The only plan the EU sees is to make Microsoft pay for unbelievable fines for something that most companies would tell them to go stick it for. Microsoft has definately made very bad "fair business" decisions in the past, and I am not trying to defend them on that, but what the EU is asking for is totally insane, and how can they possibly justify it?
As far as the codecs...okay, so the codecs go into MS format. The vast majority of media players already make use of them, and who hasn't already found that they can download LEGAL software that will translate into another viable format?
This isn't meant to be a bash on your opinion, but I don't feel the EU is justified in many of their actions of late.
Absolutely correct. Quantity over quality. It does pay off over time if you are able to collect enough pieces to complete the puzzle. This method was used LONG ago by other countries (starting near the 1700's). Not saying that China is using an outdated method, but it other methods have been greatly improved and created to replace this.
We don't spy on the French any longer. Waste of time trying to figure them out.
I've seen some pretty valid points made during these posts and some fairly ignorant ones too. I think the main thing people need to keep in focus here is that there are intel communities in every country except France (need people to be intelligent to begin with) and we all perform the basic function of intel gathering.
China and the US have gone back and forth for YEARS with spying. We are just better at it and get caught a lot less often. The communist Russia era helped to create the best spying nations ever (US, Russia, England and Isreal). After the USSR became a non-communist country, we became more relaxed with our spy programs, but still retained very valuable lessons learned. China has a LONG way to go before they can match any of the above listed countries in our spy programs. Getting caught is just part of the risk, and they may have been caught. Still have to wait and see if this is even the situation. I don't blame them for trying. No one wants to get caught with their pants down when they could have known about a situation in advance, friend or foe. We all have obligations to protect our countries or to learn from someone else's mistakes.
Couldn't agree more. The flaw isn't as major as people want it to seem, as long as there are semi-intelligent people involved. Even my 68 year old grandfather (who knows very little about computers) knows enough to stay away from this.
Agree and disagree. My four year old daughter loves her computer because...she can use it. Windows is (if nothing else), easy to use. The possibility of her getting a program to run on a Linux CLI isn't very good, but she can click on the picture of herself to log in, and she can click on the taskbar icon for her to run her movies or her games without a problem, and it took her less than 2 minutes to learn it.
While I feel that adults should be able to learn Linux without reasonable difficulty and would likely find it to have more versatile tools, people are comfort creatures and choose things that have a certain "feel" that they agree with. As the article states, "Media Player" is fairly self-explanatory. What the heck is WINE? What does it do? This is one of the things that does hold back Linux a little. Also, Linux does have a TON of security features that can lock it down more to a person's needs, but how does a new user grab Linux, install it, and then know how to do everything to make it secure? There are a lot of Linux tinkerers (people that want to try it out) that have their systems wide open, thinking that everything is automatically safer than Windows because...its Linux. This is also the guy that brags that his system is impeneterable and hates Windows because it is unsafe...I'm sure you've met this person.
My point is that user knowledge is going to make or break Linux. A good Linux administrator can do wonders. I enjoy it and find the features invaluable, but I had to put effort into learning what those features were and how to use them. If there was more public information and more importantly, more mainstream information about what Linux programs performed what function, the public would gain more trust, and I feel that you would see many more Linux users. The problem is that most people don't need Linux servers or powerhouse computers to simply view their pictures on their computer. Windows has easy-to-use and built-in (patent pending I'm sure) browsers that suit the needs of the masses...and, it is even called Picture Viewer.
Can't think of any games off the top of my head that do take advantage of the dual core. Right now, they seem to be focusing on the future ability of multi-tasking desktop business applications (which they do say run well on both AMD and Intel's dual core processors). I don't think that we will be seeing anything actually make true use of the dual core until gaming gets onboard. If it allows my Anti-Virus to run smoothly, while I can play my BF2, WoW or (Insert your game's name here), without crashing or interference, dual core will be successful. Until that day, I still think it's nice we have the advances...
No, they are asking for code. They are asking MS to provide information with regards to interoperability for all competion. The documentation was provided with protocols, and they were told that was not enough. Now the EU is threatening them with an outrageous fine because Microsoft is a powerful company with a dominating product. Small competitors would have a hard time challenging them, but why should MS be fined because of that? Sounds like they want "medicore" for everyone. Sorry, but this is senseless.
