I'm guessing you never started a company either. Maybe you got hired by a startup - but that's not the same thing. Mine started out as two guys with an idea. We quit our jobs and had to survive with no income until we got some angel funding about 6 months later. We used that money to hire more developers, but only paid ourselves enough to cover mortgages and food. When we needed to fly we used airline miles saved up from our previous jobs. We paid for tools using credit cards. I had about 20K on mine before we got some VC money. After that, we finally got health insurance and a decent paycheck.
I concur. The folks getting paid contractor rates have far less "skin in the game" than the folks who may not have had a consistent paycheck. When I founded a company, there were many times that myself and the other founder didn't take a paycheck so that we could afford to pay everyone else, plus their healthcare, etc. In our case, we did give some equity to key employees, but it was a fraction of ours; and it was in exchange for pay that was slightly lower than what they could have gotten elsewhere - certainly not "contractor rates". If you are a contractor you have nothing on the line.
I have AT&T DSL in Michigan, and thepiratebay.org dns resolves to 194.71.107.15.
I can't ping it (ICMP must be "stealth" blocked by their firewall), but port 80 is open and responding to http.
One word - women. The average man can physically overcome the average woman... unless she has a gun. Maybe you are just some pervert who wants to make sure your victims won't have a gun. If you don't like that the Constitution of the United States of America allows me to carry firearms, perhaps you should move to one of the countries you cite.
Automotive standards require things like radios / CD players / etc to operate at a much wider set of temperatures and for much longer than consumer grade stuff. So while DIY Car PCs may be fun for the hobbyist, you may find yourself going thru hard drives or CPUs much quicker than in a PC meant for the office or living room.
When its a government provided device, it means it is a taxpayer provided device. It is essential to our republic that we can be sure they are conducting proper business, which means eventually we can file FOIA requests for those messages; or subpoena them when there is evidence of a crime.
For example, when the former Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick had a wild party at the Mayor's mansion, complete with strippers/hookers, where the former Mayor's wife pistol whipped one of the dancers; which resulted in some 911 calls; which resulted in the former Mayor firing some police commanders who were doing their job trying to investigate. Text messages between the former Mayor and his chief of staff (a former college girlfriend) revealed that he fired them to stop the investigation. Without being able to get access to those messages (which were clearly personal because they also revealed the affair he was having with his chief of staff), he would probably still be the Mayor of Detroit instead of in prison where he belongs.
Last summer when I was traveling around the US on a motorcycle, I tried to save money by booking hotel rooms same day via the internet. To that end I sought out free Wifi upon arrival to any town that I intended to stay the night in. I tried going to Starbucks, but it was too much hassle to use their Wifi, particularly since Panera Bread had no-strings-attached, free Wifi. After the first experience with Starbucks, I never even bothered to look for one again. After a few days, whenever I rolled into any moderately sized town, I visited the Panera Bread first since they were easily found on my GPS.
Of course, I would have preferred to give my business (as meager as it was) to some independent shop, but that's just not an option if you don't know the area (yet).
Sorry, but the fact that folks at Sony thought the whole CD rootkit thing was a good idea in the first place, makes them untrustworthy until that mindset and everyone involved is gone from the company.
I don't believe for a second that they had (and have) any qualms about taking control of customers computers. It wasn't until defense dept computers got infected that they apologized and offered a "fix". I bet they were threatened with being banned from selling goods in the USA for national security reasons.
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I'm guessing you never started a company either. Maybe you got hired by a startup - but that's not the same thing. Mine started out as two guys with an idea. We quit our jobs and had to survive with no income until we got some angel funding about 6 months later. We used that money to hire more developers, but only paid ourselves enough to cover mortgages and food. When we needed to fly we used airline miles saved up from our previous jobs. We paid for tools using credit cards. I had about 20K on mine before we got some VC money. After that, we finally got health insurance and a decent paycheck.
I concur. The folks getting paid contractor rates have far less "skin in the game" than the folks who may not have had a consistent paycheck. When I founded a company, there were many times that myself and the other founder didn't take a paycheck so that we could afford to pay everyone else, plus their healthcare, etc. In our case, we did give some equity to key employees, but it was a fraction of ours; and it was in exchange for pay that was slightly lower than what they could have gotten elsewhere - certainly not "contractor rates". If you are a contractor you have nothing on the line.
I have AT&T DSL in Michigan, and thepiratebay.org dns resolves to 194.71.107.15. I can't ping it (ICMP must be "stealth" blocked by their firewall), but port 80 is open and responding to http.
One word - women. The average man can physically overcome the average woman ... unless she has a gun. Maybe you are just some pervert who wants to make sure your victims won't have a gun. If you don't like that the Constitution of the United States of America allows me to carry firearms, perhaps you should move to one of the countries you cite.
Automotive standards require things like radios / CD players / etc to operate at a much wider set of temperatures and for much longer than consumer grade stuff. So while DIY Car PCs may be fun for the hobbyist, you may find yourself going thru hard drives or CPUs much quicker than in a PC meant for the office or living room.
When its a government provided device, it means it is a taxpayer provided device. It is essential to our republic that we can be sure they are conducting proper business, which means eventually we can file FOIA requests for those messages; or subpoena them when there is evidence of a crime. For example, when the former Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick had a wild party at the Mayor's mansion, complete with strippers/hookers, where the former Mayor's wife pistol whipped one of the dancers; which resulted in some 911 calls; which resulted in the former Mayor firing some police commanders who were doing their job trying to investigate. Text messages between the former Mayor and his chief of staff (a former college girlfriend) revealed that he fired them to stop the investigation. Without being able to get access to those messages (which were clearly personal because they also revealed the affair he was having with his chief of staff), he would probably still be the Mayor of Detroit instead of in prison where he belongs.
Last summer when I was traveling around the US on a motorcycle, I tried to save money by booking hotel rooms same day via the internet. To that end I sought out free Wifi upon arrival to any town that I intended to stay the night in. I tried going to Starbucks, but it was too much hassle to use their Wifi, particularly since Panera Bread had no-strings-attached, free Wifi. After the first experience with Starbucks, I never even bothered to look for one again. After a few days, whenever I rolled into any moderately sized town, I visited the Panera Bread first since they were easily found on my GPS. Of course, I would have preferred to give my business (as meager as it was) to some independent shop, but that's just not an option if you don't know the area (yet).
Sorry, but the fact that folks at Sony thought the whole CD rootkit thing was a good idea in the first place, makes them untrustworthy until that mindset and everyone involved is gone from the company. I don't believe for a second that they had (and have) any qualms about taking control of customers computers. It wasn't until defense dept computers got infected that they apologized and offered a "fix". I bet they were threatened with being banned from selling goods in the USA for national security reasons.