So when is the US/EU/etc going to step in and liberate Egypt?

Once again showing that using the demographic you're in as sample leads to bad conclusions more often than not.

Oh I like to think that there's just the right amount of thought put into this. Let me guess how it went: a MS rep took the right people out for dinner, blow, and hookers, and that's pretty much all it took.

Because frankly, there's no shortage of OSS advocates in touch with the government. That at least at some point in the discussion someone would've pointed out that when MS says free, they don't mean it, I can almost guarantee.

Sure, I got no proof of what I'm saying, but neither does the next guy who thinks that incompetence comes first than malice, when lobbying is a well documented phenomena.

I'm glad you called him a rapist. Otherwise I would've thought I should take your comment into consideration.

Your government grew, and became hugely inefficient at serving anyone but itself. How can this not be clear when it is actively working to deny me and you access to information that paints it in a negative light?

Whether you believe it's a threat to national security that this sort of information gets leaked or not, actions like this one show that corruption runs deep, and it won't just stop by itself. Corruption is much like cancer: it doesn't retreat on it's own, and as history has shown many times over, there's hardly a way to remove it without collateral damage.

That unfortunate truth is what corrupt politicians cling on, so to make it look like the people fighting corruption are actually the villains, and divert our attention from the fact that the reason why Wikileaks (and other groups) came to be in the first place was because they're the response to an existing problem. One that won't go away without a fight, and that will ultimately destroy your country from the inside, because that's what corruption does. Read on the history of Rome for an example.

There is, and that's one among a few potential problems with this idea. Though identifying said problems isn't reason enough to throw it out of the window.

I also see the problem he's trying to address (US control over it) as a huge deal, considering that that pretty much means *some* corporations having control over the Internet. While today we're here posting on Slashdot, and browsing/using it in whichever way we want, it's not prudent to wait until that's not the case anymore to start looking into it.

The same could be said about ICANN (and by extension the US govt), the day they decide that a website or product "violates their copyrights", "hasn't paid royalties for patents", "is controversial", or whatever.

And what exactly is the right way to do it? Forums such as Slashdot could do with sensible arguments as opposed to "oh this just feels wrong so it's not good".

Don't attribute to ignorance what can be adequately explained by malice. (yeah I know I got it backwards)

At this point I doubt the brains behind this operation are out to make anyone's lives more secure. They just can't be that stupid. This is about the multi-million dollar contracts involved in selling these machines, and propagating fear, which in turn leads to more contracts.

"Gee, this guy is using encryption. We'll have to leave him alone then".

Or

"He's using encryption, so he must be a terrorist. Ship him to Gitmo".

Pick the one you think it's more likely.

Surely you can blame then when, in the course of protecting their interests, they bribe and corrupt a system designed to protect the interests of the majority, in order to create blockades that add no value whatsoever to a product that got paid for with tax money.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, so apologies in case you are.

Technology won't stop here. One day we'll come up with infinite (or nearly) energy supplies, maybe in 20 years, or 200, I don't know. That in itself will solve so many problems in the world that I can't even begin to imagine.

It will also ruin the market for energy completely. So what do we do? Do we shove it because there's jobs to be saved? Do we then get everyone to pretend that energy is scarce, when in reality it isn't, so we can keep our current economic models intact?

What I'm trying to point out is that eventually, almost everything that makes money today will be made obsolete by technology, and by then, capitalism (or trade based systems) won't scale anymore. What we're seeing here is yet another step. If our solutions to this problem consistently involve creating artificial scarcity, in a few centuries mankind will be comprised of corporations sitting on endless resources, and of people legislated into compliance to ensure said corporations can live forever.

I recently finished watching The Wire (great show by the way). The last season is all about the media and how journalism has been tanking for years now, thanks to the Internet.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not in favor of halting technology to save the industry. But the point they illustrate there (on the season 5 DVD there's a nice little documentary which goes into detail) is that 1) bloggers are giving people what they need, and most people don't care about investigative journalism, and 2) the Internet solves the distribution problem, which is where a good chunk of their income would come from.

So because there's less money coming in, they start getting rid of staff, lowering quality because quality costs money, and more and more you get what you just described in there: infotainment. Because that sells, and if they don't worry about what sells, they're gone.

I don't have a solution to the problem. What I'm pointing out though is that infotainment is a consequence. It's not that every journalist and editor woke up one fine day and decided to do a poor job. And frankly I don't have a hard time believing in that.

And whether you agree with me or not, if you get the chance to get your hands on that DVD, do so and watch the documentary in the extras. It's pretty damn interesting.

What shocks me to no end is that you're right. I suppose people don't care if it ain't happening on their own backyard. But the apathy of the populace with regards to a war waged for reasons that have so many holes that, to be honest, I think at this point the powers that be don't care if they get busted or not, it just never ceases to amaze me.

What I can't conceive is a manager parenting his/her employees by using a monitoring tool that keeps tabs on them on the Internet.

But really, it's Darwinism in action: should a company start getting rid of good employees thanks to what may seem to be an indicator or a "devious" personality, it'll get what it deserves eventually. No one even remotely good will want to work for them. Their workforce will be made of prudes, people with weak personalities, or people who need the job too desperately and hence are willing to put up with ridiculous shit like that.

Oh I know that one: the cousins/brothers/buddies of the people in govt buying them. You know, people who wouldn't be in business if it wasn't for that kind of favor and hand-greasing.