I agree. Linux is for the people that actually KNOW how to use a computer effectively. Not for Mom and Pop who are just buying their first PC. Windows provides a lot for people who are new to computers or don't have the technical background. My 4-year old daughter can get around quite well in Windows. How would she do in Linux? Hmmm. Torturous.
As far as the EU...They need a serious reality check and an even more serious power check. Europeans are not all pompous asses, but the actions of the EU lately sure do add to that image.
Does anyone else find this situation somewhat ironic, given the latest slams against MS for copyright infringement? If they opened up their software, wouldn't that just be begging for the software to be misused?
Guess if you went to management, you wouldn't have 20+ years to retire....sorry, uncalled for.
Management should be made up of people with experience. Programmers who are good, should begin their management role earlier by sharing experience through training. They then move on to manage those people who are training. It goes on this way to insure that you keep your top people happy and with YOUR company. Why would I want to train my company's employees and later have them move to another company because of lack of promotion potential?
Exactly. And who is the person who says their time is too valuable to build their own machine?!? Tell them to go to the Dell website (or any other pre-built machine site) and price out a low-end, medium-build and then a decked-out computer system. The low-end could be built for around 10-20% cheaper, the medium around 15-30% and the high-end systems can be built for almost 50% cheaper. Not only that, I know who the repair guy is going to be if I have any issues, and I don't have to schedule an appointment. Also, if you want warranties, you can buy a heck of a lot better warranties on components from sites than Dell can provide for their systems. So, if you think that the 1 1/2 - 3 hours (skill level depending) of time it takes to build a system is worth the $100s to $1000s of dollars you can save, please let me know what business you're in, that your time is too valuable. I obviously am in the wrong one.
Unless the person is worthless, the company should be putting him/her in management. If not, the company is wasting the resources they have spent "building" that individual to that level. That is why promotion potential in a job is so valuable. If there are absolutely no promotions, or little opportunity, it leads to dissatisfied workers. This holds true, even if the company is paying top dollar for the worker. Promotion is needed. Once the person is sitting at the top of the food chain, retirement is what they should be looking forward to...and now, on to retirement benefits.
Perhaps if the music/media industry were not acting the way that they have been lately, more people would be willing to buy. With all of the restrictions placed on legally downloaded music or legally purchased music, more and more people are in fact now downloading illegally.
I personally do not download music illegally (refused to buy an iPod and can listen to my CD's when I want), but I know a lot of people who do. Some of these people used to be against illegal downloads, but due to the restrictions placed on their music when they download (number of times it can be transferred, illegal to move from this device to that device, cannot be read at all on specific device, etc.) these people have found it easier to download the illegal copies, which have no problems.
Copyright infringement is wrong, but the legal system has made it not even worth owning the legal copies. When the common person doesn't clearly understand their rights on the media that they purchased without needing to be a lawyer to listen to it, you kill the desire to buy it.
iPod did the right thing by encouraging legal downloads to begin with and quickly found a market that was previously (almost) untapped. If they keep on that path and make music downloads simple to use and simple to own, they will remain strong. If Sony and the other companies win out by making it more difficult to transfer music/media from one media to another, the industry will dwindle. I used to purchase Sony items, but why in the world would I want to do this now, if I know that they are hiding trash on their media and are willing to accept vulnerabilities on my machine, and not tell me about the code? What stops them from creating hardware restrictions in their players that will fail to perform correctly as well? No more Sony...
Hollywood is slowly drowning themselves with their current copyright war. If the media can be transferred with 1's and 0's, there is no definite way to stop the illegal copy from being made. A hacker will go out of his way to copy something if he is told it cannot be done. Even if the movie/music isn't worth the cost of the burnable DVD/CD.
Bottom line for Hollywood...Look to your consumers and make them happy. Price things reasonable, make it easy to use for the vast majority, and don't make owning a CD a legal battle. YOU need the consumer, not the other way around. People will eventually stop listening or watching if you inconvenience them too much. I cannot think of a single successful company that did not begin by believing that if they won the consumer's confidence, that they would go far. I can think of MANY that lost sight of that and have long since circled the drain, or have begun to. The ball is in your court now...
