The cars are vulnerable if he tells the world or not. The only difference is now only the bad actors know about the problem.
He should have disclosed without notifying. That way they could not have stopped him.
Believe me, as first-amendment crushing lawsuits like this become "standard" the "no notice" release of major flaws will also become standard.
Then the government will be lobbied to label these researchers who release without prior notice to be "terrorists" or "aiding the enemy" and lock them in prison for "abetting car theft" or some such similar nonsense.
For that matter, why not just lock up every security researcher that won't sign an agreement (in advance) to only release security research with the approval of the subject of the research? That way we know which security engineers are likely to be "terrorists" and which ones are the good guys.
What exactly is the problem this legislation is trying to solve?
Claire Perry is having a problem getting votes in her upcoming reelection.
And she thinks having her website plastered in porn will help with the votes? That's crazy. So crazy it just might work.
Exactly! The "think of the children!" types are always the freakiest and weirdest behind closed doors, they just feel guilt about it... So by giving them what they secretly want, she gets votes by the score! Great thinking: Like a reverse Streisand effect... Only the screen is covered in semen, not negative publicity. Well, that too...
It's unlikely because it's counterproductive. Snowden 'supposedly' delivered all the material he had to the newspapers already. Papers which have been corresponding with the NSA and have already self-censored anything possibly related to their own country's spying ties to the PRISM infrastructure and/or project names that the NSA says "Ok, but seriously, don't tell everybody this"
There aren't any winners in this game.
Actually, I'm not sure he has. He has delivered something that somebody may believe to be everything--or maybe has delivered it to several somebodies--but he's played it very savvy until now. It would surprise me if he doesn't have an ace up his sleeve about somebody: Some terrible secret that he can trade for passage to somewhere out of the grasp of extradition. Something he knows will be released if he has an "accident" in the transit area of a Moscow airport or if he's captured and returned to the U.S. Several articles about him have alluded to just such a dead-man-switch, running somewhere in the world.
I certainly appreciate what he's done: He laid bare the truth beneath a thin veneer of lies about how our government works, and that is information we have the right to know.
Maybe the Wiki folks and anonymous should start phoning in anonymous tips that Eric Snowden is on every flight leaving Moscow from now until European air space is again free.
Then it sounds like we have a rather distressing problem.
Oh, yes, very much so. We're teetering at the verge of totally-fucked... I really got worried when I started seeing private citizens defend the spying on American citizens.
He must be something much more dangerous to somebody. I don't understand how everything he revealed can be so trivialized, and yet he be this sought after.
I understand it perfectly: The government's every word on this topic is a pack of lies.
Nothing has changed with this admission if you've been paying attention for the last twenty years or longer. They've always had the ability to spy on us. The fact that no one has actually shown that this has been abused in any way leads me to wonder how anyone, on sober reflection, could believe anything has changed at all.
Suspicion-free spying on every American doesn't count as "Abuse" in your book? What would they have to do to actually abuse their power based on your definition?
Prior to this the facade of "innocent until proven guilty" and "the 4th Amendment" still applying existed. Just because they had the capability to spy on us didn't automatically mean they were--only a paranoid nutter believes everybody is out to get them without any actual evidence that they are. Ironically, it seems that, in fact, by shutting down the original warrantless wiretapping program under Bush, the government took that as incentive to go to FISA and get an order to spy on even more innocent people rather than reforming the investigation methodologies to fall in line with the constitution.
Snowden's revelations change everything: For one thing, it reveals to a mostly ignorant public the existence of secret laws that we can't know about, secret courts whose rulings can't be appealed. Both of which are unconstitutional on their face. And even if a few conspiracy theory nutters/Alex Jones acolytes thought they knew the full depth of this and believed they could "prove" what was happening "years ago!" really doesn't matter--they didn't have any real proof beyond supposition. Now we all have proof and can take action.
In fact, at this point, I'd put even money on the assertion that the only reason anyone is even talking about this is because the media is telling us to care about it.
Really? The coverage I have seen is focused almost exclusively on "the hunt for Eric Snowden" and takes very little time to discuss the substantive issues raised by his revelations--chiefly that most of our privacy has been a facade for the better part of a decade. I was never that cynical before this, so congratulations for being the first ones to believe something was amiss.
