Information sharing is built into the universe, and so is copying of patterns. Atoms and molecules share electrons in predictable ways, cells communicate with each other, living entities communicate and share in incredibly diverse and complex ways; and once "the cat is out of the bag" it's almost impossible to get it back in. Streisand effects ad nauseum. The war living things wage against each other on so many levels - for example, viruses versus our immune systems - are also a facet of this interaction. We exist in an environment where sharing and communication is fundamental and everything influences everything else in myriad, complex ways. Making something totally secure - in other words, preventing it from interacting with its environment - hence is utterly impossible, or at the very least the amount of energy required to secure something is immense and the result is always imperfect.

Goes for plagiairism as well. DNA copies itself, kids copy their parents, we copy habits and patterns from each other hundreds of times every day. It's part of our processes for optimalisation and they're also intrinsic to the universe. Thus, things like copyright are also doomed to fail. Here, too, the amount of energy required is huge.

You can do one of two things:
- Find the temp folder where Skype downloads its new copy, find out what name it gives the file, and replace it with a 2.8 version, then remove wheel rights so it can't replace it
- adjust your hosts file so that Skype can't auto-update. Unfortunately I don't know what the updater connects to.. time to dust off your favorite network scanning apps.

On the side, I think we all would do well to keep bombing Skype support with mails that we see abolsutely no reason to switch to the bloated leviathan with the useless interface adustments and would greatly appreciate it if they would at least introduce a "classic" mode.

Exactly so. Anal retentive attention to game details do highscores make.

Some people can happily read through a list and pick out the ideas whilst laughing at the insults and caustic trolling, others get frustrated by content and end up dejected. If you're the latter type, you're probably best outsourcing it or leaving it be. But there's much to be said for communicating with your community, and as long as you remember that for every IQ 120 there's an IQ 80 out there - all, unfortunately, still allowed behind a computer - then it becomes easier to shrug it off. Besides, it's YOUR project. If they don't like it they can write their own and some people are just fashionably frustrated.

Very true.. the only thing we can to is Streisand Effect it as much as possible to help slap Facebook in the face. Maybe even set up a dedicated group resenting this move. Who knows, they might get the point. But it looks like we're seeing Microsoft's grubby little fingers in FB policy again.

People are worried it's another one-two by the record companies (and it probably is). This is great news and comes down to a bitchslap to the pencil pushers trying to get away with it.

Btw, if you want to rally more support: join our facebook group: We Need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=213704134963

Look around, there's plenty of things to do. Write your MP's. Join our "We need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA" Facebook group. (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=213704134963) Join your local political party and yell at the town meeting that it pisses you off. Tell your friends. Only by sitting on your ass do you achieve your aforementioned goal.

We SHOULD be against any form of copyright protection on principle. It goes against nature (copying is natural) and hence will require LOADS of energy to enforce - from policy makers, judges, and cops to sysadmins and users. Get rid of it; there's plenty of better ways to get this done. Open source collaboration is one, alternate business models are another. The record companies have already been made superfluous by these developments and they know it, but they're doing their damnedest to become tyrants rather than adjust to life's flux.

Good point. I certainly hope not. Copyright is already problematic in that copying is built into nature, so going against it is swimming upriver - they're better off going with either a pledge-money-for-band-X's-new-album system or else lowering prices so far that downloading illegally just doesn't make sense anymore (especially if you can get it automatically sorted into the right folders with ID3 tags just they way you want 'em). Lower prices to 10c / song and I'll immediately spend $200. Add the right to re-download whenever you want and you've got a business model. Although on a practical note, there's no reason bands can't do tat themselves. There's plenty of platforms available for it.

On the side: There's a Facebook group I started in the hope to raise awareness, with the ultimate goal being to petition / lobby governments. Feel free to join, it's called We need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA.

There's a group on Facebook for it, we're trying to get a lot of people so we can set up petitions and start lobbying. It's called:

We need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA.

Feel free to join.