Eh, you might find the Italians alone have convicted more than one of them.

While they have a de facto immunity based on the unwillingness of the US Government to obey any law, and the military superiority associated with a military budget no one else comes close to. Operations like that are often clearly illegal and in some cases there is even an obligation to prosecute. But in the real world it is rarely pursued because there is no practical way to enforce a judgement, and courts are well aware that pronouncing judgements they cannot enforce just tends to make them look weaker.

But any student of history would tell you this is a very dangerous course for the US Government to be taking. It's hard to see much upside to it to begin with, and the downside is really a national poison. We have already poisoned our relations with friendly nations all around the world, and it appears to be our policy to simply continue doing so. One day, and we can argue over how long, but one day inevitably we wont be the hyperpower anymore, we wont be able to get away with this, and worse yet, the other players, some of whom will be in really good positions to mess with us... they are ALL going to hate our guts.

This is just viciously poor strategy.

All true, but I have an account, classic discussion is set, and while there might be some small issues with it it's far preferable to the nonsense you get when you allow scripting here.

You are right, and it's a colander instead of a nearly seaworthy boat that just needs some holes patched because of 'nimble' development practices and several decades of constantly reinventing the wheel and selling it over and over again with a little more gee-whiz each time.

If you want a secure computer you need a conservative stack, free from the ground up, with security designed in from day one, and an emphasis on mathematically correct code rather than features. Otherwise, you are trying to bail a colander.

"Unfortunately, its been years since it was reasonable to use slashdot without javascript."

I must disagree as I am using it that way right now, and have been for years. It works fine. Whenever I start allowing any scripts is when it really borks.

I am too. I noticed recently youtube has a picture it scraped up from a google+ account I never consented to be made, never told it to use, and really it's a mystery where it came from or who it is. But it's now me, and I cant get rid of it. Might just delete my youtube account as a result.

Google used to be useful but lately it's about the creepiest thing on the web (for me, at least, since I can and do avoid facebook entirely.)

Apparently your idea of "good" package management is a system that is needlessly complex and therefore needlessly brittle. Personally I like package management that just works without needless fuss and breaking other things. Nice to have a choice.

That's just a bad way to install period.

Backup ~/, format the drive, do a clean install.

I have never been able to stand running Ubuntu for more than a few minutes to begin with.

Now it's gone from technically awful to actively evil, it would be nice to be able to switch away as a statement, but that would require actually using it to start with.

"So then don't do a sloppy implementation, and reap the benefits."

You think simply designing a technically superior product would allow me to compete with the big automotive manufacturers around the world? Are you dreaming?

I could tell you how to do it in general terms but it involves a lot of very painstaking work by some top dollar professionals. The auto companies have the funds to do it, but they arent going to devote those funds to the job unless the liability is calculated as exceeding the cost. Which is obviously not the case at present.

"Disclaimer: I work for an ad company."

Stop breathing. Seriously. You're wasting oxygen that something more useful, like a cockroach, could be breathing.

"Fearing the loss of third party cookies (which IMO is not that much of a privacy issue)"

Your opinion is not relevant.

"ad companies were forced to develop alternative methods to track people."

No. No one is forcing you to track people, full stop. It's a matter of choosing to be evil.

"Granted, it is not as effective (in the same scope) as third party cookies, but the added benefit of being able to track users across devices - if approximately - gives then an edge over the old methods"

It's less effective for now and breaking it completely will be the next item on the agenda of whitehats worldwide.

"purportedly pro-user organization"

Yeah right. Someone hasnt been paying attention to them for many years, it does appear.

The contributors that are scratching their own itch are one group - the users who dont code are another. The first is only serving the second in the sense of letting them have whatever is useful to them at no cost - which is significant - but they still go in the direction that suits them, fix what bothers them, leave unfixed what does not. Which is only fair - they are donating their time.

But many people use free software without actually being coders at the appropriate level to alter every piece of software they rely on. And their needs are not always met by the results of the coders scratching their own itches. Very often they would be happy to pay small fees to see the things that are more important to them addressed, and often there are enough of them that feel that way to pay a freelancer decently to do the work, at least in theory.

Hooking the two groups up effectively is hard though. This is the latest in a long series of attempts to do so. I am hoping it is successful.

Historically, no one was Muslim before approximately 600ad. So if that's your test then Arabs fail it just the same as Persians.

There is a difference between paying for a bugfix on software you already purchased once, and paying someone to fix something you get for free.

Changing the passwords on the routers was part of his job. Handing the passwords over to the wrong person in violation of his contract would have gotten him screwed just as hard.