The main problem is that the fundamentalist fucking morons often seem to be the ones most attracted to having power over others. Therefore their influence (and capacity for damage) is unfortunately far greater than it should normally be.

Kudos to the OP (jfengel) of this subthread who is a gentleman/woman for whom one day I would like to buy a beverage.

This is slashdot. You must be lost.

With pleasure.

Easy. Release your wildly successful product in a country in which congress has no jurisdiction. Laugh maniacally as the US government forgoes millions or billions in taxes.

For this reason I avoid Bing like the plague and use IE for what it was meant for: a download tool for a real browser.

Pot - Kettle - Black.

myself or my company to the Micro$oft treadmill to bucks shortly after hell freezes over. The quote "Subscription software of one form or another has proven popular in the enterprise" is obvious drivel from a Micro$oft PR flack. Our enterprise ENJOYS deploying every second release (or more infrequently if possible) of those products when we have to use them. We suffer not at all from being behind the so-called leading edge.

SA is for fools with too much money.

There... I fixed if for you.

Actually you can create your own custom ribbon and add whatever you like to it. Not that I'm advocating the billions of dollars in lost productivity that we can lay at the feet of microsoft due to their introduction of the ribbon. Most of the people old, young and intermediate that I support still find it counter intuative after 4+ years of use. Really, thanks for that one Micor$hit.

Astroturfing much?

Who gives a rats how shitty it looked. What was important was that it achieved its goals. In terms of data acquisition probably not thanks to the weather, but in terms of proving that you could land something on mars to perform a task on a low budget the answer is a resounding yes. And that's valuable data in itself. You may recall that the soviets put a very successful rover on the moon as well...

Thanks AC- I'm definitely a firm believer in Wikileaks. More government transparency - in the vast majority of cases- benefits us all. Unfortunately governments tend to argue that the disclosure of numbers of paperclips bought last financial year would undermine national security. I think the Assange witch hunt is shameful. When the current Australian Prime Minister was elected she said it was time to "let the sunshine in" meaning that she wanted to improve government transparency. What we have had during her term is the opposite. What we would get from the opposition is no different. As to the other part of your post, yes- all of that information would be useful to a criminal trying to steal my identity, but probably not very useful to anyone trying to see if I'd done anything illegal. So in this case wouldn't the government plan to record communications potentially help me because the evidence of that criminal activity may be recorded? Kinda invalidates your argument. I don't agree with the legislation the government has forced on us simply because the more places our data is kept the greater chance it will be accessible to unauthorised access. That doesn't really make me want start encrypting and proxying everything, it makes me want to get the stupid legislation repealed.

Haha, damn 25 posts a day limit- I've been waiting to respond to you all day! I agree that power is almost always abused by someone eventually. In this case, however, we didn't mindlessly give them this power. They gave it to themselves without asking.

I disagree with you. A valid answer to the "What illegal activities" question is: None. Posters including you have overlooked that. I then went on to make the point that IF you go on to use those kinds of services to try and protect your privacy you should expect that your activities will be the subject of additional scrutiny. That was my point. I also disagree with your statement that either people are entitled to privacy or they aren't. You simply can't be so black and white about it. People are sometimes entitled to privacy, meaning that nobody really gets to eat that cake. And at this point in time, speaking out MIGHT be illegal. In Australia we actually have no right to free speech enshrined in our constitution. So yet again, nothing as black and white as the statement you made. "Australia does not have explicit freedom of speech in any constitutional or statutory declaration of rights, with the exception of political speech which is protected from criminal prosecution at common law per Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth. The Howard Government re-introduced sedition law, which criminalises some forms of expression." -wiki

Threads like conversations have a habit of wandering. Say something constructive instead of being a whining little bitch. Either that or turn your thread filters up a bit.