So they have a secret capability to spy on North Korea, and they tell us because Sony got hacked? So now North Korea knows about it and probably will do something about it? That sounds an incredibly stupid action to me.

In WWII, when the Brits cracked German encryption, the went to incredible lengths to create believable stories how they found secret German operations that they discovered through decrypted Enigma messages.

That's the choice when you buy a laptop: You can buy cheap and get rubbish or buy expensive and get quality. (But my mother always said: We are poor, we cannot afford cheap things. ).

Now for most users there is the big difference between running Windows or running MacOS X. That obviously makes a big difference. But we are talking here about people who are going to run Linux anyway. That means an important question is Linux compatibility, which I didn't see discussed at all.

The important things to answer: How well does the trackpad work under Linux (because that's a major plus of a Mac compared to any Windows laptop), is the retina display supported well, are external monitors supported well, is energy saving supported well.

There is good evidence that Apple cannot read any messages sent through iMessage with its current software. So what our politicians would want is that Apple would change their software, so that if there is evidence that a strongly suspected terrorist uses iMessage, then someone can ask Apple to give them a key that gives the government access to that terrorists iMessage account and read all his messages.

But if Apple can give some key to the government that gives the government the capability of reading one specific terrorist's iMessages, then Apple must have the capability of getting a key for any user and read that user's messages. So Apple can then read anyone's messages, which means any other government agency can issue warrants for anybody's iMessages. So no matter whether the government claims this would only affect suspected terrorists, it affects anyone.

Moreover, _someone_ at Apple would be handling these requests. That employee could be bribed, or tricked, or their computer hacked, for other governements or criminals to get access to anyone's iMessages. Including iMessages sent by military, diplomats, polticians and so on. So this thing would risk the safety of anyone. How likely is it that terrorists would find a way to exploit such a weakness to help them with their terrorist plots?

Actually, if 1000 terrorists were sent to prison at the cost of one single innocent person having their rights violated, I'd be all for it.

But what our politicians want won't catch a dozen terrorists and will violate the rights of 100s of millions, so the situation is a bit different.

Your communication might also be of interest if you have a date with the ex-partner of someone whose job is spying on people, or if you are a good looking man / woman who likes to send nude pictures of themselves, and many other reasons.

Your translation is wrong. The correct translation is "I except the Silicon Valley companies to support us, otherwise we will do our best to denounce them as unpatriotic".

That, and swatting from the UK to the USA could get you extradited. Actually, I think it should get you extradited.

It seems that he made calls to the US police to get SWAT teams to someone's house. That is most definitely not "non-violent". It's something that can easily get someone killed, and that is very likely to inflict violence on someone, and that violence or killing is the desired effect.

At nine, I drove by bicycle to the neighbouring village to and from school, about three miles away or so. Not too much road traffic, but still some.

At twelve I went on a 14 day holiday on my own. There were some adults present that my mother knew, but not many.

Looks like in some countries today they would have removed me from my family and put in a home. In which case I promise I would have found the people responsible and would have punished them.

The real problem is that these people managed to collect lots of weapons. How did they get these weapons? Why is nobody asking how they got their weapons? What do you think would happen if France had laws so that the manufacturer of a weapon used in a terrorist attack gets a _massive_ fine? And by _massive_ I mean a fine that will badly hurt a major arms manufacturer? Plus severe punishment for anyone trying to smuggle illegal guns in the country, or selling illegal guns? That would be something that should stop that kind of terrorism, while not affecting any ordinary citizen.

The problem isn't stopping terrorists. The problem is stopping terrorists without turning the country into a police state.

I might for example have my MacBook with me, _and_ have a tiny Apple TV to plug into the hotel TV, and play movies from my computer via an ad-hoc network (nothing going to the outside, just WiFi between Mac and Apple TV). Apparently they would be blocking that.

Don't try this in a country where equipment for receiving radio waves needs to be licensed.

By definition, you are willfully breaking the law if you intentionally do an action, and that action turns out to be illegal. It doesn't matter whether you knew it was illegal or not.

No. You can offend people (that's something _you_ do) and people can be offended (that's something those people do). We can always judge what is reasonable. It's unreasonable to say "your mother is ugly" and entirely reasonable to be offended by it. With the doctor performing abortions, it is unreasonable to be offended to a degree that you attack him.

With all the examples, we can judge how bad the offending or the being offended is, and usually you get punished by the law for going badly over the limits.

Just to clarify: That court decision said that using "fighting words" is illegal and you can get arrested for it. It doesn't say whether you would have an excuse for punching someone if that person used "fighting words" against you.