I love it when I get modded "Troll" for speaking the truth. How about you refute any part of what I posted?
I grant my trust that somebody in the government will have the stones to do the right thing and expose law-breaking by the government, no matter how many layers of threatened criminal charges the government layers into the contract. That nobody did it before Snowden speaks volumes to how stupid and uneducated Americans really are to what their civil rights are and what their duty to their country is (the oaths all say "support and defend the constitution" not "follow all orders, legal or otherwise.") Really? Nobody in a uniform (before Bradley Manning) had the guts to say "I won't help cover it up any more." Nobody? Not one person?
Nobody is obligated to follow an illegal or unconstitutional order, and this kid did the exact right thing in exposing it. I wouldn't have trusted the US government or relied on the whistle blower statutes (as weak and ineffectual as they are) either based on the government's recent track record of prosecuting whistle blowers. His only "mistake" seems to have been attaching his name and face to it rather than simply mailing it anonymously to the Guardian.
The BBC and the New York Times also have articles reporting the Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong on a flight to Moscow.
If he's wise he'll feed a number of organizations with fake "destination" info through multiple cut-outs so that the reports are that he's going everywhere. He's not invulnerable in a Moscow airport, whether outside the secure area or not... Low probability he'll transit through such a large city where the US undoubtedly has intelligence assets and spec ops "operators" available on the period of notice they have for him being there...
You can assume no such thing. In general, legal systems don't do negotiations with people wanted for questioning. Assange has come up with a continuously changing list of excuses why he doesn't want to go to Sweden to answer questions about rape charges, and the excuses evolve to fit whatever he seems to think will best please the audience. Since he could end up facing rape charges, one can see why he might want to not visit the police in Sweden. Possibly he should go to Switzerland, where he could join Roman Polanski, also fugitive from rape charges.
I can assume anything I choose to: It sure seems awfully convenient that just a few weeks after Wikileaks exposes war crimes by the United States that two women affiliated with the CIA file accusations of rape against the leader of the group.
Bottom line: The prosecutor closed the case in Sweden prior to his release and being allowed to leave the country. He turned himself in and was already questioned and released. What probative value does the prosecutor believe will emerge here from this re-opened investigation? Zero new details have emerged: What purpose (other than setting up the accused for extraordinary rendition to the United States) would it serve? They were offered a number of options to interview him in England and they declined. He declined to voluntarily travel to Sweden after they refused to guarantee he would not be "extraordinarily rendered" by the United States.
So I guess I'd say: If these people were really interested in "justice" and "Getting the facts" they'd have gotten on a plane and interviewed him in London.
And I'd say you're naive if you think prosecutors don't negotiate terms for voluntary interviews--they do it all the time. It is standard procedure for getting people to answer questions. Don't like it? Too bad: That's life.
I think that's the biggest issue I have with it all. He was reasonably bailed and took the piss out of us by not answering bail.
It's not like the list of opressive regimes is Iran, Syria, North Korea........Sweden is it?
Perhaps it should be added: They're clearly functioning as an instrument of a government interested in punishing somebody over free speech that they don't like.
Sweden refused to have the workings of their legal system dictated to them by a fugitive?
I can't thing of many countries where that would wash.
"Wanted for questioning" and "fugitive" are not the same thing. Further, what he's "wanted for questioning" about isn't a crime in the United Kingdom (no, he's not been accused of "rape" in the traditional sense, he's been accused of continuing consensual intercourse after a condom broke after having agreeing to use one,) nor the US, nor most other countries on earth. And it gets better: A male is still liable for this "crime" even if neither party notices the break and neither party withdraws consent! The female can retroactively withdraw consent if she notices later the condom broke! 100% of all risk relating to consensual sex in Sweden is conferred onto the male by law, apparently.
It is too cute, by half, to suggest he's a "fugitive." An INTERPOL warrant was issued on a basis that has, historically never even once been used in the history of INTERPOL: That Assange is wanted for questioning over a misdemeanor crime. That he hasn't even been charged with.
That Sweden won't guarantee him safe passage (i.e. "We won't extradite you to the USA") you can surmise that extradition to the United States is the sole purpose of getting him to Sweden in the first place. If it wasn't, they'd have long since agreed just to end this stain on their reputation: Already most Europeans see them as a tool of the Americans. Ditto the UK. I mean, most people saw them that way before this, but this has only cemented that image in their minds.