Might want to include ethnical wars as well. Albanians, Croats, Serbians...a lot of them might look similar and are Christian or Muslim (meaning that some Albanians are Christian and some Serbians are in fact Muslim). They like to kill each other though.
My personal feeling is that religion causes more war that economics, although it would have to be more fair to say that the two seem to be tied when a war occurs in modern times.
I agree. Professionalism on your part should always be the forefront of any good, honest IT person. Forethought should be your personal concern though. A company can quickly be brought down to its knees through the actions of a disgruntaled IT admin. Here are some things that help show that you are thinking of the company still, before you leave them...
1. Offer training to your replacement. They need to know that your knowledge will not go away when you do. 2. Give them any IT strategy planning that you have in place and explain how it works and where they should keep an eye on things if there are issues. 3. Explain your backups and security to your boss. 4. Keep them feeling that your interests are for the company and make them feel that you would never be leaving if you didn't "NEED" to. A company will appreciate you more and will more likely give a favorable opinion of you during "reference time" for your new job.
If, in the end, this all fails...explain that you still need access to the systems if they want you to disable that "special little script" you have set to run once a week in case of untimely termination...:)
Not trying to start a fight, but think about this one for a second...
Term limits stop you from being able to vote for a President/Senator that you feel has done a good job, and forces you to have to choose between other people you very well may feel are not qualified. What does a President that is in his second term have to risk when there is a 100% chance he is not getting re-elected? Term limits were created in response to FDR's 4th term in the seat of the President. Since he did die, there wasn't much of a chance to re-elect him anyhow, but for those who did feel the man did an outstanding job, why should someone not have the RIGHT to vote for him again, if he would have been a viable runner? Senators were scared of him being re-elected, because he held so much sway in the public and he was a formidable person to say "No" to when he asked the Senate to complete something.
Like I said, I am not trying to start a fight, and I have heard a few arguements in favor of term limits that do hold water, but this is my honest and open opinion (and not the same as everyone else's, I know). The bottom line for me is that I feel that the people should have the right to vote for who they want, and not be limited in their choices. How can we, as Americans, boast about our freedoms, if we don't have the basic freedom to vote in the candidate whom we feel is most qualified?
Granted, we haven't really had many Presidents like FDR or some of the other greats lately, but if we do manage to find someone that is a good leader, term limits guarantee that he/she will not be in office past two terms, and that we may be voting on the lesser of two idiots again...
Not to mention that he just named a few companies there that are international, not just American. Way to go! I guess that British accent on CNN didn't help him firgure that one out while he was watching the news over there....Thanks for being another cliche anti-american though.
Mac? Pretty much like having a virus to begin with isn't it?:)
I couldn't agree more with this line of thought. Government should not be allowed to control my, or anyone else's, computer. Regulations on specific things, such as child porn and other horrific trash, are a good thing...pretty sure the majority of society believes that. Viruses and other nasties do cause a TON of loss in money and personal data, and I feel that if ISPs were more professional and knowledgeable (lets face it, why would they need to hire a consultant if they were technically proficient enough to do it themselves?), there would be a great reduction in the number of script kiddies, and other annoying problems. This could be a method to discourage script kiddies from becoming actual threats later down the road. Maybe not, but it could be a start. It's just too bad people write trash instead of using the wasted potential to improve OS's and software that would help people. A lot of talent going to waste...
Not sure if cell companies would fight it or embrace it. More likely, if they took the buy on this tech, they could incorporate and become even more powerful financial entities. Bundle packages for wireless, cable and internet are right now a money making machine. This technology likely will not be available mainstream for another 5-15 years. That actually is pretty tight on time for planning and contract negotiations, but if communications companies took action on a breakthrough like this, it could stand to make a lot of money. As for the 911 emergency stuff, I do agree there could be a problem, but I feel that there is probably a simply GPS solution (as pointed out previously).
