I think what we have learned is that given the opportunity, no country's intelligence/police/security apparatus is truly more ethical than that of other countries. There's a huge difference between cheap, public words spoken by politicians and what's really going on behind the scenes. If they have the technical option, they will collect and spy and monitor whatever they can.

The NSA gets a bad rap, since (a) it has access to most information and thus is most scary and (b) in the US there is the constitution, which at least in principle should curtail certain government activities, giving critics something to use in their fight. In other countries there often aren't the constitutional documents, which aim to codify personal freedoms and liberties in the same way. Therefore, in the US the surveillance opponents at least have a document in their support that they can point at, while the same people in other countries often have no such thing. In that respect, the surveillance debate in the US could be more forceful with at least some ammunition for the opponents. In this regard, other countries aren't that lucky.

However, in the end it's all academic: Surveillance/intelligence agencies will do whatever they damn well feel like doing. Whatever local laws they have will matter little. These are agencies that have secrecy baked into their DNA. They know - for the most part - to keep their activities away from the public and also the politicians for that matter.

Pass whatever laws you want, it won't matter anymore.

What makes you think that it is law (US or otherwise), which is the driving force here? What makes you think it has to do anything with law or that those who apply such pressure or are willfully infringing on peoples' privacy care about something called 'the law'?

If the last few months have shown us anything, it is that the surveillance apparatus is entirely above the law or at least unconcerned about it. You can pass whatever law you want to 'reform the NSA' or whatever agency in whatever country you wish to insert here. It doesn't matter, since they will do whatever the heck they want anyway.

Just some clueless foreigner here with an honest question: Why does 2/3 not mean "two thirds"? Is this one of those things where 2/3 of all present (!) senators need to vote for it, so they put the vote up at some ungodly hour where only the few necessary hardlines will be present? Or do you have something else in mind?
 

Over the last few years we have seen a concerted effort by corporations and government (even though, where's the difference these days anyway?) to bring an end to the "wild west" of a truly free and open Internet. The whole idea of normal individuals being able to say whatever they want and their message to be heard around the world...? Dangerous, let's stop that. The whole idea of small, independent companies disrupting established markets? Bad for the bottom line, let's stop that (it's been going on for too long already).

Let's add porn filters to protect the children! Of course, the same filter infrastructure can be used for other things as well, such as ... oh, I don't know... stop free and open discussion in forums, brand and block legitimate sites as criminal, stop people from sharing information, etc. We all know that this is NOT a coincidence!

The free and open Internet was nice as long as it lasted. I will always fondly remember living in a time when the Internet came to be and we looked at something truly unique and powerful, something capable of really making a difference in everyone's life, something that could fundamentally change society and could be used to make this world a little bit of a better.

But of course, in the end - as always - greed wins. The masses with a vague feeling of how things should be stand no chance against the focused and deliberate efforts of a few that know exactly what they want in order to line their pockets.

I'm not so sure about that. You talk about how an overpriced CEO is not sustainable in the long run. You also - correctly - said that it's the shareholders who pay the CEO. But since when are shareholders interested in the long run? Ok, some will invest for the long term, of course. But realistically, shareholders are interested in their own ROI, first and foremost, not the long-term health of the company.

The shareholders will approve of any CEO which they think will maximize their ROI. If this means destroying the company over the long term then many investors will be fine with it, as long as they make a good return before it all falls down. The long term health of the company, the well beeing of the workers, even the customers... it's all acceptable collateral damage in achieving that goal. The shareholders are generally in it for their own good, not for the good of the company.

I don't want to make blanket statements here: There's no doubt that there are also plenty of investors that do want to invest for the long term and would probably like to see the company succeed. And in many cases investors will have decided that a long term success of the company is the best way to achieve a good ROI for themselves. But there's rarely an emotional or compassionate connection to the company. Instead, it's mostly just about maximizing ROI. That's why they are investors.

So, don't count on the "shareholders" to magically only support CEO salaries that sustainable in the long-term. That's just not the case.

Corporations generally donate to further their own agenda and for their own good. If they can use it to accomplish vendor lock-in then they will do so. Sometimes, they can only use it for some feel-good PR. The former is dangerous and should be resisted, just like a trojan horse. The latter is about the same as advertisement on "free" web sites: You accept it as necessary for the operation of the sites, but you mostly just ignore it.

You raised good points, so let me clarify: The different paragraphs talk about different examples of how corporations use donations to schools for their own benefit. When I mentioned the Microsoft example, I also mentioned the additional fact that their donations don't cost them much if anything. But I didn't mean to imply that this would be so for every company's donations. Clearly, someone donating hardware has a cost, no doubt.

