Accountants look at the operating costs of a retail store as part and parcel of that store's profitability. Locks on doors, anti-theft devices on displays - those security systems and the people who maintain and support them are costs that impact the profitability of the store. Nobody running a real business pretends that the costs of operating that retail store aren't part of that store's profitability picture. Multi-store overhead (like, say, a loss prevention specialist who spends time at all of the stores) is still part of that store's P&L - her salary is charged to multiple accounts, so that each store's bottom line feels that cost.

How many years have we been talking about this. The FTC launches *a few* lawsuits, NOT THE FBI, who handles criminal litigation. Did you even read the summary? WTF.

In other words, you don't have anything germane to say on the subject, just snark that's disconnected from reality. That's exactly my point.

Mickey Mouse is a trademark.

That's a different kettle of fish. That's the problem with everything getting thrown together as "intellectual property". It muddles together things with very different requirements and considerations.

Abuses and backlash will be inappriately applied.

Doesn't explain why the US Attorney General, the FTC, or others who presumably are citizen advocates weren't all over this wire fraud, and possible RICO problem.

It shouldn't take litigation by Microsoft to end the problem, as it's a criminal act.

As I asked another poster: is a company's retail store a profit center? Are the locks on the front door part of that profit center?

So inside a retail store are thousands and thousands of tiny little cost centers? Does that mean that the retail store is also thousands and thousands of tiny little profit centers?

Or would a rational person perhaps look at the store as a profit center because it makes money, despite having overhead costs like ... the screws that hold the front door to its hinges? Or is each of those screws a cost center, in your view?

How about the display cases that hold the jewelry in the store?

How about the cash registers?

How about the front door?

Is every last bit of overhead inside a profit center a tiny, microscopic cost center?

So, a company's money-making, walk-up retail storefront isn't a profit center?

So, all VPNs are "the internet?"

It wasn't "out there." It was "in there." They had the compromised credentials for a top-level system admin, and spent months on the internal network collecting goodies before laying waste to the system.

Nonsense. It only doesn't sit well with the fictional, cartoon-grade MBA types that IT people like to conjure up as straw men. Security IS a profit center, because it's part and parcel of actually doing everything that generates profit. Without it, the profitable activity is impossible, and so it is part of the profit-making activity. Period. Saying it's no is like saying the director of a Sony movie isn't part of their profitable activity of making movies because he has to be paid.

No, I'm focused DIRECTLY on your comment. Which is peppered with the pretentious and (in this context) meaningless word "externalities" - in an attempt to make it sound like you're constructing an argument, when you're actually not. When you're not saying anything, the only thing to focus on IS the blather and the blatherer.

Perhaps, but if you're doing the tech equivalent of flashing large bills around while walking through the bad part of town, you'll be vulnerable to a lot more people than if you actually have a clue.

So, again, the only time the knife becomes dangerous is when YOU pick it up, or someone else does. Only human action makes it dangerous. It's not inherently dangerous, it's human action that is dangerous. Otherwise the knife is inert, sitting there, and unable in any way to hurt you or someone else. Unless it's highly radioactive or something - but I'm guessing that's not what you're getting at.