You're absolutely right about people being held. They were not held for any great length of time though. They were held long enough to put in a background investigation (and the people held were under suspicion). I know that the US did find that MANY of them were innocent, but please try to remember what happened throughout the country when this occurred. This was something that had never been experienced by the US, and everyone was in shock/dismay. If the authorities did not hold people that there was even a remote chance of that person being a suspect, the public would have possibly started to take things into their own hands (and a few did). We did discover MANY people who were linked to terrorism or aided terrorism (even though a few did not even knowingly do so) through our actions of holding suspects. It really sucks that it had to come to that, and I'm sure that you won't easily find a single person that would just have rather the whole incident not have occurred to begin with. I think the world as a whole has changed dramatically because of that one day in history. Also, I would like to point out that the US was not the only country to do this. Canada, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, (pretty much all of Europe), and many other countries immediately went on a manhunt for terror suspects (and thankfully too, since MANY of them were apprehended very shortly after the 9/11 attacks). The US is thankful to those countries that helped us (and helped themselves).
To address the first post, I would like to point out that if a person is be held as a terrorist suspect (in just about any country, not just the UK), there has usually been quite a bit of investigation done and intelligence gathered about that person. You never want to arrest a person unless they are either posing a significant threat or are about to flee. They are worth more for intelligence gathering since they are probably linking other suspects together, and making terror plots known. I can be fairly confident in saying that if there was an arrest made, and they are holding the suspect, he is guilty; they are just trying to discover more information before they put him/her on trial. Terrorist are using the Web as a tool to disseminate information. Every country is trying to protect themselves by locating the crucial information needed to stop these plots and put the people responsible where they cannot harm innocent children, women and men. Don't pity them for having to stay in holding for a while...these people are cowards and the very lowest scum on the Earth. If they are tried and found innocent, then the government should be held accountable, no argument there.
Slashdot Mirror
The only plan the EU sees is to make Microsoft pay for unbelievable fines for something that most companies would tell them to go stick it for. Microsoft has definately made very bad "fair business" decisions in the past, and I am not trying to defend them on that, but what the EU is asking for is totally insane, and how can they possibly justify it? As far as the codecs...okay, so the codecs go into MS format. The vast majority of media players already make use of them, and who hasn't already found that they can download LEGAL software that will translate into another viable format? This isn't meant to be a bash on your opinion, but I don't feel the EU is justified in many of their actions of late.
Absolutely correct. Quantity over quality. It does pay off over time if you are able to collect enough pieces to complete the puzzle. This method was used LONG ago by other countries (starting near the 1700's). Not saying that China is using an outdated method, but it other methods have been greatly improved and created to replace this.
This is awesome! I was just about to publish this same comment, but you nailed it! And just think, those were the text based games.
We don't spy on the French any longer. Waste of time trying to figure them out.
I've seen some pretty valid points made during these posts and some fairly ignorant ones too. I think the main thing people need to keep in focus here is that there are intel communities in every country except France (need people to be intelligent to begin with) and we all perform the basic function of intel gathering.
China and the US have gone back and forth for YEARS with spying. We are just better at it and get caught a lot less often. The communist Russia era helped to create the best spying nations ever (US, Russia, England and Isreal). After the USSR became a non-communist country, we became more relaxed with our spy programs, but still retained very valuable lessons learned. China has a LONG way to go before they can match any of the above listed countries in our spy programs. Getting caught is just part of the risk, and they may have been caught. Still have to wait and see if this is even the situation. I don't blame them for trying. No one wants to get caught with their pants down when they could have known about a situation in advance, friend or foe. We all have obligations to protect our countries or to learn from someone else's mistakes.
Try reading this:
3 b76-9eec-4081-98ef-f1d0ebfffe9d/LinuxWindowsSecuri ty.pdf
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/7/9c79
Enjoy
Couldn't agree more. The flaw isn't as major as people want it to seem, as long as there are semi-intelligent people involved. Even my 68 year old grandfather (who knows very little about computers) knows enough to stay away from this.
Agree and disagree. My four year old daughter loves her computer because...she can use it. Windows is (if nothing else), easy to use. The possibility of her getting a program to run on a Linux CLI isn't very good, but she can click on the picture of herself to log in, and she can click on the taskbar icon for her to run her movies or her games without a problem, and it took her less than 2 minutes to learn it.
