That's how we do it in most of "socialist" Sweden. I.e. I have an "open city network" fibre to my house. ISPs are free to sell service on that fibre/network (for a small access fee that pays for the network infrastructure, now less than 10% of my montly fee). So I have a choice of eight different ISPs and pay about $40/month for 100/100Mbps + IP telephony (no subscription fee, but charged calls). I also get cable TV over the same fibre from a different company but that's extra, about $25 for the channels I get.

That's how you'd actually want it organised to enable a free market.

Yes, but that was long before chips were ever fielded, in the eighties and nineties. And the setting wasn't credit card fraud but debit card ATM "ghost" or "phantom" withdrawals.

Now, in the US the government said to the banks, "it's your problem, you fix it". In the UK the banks managed to say to the government "It's the customer's defrauding us, we'll nail them". Yes, it was a hard time being a customer in the UK, actually being convicted of attempted fraud for reporting a phantom withdrawal, but it didn't have anything to do with PINs. You used pins at your ATMs as well, and you still do. Using a PIN for a normal transaction would't change your liability laws one iota. You'd still be in the clear (as we by and large are in Europe today as well).

P.S. Cambridge security researcher Ross Anderson has written quite a bit on this subject, he got the policeman that was convicted cleared of the charges on appeal.

OTOH, what these networks have actually learned can be eye opening.

Are you sure? I know it's not controlled here in Sweden at least. You can just order it. And if you buy a can of "motor starting gas" (or whatever it's called in English) that's at least 50% diethylether. Cheap too.

That got me curious so I looked up some numbers. Using Swedish figures (i.e. 50 kubic meters, i.e. 13k gallons, load for tanker, 0.020 litres/tonkilometer, that's for a milk tanker, doing long haul, which is the closest I could find), I get a fully laden tanker doing about 2.35 miles/gal (US).

So to burn 20% of it's load the shortest it could travel would be 6k miles (a bit longer as it would burn its own fuel during that time, and even more if it would offload part of its haul during the trip). I don't know how that would measure up to how they actually drive to their delivery point, but it seems on the long side.

P.S. I didn't check my calculations so feel free to do that, before betting any money.

No, that was part of the course: "Free warfare".

That's why the 80mm is handy. The 120mm really isn't man portable, and you can't easily store hidden ammunition in suitable spots. The 80mm is readily man portable and can be hidden most anywhere, while it still packs the punch that the 60mm decidedly lacks. In fact as the ranger battalion I did my (shortened due to injury) service in had as it's main mission to perform sabotage and ambushes of the enemy's logistical support train behind enemy lines, I'd say we had "asymmetric" down to a "T".

That said, armed insurrection against a state level enemy having just a few rifles is a pretty doomed affair. Having access to a firearm is probably the least useful attribute of a successful insurgent. Having, or having access to, intelligence, leadership/chain of command, logistical support, counter intelligence and security would be much more useful, critical even.

If you study the resistance movements that were active in Europe during WWII, you'll see time and time again that your options against a determined foe are limited, and firearms aren't a central part of it. In fact you can have a very successful resistance without any firearm. The Danish resistance (and the Norwegian to a lesser extent) for example forbade the targeting/assassination of German personnel as the resulting reprisals against the civilians took such a tool that it made such operations impossible. Instead they targeted their own countrymen that were deemed to be collaborators. Insurgency is a dirty business. So, if you come across such as juicy target that you can't ignore it, you'll want as much effect as is humanly possible, i.e. explosives and some way to deliver them (c.f. the fate of the SS Donau.) Using a gun would have been worse than useless during that operation, and would have led to failure.

So in summary. While having and knowing how to shoot a rifle isn't a completely useless skill in the "stay behind" scenario, it's not a very critical one either. There are many other skills and preparation that you can't do without. You'd probably be better off staying at home reading books than going to the range...

Well, get back to me when you have an armed service based on national service. We are all trained soldiers and we know where the ordinance is stored. So you'd better practice and practice and practice with that rifle. My 80mm mortar has a decided advantage in range... :-) I know who I would bet on as an ultimate check on government overreach.

When it comes to civilian firearms ownership, one adult male in five has at least one firearm, so it's not as if Sweden is devoid of of guns. About 20% (give or take) of all households have a gun in the house.

Where does that end? Do they have the complete right to take what I did and claim it as their own?

That you want my work free, gratis and for nothing, that's clear, but that's not freedom. Not for me. Your rights end where mine begin.

P.S. Check out some freedom indicies, then you can comment on us not understanding "true freedom". Which sounds suspiciously like a "true Scotsman".

And it was the opposite for me. Seeing the video told me things about this event that I didn't know before. Just the statement that IS "burned someone" can mean many different things, it could mean (like it did in South African during apartheid) that an angry mob showed a tire onto someone and set it alight, or it can mean something more organised.

Now when we think of IS we don't think of "organisation", so I expected to see the usual half arsed wobbly camera, spur of the moment thing, but watching the video this is far from true. This video has production values. It must have taken considerable staging and time to shoot and edit. Sure, some reported on this, but it didn't really hit home with me until I actually saw it. It looks like something from Hollywood.

I came away with a somewhat different opinion of IS after this. Not necessarily more positive, mind you, just to be clear, but different. Wathing this video more than just a report of the actual act affected my understanding of what needs, could and should be done to rid the world of them.

The fact that they include my work gives me that right. If they want to do their own thing without my work, that's completely up to them, and I'm not stopping them in any way shape or form.

It's freedom because it doesn't interfere with my right to not have to suffer free loaders. It's freedom because it acknowledges I have rights in how my work is used (ownership).

Societies where these rights aren't acknowledged aren't living in a state of freedom, they're living in a state of anarchy. A form of government that isn't very popular, for good reason.

And some of us don't trust you to actually come through...

No. The freedom of other to take my (BSD licensed) work as their own harms me. (Which is why I don't use it...)

And the GPL doesn't force you to give code away afterwards. That only kicks in if you wan't to distribute your binary, or make it otherwise available. If you want to keep that code for your own use, that's A-OK.

By the same token a country that allows slavery would be more free than one that forbids it, since the latter would have more "restrictions".

Thus, the mere number of rules/regulations/laws/restrictions can never be a test of freedom. For freedom to exist, there must be rules (even the hardest of hard core libertarians agree to this).

Hence, GPL software is more free than e.g. BSD-licensed software, since the former preserves that freedom for everyone and disallows the limiting of this freedom by others.