And no, it isn't remotely uncommon for attorneys to set conditions for voluntary interviews with police. Or even involuntary ones... (i.e. "My client won't answer any questions unless he's unshackled and given some water to drink.")
They made some unfortunate choices, but "changing their mind" is the prerogative you gave them when you bought their proprietary hardware/only-as-open-as-we-say-it-can-be model in the first place. I'm sure it was disappointing, but how old are you that you really weren't expecting that ability to be taken away?
You're pissed off because Ford came by and removed the radio from the car you already paid for? I'm sure it was disappointing, but how old are you that you really weren't expecting that Ford didn't have the ability to take your radio away? After all, it was written in page 57 of the five point type of legalese EULA!
Taking something away that you bought and paid for is theft, plain and simple. Me, I never got bitten by it because I stopped buying Sony when my daughter installed XCP on my computer just tryijng to play a CD she bought at a store she worked at. How fucking stupid do you have to be to buy computer equipment from a company that is willing it vandalize their own customers' stuff?
Sony stays in business because PT Barnum was right. If you're willing to buy Sony after XCP, OtherOS, and leaving info in an unencrypted, net facing database, my CAT is smarter than you.
Ahh yes, the classic Slashdot false-equivalency... there's just a couple minor details you're missing:
1) Nobody "took away" their Playstation 3--a firmware update that was offered turned off a feature they liked. Don't want to lose the feature? Don't update the firmware. Done and done. 2) A car-radio would be my actual property so nothing they can do after the fact would alter that ownership. If they offered a firmware update that changed the performance of that radio, I might kvetch, but my only real option would be to not-install-the-upgrade, just like the Sony whiners--nobody forced them to install that firmware upgrade.
"Changing your mind" after customers purchase your hardware = "lying". I'm 37, and I wasn't expecting that feature to be taken away. I'm not buying a PS4 partially because of that - and the rootkits, and their incredibly poor response and questionable statements related to the PSN hack.
(Side note: this is quite possibly why Sony isn't doing the online thing; it isn't being gamer-friendly, its them remembering their network was unusable for 3-4 weeks.)
Sorry, but this is childish nonsense. You weren't forced at gunpoint to upgrade your firmware: And unless you can show me a clause in your user agreement taht says "all features will remain available forever in every future iteration of this product forever" I have little sympathy for you: You relied on "Sony's honorable intentions" in a buying decision, except that corporations don't have honorable intentions, they have profitable intentions. And continuing to develop that feature obviously didn't make sense to them--so they didn't.
Our 17 trillion dollar debt has everything to do with under-taxing rich people and corporations, overspending on outrageous military adventures that provide zero additional security, and overspending on inefficient delivery systems for health care. When you factor in our current fetish for "private" national security spending (hundreds of billions flushed down toilets named "Booz Allen Hamilton" and EDS) and the fact that such "privatized" spending is beyond most oversight and you've got the recipe for our debt.
Your comment about feudalism is spot-on: Low-taxes for rich people lead to mass poverty.
And how "fucked up" is Europe, really? They seem to me to have their priorities a lot straighter than ours.
HFT can not manipulate supply and demand, only respond to very small differences that a human can't respond to quickly enough.
How is that positive? These applications monitor (and take as gospel) Twitter: That's fucking stupid. They created a brief crash in the market when somebody got control of AP's Twitter account and sent out a fake "Bomb at White House, Obama injured" tweet. Computers are wonderful, but they are aids to humans, not replacements for them.
Another thing about HFT: It's existence dramatically limits the average investor (John Q. Public) from profiting on these differences between share price and perceived value: Even if he logs into E-trade the moment he has the idea, the HFTs have had the data for 10 minutes or more and have already profited 10,000 times and killed the average investor's profits.
And although HFT can't manipulate supply, it absolutely can manipulate demand: One of the "features" of HFT is millions of trades entered, some percentage of which are cancelled before being executed. But during that time frame between entry and execution other HFT's know about those orders and respond accordingly. A malicious person wanting to manipulate demand for a certain share to give himself a price-bump so he can unload his shares for a better price would merely need access to the person with the password to control "which trades to cancel" functions...
It will only reduce transactions in which the expected gain is less than 0.03%. I think it has to be higher than that to really discourage high frequency trading.