But do I object do schools getting free hardware? Well, in the case of Apple, it wasn't just the hardware, but its own distinct eco system: The operating system, the software on it, it was all pretty much closed and Apple specific. So, there was definitely more than just "generic" hardware. Also, computers at schools were still quite rare at that time. Apple recognized that it could get in early and make a lasting impression on those students.

These days, if Dell or HP donate PCs they will probably just run Windows (which is more of a benefit to Microsoft than Dell and HP). So, the advantage for Dell or HP would be quite minimal: Nobody remembers their little logo on the back of the monitor if everyone's looking at the Windows on the front. Tough situation for Dell and HP, since they are merely producing commodities in that market.

That's like someone giving you free water when there is already plenty of water to choose from: You say "Thanks!", but then they're forgotten again.

This is not a failing of the companies. When I said "shameful" in my earlier comments about this, the shame applied to the educational institutions.

The companies just do what they have to, somewhat without compassion, but still: Corporations are in it to make money, whether we like it or not. Fairness, morals, ethics and concern for the common good are completely irrelevant in that endeavour. We created corporations, now we need to live with the fact that they are going to do whatever it takes to make money, including using tactics we might consider "unfair". However, in some cases we have the option to resist their behaviour. This is one of those cases.

It's the schools who are too eager to go along with a commercial product. For some reason or the other: Sometimes outright bribery, sometimes ignorace, often a mixture of both. Unless you go to a trade school of some kind, I do not believe that it is the job of the public schools (and even universities) to push particular vendors' solutions on their students. Teaching and understanding the actual underlying fundamentals, issues and technologies is what should be paramount. And in the case of networking or any computer engineering/IT courses, these fundamentals are best illustrated with open source. Nobody says that the teacher can't also mention some examples of commercial implementations, but the exploration and understanding of the concept should not be tied to a particular vendor's product.

Several years back, I gave a few guest lectures at some local univesities about network security. Intrusion detection was an important topic. There are some very nice open source IDS out there, Snort obviously being the most well known one. So, what does the university do? Instead of using Snort as a basic teaching tool, they instead went for a proprietary solution of some mid-teer vendor. As a result, they passed on a perfectly good opportunity to let students take a look 'under the hood' and see how the inside of such a system works by examining the source code, limiting them to just fiddling with the UI of the proprietary vendor. Shameful!

In the local press we can always read wonderful accounts how Microsoft "donated" millions of dollars worth of software to local schools. Of course, it's never reported that there is hardly any cost to Microsoft in doing so, definitely not millions, and that in return they get well-trained Microsof-monkeys entering the work force, knowing and demanding to only work with Mircosoft tools. Shameful!

It began a long time ago when Apple started to be "generous" with discounts and donations to schools. Microsoft and other vendors are following this "proud" tradition: Schools miss the chance to teach actual understanding of fundamental principles and instead degenerate their courses into nothing more than vendor training. There is too much lobbying, wining and dining and backroom dealing going on here. Where open source should make huge inroads, instead the vendors are doing their best to lock in entire future generations.

Many years ago - maybe in 1995 or 1996 - I worked on a team that wrote a load balancing software. We did some in-depth performance measurements of a few web servers, which also included web servers running on Windows NT. We finally also wrote our own little test server. We concluded in our tests that the listen-queue length on NT could only be set to a certain maximum amount (maybe 5, or so) by anyone using the official socket API that was available. However, magically, Microsoft's own web server (IIS) was able to utilize a longer listen queue.

Clearly, Microsoft is not beyond using secret APIs to ensure a competitive advantage for their own software.

Well, they shouldn't be worried if they have nothing to hide, right? Right?

[BLOCKED]: We are sorry, but our automatic filters have detected too much common sense. It is a requirement that all discussion about this subject must be done on a purely emotional and irrational basis.

The linked article is incorrect: Chambers specifically said that while there was some lost business due to the spy scandal this was
not the main reason. Instead, the real issue is strong competition - especially in China - from manufacturers such as Huawei: Trusted in the Chinese market and much cheaper than Cisco gear. The competition is capable and much cheaper, so Cisco needs to rely on selling into established accounts at "Cisco shops". Winning new, green-field accounts will be much more difficult for Cisco.

Not saying that Cisco - like most US technology companies - won't feel an effect of the ongoing spying issues. As a foreign corporation, I wouldn't buy US gear or trust US network providers either. However, the reporting should be correct at least.

Contrary to media files and Bluray, a car is a bit more expensive and also critical.

If you 'hack' the car this will probably invalidate all sorts of manufacturer warranties. Also, insurance companies will use your 'hacking' as a reason to decline coverage or a payout after an accident.

That! Some countries in Europe have been doing that for traffic violations for many years already. The "daily rate" or "day set" to determine fines seems to be fair and gets the point across, even to those who earn a lot.

Only issue: It can be tough to get the estimate right.