More to the point, do you anonymize your grocery store purchases by going through the checkout separately for each aisle, or buying one of everything and throwing out the "chaff?"
I anonymize my grocery store purchases by paying cash.
Don't even joke. Read this article on the wisdom of the mob and vigilante "justice" gone awry, when the village idiots attacked a local paediatrician's home after confusing her title with "pedophile".
That's really amazing (and appalling). Apparently in the U.K., as here, there are more and more people who get confused when dealing with words of more than two syllables....
I think the RIAA is more concerned about the effects of these numbers in the "Court of Public Opinion" than any actual court. Their legal argument might be, "Well, sure, we still made a profit of $X in spite of file sharing, but were it not for illegal downloading, we would have made $X + $Y." The size of the numbers matters legally, but can turn public opinion against them. If you or your corporation makes $50 million a year profit, and then I do something that diverts an additional $10 million away from you, I'm still on the hook legally, though the average citizen might say, "Ah, they're already making 'enough' money -- this hasn't really harmed them." Not long ago, there was public outcry about oil companies posting record profits while gas was approaching $5 a gallon. And more recently, there was consternation about bonuses being paid to already well-off executives of bailed-out companies, even though there were legal arguments for the bonuses to be paid, and the bonus amounts, though sounding excessive to a layperson, were in reality not very much compared to the amount of compensation they had already received. That is why at the grassroots level, there is little sympathy for the Big Boys. Revealing these numbers might not harm the RIAA's case in the courts, but it sure will earn disdain from the average struggling taxpayer.
Sure, lots of fun. Keep reminding yourself how much fun you're having as the Feds get their investigation against you cranking. This is like when the warrantless spying revelations led some to suggest that we append a slew of "hot" keywords and phrases (terrorism, bomb, islam, allah, death to america, etc.) to every e-mail in order to flood the governments' efforts with a lot of extra, useless work. These blithely proposed schemes would never work because "normal" people have no interest in such games.
See, as much as we lambaste the notion in principle, in a way the authorities really ARE justified in believing you have something sinister to hide if you do things like use Tor or TrueCrypt, or routinely securely wipe your deleted files and sensitive info, or engage in or advocate "sabotage" such as the above scheme. They are justified in that belief because the only folks who do these things are mostly either technogeeks, "privacy nuts," or actual bad guys. And all those groups put together still only account for a very minuscule percentage of the population. Unless anti-snooping technologies and code are by default built-in to every piece of software and operating system out there, operating under the radar without the active participation of the user, any attempt to use these methods to thwart the eavesdroppers just puts up a BIG RED FLAG to the snoopers.
The average Joe honestly believes he has nothing to hide, yet I frequently drum up the famous quote of Cardinal Richelieu "Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him." Something he said or did in innocence, in the passion and self-discovery of youth, as a joke, or merely playing "devil's advocate" can come back to haunt him, big-time. It may not rise to the level of something that will get him sent to Guantanamo, but could lead to unwanted scrutiny that can one day deny him a plum job, or at the very least embarrass him in the eyes of his family, friends, or peers. But you will never convince him (nor the tens of millions like him) that he has any reason to worry about privacy, or to encrypt, conceal, or obfuscate his communications to the Nth degree. And that is why those few that DO take such measures, whether due to principle, paranoia, or actual perfidy, will always be putting up a huge flashing neon sign that says "let's check this guy out."
Does that mean we should just bend over and accept it? "Hey, let's go completely overboard when asking for personal information! We can sell it on for a profit, and the sheeple are too dim and set in their ways to do anything about it!"
Exactly the problem....baaa....baaa....
The fact is that most of the "sheeple" SIMPLY DON'T CARE. Despite all the warnings about ID theft, many people still tend to give out personal information like candy, as long as there is some perceived benefit to them. And the big companies who demand it don't give a damn about the occasional "privacy nut," because your lost sale represents about 0.00000000000000000000000001% of their profit, and they can more than afford to write you off.