Why not just introduce a relatively-random amount of "wait time" to all trades submitted to the exchange? You, in effect, make attempts at HFT manipulation basically worthless because they can't guarantee the speed of execution on the trade. Make it on the order of 5-25 seconds--normal investors and long-term investors will neither notice nor care: They're investing for the long-horizon, at least several years, so they don't care if the trade executes in a nanosecond or 30 seconds.
It obviates the need for a new tax while ending a truly nefarious practice.
It was a promised feature that was removed later - would some of the people who purchased it have dropped that $$$ if they knew that, even at some point in the future, they'd have to make a choice between running Linux or playing online? I know I wouldn't have, if Linux were part of the draw to a PS3 (too pricey for me tbh). Besides, their track record isn't great, and it'll be worth it to watch both of these companies after launch... just wait and see.
They made some unfortunate choices, but "changing their mind" is the prerogative you gave them when you bought their proprietary hardware/only-as-open-as-we-say-it-can-be model in the first place. I'm sure it was disappointing, but how old are you that you really weren't expecting that ability to be taken away?
If what they say here is true, why the world weren't they more honest about what they were doing all along and in the first place? In Europe, government access to phone records is codified in law in such a way that protects the privacy of everybody who isn't a suspect in an investigation, and does so in broad daylight. There may be violations, but the persons whose privacy is invaded also have recourse there. They have no such recourse against the NSA that continues to argue, even as it releases details of this program, that it is "secret" and thus would compromise national security to reveal the details.
One more example of where honesty and truth-telling would be preferable to obfuscation and lies.
Slashdot Mirror
The cars are vulnerable if he tells the world or not. The only difference is now only the bad actors know about the problem.
He should have disclosed without notifying. That way they could not have stopped him.
Believe me, as first-amendment crushing lawsuits like this become "standard" the "no notice" release of major flaws will also become standard.
Then the government will be lobbied to label these researchers who release without prior notice to be "terrorists" or "aiding the enemy" and lock them in prison for "abetting car theft" or some such similar nonsense.
For that matter, why not just lock up every security researcher that won't sign an agreement (in advance) to only release security research with the approval of the subject of the research? That way we know which security engineers are likely to be "terrorists" and which ones are the good guys.
What exactly is the problem this legislation is trying to solve?
Claire Perry is having a problem getting votes in her upcoming reelection.
And she thinks having her website plastered in porn will help with the votes? That's crazy. So crazy it just might work.
Exactly! The "think of the children!" types are always the freakiest and weirdest behind closed doors, they just feel guilt about it... So by giving them what they secretly want, she gets votes by the score! Great thinking: Like a reverse Streisand effect... Only the screen is covered in semen, not negative publicity. Well, that too...
There are lots of products that do this for exchange. I would bet that it's a security issue or they just don't want the feature.
For that matter, it does it out of the box and has for several years and revisions...
Just wondering when the US was supposed to be the "land of the free"?
Even after the era of forcefully removing the previous population from their land coming to an end, and slavery ending, there has still been apartheid
(including anti-miscegenation laws) and anti-communist drives until rather recently.
Despite the multitude of current problems, it may well be that the US is the most free it has ever been.
Yes, but we didn't care about those people. The government has started spying on me now.
There's a quote about that, somewhere. First they came for...
This times a thousand. My new favorite AC. Thanks.
It's unlikely because it's counterproductive. Snowden 'supposedly' delivered all the material he had to the newspapers already. Papers which have been corresponding with the NSA and have already self-censored anything possibly related to their own country's spying ties to the PRISM infrastructure and/or project names that the NSA says "Ok, but seriously, don't tell everybody this"
There aren't any winners in this game.
Actually, I'm not sure he has. He has delivered something that somebody may believe to be everything --or maybe has delivered it to several somebodies--but he's played it very savvy until now. It would surprise me if he doesn't have an ace up his sleeve about somebody: Some terrible secret that he can trade for passage to somewhere out of the grasp of extradition. Something he knows will be released if he has an "accident" in the transit area of a Moscow airport or if he's captured and returned to the U.S. Several articles about him have alluded to just such a dead-man-switch, running somewhere in the world.
I certainly appreciate what he's done: He laid bare the truth beneath a thin veneer of lies about how our government works, and that is information we have the right to know.