While I feel that adults should be able to learn Linux without reasonable difficulty and would likely find it to have more versatile tools, people are comfort creatures and choose things that have a certain "feel" that they agree with. As the article states, "Media Player" is fairly self-explanatory. What the heck is WINE? What does it do? This is one of the things that does hold back Linux a little. Also, Linux does have a TON of security features that can lock it down more to a person's needs, but how does a new user grab Linux, install it, and then know how to do everything to make it secure? There are a lot of Linux tinkerers (people that want to try it out) that have their systems wide open, thinking that everything is automatically safer than Windows because...its Linux. This is also the guy that brags that his system is impeneterable and hates Windows because it is unsafe...I'm sure you've met this person.
My point is that user knowledge is going to make or break Linux. A good Linux administrator can do wonders. I enjoy it and find the features invaluable, but I had to put effort into learning what those features were and how to use them. If there was more public information and more importantly, more mainstream information about what Linux programs performed what function, the public would gain more trust, and I feel that you would see many more Linux users. The problem is that most people don't need Linux servers or powerhouse computers to simply view their pictures on their computer. Windows has easy-to-use and built-in (patent pending I'm sure) browsers that suit the needs of the masses...and, it is even called Picture Viewer.
Can't think of any games off the top of my head that do take advantage of the dual core. Right now, they seem to be focusing on the future ability of multi-tasking desktop business applications (which they do say run well on both AMD and Intel's dual core processors). I don't think that we will be seeing anything actually make true use of the dual core until gaming gets onboard. If it allows my Anti-Virus to run smoothly, while I can play my BF2, WoW or (Insert your game's name here), without crashing or interference, dual core will be successful. Until that day, I still think it's nice we have the advances...
No, they are asking for code. They are asking MS to provide information with regards to interoperability for all competion. The documentation was provided with protocols, and they were told that was not enough. Now the EU is threatening them with an outrageous fine because Microsoft is a powerful company with a dominating product. Small competitors would have a hard time challenging them, but why should MS be fined because of that? Sounds like they want "medicore" for everyone. Sorry, but this is senseless.
I agree. Linux is for the people that actually KNOW how to use a computer effectively. Not for Mom and Pop who are just buying their first PC. Windows provides a lot for people who are new to computers or don't have the technical background. My 4-year old daughter can get around quite well in Windows. How would she do in Linux? Hmmm. Torturous.
As far as the EU...They need a serious reality check and an even more serious power check. Europeans are not all pompous asses, but the actions of the EU lately sure do add to that image.
Does anyone else find this situation somewhat ironic, given the latest slams against MS for copyright infringement? If they opened up their software, wouldn't that just be begging for the software to be misused?
Sorry EU, but pull it together.
Guess if you went to management, you wouldn't have 20+ years to retire....sorry, uncalled for.
Management should be made up of people with experience. Programmers who are good, should begin their management role earlier by sharing experience through training. They then move on to manage those people who are training. It goes on this way to insure that you keep your top people happy and with YOUR company. Why would I want to train my company's employees and later have them move to another company because of lack of promotion potential?
Exactly. And who is the person who says their time is too valuable to build their own machine?!? Tell them to go to the Dell website (or any other pre-built machine site) and price out a low-end, medium-build and then a decked-out computer system. The low-end could be built for around 10-20% cheaper, the medium around 15-30% and the high-end systems can be built for almost 50% cheaper. Not only that, I know who the repair guy is going to be if I have any issues, and I don't have to schedule an appointment. Also, if you want warranties, you can buy a heck of a lot better warranties on components from sites than Dell can provide for their systems. So, if you think that the 1 1/2 - 3 hours (skill level depending) of time it takes to build a system is worth the $100s to $1000s of dollars you can save, please let me know what business you're in, that your time is too valuable. I obviously am in the wrong one.
Had the same specs you're talking about and ran it successfully as well. It all boils down to what you need the software to do for you.
