Can we please for the love of god get back to tech news and stop this endless political nonsense? If I wanted to read junk like this I'd watch the "news."

Frankly I think this is nothing more than fear mongering. I also feel sorry for anyone accused by this software; I'm sure having to crawl on the carpet and somehow argue against some shady, dubious algorithm will be a wonderful experience.

Also, do people really send emails from their corporate account with the words, "I loathe this job"? Give me a break.

So this is clearly a subjective, politically motivated posting. For example, we don't hear the other side of the story, etc. Love or hate Trump, I come to this site for news for nerds, not clap trap about the actions of some candidate. Frankly they all suck, and so holding one higher--or lower as the case may be--is vapid at best. Drop the slanted political "news" and get back to what we come to Slash Dot for.

This is exactly why I think phones are such a huge step backwards as far as personal computing goes. Even though in theory you own it, you basically don't.

You can't install/uninstall software, configure the device, etc., etc. as you see fit. Many phones are cluttered with software/services you may or may not want, the carriers feel free to do things such as the MDM mentioned above, and many of the apps can be filled with security/privacy issues.

(I'm amazed at the HUGE laundry list of areas on my phone that many simple apps want access to, and that I know damn well they don't need/don't have anything to do w/ the app's purpose. )

At least my PC has the illusion I'm in control (and using Linux I do feel this is more than an illusion), and that I can configure it as I see fit.
I frankly don't see the appeal of smart phones at all: You are locked in, everything you do is tracked/reported on/etc., and you have to pay for the privilege.

With of course the usual back doors and exceptions for the NSA.

So Edward Snowden can't be pardoned because of "all the damage" he did to our security (which is nonsense for the record).

But on the other hand these clowns can allow something orders of magnitude worse to happen that has real, actual consequences for security, and not a damn thing will happen to them.

I think this is a great move and makes perfect sense. Seeing as how all the govt. reps are already corporate shills we might as well just put their corporation masters right into office directly. It will save time and money, get rid of all this silly play acting that the govt. reps are actually working in the people's interest, and then we won't need so many lobbyist types trying to bridge the gap between the govt. peeps and their corporation masters. We'll already have the complete package in office making all those laws the corporation need so badly for their precious bottom line.

Every time I see one of these women/minority/Eskimo comments in computer science/math/name-your-subject I can't help but thinking....

How about if we worry more what's between people's ears and not so much about what's between their legs?

Also, I'd like to know why there isn't a movement to get more women into the plumbing, ditch digging, and roofing arts. Last I checked these critical fields were mostly male dominated, and I'm sure we need to start throwing some bucks at diversity efforts for the sexes in these industries

Lord forbid a security researcher share list of user name and passwords, or a journalist post a link to a database dump, or a college student download a large number of academic journal articles through MIT's computer network.... These evil computer hackers need to be put away forever to protect the children, moral people everywhere, and our pristine government that can do no wrong. The death penalty probably won't be too good for them!

However, should the government want to hack us, destroy our privacy, intercept and tamper with postal packages, harm the computing environment in general by embedding back doors and exploits into software/hardware, etc. by all means this is perfectly OK. Hell, we should be grateful they are doing this for us poor pleebs since we can't think for ourselves. I mean this is the government; they know what's best for us.

So kill the "hackers" for doing something that doesn't even remotely approach the level of invasiveness described by this article and others, but let the government do anything they like in the name of "security" and "safety." Or hell, maybe even because they just feel like it. Who are we to question our betters?

This crap makes me sick.

I always apply a quick rule of thumb to these types of items: Replace the word diversity/female/minority/whatever with the words "single white Christian male." Then read the sentence again. Does it offend and/or sound bigoted? Would it make Al Sharpton snort milk out of his nose if he read it whilst eating breakfast cereal? If not great; probably a good idea. If so, then it's just as bad/racist/slanted as if the words really were replaced with "single white Christian male."

Ex: Single white Christian male's have a higher cancer rate in lower income communities. (Yep, no problem here.)

Ex: Apple needs to hire more single white Christian males. (Derp! Issues... Al's nose hurts now...)

Oh I wouldn't worry about the light-heated treatment of hubris. I'm sure Monsanto will pull of bunch of political strings, make some key campaign donations, and this whole thing will be forgotten. Maybe you forgot how things work here in the USA....

In the meantime, be sure to stock up on corn and soy products!

I'm so very very very very sick of our govt doing their damnedest to turn us into a police state.

This law like so many others is just a pathetic attempt to force ridiculous and unnecessary controls on us while giving the govt the ability to do anything they wish.

I truly wish someone knew how to wake up the majority people who live in this country, because this sort of nonsense needs to come to an abrupt halt.

I think you ought to be very careful about going into QA. At many jobs that simply means pushing buttons and running the software. You certainly won't be adding any development/code writing skills on your resume at a job like that.

Also, they more you do something, the more companies will only want to hire you for that one thing. So, if you want to be a developer or remain a software engineer I'd think twice before filling your resume with QA positions. You'll likely only be considered for that position going forwards.

My $0.02, and good luck with whatever direction you end up going. :)

So let me get this clear: We help them improve the same weapons and other systems they'll be using on us for the NDAA, SOPA, and whatever other unconstitutional laws they have in the works?

This shows how little respect for us they have as well as how stupid they think we really are.