The point is that the government couldn't make charges stick to him for crimes of murder, racketeering, etc etc etc, so they slapped him with a lesser charge just to get him off the streets (and yes, guilty of tax evasion). Same theory here, the case for Piracy won't stick so they'll find some other charge to get this guy off the street.

Should the Megauploads Case fall flat (which if MPAA and RIAA were to assist would be certain), then its a guarantee that the DoJ would find something else to hammer him on. Take the case of Al Capone, the Fed couldn't get him on actual charges that he did commit, so they got him on Tax Evasion. Same concept here, DoJ will miss the mark on Piracy, but they'll get him on something else, and the MPAA and RIAA will dance around like fools screaming their ignorant heads off about how *They* helped bring down one of the greatest threats ... etc ... etc ... etc ... Ad Nauseum.
(My 2 Cents)

This may be pointing out the obvious, but so what if someone does pay, and does legitimately retrieve their data. What's to stop the Government from prosecuting them next? After all, they get the "Criminal" with the evidence, and they had to pay to get it, (weakly) proving its their data.

Does that come with a page that has a picture of flames too ?

I'll trade one quote for another.

- Thomas Jefferson.
Sadly, today's government has forgotten the ideal of leaving the citizens to grow and prosper, instead they choose to blindly and boldly violate the liberties that this country was founded on, for what reason? (I have my opinion) My original joke aside people should be outraged - the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments just took a near crushing blow, and whats worse is that no amount of fact provided to the lawmakers can change their minds, they've been brainwashed by the Corporate funded propaganda (do I even need to point in the direction of RIAA and their games?). [sarcasm]But then again, trying to apply Law that was created in a time before the internet was even a wet dream is nearly impossible.[/sarcasm]

.. just told a Smug Orwell to shove it when he started the 'I told you so' dance

There's a Fundamental breakdown with letting the 'Parents Do Their job' and that is that Most Parents won't, they're too busy buying their kids the latest toys to keep them occupied. As a matter of fact now, its becoming more common for kids to call the cops on their parents when they don't get their way (I wish I had a specific reference for this point, anyone), or for parents to become infuriated when their kids get into trouble (recently heard a story on the news regarding parents of children who were arrested drinking, infuriated at the sheriff - one father's comment to his son was "why didn't you run ?"). But this does not give the school district the right to do what they did either, they violated at least 3 of these kids rights with one action. Even if they did locate any information off Facebook it would be Inadmissable in a court case, so why was it done, seems to me the school was forced into reinforcing some position or opinion at the cost of trampling on civi liberties. Its a damn shame, but I don't think it will last we hear. --My 2 Cents

This is actually an interesting Idea, albeit in need of more thought and planning. I live in Alabama ... you know ... right where the tornadoes tried to vacuum the land clean in April of 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_tornado . Granted this wasn't nearly as disastrous as Fukishima or New Orleans, but power was down, roads cut off, cellular communications disrupted. During this whole time the city, local power co-op, County EMA, were using Facebook as a means to get messages to the people and get reports back from them - served not only as a morale booster for everyone but relayed vital information about shelters and supply areas quickly to the sneaker-nets that spread information further. Was it perfect, hell no. But it helped, and as others have pointed out, this is no where near a "ready for production" idea, but with refinement it might turn out to be a useful idea.

Define "Limited" ...

Sounds like Nokia is trying to break into the sauce market ... 'cause I'm getting the impression they want to crush apple in court.
"Coming to a store near you Nokia brand Apple Sauce"
(Ok... bad joke)

I stand corrected ... (thank you ... must get caffeine before posting next time), but my point still stands, open source being traded off isn't new .. but it is irritating.

Its nothing new really, there's been several tools that have either been "sold off" or their devs have "closed source". (I could be wrong) 3 that pop to my mind are Nessus, Tripwire, and Snort. ... sure does make me want to start using the words "sell outs" though.

No, I don't warn people off sites anymore, I've given up that. ESPECIALLY when good sites like NYTimes gets infected, I only warn people to avoid them for a day or so. Long enough for some overworked admin or Overpaid ad executive to realize that infected ad found its way into the stream.

Last time a friend asked me to work on his computer it got some mysterious scripts that shut down the computer ... randomly reset the homepage ... (not viruses - scheduled batch scripts) ... its coming very close to that with family now. You know - Live isn't fair, but having the root passwords helps ...

Don't forget the possibility of a carefully crafted PDF as a vector (have seen and had it happen) ... then there's the ever popular (and the numerous) Flash possibilities. Personally, I think its a lack of caring on the Ad distributors parts .. as long as the money keeps flowing they don't care what people distribute, much to the irritation of those who have to clean this junk up. My 2 cents.