Unless the person is worthless, the company should be putting him/her in management. If not, the company is wasting the resources they have spent "building" that individual to that level. That is why promotion potential in a job is so valuable. If there are absolutely no promotions, or little opportunity, it leads to dissatisfied workers. This holds true, even if the company is paying top dollar for the worker. Promotion is needed. Once the person is sitting at the top of the food chain, retirement is what they should be looking forward to...and now, on to retirement benefits.
Perhaps if the music/media industry were not acting the way that they have been lately, more people would be willing to buy. With all of the restrictions placed on legally downloaded music or legally purchased music, more and more people are in fact now downloading illegally.
I personally do not download music illegally (refused to buy an iPod and can listen to my CD's when I want), but I know a lot of people who do. Some of these people used to be against illegal downloads, but due to the restrictions placed on their music when they download (number of times it can be transferred, illegal to move from this device to that device, cannot be read at all on specific device, etc.) these people have found it easier to download the illegal copies, which have no problems.
Copyright infringement is wrong, but the legal system has made it not even worth owning the legal copies. When the common person doesn't clearly understand their rights on the media that they purchased without needing to be a lawyer to listen to it, you kill the desire to buy it.
iPod did the right thing by encouraging legal downloads to begin with and quickly found a market that was previously (almost) untapped. If they keep on that path and make music downloads simple to use and simple to own, they will remain strong. If Sony and the other companies win out by making it more difficult to transfer music/media from one media to another, the industry will dwindle. I used to purchase Sony items, but why in the world would I want to do this now, if I know that they are hiding trash on their media and are willing to accept vulnerabilities on my machine, and not tell me about the code? What stops them from creating hardware restrictions in their players that will fail to perform correctly as well? No more Sony...
Hollywood is slowly drowning themselves with their current copyright war. If the media can be transferred with 1's and 0's, there is no definite way to stop the illegal copy from being made. A hacker will go out of his way to copy something if he is told it cannot be done. Even if the movie/music isn't worth the cost of the burnable DVD/CD.
Bottom line for Hollywood...Look to your consumers and make them happy. Price things reasonable, make it easy to use for the vast majority, and don't make owning a CD a legal battle. YOU need the consumer, not the other way around. People will eventually stop listening or watching if you inconvenience them too much. I cannot think of a single successful company that did not begin by believing that if they won the consumer's confidence, that they would go far. I can think of MANY that lost sight of that and have long since circled the drain, or have begun to. The ball is in your court now...
At least you tried. :)
Might want to include ethnical wars as well. Albanians, Croats, Serbians...a lot of them might look similar and are Christian or Muslim (meaning that some Albanians are Christian and some Serbians are in fact Muslim). They like to kill each other though.
My personal feeling is that religion causes more war that economics, although it would have to be more fair to say that the two seem to be tied when a war occurs in modern times.
I agree. Professionalism on your part should always be the forefront of any good, honest IT person. Forethought should be your personal concern though. A company can quickly be brought down to its knees through the actions of a disgruntaled IT admin. Here are some things that help show that you are thinking of the company still, before you leave them...
:)
1. Offer training to your replacement. They need to know that your knowledge will not go away when you do.
2. Give them any IT strategy planning that you have in place and explain how it works and where they should keep an eye on things if there are issues.
3. Explain your backups and security to your boss.
4. Keep them feeling that your interests are for the company and make them feel that you would never be leaving if you didn't "NEED" to. A company will appreciate you more and will more likely give a favorable opinion of you during "reference time" for your new job.
If, in the end, this all fails...explain that you still need access to the systems if they want you to disable that "special little script" you have set to run once a week in case of untimely termination...
Not trying to start a fight, but think about this one for a second...
:)
Term limits stop you from being able to vote for a President/Senator that you feel has done a good job, and forces you to have to choose between other people you very well may feel are not qualified. What does a President that is in his second term have to risk when there is a 100% chance he is not getting re-elected? Term limits were created in response to FDR's 4th term in the seat of the President. Since he did die, there wasn't much of a chance to re-elect him anyhow, but for those who did feel the man did an outstanding job, why should someone not have the RIGHT to vote for him again, if he would have been a viable runner? Senators were scared of him being re-elected, because he held so much sway in the public and he was a formidable person to say "No" to when he asked the Senate to complete something.