Maybe the Wiki folks and anonymous should start phoning in anonymous tips that Eric Snowden is on every flight leaving Moscow from now until European air space is again free.
Then it sounds like we have a rather distressing problem.
Oh, yes, very much so. We're teetering at the verge of totally-fucked... I really got worried when I started seeing private citizens defend the spying on American citizens.
He must be something much more dangerous to somebody. I don't understand how everything he revealed can be so trivialized, and yet he be this sought after.
I understand it perfectly: The government's every word on this topic is a pack of lies.
Nothing has changed with this admission if you've been paying attention for the last twenty years or longer. They've always had the ability to spy on us. The fact that no one has actually shown that this has been abused in any way leads me to wonder how anyone, on sober reflection, could believe anything has changed at all.
Suspicion-free spying on every American doesn't count as "Abuse" in your book? What would they have to do to actually abuse their power based on your definition?
Prior to this the facade of "innocent until proven guilty" and "the 4th Amendment" still applying existed. Just because they had the capability to spy on us didn't automatically mean they were--only a paranoid nutter believes everybody is out to get them without any actual evidence that they are. Ironically, it seems that, in fact, by shutting down the original warrantless wiretapping program under Bush, the government took that as incentive to go to FISA and get an order to spy on even more innocent people rather than reforming the investigation methodologies to fall in line with the constitution.
Snowden's revelations change everything: For one thing, it reveals to a mostly ignorant public the existence of secret laws that we can't know about, secret courts whose rulings can't be appealed. Both of which are unconstitutional on their face. And even if a few conspiracy theory nutters/Alex Jones acolytes thought they knew the full depth of this and believed they could "prove" what was happening "years ago!" really doesn't matter--they didn't have any real proof beyond supposition. Now we all have proof and can take action.
In fact, at this point, I'd put even money on the assertion that the only reason anyone is even talking about this is because the media is telling us to care about it.
Really? The coverage I have seen is focused almost exclusively on "the hunt for Eric Snowden" and takes very little time to discuss the substantive issues raised by his revelations--chiefly that most of our privacy has been a facade for the better part of a decade. I was never that cynical before this, so congratulations for being the first ones to believe something was amiss.
The first is that it costs more than a king's ransom to buy and isn't that great when you do. So I guess that's three. Sorry.
I love it when I get modded "Troll" for speaking the truth. How about you refute any part of what I posted?
I grant my trust that somebody in the government will have the stones to do the right thing and expose law-breaking by the government, no matter how many layers of threatened criminal charges the government layers into the contract. That nobody did it before Snowden speaks volumes to how stupid and uneducated Americans really are to what their civil rights are and what their duty to their country is (the oaths all say "support and defend the constitution" not "follow all orders, legal or otherwise.") Really? Nobody in a uniform (before Bradley Manning) had the guts to say "I won't help cover it up any more." Nobody? Not one person?
Nobody is obligated to follow an illegal or unconstitutional order, and this kid did the exact right thing in exposing it. I wouldn't have trusted the US government or relied on the whistle blower statutes (as weak and ineffectual as they are) either based on the government's recent track record of prosecuting whistle blowers. His only "mistake" seems to have been attaching his name and face to it rather than simply mailing it anonymously to the Guardian.
The BBC and the New York Times also have articles reporting the Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong on a flight to Moscow.
If he's wise he'll feed a number of organizations with fake "destination" info through multiple cut-outs so that the reports are that he's going everywhere. He's not invulnerable in a Moscow airport, whether outside the secure area or not... Low probability he'll transit through such a large city where the US undoubtedly has intelligence assets and spec ops "operators" available on the period of notice they have for him being there...
You can assume no such thing. In general, legal systems don't do negotiations with people wanted for questioning. Assange has come up with a continuously changing list of excuses why he doesn't want to go to Sweden to answer questions about rape charges, and the excuses evolve to fit whatever he seems to think will best please the audience. Since he could end up facing rape charges, one can see why he might want to not visit the police in Sweden. Possibly he should go to Switzerland, where he could join Roman Polanski, also fugitive from rape charges.
I can assume anything I choose to: It sure seems awfully convenient that just a few weeks after Wikileaks exposes war crimes by the United States that two women affiliated with the CIA file accusations of rape against the leader of the group.
