Magik, I have to disagree with you on this. Most things we tend to agree on. However, I DO believe that the government IS the big hairy monster that the survivalists in Montana make it out to be. Im appalled. They openly admit that they are doing this. Nobody bats an eyelash. They admit they are going to RAPE your privacy. ahh who caressssssss. As long as I get my paycheck it doesnt bother me.

This is about to turn into a religious discussion as well because this is the kind of thing Nostdrodamus predicted. Im going to have to dust off my Bible because I could swear it describes this crap in the Book of Revelations too.

Ok so if the government spies on us and we say its ok, then why send a peeping tom to jail for perving on a 12 year old girl through her bedroom window?? The goverment is already doing it. Why shouldnt someone else? Its the principle if not the specific act. All in all it boils down to one simple thing: Its an invasion of our privacy.

And no I dont believe that all the best hackers work for private corporations. There are still somepople out there that work for a very screwed up government simply because they have morals. I know cops that could make $100,000 a year or a hell of a lot more, doing construction. They prefer to think that their job will make a difference in someones life. They think they are helping the members of the community. They know its a job that sucks. They know they wont get rich. But if you pull one kid out of a burning car or house, it was worth it. Save a kid from an abusive father that beats on every person in the family every day becase he CAN.

And in the IT community there are only so many jobs to be had that earn $100,000 a year. Sure, kids graduate college and theyd love to work for Microsoft making $10 billion a year. That job is already taken. There are only so many jobs to be had making that kind of money. The ones that cant get those jobs have to work somewhere, but it doesnt neccesarily mean that they werent in the top of their class. Businesses fail. The government will ALWAYS be there.

at least noones come up with that argument "if you got nothing to hide why worry" cant stand people who say that, then follow it up with "guilty conscience?" they dont seem to get that privacy is something humans need, repeatedly invade it and people tend to go mad or get depressed.

that chip thing microsoft are doing does worry me, im not sure to what extent its going to go, but then again there will be plenty of companies selling motherboards without the chip and remember its not something people want, so selling it is gonna be hard, and linux is getting better n better esp with the gui options you can get on it now, windows i prefer for its flexibility but id jump to linux if i got screwed by microsoft, plus i reckon someone would try their hand at a windows compatible O/S as well. (dont mention o/s warp [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

There was an article about this on slashdot last week. It was about a tax preparations program , Turbo Tax I think, that had to be activated over the net. If you upgraded to a new computer or tried to put it on another machine in your house you were forced to buy another licence for it. The people in the article were pissed because even if all they did way buy a new comp they had to shell out an additional $20 for a new licence for a program that they already shelled out $40 for in the first place. The real kick in the shorts is that unless you have internet access you cant activate the program. That means people like my parents who have their old machine set up, but NOT hooked up to the internet couldnt even get this tax program running.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...=thread&tid=98 <---link to slashdot article.

I am sure that I've posted this before, but in Hungary, where I come from, you have to register each mobile phone purchased to a name and an address and only over 18's can buy them. The police can listen in on any mobile phone conversations they want and know who the phone is registered to. Apparently this is to help stop crime and I've heard of shooting cases that have been solved by listening to thousands of phone conversations of phones registered in the city of the shooting.

[ 01-14-2003, 11:20 AM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]