... now I'm wondering what the various companies would look like on a graph that mapped their salary distributions.

Hmm. I'm not in Europe - would it be illegal there to filter SPAM based on hashes?

So it's okay if they automatically scan for spam based on heuristics, but it's not okay if they automatically scan for CP based on hashes?

... are you seriously suggesting that companies should adopt the moral outlook of cowards?

Let's RTFA, here: Google scans its mail servers against hashes provided to it of CP known to law enforcement, an account got flagged, the police were called, they found the account holder had a felony record for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old child, a warrant was obtained, and additional incriminating evidence was found amongst the account owner's possessions; the owner was arrested and will be tried in a court of law. Due process, so far as two press articles can tell us, appears to have been followed.

And the case itself aside, quite frankly companies are too sociopathic already without people encouraging them to ignore the evils of the world because of the possibility that somebody, somewhere, might be a Scary Pedophile-Terrorist Bent On Revenge (TM).

Although, thinking about it, somebody sold those helicopters to the American military, and I doubt it was a 501(c)3.

I see what you did there. And what you did was rude.

"Nobody is campaigning to keep the homosexuals unable to marry"

... do you seriously believe that? And if so, how?

General quality of the rest of the straw in this thread aside, did you read what you typed? Being forbidden by the government from marrying someone is not the same as being hampered by quadriplegia from practicing karate.

I worked that argument out with a simple question: "Self, if you were a random peasant with a vocal opinion on how things should be run differently, would you last longer in the West or in Saudi Arabia?"

That the NSA is knowingly supplying the torturer doesn't make the torturer less evil, any more than someone else doing the torturing makes the NSA less culpable for their knowing supply.

Video of it on the Top Gear channel: http://youtu.be/cDoRmT0iRic

Dear Zombie Santa...

Good luck with that.

As an Australian, I point out (a) the lack of oversight in both situations, (b) the lack of checks and balances in both situations, (c) the lack of transparency in both situations, and (d) that the phrase "51st state" is not a compliment over here.

NSW Police, Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police all declined to comment.

“It’s another example where [agencies] are collecting the entire haystack in order to find the needle,” Senator Ludlam said in an interview with Fairfax. “What we've seen with other techniques like this is there is no requirement to destroy the material that is collected incidentally after an investigation is complete,” Senator Ludlam said.

The primary thing in common isn't just the outrage they spark, it's the exact same reason it's sparked: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (who will guard the guards themselves).

"1) If you think a job is a right, you're wrong." - I don't.
"2) If you think any one company has to create jobs, you're wrong." - I don't.
"3) I, certainly, am not obliged to create a job for you either." - You're not.

"And the guys throwing rocks, they'll be wondering why no employer will touch them in a year's time."

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I wasn't talking about just a few people. I was talking about what happens if national economies based on labour scarcity, already under strain from severe income disparity, run headfirst into automation advancements that make jobs obsolete faster than society can create and fill (because training takes time) new ones. Because what are the odds that governments, being governments, will decide to throw band-aids at the problem for far too long and put their nations at risk of economic collapse before/as they transition to a labour-surplus economy?

"The Luddites may have had cause to be upset, but they were pretty much gone shortly after - because there's only so long you can protest about not having a job before you have to go find another, or before the law steps on you."

Yes, and "the law" didn't bother to check who it stepped on. The original Luddites were "pretty much gone shortly after" because the British government of the day responded with indiscriminate show trials of the guilty and innocent alike, and heavy-handed sentencing including executions and penal transportation. I've noticed that when people make Luddite jokes, they leave out that bit. For some reason it kills the mood.

Do you truly believe you would be one of the "successful people" in a society that thinks the solution to poor people is to run them over with tanks?

The only consistent, ongoing factor in automation is that it does more, faster, more reliably, cheaper at the expense of staff who did less, slower and less reliably but cost more. Sure, people need jobs - but nobody but the government is obligated to create them.

"Your poverty isn't my problem" is usually where it all goes to hell, yes. Right up until the poor collectively discover that they can still throw rocks.