That said, the fact that it was the OPP rather than the RCMP makes it even less likely this will fly on a Federal level.

I think Gnome 3 is the New Coke of the DE world. It wasn't so much that it was a horrible idea... taste tests seemed promising, and change is good, right? It just seems to be what happens when makers 'mess' with a product. Now that they've reintroduced Gnome 'Classic', (see where I went with the Coke thing?), people are simmering down a bit and reluctantly muttering, "Oh, well.... that's okay then, I guess. Watch it - we've got our eyes on you!"

Where it's nothing like New Coke is that the Gnome developers get to mess with the formula while they try to, (often unsuccessfully), balance needs and vision, (whose vision?). In this case, I think the vision preceded the needs department for a lot of people. I actually like the standard Gnome 3 interface, but I also see how it pissed a lot of people off... especially with earlier versions.

Yup. Maybe. But it also doesn't sound like Snowden is naive either, and he was willing to risk doing all of those things you mentioned and more. He still had his job when he took confidential info from the NSA, and he has taken his risk of getting 'fired' to a whole new level.

It may not have happened right away, but he must have at some point knew a cover up would have been the result, and if he was clever enough to evade the NSA with all that data, he was also clever enough to leave some insurance behind. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Assuming he is an intelligent man, and also assuming he knows that cover-up and concealment is a matter of course at the NSA, I presume he would have sent them securely from an outside network, perhaps through a network he hoped the NSA couldn't touch. Or better yet, he left the evidence hidden in plain sight, somewhere within the NSA where he could point to it later. If I was Snowden, I'd be paranoid as heck when covering my own behind. He had to have known they would lie about anything that made him look good in the aftermath.

There are so many ACs who post in response to MS-centric articles. It's almost as if you can feel the shame and terror as you read your way through.

It's kind of like giving the Coke machine down the hall an IP address with sensors.... 'why' becomes such an unimaginative and mundane question in such scenarios, and if pressed, can simply be answered with, "Because I can."

Science and medicine use 'tools' that typically have false positives or negatives all the time in order to help rule things out or determine possibilities. The measure of how helpful a tool is does not always hinge on accuracy. Weather forecasting would be a pointless exercise if what we wanted was more than 'gossip' and 'rumour', or what I'm going to call 'conjecture'. Using EEGs to help diagnose seizure disorders frequently offer false negatives - that doesn't mean a wise neurologist will discard test. Using a d-dimer test doesn't tell you that you have a DVT, it merely indicates the possibility, and a positive result suggests that more investigation is warranted.

Predictions highlight points of interest in a landscape that might otherwise look chaotic or homogeneous. Nothing wrong with calling this a tool.

Sounds like the dinosaurs were humiliated backwards... feathered ...then tarred.

Well, I don't know.... his point sounded more like, "Oh, remember those awful Firestone tires from 2000? I'm never using tires again - they all just blow out. Tank treads all the way for me."

Nothing wrong with solid caps, but the premise for the argument is a little weak.

Absolutely! Anyone remember Rocky's Boots? Similar concept here - learn all about program execution, logic, conditional operators, and functions which are fundamental to any programming language.

My company has dozens of free logmein systems our techs administer locally. Sure, one or two computers is just a tiny $100, ($50 on promo), but dozens of systems is a game changer. I'm not WAHing, but I think a lot of people were taken off guard. And yes, we do have paid accounts as well.

They have a term in medicine called "contraindication". Basically, when there are contraindications, (downsides), the risks and benefits of a treatment are weighed, and if the benefits outweigh the potential complications, it might be worth trying regardless. Test subjects sign on for trials because they feel the risks are acceptable. The AC may not fall into this category, but that doesn't mean (s)he's wrong if they don't choose to 'sign up' to have this done unnecessarily. I wonder if you'd have had a similar reaction if someone suggested injecting a fungus into the bloodstream... sounds horrifying, but how many lives has penicillin saved?

Perhaps if the right people make Snowden seem like a mad brilliant genius, the public will brush aside questions of how secure processes at the NSA are?

Heh.... looks like not everyone made it out of June... I've had months like that.

Sunday? June 21st was a Friday!