Three words: One Dollar Salary...

Hope that a judge deems otherwise, since you may as well agree to sacrifice your second child and 5 goats to use their service if they can do this...

As someone mentioned in a similar story (credit to whoever they are) you don''t get such shackles with in-store purchase unless there's ongoing payments!

Apologies, supply not meeting demand*

They didn't have an excuse they could fall back on if they ramped them up with no reason?

Despite their operations returning to normal, it might be a case of demand still not meeting the supply. If people are willing to pay more, how often do you hear "since we've knocked the prices up lately, we'll just slash them anyway"

This gives me a gut feeling all the programs you install could be used for ads more targeted than ever before....

Forget your search history, these could use data from your whole internet history, downloads, desktop, start menu...

Had no idea that it became £50, but I am curious on the reaction with such a request and threat of legal action if it's not complied with.

Legal advice is sound advice, It's no more a standard request than requesting a copy of records from any data controller.. their fault for preventing their own access.. time for them (well, the taxpayer in the end, as always) to pay up

Whereas I probably know even less than you (I know practically nothing), online searches can come up with the odd bit of info on cost to set the thing up, but fact you still have to rent the line (ignoring whether or not you'd even be granted IPs due to the slight....shortage) guessing by your population spread, it would prove difficult to justify the investment.

However, this thread shouldn't be full of people saying "don't do it" as you are theorising it. You will have to check a lot with your local council, also consider the security issues as you would be responsible for policing anyone using it. With regards to cost, though, it can be useful if you contact locals and see if people are willing to invest beforehand.

As long as those looking to fix the problem don't start by Googling the problem..

(Or called SOP - Sons of the Patriots). Effectively ID tagged weapons and gear. If you, theoretically, had a system of registering unique IDs for rebels on some scale, be it just fingerprints on a certain part of the weapon, to the DNA of every single rebel on some database, it could be done to a degree

However as other comments seem to point out, even if they take a long time to be hacked, they'd have to be pretty irreparable if broken as they shouldn't be salvageable for parts. And cost wise... who pays for it? I assume whoever Syria's new government would then be... plus interest. Would the US just take the weapons back and reconfigure/redistribute? (you tell me, I honestly don't know..)

More than anything, I'm surprised this has taken so long to be brought up.

It's a massive irony I installed W7 last week and noticed this. I thought to myself "that's not right....where's my browser choice? Y'know...like M$ were ordered to display..." and it hits the news like the world only just discovered it with me.

Whether or not it's worth to vote is an entirely different problem! *grumbles about the 'coalition', how well it's worked and how everyone wanted it*

I call people daily and at times have to confirm details that these people really do put up for everyone to read, all too often publicly (*avoids giving Facebook the accusing finger*). It's saddening, but all you can do is follow laws, procedures and suspicions..

If I am forced to register my own personal information when the site in question doesn't use it (save, maybe, targeted advertising), it seems a case of buckle up or the door's on your right; They're fine holding all this information about you for no particular reason.. Nice to see the ICO care about who holds what information about us, 'private' or public.

Reminds me of the exact moment I stopped using Windows Live Messenger..

They could pick a game with actual story/plot to do this to. They've clearly chosen a game where this isnt the case for a reason, maybe to test people's reactions. How many times to do you play a game that only has unlockable stuff purely to ulock them from scratch? I'm not defending the idea, but unlockable content doesn't have much replay value in itself, just the feeling of working/grinding towards a goal, you get the reward, and it'll never be as good the second time.

I agree with his points suggesting education is hinted at far too strongly, especially Universities. I abandoned my degree in the second year feeling that there is far less market for them (not just degree-dependant jobs, but jobs that a degree can help you with). And when you see the value of a degree declining when education is mainly a way to give you skills to work, to earn, to make money and keep capitalism rolling, it makes you think. To get a suave job nowadays you now benefit more from side projects, work experience and the things you do besides the degree. If everyone has a degree in computer science, you cant define yourself with it. So I say, good on him, but giving kids money to start businesses won't go far. It pushes ideas-for-profit over ideas-for-innovation...and many things these days aren't innovation, they're rebrands. Oh, and kids? Good luck getting around all the patents... *chuckles*