Bottom line: The prosecutor closed the case in Sweden prior to his release and being allowed to leave the country. He turned himself in and was already questioned and released. What probative value does the prosecutor believe will emerge here from this re-opened investigation? Zero new details have emerged: What purpose (other than setting up the accused for extraordinary rendition to the United States) would it serve? They were offered a number of options to interview him in England and they declined. He declined to voluntarily travel to Sweden after they refused to guarantee he would not be "extraordinarily rendered" by the United States.
So I guess I'd say: If these people were really interested in "justice" and "Getting the facts" they'd have gotten on a plane and interviewed him in London.
And I'd say you're naive if you think prosecutors don't negotiate terms for voluntary interviews--they do it all the time. It is standard procedure for getting people to answer questions. Don't like it? Too bad: That's life.
He skipped bail. He's a fugitive.
How, exactly, does one "skip bail" on a case that was already closed and wasn't re-opened until after he left the country?
I think that's the biggest issue I have with it all. He was reasonably bailed and took the piss out of us by not answering bail.
It's not like the list of opressive regimes is Iran, Syria, North Korea........Sweden is it?
Perhaps it should be added: They're clearly functioning as an instrument of a government interested in punishing somebody over free speech that they don't like.
Sweden refused to have the workings of their legal system dictated to them by a fugitive?
I can't thing of many countries where that would wash.
"Wanted for questioning" and "fugitive" are not the same thing. Further, what he's "wanted for questioning" about isn't a crime in the United Kingdom (no, he's not been accused of "rape" in the traditional sense, he's been accused of continuing consensual intercourse after a condom broke after having agreeing to use one,) nor the US, nor most other countries on earth. And it gets better: A male is still liable for this "crime" even if neither party notices the break and neither party withdraws consent! The female can retroactively withdraw consent if she notices later the condom broke! 100% of all risk relating to consensual sex in Sweden is conferred onto the male by law, apparently.
It is too cute, by half, to suggest he's a "fugitive." An INTERPOL warrant was issued on a basis that has, historically never even once been used in the history of INTERPOL: That Assange is wanted for questioning over a misdemeanor crime. That he hasn't even been charged with.
That Sweden won't guarantee him safe passage (i.e. "We won't extradite you to the USA") you can surmise that extradition to the United States is the sole purpose of getting him to Sweden in the first place. If it wasn't, they'd have long since agreed just to end this stain on their reputation: Already most Europeans see them as a tool of the Americans. Ditto the UK. I mean, most people saw them that way before this, but this has only cemented that image in their minds.
And no, it isn't remotely uncommon for attorneys to set conditions for voluntary interviews with police. Or even involuntary ones... (i.e. "My client won't answer any questions unless he's unshackled and given some water to drink.")
They made some unfortunate choices, but "changing their mind" is the prerogative you gave them when you bought their proprietary hardware/only-as-open-as-we-say-it-can-be model in the first place. I'm sure it was disappointing, but how old are you that you really weren't expecting that ability to be taken away?
You're pissed off because Ford came by and removed the radio from the car you already paid for? I'm sure it was disappointing, but how old are you that you really weren't expecting that Ford didn't have the ability to take your radio away? After all, it was written in page 57 of the five point type of legalese EULA!
Taking something away that you bought and paid for is theft, plain and simple. Me, I never got bitten by it because I stopped buying Sony when my daughter installed XCP on my computer just tryijng to play a CD she bought at a store she worked at. How fucking stupid do you have to be to buy computer equipment from a company that is willing it vandalize their own customers' stuff?
Sony stays in business because PT Barnum was right. If you're willing to buy Sony after XCP, OtherOS, and leaving info in an unencrypted, net facing database, my CAT is smarter than you.
Ahh yes, the classic Slashdot false-equivalency... there's just a couple minor details you're missing:
1) Nobody "took away" their Playstation 3--a firmware update that was offered turned off a feature they liked. Don't want to lose the feature? Don't update the firmware. Done and done.
2) A car-radio would be my actual property so nothing they can do after the fact would alter that ownership. If they offered a firmware update that changed the performance of that radio, I might kvetch, but my only real option would be to not-install-the-upgrade, just like the Sony whiners--nobody forced them to install that firmware upgrade.
