It's their search engine. Start your own search engine and you will get to decide what's in it.

Downloading is copying. Before you download, there is one copy, on the server. After your download, there is still a copy on the server and there is also one on your computer which you directed your computer to write by initiating the download. It's pretty simple, really.

You can make low pass filters in the digital domain, just as in the analog domain. It's fairly easy, in fact. Instead of having the digital meter display the direct digitized signal, have it display an average over the last n samples. You could even make the value of n user-selectable, so you can control the amount of "slowness".

What makes you think those products will make you safe from the NSA when the NSA has been found to be intercepting PC shipments, installing their own hardware, and resealing the boxes, then shipping them to the end user?

If chimps are people, will they be able to vote? Hold political office? Cue the jokes.

Because there would only be a finite amount of cash in the machine. By installing this software, you can steal a little bit at a time, and the cash would be reloaded periodically.

That's absolutely true, and we discussed that very scenario at our staff meeting. The conclusion was that about all we could do in that situation is demand that the person with router backpack either turn it off or leave the campus and charge him/her with trespassing if they didn't.

The very law you quoted defeats your argument. First, you are correct that WiFi frequencies are unlicensed, not unregulated. However, the statute you quote says: "...no person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under this chapter or operated by the United States Government" [emphasis added]. So, if the WiFi spectrum is unlicensed, please explain how Marriott is in violation of this statute.

I just read the web page you linked to, and it only affirms my belief that the FCC was acting beyond their authority. First, as several other posters mentioned, I do incorrectly use the term "unregulated" in my post when I meant to say "unlicensed". However reading the web page you link to, the relevant section of the law here is section 333 of the Communications Act which states: "prohibits willful or malicious interference with the radio communications of any station licensed or authorized under the Act or operated by the U.S. Government (47 U.S.C. 333)". The key word there is LICENSNED. WiFi routers operate on UNLICENSED parts of the spectrum, so interfering with communications on those channels is not prohibited by that section of the Act. Reading the other sections that are quoted in that web page, it doesn't appear that Marriott's actions violated any other parts of the Act, so I think the FCC was really overreaching here.

Furthermore, this article seems to focus on jammers, and Marriott was not using a jammer here. They were merely sending de-auth packets. Jammers, as I understand the term refers to a device which creates radio frequency interference in order to interrupt or disable a communications channel.

HUGE difference. Cell phones use LICENSED parts of the frequency spectrum, while WiFi uses UNLICENSED parts of the spectrum. Running a cell phone jammer will get you in huge lots of trouble.

This is Europe, so probably around six months in prison.

As much as I dislike Mariott's practice here, this is clearly outside the scope of the FCC's regulatory powers and as far as I know isn't even in violation of their own regulations. First of all, WiFi operates on UNREGULATED spectrum, which means anyone can use, and anyone must accept interference from other users. Apparently, the FCC wasn't even concerned with the frequencies that Mariott was using, it was the fact that they were sending de-auth packets that bothered them. This is not the sort of thing FCC should be regulating. In fact, the technique used by Mariott is commonly used in many locations (hotels, universities, hospitals) that provide their own WiFi in order to prevent rogue setups from intercepting people's data, and possibly even redirecting traffic to their own phishing sites. (Not everyone checks that the SSL certificate fingerprints haven't changed when they log in to their bank account!) I used to work in the IT department at a university and we did EXACTLY the same thing that Mariott was doing, for just that reason. (Unlike Mariott, we didn't charge people to use our WiFi, but that should make no difference as far as the FCC is concerned.) When we set up that system, we also investigated the legality of it, and the conclusion we came to was that it was perfectly legal since it was on unregulated spectrum. In fact, many, if not most, commercial WiFi systems have this function built in. Ours certainly did, we only had to turn it on.

Multiplan though, didn't have a great deal more functionality than VisiCalc (although it did have a superior user interface in my opinion). Lotus 1-2-3 added graphics. You could now select ranges and make bar graphs, line graphs, and pie charts, and do simple statistical things like finding lines of best fit. This is what really set it apart from VisiCalc and made it the dominant spreadsheet of its time.

Believe it or not, there do exist domain name registrars outside the UK. They could certainly require this for anyone using the .uk TLD, but why would pirates do that when they could just buy a .com from GoDaddy or someone else in the US or elsewhere?

What, you think Canada doesn't have an educated workforce?