The fact we even need to have this discussion is what's dysfunctional but I'll bite a little just to satisfy you.

According to Google finance AAPL boasts 72,800 employees. Considering that only a portion of the 72,800 would be affected by this ban, lets say at most say 10,000 employees (who cares if was the whole lot of them was fired). I hardly see any massive level of economic damage made to the US over this, it might suffer a shift unemployment stats a little for this month but it would pretty much be business as usual economically.

Yes, the stock value of AAPL would suffer but the money wouldn't disappear, oh no, that stock value would simply move from AAPL to another company.

So, tell me, you drastic way of thinking here that holds any merit? Or are you too going to call bullshit on this one as well?

How blind must we all be not to see a hidden motive. Let me say that I agree the Govt. should have the power to overturn ITC orders if they pose a genuine threat to consumers and the economy.

Since when did fucking mobile phones become a "necessity" in life that it requires government intervention to ensure that we still get our shiny little pocket device?

If for example the import was Beef and that half the country would starve at the hands of the ITC. Okay, then I'll buy that the Govt needs to stand in. We're talking about phones for God's sake. No amount of discussion on the topic is going to sway me to believe otherwise.

I'm sure they were thinking of all those poor Chinese workers employed by Foxconn that could lose their jobs over this ...

Thank god there's the Obama administration looking out for the little guy!

To say that I didn't know this was possible until now would be far from the truth.

As an avid Air Crash Investigation fan, both my wife and myself watch this show on a regular basis. I surmised this was possible a number of years ago. I also thought the concept of spoofing transponders on Cars when we eventually started adapting this technology to Cars was also going to pose similar issues as well and funnily enough it was something that did make the news (don't remember the article now but it did make Slashdot) but was done so to trump autonomous driving, for whatever political agenda.

In all honesty, there is NO WAY to step around this problem unless you get rid of autonomous driving/piloting all together. Because of some simple facts

a) You can't tokenise any form of communication because it then deems the process unreliable
b) You can't encrypt it for the same reason
c) You can't in anyway make it COMPLICATED again for the same reason
d) You can't get rid of it because it makes flying unsafe.
e) It's a security hole that cannot be patched, fixed or resolved. Period.

Also the fact that this is a pretty common and is a widespread issue, which only really just made POC now is an absolute joke.

38% say he did the wrong thing but did they say they'd prefer him to not of done it?
33% say he did the right thing because it's obviously benefited their own views.
29% remain undecided about the results of his actions because it's far from over and until we see the end game why pick sides now?

Their are recordings of air to ground radio between the pilot and ground control floating about. The pilot is practically begging for a place to land. Should check it out if you can find it. The YoungTurk's YouTube feed has some of it in one of their stories.

Just a question. Are you a SOPA supporter? If the answer is no then I ask you. Do you think any politician at this point has a remote chance of passing through a SOPA-like bill through any Govt. abreast the Snowden debacle?

Here's some food for thought. The EU has decided to vote against sharing data with the US and you also have Google and other large internet providers seeking to fight FISA restrictions in court so they can show the public untainted numbers in relation to requests made by the NSA.

You may be right, there may be some harm done but harm to who? At this stage the fallout is only affecting the NSA. Should further harm incur who do you believe will suffer?

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!