"If you don't like the laws of the country don't visit it. Ignorance of the law is never innocence."

The problem is that it seems the US believes the opposite is true. That if you commit an action on foreign soil that is legal there but illegal in the US, that you must come to the US and face trial even if you weren't a US citizen to begin with.

At least that is what some politicians are calling for...

"Wikileaks' supporters could raise a billboard encouraging support of Wikileaks' mission."

In the USA, the majority of billboards worth a hoot are owned by Clearchannel, who I have a feeling would not allow a pro-Wikileaks billboard to be posted.

Also, in that regard, do you think Mubarak would even consider stepping down if the Egyptians posted a billboard? I think not. Hence, the 'illegal' protests in the street.

This just shows the ignorance 'anonymous' has ...

I'm beginning to believe that anyone that refers to 'anonymous' as an organization is trolling.

And it seems to be happening on both sides of the argument, as the media and pro-government groups want to make these guys into the next Illuminati and the people doing the 'anonymous' posting seem to be getting a really raging epeep when they get attention like this even though they are in fact simply a bunch of people on a message board sharing porn most of the time.

I'll tell you what probably happen...

Some random person on the internet most likely went to a buys 'anonymous' forum (most likely 4chan) and posted "Let's go to this website and mash F5 a bunch of times!"

And it just happened that a few thousand people who read that said "Oh! Why didn't I post this first!" and proceed to go to that website and beat on their F5.

Then the page was in effect, slashdotted as they most likely had poor servers. Then proceed to review their IP logs and pick people at random to make an example.

Of course their are ignorant people who post 'anonymous', because majority of the people in the world aren't really that educated and if you put a large enough subset of people at any gathering, they tend to do stupid things (say a football mach riot in England).

But calling 'anonymous' ignorant is ignorant in itself because it assumes that that group is a unified organization but rather people who sit around and instead of having user names, they don't need to log into post and gather their porn pictures and lolcats.

Its like calling people who use "anonymous coward" on slashdot a corporation of single like minded collectivists who have one goal in mind.

These are simply individuals who post anonymous. Nothing more. Nothing less. Stop making it into something it is not.

Thank you.

The only place where two wrongs make a right is boolean algebra. Revenge/retaliation just continues a cycle of aggression and destruction.

Technically, the American Revolution and the French Resistance was illegal.

There's a trust fund setup to pay compensation to people who are injured by vaccines, that was some sort of compromise because big pharma wouldn't produce vaccines unless they got some sort of liability waiver. Well, if vaccines don't cause any harm, why is there a fund?

Because jury's can still award damages even in cases where scientific data that was provided was sound.

Even if it was obviously not the vaccine that harmed the person.

if anonymous is composed of human beings, it is subject to the sociological rules of any other movement in history. that's just reality.

Humans behave different in different situations. I thought any psychology major would know that.

Put a person in a crowd and they'll do what the crowd is doing. The police can attempt to remove the ringleaders, but the crowd has a mind of its own and therefore unpredictable. (Take the Fall of the Berlin wall which was almost spontaneous and had no central core leadership)

On the same note, put a man in a mask and a uniform and he'll be more likely to harm his fellow man with other men wearing the same thing.

Think of this situation as a rioting crowd of people wearing masks and uniforms. They are all there for different reasons. Some are protesting corruption, some are protesting economics, some are protesting religion, some are there just to loot, and some are there to vandalize.

Lets say a provocateur shouts at a man passing by, "that man burns puppies!", the mob puts asides whatever reasons they were there for and lynches the man.

The riot police come in and arrest the provocateur (or at least who they think it is), but the riot still is ensuing because most of the crowd is still doing their own thing, because the act of the lynching was not the original reason they were there..

I think that is what the OP is trying to say, this is just like how riots and lynchings work where things happen in a very unpredictable way.

After all most people who participate in riots and such events often aren't bad people, but rather get caught up in the moment.

With a group that calls itself Anonymous starts having people get picked off, whether they are "leaders" or not, what does that do to the psyche of the group as a whole?

The nice thing of an anonymous organization is that its own members don't know who each other are.

So not only can you not rat out other members, but members don't really know if the person was caught was actually a member.

And "members" is a wrong word for this because its more or less a group of people who communicate without sharing identities, but only words. No one belongs to anything, no one can identify an actual leader.

If a "leader" was caught, no one would notice his departure because the communications are so random to begin with. Obviously the problem is that anyone could impersonate anyone else but that doesn't seem to be a problem.

It's a rather strange phenomenon.