This is, coincidentally, also why customer service (Remember that? Ah, the good ol' days...) has gone down the crapper, because most consumers shop by price, not according to how friendly the help is or how clean the store is. Most folks couldn't care less about the amenities so long as they get their goods at a good price. So, the manager/supervisor/exec you complain to will just smile politely, assure you that your opinion is important, then laugh his ass off after you leave, knowing that you are part of one of the tiniest minorities in society: people who give a fuck.
If they'd just turned up a couple of days later in AT&T outfits, then this would never have been a story.
The two-day delay there is the key to believability -- no "real" AT&T guys show up within minutes of a problem. Frankly, from my past dealings with them, I think even two days would seem suspiciously fast...
The problem is some lawyer somewhere is suing some city for not having a camera on every corner because some bad thing happened to someone somewhere. They will frame the need in terms like "high crime rate" and such, saying the city should have been monitoring the area with surveillance equipment.
And some other lawyer will be protesting the setup suggested above as an invasion of privacy, big brother etc.
No matter what happens, the lawyers always come out on top. Ain't seeing any layoffs or downsizing in their profession.
One more thing... is it legal for you to tail a police officer?
Try it sometime. My bet is that he/she will not be amused...
I think if you tail anyone, it could at least be construed as harassment, or even stalking. Sooner or later, you pass a point at which the innocent "but I just happened to be driving the same route" doesn't fly, especially if the person you're tailing has pegged you, and made a few unplanned maneuvers (e.g., circling a block several times) to see if you still follow.
Not sure where I heard it, but it was some retired spy that pointed out in an interview that still the most secure form of communication is two people meeting in person and talking. No records, no signals, no paper trail. Nothing to track.
No records? Videotape shot from a van across the street. No signals? Parabolic dish mike to pick up the conversation. Nothing to track? Tailing and "analog" surveillance (using the ol' human eyes, ears, and shoe leather) are as old as the hills.
Yes, it may well the most secure, though not totally so. But tracking people in the real world sans technology is hard grunt work. A lot of long days and long nights, a lot of peeing into empty Snapple bottles and Red Bull cans in your car. And when you're out in public along with the bad guys, you constantly run the risk of having your cover blown. If not by the ne'er-do-wells themselves, then by nosy cops, or even members of the general public to whom your tracking and stalking maneuvers make you look far more suspicious than the people you're following. No real glamour there, and far less attractive of a job description that sitting in an air-conditioned office monitoring and transcribing phone intercepts.
A funny, ironic thought.....when reliance by everyday people on electronic communication becomes ubiquitous (we're almost there) and surveillance of same becomes total (ditto), it may well be people that studiously and conspicuously avoid technology who will become the most suspect of all!
For example, I don't consider Bill O'Reilly (whom I disagree with in a lot of things) a nut job. I think his rage is misguided and I think some of his positions are ignorant, poorly thought out, sexist, racist, and backward, but I don't think he is a nut job. I think that he thinks that he's doing what is best for America.
I think Bill O'Reilly is doing what he thinks is best for his show's ratings and for his bank account. The O'Reilleys, Limbaughs, Becks, Coulters, and Hannitys of the Right are way too smart to actually believe half the over the top nutso paranoid conspiracy crapola they spew out every day. I think they are very smart, crafty and perceptive actors who have found a niche audience, and cater to both it and to the suits who write their paychecks.
So, our neighbors to the South are getting ahead of us on something, eh? I must say, given the slow but steady trend of the U.S. towards ever increasing surveillance, one thing that has puzzled me is why our government has not yet implemented something like this. If you're going to go so far as to use warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of the domestic phone system to keep tabs on your own citizens, it can't be very effective if anyone can walk into a Wal-Mart or 7-11, use cash to buy a cheap prepaid cellphone with a number and talk time already set up for it, and use it -- no ID, no registration, no way to know who belongs to that number. Criminals make wide use of these anonymous and more or less disposable phone accounts, and it is astounding that no legislators have yet played the "if you use one of these phones, you must have something bad to hide" card and passed a law similar to what Mexico is proposing.
