Nonsense. This is all to further censor information in Iran. There are much more effective and cheaper methods to protect IT infrastructure than to isolate an entire nation from the web. How much more can the mullahs take from everyday Iranians?

Some advice to the firms helping Iran out with this:
Avoid being paid in rials.

I'm nearly certain that "repairibility" is patented.
Sue them!

After reading this, I would prefer to have all of my candy tracked. Except Jujubes. No one likes those.

Now Microsoft needs others to do its dirty work? I can see it now, poor XP being buried in a cornfield by hired goons Adobe and Google. When will this cycle of violence end?

Sign me up! This deal sounds just as good as the one the kid from the Geeksquad gave me on my new fatherboard.

Your comments seem to be long on rhetoric/petulance/vulgarity and short on any data. We'll try something, because as abrasive as your posts are, I would be interested in hearing more about your argument - I'll make a cogent argument, and you can make one too. It's called a civil dialogue.
I believe that India would be better served developing more reliable and robust power and water utilities because it would:
-Drive healthcare costs down
-Increase productivity in the Indian economy by giving industry what it needs to thrive, namely power and water
-Ensure a greater portion of the money is spent domestically, rather than a supercomputer which would involve significant foreign remittances
-Create a stable environment to attract foreign investment

The politicians in India are talking about investments in space and supercomputers because its sexy and gets people's attention. Whether or not these investments are going to materialize, or if they're even wise, remains to be seen. Perhaps all my fellow Americans will read about an Indian supercomputer one day, while we enjoy the comforts of our future lives on Moonbase Gingrich.

Isn't a supercomputer a "public works" project? Thank you for repeating your argument. I can now see it multiple times. Although, I am interested in hearing about how a supercomputer is going to lift Indians out of poverty.

I believe the original post's argument was that India would be better served spending the money on basic infrastructure. While a supercomputer is great, it's not going to pay the same dividends that clean drinking water and reliable power would. Not only do those very basic utilities reduce healthcare costs, they are productivity multipliers and would benefit the Indian economy greatly.

While you are correct that nuances exist and that there are shades of gray, I believe what the original post was referring to was the nature of granting exceptions to laws. The "heckler's veto" comes to mind here, as does the slippery slope of censorship.

Yes, how dare he!? Everyone knows that Aramco should have been using the Arabic port of Debian.

You're correct that satellites can only provide us with relatively recent data, but scientists have used arctic ice cores and rock samples dating back hundreds of thousands of years to show the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels. The data shows a drastic spike in atmospheric CO2 during the last century. http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ As for my personal opinion, I think we're toast. We're far too selfish, divided, and concerned with immediate gratification to change our course. I don't dwell on it too much, though. I find my time better spent in front of nice warm tire and plastic bottle fire.

I don't understand all of the sympathy for Assange. His motivation seems to be rooted in a desire for attention, and it's hard to imagine that he didn't see what he was getting himself into. I would also imagine it's safe to say that, had he aired the dirty laundry of any government of a large country in Asia, his fortunes would have been far worse. For a man that postures himself as an advocate of freedom of press and information, I find it puzzling that he hosts a show on a network that is partly paid for by Vladmir Putin, and seeks refuge in a country that is currently clamping down on its media outlets. I guess the enemy of the enemy is your friend, or so goes it in the realm of diplomacy - the same dark netherworld that Assange sought to expose.