In the future, we will all be poets and artists.

You are in a growth industry. If torrent sites are able to crush the distrubution networks and direct to consumer distribution takes over, then you should have a bright future. I think we may all be joining you some day.

Do you have a link to a site where I can download said television network coverage?

... or how many would not see it simply because the movie was "crap". As stated in many private emails between Sony exec's.

I would have been curious to see how many people DID see the movie out of fear of submitting to fear.

The US government needs a scape goat. We live in a time where digital protection is largely avoided and even mandated away by law. Government agencies would like its people to believe that encryption in everyday computing is too difficult and will largely support criminal networks who wish to remain hidden. IMO: They say this in order to make their own investigations easier to accomplish and potential future domestic threats (like popular uprisings) easier to control. So if the blame for this and other hacks can be largely blamed on the government itself, by not encouraging and sponsoring corporate and personal encryption in our daily digital lives.

The current government seems to focus on catching criminals and finding people guilty... rather than protecting the innocent. Whereas, the innocent is the majority. I would much rather have a govenment interested in protecting my privacy, rather than one trying to catch those who violated it.

I do not believe that the Sony Hack came from N Korea. I have no way of knowing. But I suspect the actual perps remain unknown. But this is not good PR for a government who already has the all-seeing-eye across its own nation. It needs to defend this ability in order to keep it. So it picks and blames a group for this hack that we are already told to hate... a terrorist nation... a nation we would never believe anything they say, so they can never defend any false allegations. The last thing the government needs is a news story admitting that even with all the surveillance we allow our own government, that they cannot determine the source of such a large hack. So N Korea is a safe and easy pick and the movie they we about to release fits this lie so well.

I would support any leadership that endeavours to make privacy a right. A good first step would be to outlaw storage of unencrypted private communications and ensure the keys are only available to the issuing and receiving parties. Also, issue government signed personal and individual encryption keys... so I could say... prove my identity online and talk to a lawyer over email without fear of interception by some mail storage company.

Well that is an act of war

So the reason to not use encryption is because someone may think you have something to hide? So your suggestion is that we should make sure our privacy is easily invaded so that it will not be targetted specifically at some later time?

Are you suggesting that I should not lock my home or car trunk because a would be theif would then suspect that I have valuables to hide inside?

Our private communications are valuable. Goverment agencies (theives) prove this when they pay millions of pounds to the telecomunication companies to steal it.

The truth is... we all have something to hide. We are all things of value and we all deserve protection. Suggesting we should not protect ourselves because it may draw attention to those who wish to steal from us... it's bad advice.

There is nothing wrong with expecting all TV and movie entertainment to be free. This is the future and companies that do not understand this are destine to meet newspaper companies, book stores and video rental shops in the afterlife.

Paying for entertainment is a thing of the past. Especially paying for simple delivery. There is no need to pay for distribution since all citizens now pay directly for that bandwidth through their ISP.

Any system of delivery that delivers their content with 30% advertising mixed in and cannot figure out how to do this for free is destined to DIE.

Currently, there is a limitation on quality video and music due to channel limits that are funnelled through the paid distribution network. This allows the distribution companies to milk the consumer for far more then it is worth. This system is supported by a huge waste of marketing and advertising used to brainwash young minds into accepting the concept of a "blockbuster" or "superstar", that is sanctioned by the distributors.

Once the public finally wakes up and lets go of paid distribution entertainment, the flow of quality media will be far greater. Only then can we begin to discuss what is fair for consumers to pay back to producers for their work.

In the meantime... dont accuse consumers of stealing. The only ones stealing today are the commercial distributors.

For perspective, the average US driver travels 16,500 miles per year. So if you jump from a plane 10 times a year, you are just as likely to die in your car then by falling from the sky. And if you only jump a couple of times in your life, then the risk is far less then the average traveller in a vehicle.

So anyone who claims the reason they do not skydive because of the danger, needs to admit to themselves that it is actually because they are scared.

I dont know why anyone claims that bitcoin is anonymous. Bitcoin is the most public payment system ever devised. Every single transfer of funds from one account to another is public knowledge. Imagine, if every stick of gum you paid in cash was in a publicly accessible ledger somewhere online. This is exactly what bitcoin does. So the "anonymous" features of bitcoin are the minimum required in order to allow for this public ledger. ie: the identity of the payer and receiver is hidden from the public online ledger. And thank god.

So stop repeating the fluff about bitcoin being anonymous. The anonymous portions of bitcoin are far less then any other payment method used so far.

Bitcoin is not the payment system for anonymous nuts. Its the payment system for people who simply dont want every payment they ever made to be known by everyone and forever.

Yes, you can. Bitcoin transfers are as fast as your internet connection. The reason most transactions take about 60 mins is because they dont trust the sender. The transaction is posted onto the blockchain in no time at all. Complete trust of a payment transaction from a total strange can be almost 100% guaranteed in 6 confirmation blocks (about 1 hour). But you dont need 6 confirmations from your co-worker. Because if the transaction doesnt go through because he attempted to double spend the money, then you just approach him in 1 hour and say "hey buddy, your bitcoin payment bounced". Which will happen nearly 0% of the time from people you know and trust.

Try that with any other payment mechanism. With a cheque, you may not know it is NSF for weeks. With Credit card you may get a chargeback months later. With cash, you never know whether it is counterfeit or not.. and also, the government will not ensure you against counterfeit money that you may accept and have no way of verifying 100%.

Bitcoin is the fastest and safest payment mechanism ever (so far). People who complain about waiting 1 hour to be 100% sure of payment from complete strangers simply do not understand the current state of fraud and slow verification built into all other payment methods.

Credit cards are insecure. They have weak fraud prevention built into them. This is by design, because the credit card company never pays for the cost of fraud.

Here is the order in which fraud is paid for: 1) the customer doesnt notice and pays for fraudulent charges on their card. 2) the customer complains, but the card company accuses them of not following their agreement to secure the card and the customer pays for it. 3) the merchant is accused of accepting a card without properly verifying the integrity of the purchase and the merchant pays.

Notice that in all cases the card company pays nothing for fraud. This is the reason that credit card are insecure. The card companies always make money from fraud.

The final reason that card companies like fraud is because they use fraud as a marketing tool. First they make an insecure system that allows fraud to take place, and then they tell the customer that they will secure them against it by refunding them. But as you can see above, they never pay for it, the merchant does, and subsequently the customer does by paying for higher margins built in by the merchant to cover the percentage of fraud orders.

You see, the card companies want you to believe that online purchasing is insecure by nature. This is not the case. Instead, it is designed into the credit card payment system, because there are no competing options for customers to pay for goods online AND the card companies make more money when fraud occurs. IMO: this is a huge mistake, and the card companies are setting themselves up for a secure payment system to take away their total online business (like: bitcoin)