Surprisingly, your opponent seems to have fled after you brought up those studies. I was expecting at LEAST a "those studies are flawed" response, or more likely the classic "those studies are done by biased individuals seeking to covertly promote the homosexual agenda."
Disappointing for him to so suddenly give up. He needs to turn in his Reactionary Knee-jerk Ignoramuses of America ID card...
What I wish these extremist nuts would understand is that the theory of evolution does not, ipso facto, rule out the possibility of a supernatural creator. Evolution is simply an ever-refining description of how life unfolded on Earth. No one is staking any claim in the theory concerning who or what (if anyone or anything) might have initiated or guided or overseen the process. There are tens of millions of Christian clergy, theologians, and laity who accept evolution as the process that God used to achieve his purposes. Even among evangelicals, most no longer subscribe to the literality of Genesis -- they understand the "six days" of creation as metaphor. They also understand that the Bible is not meant to be a complete, literal history that can be quantified (a la Bishop Usher) to produce a firm figure for the age of the universe.
So, who are these Christians who are on the anti-evolution bandwagon? Not Christians in general. Not even evangelicals. It's a tiny subset that still insists that evolution "denies God," that the universe was literally created in six days, that species were set and defined at the moment of creation, etc. In other words, a minority of a minority of a minority, if you will. And yet, these vastly outnumbered idjits carry incredible weight and influence, especially in the heartland, and people cower in fear of upsetting them.
...while it may take a long time for cash to disappear (if ever), cash will eventually be seen as something used by the poor and society's outcasts...
Even the poor are going cashless. In many areas, welfare, unemployment, food stamps, etc. are paid with stored value debit cards, not checks or cash. The lower economic population is also four-walled with ads for the Green Dot Card, Wal-Mart's new debit card, and other debit instruments designed to appeal to regular joes. They hype the "security" angle, plus subliminally convey the using of a Visa or MC branded card as an element of status.
As for "outcasts," that's not quite the right word...maybe "troublemakers?" "Nonconformists?" Anyway, already those who pay for costlier items with cash come under heightened scrutiny in some cases. Hell, you can't even purchase a postal money order above a certain amount anymore without being forced to supply additional "none of their damn business" information (who the money is going to, what it's for, let's get your d/l number on file here, etc.). Even if cash continues to be a viable, permitted mode of exchange, increasingly those who insist on cash will be subject to rasied "what do you have to hide and why will you not allow your benevolent overlords to record and track every dime of your financial affairs" eyebrows.
I always have thought this to be the most illogical parts of humans of modern mainstream religion.
Me, too. When a devout Christian's loved one dies, especially if the deceased is very young (perhaps a child), usually they react with sorrow and tears, when their faith says they should be shouting hallelujahs. After all, it means the dear departed not only gets to see Jesus and start sailing on celestial clouds and taking harp lessons sooner, but that they have been spared from most of the agonies and pains of this life, and the possibility of backsliding or losing their faith. (An issue sharply divided, to be sure, between Calvinist and Armenian schools of theological though, but I digress...). To grieve for them means that either (a)your faith is not secure, and you really deep down have doubts about all that life after death stuff; (b)your own faith is sound, but you fear that your loved one's wasn't; or (c)you are just basically selfish and lament that you won't have them around anymore, even though they are better off.
Apparently libel doesn't have to be false, just intentionally malicious and defamatory.
So this isn't news because it actually seems to be legitimately libel claim.
That was always what I thought, and was taught way back in my Communications Law course in college. Truth is not always a defense if the information is published with the intent of actual malice and to deliberately cause damage to someone's reputation. There can be instances in which something that is 100% true is nonetheless both not a matter for public knowledge and not germane to a person's professional life. Let's say a doctor in a rural, conservative area happens in his private life to be a practitioner of Wicca. That has absolutely nothing to do with his ability to perform his job; nevertheless, revealing that fact could cause a lot of his patients to seek another physician, thus destroying his practice. And if someone does publish that information with the specific intent of doing just that, the fact that the information is true is not an absolute defense.
