Thankfully nature finds its balance, as now millions of people can sue David Pitchford for choking whilst laughing and coffee all over their keyboards.

One important implicit side effect I got from the article is that the influence of governments wishing to exploit open source software will by implication help open source software fight off attempts by closed source companies to undermine open source software.

One big and growing problem the article highlights is that governments are becoming more directly involved in what goes into the software, not least of which backdoors for their own spying. But then the US has brought this to a head due to the FBI asking for backdoors to be put into software, which has freaking out other countries. But it seems all the countries are playing this same game.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of the article is how it highlights how the division between government and business is blurring. This is shown in how money is lent from one country to other countries on the basis they take certain technology from that one country. The governments are playing global games of controlling and influencing other countries, each trying to control resources, such as natural or even technological resources such as communications infrastructure, in the case of China's moves into African countries.

I wonder if the divisions between government and business are really blurring or are we now (thanks to the Internet) now finally starting to see more of the truth, that governments and their businesses are much closer than they would like us to believe and that countries use their businesses as pawns, for their political ambitions to influence other countries. (It would also help explain how governments are voted in by the people yet spend most of the time listening to the wishes of companies (via their lobby groups) and so its businesses and not the people who really influence government. So are we now finally starting to see, in much more detail, what has been really going on for centuries? (Its no wonder the governments want to hide so much from us). I (like a lot of people) have suspected a lot of this duplicitous power games for years, but the Internet is helping us to confirm with more evidence these games are really being played behind our backs by our own governments.

On a positive note, its a fascinating thought provoking article. On a more negative note, its hard not to see the close ties between governments and their businesses as they seek to push backdoors into technology (and use technology as a means of inflence and control) is therefore a pressure that is pushing the world towards an increasingly more Orwellian Authoritarian world, where governments are increasingly trying to watch us all, but as usual we are still prevented from hearing so much about what they do in secret behind our backs. (But then even Wikileaks has been highlighting our government representatives have been repeatedly lying to us and hiding what is really going on (even though with 3 million people with access to that information, all countries are likely to have spies in that many people, so all countries knew what was in the documents, before the leaks. So that means the only people who don't really know is all of us!, the public, who are the only people really kept in the dark!). So this article adds more jigsaw pieces to help us see the global chess moves being played by governments, as they seek to manoeuvre their businesses into influential positions whilst also seeking to prevent other countries businesses from gaining influential and potentially damaging positions in their own countries.

As the old saying goes, "Oh what a twisted web we weave". So much for just make a great product and selling it. All the politics is really an irritating distraction, even without adding in all the growing Authoritarian shit that’s inevitable given their relentless behaviour, as they seem determined to try to find ways to spy and block spying on each other, with all of us caught in the middle and likely to end up spied on relentlessly.

Anyway a very thought provoking article. Now where's the brandy bottle, I need a drink!. :)

@"where several spermatozoa work together to crack the female egg shell. This process is in no way a battle between the little guys to see which is the strongest but a joint effort"

That's my favourite bit of your description, as you make the "little guys" sound like a special forces team on a mission. :) ... I can imagine one of them shouting to the others, "Hey, cover my guys, I'm going in!" ... the idea makes me feel so proud. I feel like I want to shout some encouragement to them, from the side lines, so to speak! :)

@KingSkippus, I totally agree. The Fourth Amendment died along with any real privacy years ago.

Although reading some of the posts on here I'm amazed some people still don't get that simple fact. Where have some of these /. readers been? ... I'm amazed anyone would need to ask if the US also spies on what is these days simply called open source Intelligence. Its the norm these days to spy on us all. (What was once considered just paranoia by a few freaks in society, has for the past few years become reality to the point where its just normal for them to spy on all open source Intelligence. We have no privacy. Privacy died at least 5 years ago!. Where have some people been?!

For example:
"FBI brass ask Google, Facebook to expand wiretaps"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/17/google_facebook_wiretapping/

Overview of the whole subject of open source intelligence gathering from many sources...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_intelligence

Project Vigilant - "monitors the traffic of 12 regional Internet service providers" and "hands much of that information to federal agencies."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/02/privacy/index.html

Facebook even has a government API used for datamining its users. Here's some more info on Facebook data mining connections with government. http://www.examiner.com/canada-internet-in-canada/facebook-conspiracy-data-mining-for-the-cia

Some people really need to wake up.

@KingSkippus"I know it, the government knows it, and apparently you didn't get the memo."... yes exactly, the government must be laughing that some people still don't get it. Yet /. readers are usually much more technically minded people than the general public, so its no wonder that many of the non-technical general public (who never read /.) don't have a clue how Orwellian its all becoming. Plus this is the levels of spying we have now, as nothing here is even attempting to discuss where research is taking these capabilities!.

