"It's too complicated and expensive for government to perform mass data collection & tracking if they have to deal with thousands of small mom-&-pop ISPs."

Yes, that's why the push for regulatory barriers happened in the first place. I'm not saying it *will* be undone, just that it *could* be.

Why is it not possible to break the monopolies? Just stop treating ISPs as utilities, lower the artificial barriers to entry, and we'll have an explosion of local ISPs just like we had back in the old days, before we erected a regulatory wall to stop mom-and-pop internet providers and force us into these monopolies.

This is a common misconception - frogs don't stay in boiling water, even if it's heated slowly. The only time that a frog will not jump out of even a slowly-heated pot is when the sides are too steep. I guess frogs are smarter than humans, in a lot of ways.

Depends on what the balloon is made out of, now doesn't it? Where is the video of you performing this experiment, btw? Pics or it didn't happen.

They will in vacuum. Helium is lighter than air. It is not an anti-gravity gas.

Yes, so they can put in 30 or 40 500k flash ads that change hourly so you can't cache them. Great idea! I have a better one: How about they provide the service that they're getting paid to provide? If they can't do it, maybe they should have thought about that before they went and offered it.

Merely restating your point does not make it any more valid than it was the first time around.

I wonder if you could take out an "ad" with certain calculus notes buried within it...like having the Ideal Gas Equation or Hooke's Law as a tiny part of a graphic... ^_^

If you don't care for that analysis, here's another.

I find it interesting that you are complaining about the last eight years in the US, yet the article is about Europe...

I'm referencing the U.S. because I'm a resident of the U.S., and have more knowledge of the U.S. government's various malfeasances than I do of the U.K.'s.

And no one was "complaining". I was merely pointing out that the OP's claim that a government is somehow more trustworthy than a "grey hat" is patently absurd.

IMO, it shows the anti-US sentiment, apparently because of the US's more or less high position in the world, as opposed to many European countries that are trying to rival it with the EU, etc., but failing.

IMO, you're reading way too much into my remarks, Sparky.

And yet, The UK and Europe have far worse "wire-tapping" sorts of things than the US. But it's not in vogue to complain about it anywhere but in the US, it seems.

Could you please explain your point, seeing as how you have seemed to have made mine for me at this juncture?

Granted....I'm just making the suggestion based upon the available information that says a Trojan will be involved, which will almost certainly be only written in the M$ flavor...90% of market share and all...

However, as interest in Linux increases, it's only a matter of time before The Powers That Be take notice, and mucking with a repository would be a great way to snare an unsuspecting Linux user. All the more reason to support the growing Paranoid Linux movement...I don't know exactly how effective this sort of thing would be in the real world, but unfortunately, it looks like we're going to have to find out.

But, of course, if your machine is behind a firewall, they'll just outlaw having firewall because it impedes their ability to investigate you for crimes.

Actually, if you live in Michigan, this has already happened.

Unless this law has been repealed since 2003 (and I've been unable to find any evidence that it has), then I and everyone I know is a felon.

because with the government there is accountablity, responsilibty, a paper trail, transparency

Indeed...one need only look at the last eight years in the U.S. for the proof of this statement.

Oh, wait...