Obsolescence is in the eye of the beholder. I have a (tiny, by/. standards) 40gb HDD that I have used for 3 years, and it's not even half-full. And probably a significant percentage of that is unneeded crap that I just haven't gotten around to deleting yet.
Amazing, isn't it? Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. I used to run inventories for a company that used those little hip-mounted 10-key devices, which will alarm if you hit the wrong sequence of keys. Can't tell you how many times I stood and watched someone hitting the same erroneous sequence, again and again (pausing every few attempts to stare at the keyboard for awhile), getting the alarm every time, and stubbornly refusing to accept that they were doing something wrong. I would watch for awhile, and eventually sidle up to them and mutter, "You know, if it didn't work the first time, it ain't gonna work the 101st, either..."
Sounds more and more like cable TV, with its various "tiers" of service based on content, premium channels, etc. That's probably, alas, where Internet access is heading, not just in the U.K., but here in the U.S. as well. Don't kid yourself: net neutrality will sooner or later be just a memory. You can moan and complain and fight, but personally I'm amazed the powers that be haven't already clamped down on the notion of free-roaming flat-rate uncensored Internet use already. Can't control what the masses read and hear that way.
Slashdot Mirror
More to the point, do you anonymize your grocery store purchases by going through the checkout separately for each aisle, or buying one of everything and throwing out the "chaff?"
I anonymize my grocery store purchases by paying cash.
Oh and bob@hotmail.com? I am really, really sorry about that man.
I like to use "getlost@noneofyerdamnbusiness.com." I often wonder how many unresolved e-mails to that addy are floating around the Web...
Don't even joke. Read this article on the wisdom of the mob and vigilante "justice" gone awry, when the village idiots attacked a local paediatrician's home after confusing her title with "pedophile".
That's really amazing (and appalling). Apparently in the U.K., as here, there are more and more people who get confused when dealing with words of more than two syllables....
I think the RIAA is more concerned about the effects of these numbers in the "Court of Public Opinion" than any actual court. Their legal argument might be, "Well, sure, we still made a profit of $X in spite of file sharing, but were it not for illegal downloading, we would have made $X + $Y." The size of the numbers matters legally, but can turn public opinion against them. If you or your corporation makes $50 million a year profit, and then I do something that diverts an additional $10 million away from you, I'm still on the hook legally, though the average citizen might say, "Ah, they're already making 'enough' money -- this hasn't really harmed them." Not long ago, there was public outcry about oil companies posting record profits while gas was approaching $5 a gallon. And more recently, there was consternation about bonuses being paid to already well-off executives of bailed-out companies, even though there were legal arguments for the bonuses to be paid, and the bonus amounts, though sounding excessive to a layperson, were in reality not very much compared to the amount of compensation they had already received. That is why at the grassroots level, there is little sympathy for the Big Boys. Revealing these numbers might not harm the RIAA's case in the courts, but it sure will earn disdain from the average struggling taxpayer.
Sure, lots of fun. Keep reminding yourself how much fun you're having as the Feds get their investigation against you cranking. This is like when the warrantless spying revelations led some to suggest that we append a slew of "hot" keywords and phrases (terrorism, bomb, islam, allah, death to america, etc.) to every e-mail in order to flood the governments' efforts with a lot of extra, useless work. These blithely proposed schemes would never work because "normal" people have no interest in such games.