"Changing your mind" after customers purchase your hardware = "lying". I'm 37, and I wasn't expecting that feature to be taken away. I'm not buying a PS4 partially because of that - and the rootkits, and their incredibly poor response and questionable statements related to the PSN hack.
(Side note: this is quite possibly why Sony isn't doing the online thing; it isn't being gamer-friendly, its them remembering their network was unusable for 3-4 weeks.)
Sorry, but this is childish nonsense. You weren't forced at gunpoint to upgrade your firmware: And unless you can show me a clause in your user agreement taht says "all features will remain available forever in every future iteration of this product forever" I have little sympathy for you: You relied on "Sony's honorable intentions" in a buying decision, except that corporations don't have honorable intentions, they have profitable intentions. And continuing to develop that feature obviously didn't make sense to them--so they didn't.
Don't like it? Don't by Sony.
Our 17 trillion dollar debt has everything to do with under-taxing rich people and corporations, overspending on outrageous military adventures that provide zero additional security, and overspending on inefficient delivery systems for health care. When you factor in our current fetish for "private" national security spending (hundreds of billions flushed down toilets named "Booz Allen Hamilton" and EDS) and the fact that such "privatized" spending is beyond most oversight and you've got the recipe for our debt.
Your comment about feudalism is spot-on: Low-taxes for rich people lead to mass poverty.
And how "fucked up" is Europe, really? They seem to me to have their priorities a lot straighter than ours.
HFT can not manipulate supply and demand, only respond to very small differences that a human can't respond to quickly enough.
How is that positive? These applications monitor (and take as gospel) Twitter: That's fucking stupid. They created a brief crash in the market when somebody got control of AP's Twitter account and sent out a fake "Bomb at White House, Obama injured" tweet. Computers are wonderful, but they are aids to humans, not replacements for them.
Another thing about HFT: It's existence dramatically limits the average investor (John Q. Public) from profiting on these differences between share price and perceived value: Even if he logs into E-trade the moment he has the idea, the HFTs have had the data for 10 minutes or more and have already profited 10,000 times and killed the average investor's profits.
And although HFT can't manipulate supply, it absolutely can manipulate demand: One of the "features" of HFT is millions of trades entered, some percentage of which are cancelled before being executed. But during that time frame between entry and execution other HFT's know about those orders and respond accordingly. A malicious person wanting to manipulate demand for a certain share to give himself a price-bump so he can unload his shares for a better price would merely need access to the person with the password to control "which trades to cancel" functions...
It will only reduce transactions in which the expected gain is less than 0.03%. I think it has to be higher than that to really discourage high frequency trading.
Why not just introduce a relatively-random amount of "wait time" to all trades submitted to the exchange? You, in effect, make attempts at HFT manipulation basically worthless because they can't guarantee the speed of execution on the trade. Make it on the order of 5-25 seconds--normal investors and long-term investors will neither notice nor care: They're investing for the long-horizon, at least several years, so they don't care if the trade executes in a nanosecond or 30 seconds.
It obviates the need for a new tax while ending a truly nefarious practice.
It was a promised feature that was removed later - would some of the people who purchased it have dropped that $$$ if they knew that, even at some point in the future, they'd have to make a choice between running Linux or playing online? I know I wouldn't have, if Linux were part of the draw to a PS3 (too pricey for me tbh). Besides, their track record isn't great, and it'll be worth it to watch both of these companies after launch... just wait and see.
They made some unfortunate choices, but "changing their mind" is the prerogative you gave them when you bought their proprietary hardware/only-as-open-as-we-say-it-can-be model in the first place. I'm sure it was disappointing, but how old are you that you really weren't expecting that ability to be taken away?
If what they say here is true, why the world weren't they more honest about what they were doing all along and in the first place? In Europe, government access to phone records is codified in law in such a way that protects the privacy of everybody who isn't a suspect in an investigation, and does so in broad daylight. There may be violations, but the persons whose privacy is invaded also have recourse there. They have no such recourse against the NSA that continues to argue, even as it releases details of this program, that it is "secret" and thus would compromise national security to reveal the details.
One more example of where honesty and truth-telling would be preferable to obfuscation and lies.
What if the Internet is just unworkable?
What if big government is just unworkable?
Define "big government"? The United States has among the lowest taxes in the first-world and has among the shoddiest safety nets in the first-world.