So in order for a website to remain free for the users use, they will need to post more advertisements to make up for it.

If you don't like advertising on you favorite site. Then you better find them a business model where they can keep running (as it isn't free for them) and feed their family's. Otherwise just suck it up as the cost of having free access to their data.

>If this is a case of what it's being made to sound to be, that actual non-DRM, legally purchased files got burnt out? I don't believe said things existed at the time, did they?

Among other things, they were infecting ISP machines to monitor specific customers.

Anyway, guesses on the responsible party? China, Israel, Russia?

I'm all for free software, but this reasoning sounds insane. When people buy a PC, it says "comes with windows", you know what you're getting, and to require manufacturers to return half of it seems nuts. It's like ordering a cheeseburger, and then demanding a refund for the cheese. Why didn't you just order a hamburger?

It helps to frame the discussion in terms of economics. If you take every dollar bill that has ever been spent on fusion research, wadded them up into a big ball, and threw them into a wood burning furnace, you would have a better return on your investment than you have right now. Hell, you could buy lottery tickets and have a better ROI.

My history is your history

Except that it isn't...

Some people have privacy and security concerns, even though Comcast insists the public and private Wi-Fi networks are entirely separate and shielded from each other. Others worry that the public network will affect the private network's performance. Comcast says this isn't so.

In NL, some ISPs are doing the same. It's even a different public-facing IP address.

Of course, you can also turn it off. Though turning it off on your modem means you don't get to use it yourself on others' modems.

And smelled bad, which is some kind of crime against those in the immediate vicinity

Isn't there prior art on the iStink?