See, as much as we lambaste the notion in principle, in a way the authorities really ARE justified in believing you have something sinister to hide if you do things like use Tor or TrueCrypt, or routinely securely wipe your deleted files and sensitive info, or engage in or advocate "sabotage" such as the above scheme. They are justified in that belief because the only folks who do these things are mostly either technogeeks, "privacy nuts," or actual bad guys. And all those groups put together still only account for a very minuscule percentage of the population. Unless anti-snooping technologies and code are by default built-in to every piece of software and operating system out there, operating under the radar without the active participation of the user, any attempt to use these methods to thwart the eavesdroppers just puts up a BIG RED FLAG to the snoopers.
The average Joe honestly believes he has nothing to hide, yet I frequently drum up the famous quote of Cardinal Richelieu "Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him." Something he said or did in innocence, in the passion and self-discovery of youth, as a joke, or merely playing "devil's advocate" can come back to haunt him, big-time. It may not rise to the level of something that will get him sent to Guantanamo, but could lead to unwanted scrutiny that can one day deny him a plum job, or at the very least embarrass him in the eyes of his family, friends, or peers. But you will never convince him (nor the tens of millions like him) that he has any reason to worry about privacy, or to encrypt, conceal, or obfuscate his communications to the Nth degree. And that is why those few that DO take such measures, whether due to principle, paranoia, or actual perfidy, will always be putting up a huge flashing neon sign that says "let's check this guy out."
Does that mean we should just bend over and accept it? "Hey, let's go completely overboard when asking for personal information! We can sell it on for a profit, and the sheeple are too dim and set in their ways to do anything about it!"
Exactly the problem....baaa....baaa....
The fact is that most of the "sheeple" SIMPLY DON'T CARE. Despite all the warnings about ID theft, many people still tend to give out personal information like candy, as long as there is some perceived benefit to them. And the big companies who demand it don't give a damn about the occasional "privacy nut," because your lost sale represents about 0.00000000000000000000000001% of their profit, and they can more than afford to write you off.
This is, coincidentally, also why customer service (Remember that? Ah, the good ol' days...) has gone down the crapper, because most consumers shop by price, not according to how friendly the help is or how clean the store is. Most folks couldn't care less about the amenities so long as they get their goods at a good price. So, the manager/supervisor/exec you complain to will just smile politely, assure you that your opinion is important, then laugh his ass off after you leave, knowing that you are part of one of the tiniest minorities in society: people who give a fuck.
If they'd just turned up a couple of days later in AT&T outfits, then this would never have been a story.
The two-day delay there is the key to believability -- no "real" AT&T guys show up within minutes of a problem. Frankly, from my past dealings with them, I think even two days would seem suspiciously fast...
Does this end any way but the TPB founders becoming Bubba's bitch for a few years?
Actually, in this case, it would be Lars' bitch, or Sven's....
The problem is some lawyer somewhere is suing some city for not having a camera on every corner because some bad thing happened to someone somewhere. They will frame the need in terms like "high crime rate" and such, saying the city should have been monitoring the area with surveillance equipment.
And some other lawyer will be protesting the setup suggested above as an invasion of privacy, big brother etc.
No matter what happens, the lawyers always come out on top. Ain't seeing any layoffs or downsizing in their profession.
Better yet, stick it on a truck, preferably one traveling over the road; or leave it on a city bus or subway.
I can thin of even more creative scenarios:
-- Cruise by the local donut shop just before dawn and stick it on a cop's car
-- Attach it to someone's boat when they appear to be about to hit the lake for some fishing
-- Package it up and mail it to some random destination, preferably in an obscure country
-- I dunno...if it's small and light enough, tie it onto a migrating Canadian goose?
One more thing... is it legal for you to tail a police officer?
Try it sometime. My bet is that he/she will not be amused...
I think if you tail anyone, it could at least be construed as harassment, or even stalking. Sooner or later, you pass a point at which the innocent "but I just happened to be driving the same route" doesn't fly, especially if the person you're tailing has pegged you, and made a few unplanned maneuvers (e.g., circling a block several times) to see if you still follow.
Not sure where I heard it, but it was some retired spy that pointed out in an interview that still the most secure form of communication is two people meeting in person and talking. No records, no signals, no paper trail. Nothing to track.
