could be marketing or bad pricing. I'm not a big angry birds fan despite having a lot of friends working there. It was fun for an hour, but I did'nt feel an urge to return to it... Still I bought it and bought the space version too. Why? My kids asked me to, and at 79c I can't think of a lot of reasons not to. And while it's not my favorite game, it's surely my favorite game out of the ones my 4 year old child enjoys.

They often have a lot more in their life too.

I can notice that a lot of the time when we have a big surprising problem at the end of the day, it's the younger developers who stay and work all night. It's not just a question of the younger ones wanting it more, it's also a question of the younger ones not having to pick up their kids on the way home from work and take them to hobbies etc. Of course it's not only the companies fault, older developers will have a lot more to give in some areas, and they should of course try to pick a job where they get to use those acquired skills. If a younger guy can do the same thing an older one can then I don't see a special need to treat the older one differently (other then that everyone should be treated well and individually), everyone should find a position where they get to use their talents and live their own life on the side.

That way you disturb other services behind the link less.

We pay the 6000$ (ok, less with a bulk discount), but a lot of the time have to null route anyway as attacks just get bigger and bigger (up to 10gbps) and end up saturating the providers links.

There's no winning in my opinion. The ddos shields do work, but they are prices for companies who really lose a lot of money with downtime. Your best chance would be trying to figure out who ordered it and get evidence if it happens multiple times.