Like I said, I am not trying to start a fight, and I have heard a few arguements in favor of term limits that do hold water, but this is my honest and open opinion (and not the same as everyone else's, I know). The bottom line for me is that I feel that the people should have the right to vote for who they want, and not be limited in their choices. How can we, as Americans, boast about our freedoms, if we don't have the basic freedom to vote in the candidate whom we feel is most qualified?
Granted, we haven't really had many Presidents like FDR or some of the other greats lately, but if we do manage to find someone that is a good leader, term limits guarantee that he/she will not be in office past two terms, and that we may be voting on the lesser of two idiots again...
WOW, was this ever off-topic!
Not to mention that he just named a few companies there that are international, not just American. Way to go! I guess that British accent on CNN didn't help him firgure that one out while he was watching the news over there....Thanks for being another cliche anti-american though.
Mac? Pretty much like having a virus to begin with isn't it? :)
I couldn't agree more with this line of thought. Government should not be allowed to control my, or anyone else's, computer. Regulations on specific things, such as child porn and other horrific trash, are a good thing...pretty sure the majority of society believes that. Viruses and other nasties do cause a TON of loss in money and personal data, and I feel that if ISPs were more professional and knowledgeable (lets face it, why would they need to hire a consultant if they were technically proficient enough to do it themselves?), there would be a great reduction in the number of script kiddies, and other annoying problems. This could be a method to discourage script kiddies from becoming actual threats later down the road. Maybe not, but it could be a start. It's just too bad people write trash instead of using the wasted potential to improve OS's and software that would help people. A lot of talent going to waste...
I just realized how tired I am and how much it affected my grammar on this post. :) Sorry to all the grammar Nazi people that are going to respond.
Not sure if cell companies would fight it or embrace it. More likely, if they took the buy on this tech, they could incorporate and become even more powerful financial entities. Bundle packages for wireless, cable and internet are right now a money making machine. This technology likely will not be available mainstream for another 5-15 years. That actually is pretty tight on time for planning and contract negotiations, but if communications companies took action on a breakthrough like this, it could stand to make a lot of money. As for the 911 emergency stuff, I do agree there could be a problem, but I feel that there is probably a simply GPS solution (as pointed out previously).
You're absolutely right about people being held. They were not held for any great length of time though. They were held long enough to put in a background investigation (and the people held were under suspicion). I know that the US did find that MANY of them were innocent, but please try to remember what happened throughout the country when this occurred. This was something that had never been experienced by the US, and everyone was in shock/dismay. If the authorities did not hold people that there was even a remote chance of that person being a suspect, the public would have possibly started to take things into their own hands (and a few did). We did discover MANY people who were linked to terrorism or aided terrorism (even though a few did not even knowingly do so) through our actions of holding suspects. It really sucks that it had to come to that, and I'm sure that you won't easily find a single person that would just have rather the whole incident not have occurred to begin with. I think the world as a whole has changed dramatically because of that one day in history. Also, I would like to point out that the US was not the only country to do this. Canada, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, (pretty much all of Europe), and many other countries immediately went on a manhunt for terror suspects (and thankfully too, since MANY of them were apprehended very shortly after the 9/11 attacks). The US is thankful to those countries that helped us (and helped themselves).
To address the first post, I would like to point out that if a person is be held as a terrorist suspect (in just about any country, not just the UK), there has usually been quite a bit of investigation done and intelligence gathered about that person. You never want to arrest a person unless they are either posing a significant threat or are about to flee. They are worth more for intelligence gathering since they are probably linking other suspects together, and making terror plots known. I can be fairly confident in saying that if there was an arrest made, and they are holding the suspect, he is guilty; they are just trying to discover more information before they put him/her on trial. Terrorist are using the Web as a tool to disseminate information. Every country is trying to protect themselves by locating the crucial information needed to stop these plots and put the people responsible where they cannot harm innocent children, women and men. Don't pity them for having to stay in holding for a while...these people are cowards and the very lowest scum on the Earth. If they are tried and found innocent, then the government should be held accountable, no argument there.
WHY OH WHY did I not see that one coming?!?! :)