No records? Videotape shot from a van across the street. No signals? Parabolic dish mike to pick up the conversation. Nothing to track? Tailing and "analog" surveillance (using the ol' human eyes, ears, and shoe leather) are as old as the hills.
Yes, it may well the most secure, though not totally so. But tracking people in the real world sans technology is hard grunt work. A lot of long days and long nights, a lot of peeing into empty Snapple bottles and Red Bull cans in your car. And when you're out in public along with the bad guys, you constantly run the risk of having your cover blown. If not by the ne'er-do-wells themselves, then by nosy cops, or even members of the general public to whom your tracking and stalking maneuvers make you look far more suspicious than the people you're following. No real glamour there, and far less attractive of a job description that sitting in an air-conditioned office monitoring and transcribing phone intercepts.
A funny, ironic thought.....when reliance by everyday people on electronic communication becomes ubiquitous (we're almost there) and surveillance of same becomes total (ditto), it may well be people that studiously and conspicuously avoid technology who will become the most suspect of all!
For example, I don't consider Bill O'Reilly (whom I disagree with in a lot of things) a nut job. I think his rage is misguided and I think some of his positions are ignorant, poorly thought out, sexist, racist, and backward, but I don't think he is a nut job. I think that he thinks that he's doing what is best for America.
I think Bill O'Reilly is doing what he thinks is best for his show's ratings and for his bank account. The O'Reilleys, Limbaughs, Becks, Coulters, and Hannitys of the Right are way too smart to actually believe half the over the top nutso paranoid conspiracy crapola they spew out every day. I think they are very smart, crafty and perceptive actors who have found a niche audience, and cater to both it and to the suits who write their paychecks.
So, our neighbors to the South are getting ahead of us on something, eh? I must say, given the slow but steady trend of the U.S. towards ever increasing surveillance, one thing that has puzzled me is why our government has not yet implemented something like this. If you're going to go so far as to use warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of the domestic phone system to keep tabs on your own citizens, it can't be very effective if anyone can walk into a Wal-Mart or 7-11, use cash to buy a cheap prepaid cellphone with a number and talk time already set up for it, and use it -- no ID, no registration, no way to know who belongs to that number. Criminals make wide use of these anonymous and more or less disposable phone accounts, and it is astounding that no legislators have yet played the "if you use one of these phones, you must have something bad to hide" card and passed a law similar to what Mexico is proposing.
Thank you....I feel much better now. All's right with the world again...
Surprisingly, your opponent seems to have fled after you brought up those studies. I was expecting at LEAST a "those studies are flawed" response, or more likely the classic "those studies are done by biased individuals seeking to covertly promote the homosexual agenda."
Disappointing for him to so suddenly give up. He needs to turn in his Reactionary Knee-jerk Ignoramuses of America ID card...
What I wish these extremist nuts would understand is that the theory of evolution does not, ipso facto, rule out the possibility of a supernatural creator. Evolution is simply an ever-refining description of how life unfolded on Earth. No one is staking any claim in the theory concerning who or what (if anyone or anything) might have initiated or guided or overseen the process. There are tens of millions of Christian clergy, theologians, and laity who accept evolution as the process that God used to achieve his purposes. Even among evangelicals, most no longer subscribe to the literality of Genesis -- they understand the "six days" of creation as metaphor. They also understand that the Bible is not meant to be a complete, literal history that can be quantified (a la Bishop Usher) to produce a firm figure for the age of the universe.
So, who are these Christians who are on the anti-evolution bandwagon? Not Christians in general. Not even evangelicals. It's a tiny subset that still insists that evolution "denies God," that the universe was literally created in six days, that species were set and defined at the moment of creation, etc. In other words, a minority of a minority of a minority, if you will. And yet, these vastly outnumbered idjits carry incredible weight and influence, especially in the heartland, and people cower in fear of upsetting them.
"It's new, it's cool; therefore, it must be better."
