Now that would make a difference...

If you don't have proof that you canceled the service, it's he said/she said, and they will send the unpaid bill to collections.

If you have to do it by phone, record the call (they give you permission to do so when their computer tells you the call may be recorded for "quality assurance"). Better, however, is to do it in person (and get a receipt that says the service is cancelled), or by registered mail. Then any unpaid (and unowed) bill that is sent to collection is a Fair Credit Reporting Act violation, and they know it.

Every cable company office I've ever been in - every single one - all the employees are behind bullet proof glass that would make a bank teller envious.

You said they disabled the local firewall. That's how I'd run most Windows servers on a network of any size, because the local firewall just eats up resources on the server that could be better used for the server's actual job. The firewalls should be proper hardware firewalls built into the networking infrastructure located a) between the outside world and the client networks to control access to the network in general, b) between the POS terminal segment and the server segment to control what access the terminals have to the servers and to block the servers from unnecessary access back to the POS terminals, and c) between the two client networks you mention to control what access each client has to the other's network.

The Windows Firewall itself is fairly useless in a large network because as far as incoming connections go it can't control things any better than a hardware firewall can, and for outgoing connections it's pointless because any malware that might try making unwanted outbound connections has to be assumed to have enough access to disable or bypass the Windows Firewall.

Yeah: "Prison statistics: 4 out of 5 people like gang rape"

If I have a million in assets earning 3% p.a., I make already 30k without working. Including my annual salary, that pushes me well over 6 digits. Why the fuck would I want more?

Why the need for more money than what you can spend sensibly?

Just wait 'til the poor find out that the fastest way to success is a bullet through your head and a grab for your wallet. Why not? What do they have to lose?

In my country, they DO have a lot to lose. And hence our crime rates tend to be low enough that you can actually leave your house door open and nobody would even consider entering. Despite knowing that you most likely do NOT own a gun.

Please tell me at least that half the world still envies the US for their democracy while the other half hates them for it. Please! Please tell me it ain't because half the world is afraid of the global bully and the other half simply decided to stand up against him.

Guess what, there are people who happen to be less bright than average. Or maybe just less fortunate. Or just happen to come from the wrong corner of town, had to go to the wrong schools...

Not everyone is lucky in life. I am. You might be. But I slowly lose my patience with idiots saying "they just have to try harder" after mommy and daddy ensured they had enough of an education that they can find a job they can get by on (at least for now, let's see how it pans out in the next decade or so). Because, sorry to be so blunt, what you just said is usually what comes out of the mouth of spoiled brats who NEVER had to fight for anything in their life.

You had food AND shelter? Practically for free?

Fuck, we killed the wrong fundamentalist pack!

Agreed. Could you now please make the US stop trying to destroy what we built up because they're afraid and envious of our success and wealth? The various "agreements" the EU currently gets forced into serve nothing but pulling us down to the US levels.

Na, I've just been living in a country governed by a socialist party for the past 50 years (with a few rather unpleasant interruptions).

Why should Hamas care?

No, Gaza is more like a Ghetto.

I've set up networks where the server infrastructure itself is on its own segment, so there's no need for firewalls between the servers themselves, but the whole subnet is firewalled by a border router.

A lot depends on how tightly you can lock down a server. On my *nix boxes, I tend to only run daemons with listening ports to the extent absolutely necessary. I have a LAMP server that basically has ports 22, 80 and 443 open, and everything else either shut down or set to listen only on 127.0.0.1. Do I really need to configure iptables?