In the (probably better) days of 'O' & 'A' level GCE (no 's') there were "Computer Science" O & A level qualifications. The problem then was that there were very few teachers qualified to teach the subject. The large school I went to (1700 pupils) in the 70's did not have a CS teacher. Then, just when computing became a universally needed skill, they started "teaching" pupils to use MS products (and ONLY MS products - Of course MS didn't apply any pressure or "bribe" any civil servants or their departments or any of their usual tactics), despite FLOSS being free & customisable for educational purposes. They were just providing Office fodder. No "Hello,World" even. In the current govt there are one or two MPs who run IT firms & do "get it" , plus massive pressure from (non-bureaucrat) industry to produce one or two school leavers who can do more than type a fucking business letter in Word, so hopefully the tide is turning.
Wonder how much money they've spunked on shitbag MS licences - millions upon millions of taxpayer pounds probably.

Most home users(& many small business users) of Windows run as an Admin level user ALL the time probably because "normal user" permissions are too strict by default(& too fiddly to overcome for them), so most users become Admin. This magnifies any security issue hugely

VMS is very close, if not 100%, I believe

Exactly - the average parent (say) whose kid has been using their connection will just shit their pants and pay up. Their biggest fear is probably that non-payment will ruin their credit rating and bring bailiffs round demanding huge sums(like they do in those docusoap programmes). There's a lot of scared people out there who'll do anything they're told if it comes in the guise of a official-looking headed letter & this guy knows it.

The cops or soldiers that use them will work out how to make the weapon have far worse effects than were intended.They *always* do.
  For example, trapping fleeing civilians against a wall or fence so that they can't esape, or more than one beam focussed on one person. (Incidentally, one technique with plastic bullets or baton rounds is to ricochet them off the street, so that they shatter and rebound up into the victims face)
Like tasers, they say that they're a 'non-lethal' alternative to guns, but in reality they still use guns the same as they always did, but now use tasers when they would just have grabbed someone & handcuffed them, or just spoke to them.

(Nice one,hjf)
One case in point - when my sisters family travel to the US (Vermont, where they own a house) from Bermuda, one of her 3 sons ( a nine(9) year-old) is ALWAYS strip-searched, the other two are not. Its obvious to me that the idea is to make people arriving in the US feel that they could randomly be arrested for nothing, so that they are always a bit scared & do what they are told, just in case there's an error and they end up in Gitmo. I wouldn't risk going to the US if you paid me.