It just doesn't matter. You are expected to secure your wifi and not doing so isn't a blanket excuse. If it were then everyone would leave their wifi open and there would be no suits.

There is no law, legal requirement, or precedent (AFAIK) that one must secure your router.

Adding to that, there is no law saying the owner of the router is to be punished for unauthorized but illegal use of their network.

Otherwise, people who pirate on coffee shop networks would therefore get the coffee shop in trouble.

BTW, if you have the money, you can get your lawyer to convince the judge to have a jury, you can convince them that the router was hacked regardless of the letter of the law. Remember, in the USA juries can in most cases override the law if they want.

Though the loosing side can always appeal and I'm sure in this instant the MPAA/RIAA have the money.

That said, I'm more concerned about someone hacking my own network to do illegal activity to get me in trouble as I live in a very populous neighborhood. Though, its on of those situations where I just have to be faster than the slowest person to outrun the bear and there does seem to be open networks around me.

I'm not pro-piracy at all, its just that what you are advocating is that innocent people are guilty of copyright infringment if their networks are used unauthorized.

Apparently I not well enough right now to count... Please hold off on your public get well wishes.

Whether you love or hate what he's done in the industry, he's a fellow human being first, and I hope he has a speedy recovery.

Personally, I find it disconcerting when random strangers wish me well in times of sickness especially when its either done in front of other people or in a public forum.

One, it does not make me actually get better.
Two, it makes me wonder if I have to be hurt or sick to get noticed.
Three, if they really cared, they'd make me some soup or something instead.
Five, there is no need to do it publicly to make yourself seem like the next Mother Theresa. Send me a get well soon card in private as there is no need to broadcast your charity to others in some display of your holiness.

But seriously, people really shouldn't make a habit of publicly wishing people well they don't know or have emotions about. To be fair, you'd have to wish everyone on the planet well so unless you say "...and I wish all 6 billion people well!" at the end of your comment, then you're not really being nice to everyone else sick and dying (technically everyone has contracted mortality at birth).

BUT if you play them to the point where you can't pry yourself away from them, then you have problems.

I think the real issue is that things like playing video games excessively and heavy drinking is a sign of mental disorder, not the cause.

Basically the addictions themselves do not cause the problem but rather the person is in a state where an addictive outlet is required. Whether this over eating, drinking, gambling, hoarding, excessive video gaming etc etc, that taking the activity away does not solve the underlying problem.

In most cases a person with an addictive disorder will simply replace the behavior with another one.

Right, OPEC... I'm absolutely certain that our biggest petroleum source in OPEC, Canada, would side with Iran should we go to war. That makes perfect sense.

China might be unhappy as Iran is its leading oil import nation and such a move would cause their energy prices to skyrocket.

Of course, they could make up the difference by selling the Iranians weapons.

And on a side note, I have seen the lead developer of Paradox personally ban someone.

Your specific example notwithstanding, the wiser developers know full well that "nigh unanimous" complaints on a forum, in general, means "unanimous only among the people complaining", given the people who are happy with (or just don't mind) whatever "unanimously" needs to be changed aren't going to manically gush on and on about every bit of minutia they love about the game.

In retail, there is a saying that goes like this "For everyone one customer who complains, there are 2 who silently decide never to visit your store again so you best take care of the person who complains as you'll loose 3 customers instead of 2."

I think that forums do provide useful input, but it has to be filtered. If people do have opinions about certain items it means that they can be changed for the next major release, but maybe not at all in the way that what's said on the forum.

I think if an indie dev does not read his forums and personally respond to posts, he won't be an indie developer for long.

Yes, the dev should not personally moderate the forums, but they have to understand that they are going to have a small player base to start with because they are most likely a niche game and in order to continue sales it is imperative they have some response to concerns and quests by the community. If you alienate the people who have actually bought your product with a wall of silence, then they will think "this douche doesn't care that I spent $20 on his game... f' him!"

Now there are some people you aren't going to please at all no matter what you say and most of the time you are going to reply "feature was WAD" was as designed and "patch is forthcoming and will be ready when it is ready" but it shows that you are trying and that is good enough for some.

Also, as a small time developer you aren't going to have paid QA staff and 9 times out of 10, your player base is going to be the ones reporting bugs through the forums.

A really good (no longer small) company is Paradox interactive where it is not uncommon for a developer to respond to a post complaining about a game saying "That shouldn't be happening. Could you send me a save game so I can take a look for myself?"

And as far as niche goes... Paradox is very niche and they are going strong after 10 years because they are active in their forums and people really respect them for it.