The reality is much closer to Somalia.

No, actually. Somalia is what a failed Socialist state looks like. Once again, a Statist Illiberal is caught projecting...

Yeah, nothing like leaving my driveway and having to pay a toll to the wonderful entrepreneur that took over my street.

Well, you are paying just such a guy now... Oh, and he has enough influence in the cityhall to control all streets in the town — if not the state. How do you like it?

So in your perfect world every road is a toll road owned by a completely unregulated private entity that is able to charge what the market will bear? I'd love to live in the fairy tale land where that ends well.

I said nothing about "completely unregulated". In Japan today the rail-roads — including those wonderful super-trains — are privately-owned. Tokyo has competing subway lines. Why can't New York City?

The public transportation in the US — and almost everywhere else — is so heavily subsidized by taxes already, the cost of the actual fare is not a factor.

Personal car is simply more convenient. Oh, and the road maintenance is also heavily subsidized by taxes.

Humanity should stop all such subsidies — allowing private companies to build roads and/or run buses/trains/planes/bicycles as they believe promises the most profit. Currently the people deciding, what to do, and people profiting (or losing) from the decisions are distinct groups — the sooner one's own decision(s) cause him to make/lose money personally, the sooner the healing will begin.

What was done to them is exactly what they do to others. [...] Granted this is legal if authorized by the national government of a foreign country

By this logic, it is Ok to kill soldiers (even if you aren't at war with their country) — and profit from discussing, what the killings revealed.

The Guardian is taking advantage of the availability of somebody else's hack

I don't see much difference in this distinction. Had News Corp "merely" relied on the likes of Guccifer — would it have been Ok then? Legally it, probably, would've been, but ethically? Hiring a guccifer is the next step down, of course, but I don't think, it is a major step...

unlike News Corp, they didn't pay somebody to do

People do this sort of thing for "fame and glory". By providing them with both, Guardian is, effectively, paying them... And making its own profit from the publication — not entirely unlike the resellers of stolen good, who have not done the theft themselves...

all hacks are illegal and therefore wrong

No, in my opinion, most hacks are wrong and therefore illegal (malum in se). Admittedly, I'm hard-pressed to come up with a clear definition. For now I'd say, when a hack uncovers actual malfeasance, it may be acceptable. But this one has not...

Every time there is a discussion of information obtained through criminal means like this, I'm uneasy and feel sort of like a voyeur. My unhealthy inner sense of ethics becomes confused... If/when the actual perpetrators of the hack are identified and caught, they will be prosecuted — so why is it acceptable for Guardian to profit from their crime without even a condemnation? Their competitors (and ideological foes) News Corp got into serious trouble over phone-hacking — how is this different?

Some secrets — most, in fact — are legitimately secret. Maybe, if there was evidence of actual crimes in there — but the mere fact, that police are interested in surveillance tech? Please... There is just no "there" there.

Is it still a "Graphics Processing Unit", if it does not even offer any way to connect a display to it?

Well, maybe, it just means "Ginormous" now...

Did you miss the whole #uninstallfirefox thing?

Calls for boycotts are rarely successful in general and on the subject of "gay marriage" in particular.

Nobody knows, whether the campaign caused any perceptible dent in Firefox' userbase — as I said, I doubt, there was much of an effect. This simply is not a reason to consider a software program. Especially, a free one — where none of your money would benefit the subject of your hatred either way.

Fuck you. YOUR life ain't worth a penny.

You forgot to include the usual Illiberal imploration to Please, don't hate.

Are you making a serious argument in comparing people getting shot and the NYSE shutdown?

Any serious economic loss can be compared to lost life(ves). The link I gave you explains, how the value of life is computed — it is done based on our own attitudes.

For example, if you aren't willing to spend $5000 on an airbag, that would improve your chances of survival by %0.1, then you value your own life at less than $5 mln.

For another, closer to home example, consider the horrendous losses of Ukrainian fighters resisting Russia for the last year: a whopping 1/3rd of those wounded in battle have died (NATO's acceptable average is about 3% — 10 times!).

Most of the deaths were due to blood loss. A single doze of Celox would've saved one such wounded man — $10-20 delivered to Kyiv, but many either could not afford it or chose to spend money on something else instead.

Am I allowed to oppose dumping raw mercury into rivers & streams, if I support freedom to travel by airplane?

You are allowed to dislike anything you want. What you do about it, however, needs to be consistent. If you want government to fight pollution, for example, you should support governmental efforts to fight all of it. If, instead, you prefer the problem be solved by boycotts and lawsuits by the people actually suffering from the ill-effects, then that too view should, also apply to all kinds of pollution.

That said, could you not have come up with a less contrived example? Raw mercury is too valuable for anybody to just dump it into a river...

There's a world of difference between an adobe flash exploit and the availability of a gun that can mow down a large number of people in a matter of seconds.

There is not. Shutting down NYSE, for example, cost billions of dollars. At $10 mln per life, that's hundreds of lives right there...

Regulation's backers say that "this is an industry that has failed to police itself," ACLU's Christopher Soghoian argued, but many including the EFF warn that overly broad legislation would harm more than help.

The usual Statism vs. Libertarianism argument. Whichever side you are on, dear reader, you must be consistent: you can not oppose "regulation" of security researchers while, at the same time, supporting "common sense limits" on gun-ownership, for example.

Shutting the exchange down for a few hours — they've resumed trading already — is not going to move the needle for Chinese interests. China herself has just banned "major stockholders" from selling for six months .

If I were in your shoes, I would've gotten tired of being wrong all the time by now — your stamina is, indeed, quite astounding.