I get the rest of your defence but why allow users to execute random files in a windows environment?

Reminds me of something my father told me about. He's in the cyclotron (atom smashers, for medical purposes) business, and back in the 70s, the control systems for his machines were run on PDP 11s.

Well, the old computers have all died over the years, but some of that equipment is still running, albeit with it's third owner. Y'know, Sloan Kettering upgrades and sells their cyclotron to UCLA. UCLA upgrades and sells it to University of Shanghai. Shanghai sells it to a hospital in Java...

Anyway, the same control software is being used; they're just running PDP 11 emulators in a Windows context.

>>>they'd make off with around two grand before they were stopped. I was informed that I'm only worth 645 dollars. :/

Correct. The "guy" pays $645 for your information and he scores about $2000 using it. So around $1300 profit minus expenses like gasoline, renting a place to atash the stuff, and so on. It wouldn't make sense for the guy to pay $5000 for your data if he's only netting $2000 stolen, would it?

I had my credit card number stolen one time, and somebody in California bought $3500 worth of stuff at Walmart. I had been traveling and I suspected the girl behind the Motel 6 desk had collected and sold my number. I don't know how much the scammer paid that girl but if it was around $1500 (Symantec's estimate), then he "earned" $2000 profit overall. Not bad.

See it's not about "your" value. It's about the value to the scam artist and how much he thinks he can get with that data.

Yes, it's less spectacular if they've done it only because they were in violation but I think they should be applauded either way.
In the worst case, it shows that they are willing to play by the rules. They didn't try to take it as far as they could. They found out the violation and promptly fixed it.

My "Smart" thermostat turned the A/C on 45 minutes before my set time at 7pm, beginning of off-peak rates. It's called "Smart Response Technology" and it's "thinking for me"; aka: costing me money. Couldn't get the manual/specs off honeywell.com without registering but luckily it was loose on the tubes. So now Setting 13 has been switched to 0, the dumber response of activating at the time I chose to activate!

I'm finding smart appliances are just like the cloud, great in theory but painful in practice.

Nice, when will it be available for TomTom?

It was plain enough the first time. I'll repeat as well. I had no intention to buy this game in the first place.
Yes, you don't have to buy them all. You don't have to buy any. I pointed out that what usually was done in one game (RTS with campaigns for all species) is now being offered in three.
I still don't get it. What do you mean? If I don't want to buy a product then I am not allowed to discuss it or even whine about it? Your only addition to the discussion was condescension.