Here's a glimpse of just one area of research. Google for, pre-emption precrime, no not as in Minority Report, this is real Pre-crime as in data mining and predicting who *may do something wrong*, not who is doing something wrong, its who could do something wrong.

If that's not freaked you out enough, try adding in the whole social influence research area, for example, just google for, Social influence detection research.

@”Will nobody rid us of these lawyer politicians, whose only understanding of communication is how it can be used to control others? “

@Darkman, Walkin Dude ... Brilliantly said. Your whole post sums up so many centuries of problems, repeated all around the world, caused by these same kind of greedy, corrupt, two faced, lying, control freaks that each generation has to suffer.

But then from so many diplomatic leaks, regardless of what we think of the leaks, one fact remains. We now have absolute confirmation our control freak governments (in almost every country) lie endlessly to us (so our leaders can get their own way and so they show they don't really work for us), yet they say they represent us even though their actions prove they are really seeking to deceive us. That isn't Democracy. It shows we are really dealing with an increasingly Authoritarian lying greedy Kleptocracy which is increasingly showing signs of becoming an outright Totalitarian Dictatorship. Worse still its becoming a global problem.

But then the act of seeking power over someone else, is the act of seeking to dictate their will over the wishes of others. So is it any wonder people who seek power over others end up seeking to dictate their will over us on the Internet. After all, the Internet is helping to highlight how much our power hungry leaders lie to us and so don't really represent us. They know if we see the truth, we can argue against them, so they lie to us, for their own greedy gain.

If that isn't bad enough, here's a shocking dictionary definition that shows how bad our lying greedy leaders actions really are against all of us. See if you can guess the word it defines. "A violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state. The betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery." The word it defines is Treason. Its shocking to think of it, but our leaders really our in complete betrayal of our trust and confidence; breach of faith; treachery against their entire country, all for their own greedy gain. They really are showing acts of Treason!. They don't represent us, even though they say they do, when they want us to vote them into power.

Some countries still have the death sentence for Treason. So is it any wonder more people are getting angry at all our leaders in most countries and why our leaders seek to control the Internet even more, to cut off ways for us to see the truth and discuss what our leaders are doing.

The Internet has revolutionised many industries already so perhaps its time it also revolutionised the management of everyone where openness is forced into our two faced leaders, to stop them being able to lie to us all. After all if they want to represent us, then they take the job on that basis.

Getting a tan on holiday is often expected, but I don't want to come home from holiday, glowing in the dark!

Wooshh... which ironically is also the sound of wanting the additional benefit from "projectile vomiting over my boss's desk"

What's a few minutes mild suffering, for some payback that just keeps on giving ;)

Great I can program up projectile vomiting over my boss's desk, to get a few days off work as sick leave and then get the Programmable E. coli to stop 2 minutes after I leave the office. :)

I thought your joke was going to go down the E. coli is another name for bugs route. At which point everyone can then make up their own bug/Microsoft jokes.

I would say, if "Netflix is swallowing America's bandwidth" then America bandwidth needs to increase.

@parent post, I know you are joking about ISPs but this story is really a covert PR story by the anti net neutrality people. This same kind of story was tried in the UK using the example of the BBC iPlayer bandwidth, trying to say it was a major drain on UK Internet bandwidth ... which they then followed up with along the lines of “so hey, how about we charge extra for iPlayer bandwidth”, when the real problem was the UK bandwidth was and still is too low (just like America bandwidth). In countries with much faster internet access, these video services take up far less of the overall percentage of bandwidth and so do not swallow all the bandwidth.

Scare stories like this are used as a marketing chess move by the anti net neutrality lot of lobbyists. They want to charge for specific kinds of data and in the UK the next move they are playing is also aiming to earn even more from then also spying on the data (via deep-packet inspection) which is also needed to kill net neutrality. (The growing Police State in the UK is also seeking to use deep-packet inspection for its 24/7 spying on everyone). Deep-packet inspection has to be made illegal globally or they will continue to push to exploit it.

So to the idea "Netflix is swallowing America's bandwidth", I say, bullshit!, America needs and in time will have more bandwidth, so these reports are bullshit, no one needs to worry about these scare stories. Its like the old saying, follow the money, and the money people are behind stories like this.

Plus oh what a surprise, Sandvine, the creators of this so called report, (Two faced PR marketing move more like), already use deep-packet inspection, so they would gain from killing net neutrality and selling their services.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandvine

Sandvine you two faced bastards, we can see through your chess moves.