To put this more simply... SEEING IS...

I hope that any proposed legislation doesn't ignore the Kindle app store, as well. Amazon only allows users to install apps on Kindle fire tablets that come from their store. Kindle fire tablets are running a customized version of Android and should technically be able to run apps from the Google Play store, but this use case is loked out as well.

Make no mistake... Publishing the source code to even this early version of Windows will have dangerous ramifications that will play out for many years to come. Since Windows has become the OS behind many critical systems, they will now become much more vulnerable to attack from enemy nation states and other criminal elements. What could be the first death at a hospital, due to a ransomware attack was announced just last week. We can expect much more of the same. Any system being controlled by this cracked OS and its descendants needs to be ported over to secure open source platforms ASAP.

I hope that the appropriate authorities see this. It could save thousands of lives if the COVID nightmare turns as bad as predicted.

That was my thought, exactly. Although I haven't read the text of the law, I hope that it doesn't criminalize being a victim of ransomware. By definition, victims have a copy of the ransomware that is attacking them, on their computer. They need to make very sure that the new law doesn't make victims into criminals. They also need to make sure that they are not making the reporting of a ransomware attack a crime either. Victims need to be able to lawfully get assistance in fighting the effects of this scourge.

Besides enriching media corporations that already have massive pocket books I honestly don't see what public good is being accomplished by this regulatory act. This consent decree has been working for a very long time and has not harmed the industry one bit. It has allowed independent artists to get exposure, along with the large media conglomerates.

While I admit that taking away this regulation is another step of the Trump administration's stated goal of eliminating government regulations, I would not classify this as an unneeded, burdensome regulation, that has no other purpose than to increase the cost of doing business. It has actually increased competition and has allowed small producers the chance to play with the "big boys".

In my view this will only allow for large monopolies and less competition. Elimination of regulations, simply for the sake of keeping a campaign promise to cut down on government oversight is wrong. We will be spending a generation or more revisiting and fixing problems that had already been dealt with, due the the heavy handed actions of the current U.S. administration in removing government regulations that have protected small business, the environment, and the poor. Between sweet-heart deals for the rich, removal of environmental protections, and the removal of important time-tested regulatory controls, this administration has caused more damage in 3 years than any other in the last 40.

I don't like being political in a technical forum, but the only solution to the actions of this administration is political change, at the ballot box. America cannot take 4 more years of this.

Please ignore the "change lower case to upper case in linux" text in my previous post. It was extraneous text that I did not mean to include, and has nothing to do with this post. :)

My real problem with all of this are the mixed signals that Microsoft is sending.

On the positive side:

• Microsoft has ported some important and powerful tools to Linux, such as PowerShell, and Visual Studio Code
• The Windows Subsystem for Linux that allows you to run Linux distributions on a Windows 10 PC without starting a full VM

On the negative side:

• They still support patent trolls that sue others to monetise broad software patents. The targets of these suits generally find it cheaper/easier to settle then to protect their rights and counter-sue.

change lower case to upper case in linux

Until Microsoft makes a clear stand in support of Linux, and the open source community in general, and demonstrate their commitment to this through a history of support, there will always be people that do not trust them.

Yes, Big Brother is watching you. He's just hiding. I don't think we will ever be able to untie this Gordian knot.

I am simply amazed at the ineptitude exhibited by Equafax. They are not adhering to even minimal industry-wide security standards, yet they hold some of the most valuable information on the Net. Their lack of patching has led the the identify theft of too many people to count, and now we're being told that they are using username / password combinations that 5th graders wouldn't use. These credit rating companies need tighter regulations concerning privacy (i.e. something similar to HIPPA) and they need to be fined severely when they fail to follow even these basic security practices. If they can't afford the time and/or money to do this, they should be shut down. There is no excuse for this in today's environment. My next guess is that Equifax is going to be hacked by a group of Russian, Chinese, or Iranian hackers and that their data bases will be crypto-jacked and that they will be the biggest ransomware victim in history. The only good that would come out that is it would shut them down. If they can't get their house in order, they should be shutdown.

The main reason that drug prices in the U.S. are so inflated is that the prices are set by the drug companies themselves with no government oversight. Remember the "Pharma Dude" who raised the prices for Epi-Pens from $100 per 2-pack to around $600, so that he could maximize profits for his shareholders. They then broke down and "lowered" their inflated pricing down to around $300 per 2-pack. The self-admitted reason for this increase was not due to research or increased manufacturing costs or licensing or anything other than corporate greed. While research does cost a lot, a big chunk of the drug company budgets go into marketing and advertising. A lot of the price inflation is coming from that. In addition, the government has given pharmaceutical companies these "monopolies" so they can recoup their investments in research, but by adding loopholes, such as allowing slight modifications to existing drugs to trigger new patent rights, the drug companies have "gamed" the system in their favour. Since the government's granting rights to these companies to operate as monopolies, the only real fix is for government to recognize that the situation has gotten out of control and to reign these companies back in. You can argue for a free market economy all that you want, but the Rx economy in the U.S. is not a free-market economy. Therefore it is proper that the government should be able to step in and regulate predatory pricing.

Try getting unlimited Internet from AT&T without bundling TV and/or cell phone service. In my service area, if you don't bundle other services with Internet, you have to deal with bandwidth limits that result in increased charges with Internet usage over relatively small data limits. The U.S. needs real competition in the Internet Service space. I'm tired of being told that we have the most expensive Internet service in the world, when the only reason behind it is corporate greed.

At the McD's that have kiosks, I've seen the level of service go down. I've actually had to wait for the one person that is taking customer orders behind the counter to finish taking orders, before he goes to pick up food ordered by his self and the orders placed on the kiosks. In stead of speeding up service, it actually slowed down after the "upgrade". I've seen the amount of customers going to this McD's go down, while the chicken restaurant, just a block or two down the road go up, due to their large staff of people who actually care about getting your order entered correctly and out to you while it is still hot. They handle 2 to 3 times the amount of volume in about 1/2 of the time.

If Equifax wants to continue its business model of collecting our personal data, without consent, they should be forced to protect it. The fact that this data was hacked due to a failure to apply software patches to their systems should prevent them from making billions of dollars collecting this data. They failed to follow basic security guidelines in protecting the data that they collected from us. Requiring people requesting a cash payment to prove that they have credit monitoring before receiving money from this breach, is the height of hypocrisy.

A couple of years ago, we switched over to Comcast, because their rates were better than what we were getting from a different provider. The picture quality was very bad. The picture kept freezing and breaking up into a pixelated mess. Since our contract said we could change at anytime, we changed back to the previous provider. Comcast came out and picked up our cable modem, DVR, and set top boxes and the tech gave us a barely readable NCR copy of a receipt for the equipment. A couple of months later, we received a bill that was close to $800 for telephone, Internet, and cable service AFTER we disconnected from them. The bill included charges for not returning their equipment. I had to get our county utility commission involved to get things straightened out. About 1 year later, they sent us a copy of the same $800 bill, with a demand to pay up. I still had the receipts and had to get the county involved again to get this harassment stopped. If they can't even count up 4 or 5 pieces of equipment, how can they count into the billions to bill people for going over their arbitrary data caps. I wouldn't trust ANYTHING that Comcast says!