Slashdot Mirror
US Fears Loss of ICQ Honeypot
AHuxley writes "US law enforcement bodies view the sale of instant messaging service ICQ to a Russian company as a threat to homeland security. In spring 2010, Russia's largest Internet investment company, Digital Sky Technologies, agreed to purchase the service for $187 million from AOL. The US is sure that most criminals use ICQ and, therefore, constant access to the ICQ servers is needed to track them down. As the system is based in Israel, American security service have had access. The article concludes, 'Lawyers [of unspecified nationality] say that to block the deal the US Committee on Foreign Investment needed to cancel it no later than within 30 days after the deal has been announced — so unless the rules are broken, nothing can be changed.'"
Founding countries on the basis of a common ethnicity was not a great idea either, was it?
Maybe the idea on ownership of production equipment is?
Multi-ethnic, multi-religious, large-terroritory-encompassing states didn't fare too well either so far, and neither did stateless societies with unenforced borders and free-for-all non-rule.
We've pretty much tried everything. All failed, but Western democracy failed less spectacularly so far, but that, too, will change when it finally succeeds in allowing Muslim immigrants to reach a 50% population share in Western Europe somewhere around 2040.
Now what *should* be the defining and founding criterion for a state?