which completely discounts the fact that he broke into a storage closet, Setup the laptop hooked without authorization to their network to run the scripts that violated the TOS.

Look, he knew what he was doing was wrong and that there would be consequences or he wouldn't have gone to the elaborate route he did to gain access to that closet and network. That, IMO is what caused the wire fraud charge.

Despite the Slashdogma, it is possible to have a Facebook page and not spend your entire day posting your SSN and rapid status updates about what you ate for lunch and how it is propogating through your digestive system.

That is not the default for FB and never was. You have to jump through hoops to set it up so that a small semblance of privacy (or more accurately the illusion of it) is maintained there. And every time they update something the privacy settings for that something is always "Show it to the whole wide world!"

Also, we aren't talking about what is shown to other users but what is shown and recorded forever and tracked by the company behind it. That was a nice bit of sleight of hand you did with that by the way. FB does record, aggregate and sell your user data no matter what your security settings.

Nowhere in TFA does it say the monkey survived. For all we know it came back as chunky salsa...

No, it doesn't do my credit rating any good, but I've yet to see anybody who won't give me a loan when I'm laying 25% down and can show a large account balance.

That is fine if you make enough to show a large balance. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and are one illness away from bankruptcy.

When's the last time there was no power or cell towers anywhere? 1600's? This is a practical solution if executed right.

June 2012...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2012_North_American_derecho

And I am fine with that as long as the quality goes up which it would have to when you remove the AS-IS clause. Why should software be exempt from the product liability laws?

To use a car analogy, what you said is like questioning the worth of seatbelts. Just because they don't save every life in an accident doesn't mean that it not worth wearing them.

Let's carry your analogy to its conclusion...

The auto industry fought seatbelts tooth and nail and it took Congressional regulation for them to even consider them. That's part of how Ralph Nader earned his name recognition. Much like the software industry is fighting tooth and nail any attempt to make their software safe.

My way to fix this is much more simpler. Simply make the "AS-IS" clause of their EULA null and void and allow the users to sue for the damages when their defective products really hurts real people. A few high profile suits will make them put more of a priority on these vulnerabilities.

I don't own a smartphone and never will. Hell, I got my first cell phone only last year when I was forced to have a way to communicate when on the road and there are no pay phones anymore. I just don't see the draw in these expensive toys. I got the most stupid phone on the planet (and the cheapest non-contract prepaid one to boot) and I use it *GASP* as a phone! Nothing more. I may rarely send a text but all-in-all I can even do without that. Everything I've been reading about those phones leads me to believe they are too invasive to my privacy for my likes. Most of the time my phone is off (not that it is really off without removing the battery). Everything from geolocation for targeted advertising to the phone provider themselves profiting off the phone's always on monitoring is disturbing to me.

Then the stories like this comes along. Anything that can be remotely controlled by you can also be remotely controlled by someone else. Whether that someone else is good or bad is irrelevant. The fact that they can control it is bad enough for me. So now my crotchety ass will have to check to ensure my other household appliances are just as stupid as my phone is.

:blockquote>I don't think anything will solve any type of police misconduct in one fell swoop, but I doubt a supreme court ruling against this crap would hurt.

We are talking about the same SCOTUS that fucked up Citizen's United right? Are you so sure of that statement? Personally, I hope a case involving the recording of cops NEVER comes before them.

It might be easier to use but it sure isn't cheaper to turn a whole country's system of weights and measures. Right now is NOT a good time to be paying for changing all the signs in the US to reflect metric. Nor is ti time to change all the gas pumps for the same reason. It just plain isn't economical. Besides, that is what God created conversion programs for.

But not having to register property that I legally purchased strikes me as an important part, in particular, of gun ownership.

So you would apply that to your land? It is registered in the form of a deed. How about your car? It is registered as well as has a license and in most, if not all states an insurance requirement.

Personally, I believe we need to treat guns the same as we treat automobiles. Require that the owner is trained and licensed to use them. Make sure they are insured for when they are used on a person that that person or their survivors can get something more than they currently are getting (nothing). Identify each guns ballistic characteristics at the time of manufacture and tie it to the last registered owner for easier identification of the responsible party. In short, take it from a right to a responsibility with real world consequences when that responsibility is violated.

The car doesn't know if you're inside or outside when locking the door with the remote, duh. For all the alarm knows, there's a burglar curled on the seat, waiting to drive off as soon as the owner walks away.

Actually, my Lincoln Town Car does know if you are in the seat when you hit the remote lock. It uses the same sensors used for seatbelt detection. Hit the lock on the remote while you are in the seat and the driver's side door will immediately unlock and the car will beep at you in an annoying way. It wants you out of the car before you can hit that button.

That SOB should have been court-martialed and shot.

"Old soldiers never die. They simply fade away..."

The whole freedom, fsf, whatever claim seems also weird for somebody that mentions different software patents on his resume. I find it kind of hypocritical for somebod with high freedom morals.

True freedom would be donating the code to the public domain so in that regard even the FSF is hypocritical since the GPL itself has restrictions in its use.

Let's go back to the grandparent:

Is that something easy for the average user?

Now let's list those steps again:

1. Admin Powershell prompt (easily available even on Windows RT).
2. Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenceRegistration (yes, this is a PS command. Try "show-wi" + [TAB])
3. Enter Windows Live credentials. They don't have to be the ones you sign in with (in fact, you don't have to be using Windows Live signin at all), and the don't have to be associated with a developer account in any way. In fact, they can be for a throw-away account.
4. Download an APPX package and run its install script. Congrats, sideloading achieved.

The status of the "developer registration" will need to be periodically refreshed, as by default it expires after a month. However, it costs nothing except a trivial amount of time, and you can refresh it repeatedly.

Doesn't look to me like something the "average user" (read Joe Sixpack) can do to me.... Besides, I thought Microsoft hated the command line given their proclivity to denigrate its use in Linux.