...while it may take a long time for cash to disappear (if ever), cash will eventually be seen as something used by the poor and society's outcasts...
Even the poor are going cashless. In many areas, welfare, unemployment, food stamps, etc. are paid with stored value debit cards, not checks or cash. The lower economic population is also four-walled with ads for the Green Dot Card, Wal-Mart's new debit card, and other debit instruments designed to appeal to regular joes. They hype the "security" angle, plus subliminally convey the using of a Visa or MC branded card as an element of status.
As for "outcasts," that's not quite the right word...maybe "troublemakers?" "Nonconformists?" Anyway, already those who pay for costlier items with cash come under heightened scrutiny in some cases. Hell, you can't even purchase a postal money order above a certain amount anymore without being forced to supply additional "none of their damn business" information (who the money is going to, what it's for, let's get your d/l number on file here, etc.). Even if cash continues to be a viable, permitted mode of exchange, increasingly those who insist on cash will be subject to rasied "what do you have to hide and why will you not allow your benevolent overlords to record and track every dime of your financial affairs" eyebrows.
I always have thought this to be the most illogical parts of humans of modern mainstream religion.
Me, too. When a devout Christian's loved one dies, especially if the deceased is very young (perhaps a child), usually they react with sorrow and tears, when their faith says they should be shouting hallelujahs. After all, it means the dear departed not only gets to see Jesus and start sailing on celestial clouds and taking harp lessons sooner, but that they have been spared from most of the agonies and pains of this life, and the possibility of backsliding or losing their faith. (An issue sharply divided, to be sure, between Calvinist and Armenian schools of theological though, but I digress...). To grieve for them means that either (a)your faith is not secure, and you really deep down have doubts about all that life after death stuff; (b)your own faith is sound, but you fear that your loved one's wasn't; or (c)you are just basically selfish and lament that you won't have them around anymore, even though they are better off.
The UK government, which is becoming increasingly Orwellian...
We need a new mod category: "understatement." I'm thinking more and more that Orwell was an optimist...
Apparently libel doesn't have to be false, just intentionally malicious and defamatory. So this isn't news because it actually seems to be legitimately libel claim.
That was always what I thought, and was taught way back in my Communications Law course in college. Truth is not always a defense if the information is published with the intent of actual malice and to deliberately cause damage to someone's reputation. There can be instances in which something that is 100% true is nonetheless both not a matter for public knowledge and not germane to a person's professional life. Let's say a doctor in a rural, conservative area happens in his private life to be a practitioner of Wicca. That has absolutely nothing to do with his ability to perform his job; nevertheless, revealing that fact could cause a lot of his patients to seek another physician, thus destroying his practice. And if someone does publish that information with the specific intent of doing just that, the fact that the information is true is not an absolute defense.
Obsolescence is in the eye of the beholder. I have a (tiny, by /. standards) 40gb HDD that I have used for 3 years, and it's not even half-full. And probably a significant percentage of that is unneeded crap that I just haven't gotten around to deleting yet.
Amazing, isn't it? Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. I used to run inventories for a company that used those little hip-mounted 10-key devices, which will alarm if you hit the wrong sequence of keys. Can't tell you how many times I stood and watched someone hitting the same erroneous sequence, again and again (pausing every few attempts to stare at the keyboard for awhile), getting the alarm every time, and stubbornly refusing to accept that they were doing something wrong. I would watch for awhile, and eventually sidle up to them and mutter, "You know, if it didn't work the first time, it ain't gonna work the 101st, either..."
Sounds more and more like cable TV, with its various "tiers" of service based on content, premium channels, etc. That's probably, alas, where Internet access is heading, not just in the U.K., but here in the U.S. as well. Don't kid yourself: net neutrality will sooner or later be just a memory. You can moan and complain and fight, but personally I'm amazed the powers that be haven't already clamped down on the notion of free-roaming flat-rate uncensored Internet use already. Can't control what the masses read and hear that way.