One has an obvious improving effect on the lives of people, the other is an optional extra that people like to have but which can be supplemented with alternatives (including versions that are legitimately acquired). I'll let you decide which is the hospital and which is the BitTorrented content.

It's like saying donating a banquet to 1000+ homeless people for a month is the same as not finishing all of your meal in a restaurant - there's some similarities in terms of food and availability, but one has a huge and important benefit, the other is related but not important in the grand scheme of things.

Even that is probably unnecessary - unless it is a really bad app that can't automatically upper/lower-case all of the text.

And the computer, in case they start using the mouse and an on-screen keyboard, or even touch-screen, or handwriting recognition.

Caps lock: Yep, it gets used for long blocks of capitalised text (particularly those in SQL statements and those that also mix in numbers so that the 3 doesn't become £ bu accident)

Scroll lock: Yep, every day. Double scroll lock and up/down switches my KVM from the dev machine to the work machine.

I've not used Numlock or Pause/Break for ages, though.

You mean Wikileaks (a private organisation with high ideals about how it can improve the world, which should be accountable to anyone it affects through its actions) and the US Government (a democratic nation that has high ideals about how it can improve the world and is supposed to be accountable to its people as well as anyone it affects through its actions)? They're not quite on the same scale, but if WikiLeaks want openness and want to leak non-whistleblowing information then it only seems right that they're also open and share everything as well.

So you're comparing donation of large sums of money to organisations that actively improve the lives of people to the act of leaving a file in your BitTorrent share because you have the bandwidth and want to get more stuff in future? That's somewhat of a stretch, IMO.

Bargain bin != second hand (at least not to me). Supermarkets have bargain bins. Places like Woolworths have bargain bins. Shops like Game used to have bargain shelves (all the white label stuff) until they decided overpriced console bling was the way to go. Second-hand games are different.

If America bullies a nation into doing something not in its best interest with financial or military (or any other) might then that is fair enough for exposure - it is interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign nation. A distinction needs to be made between that and general petitioning/bargaining/politics, though.

Whether various world leaders are thin skinned, party-animals or otherwise annoying does not need to be released and can only antagonise situations. Disclosing that kind of information is just a call of "look at me - we've got non-critical but titillating stuff that the press will love even if it is of no whistle-blowing significance whatsoever".

Do you go into every negotiation at work or in commerce and say "well, I think you're [insert derision here], but lets talk about [insert thing to be agreed]"? No, because even if you don't like someone then you keep it professional and let the agreement be based on the agreement.

Yeah, the only altruistic part seems to be "because I can" or "because it'll encourage people to share even more stuff so that I have more choice of stuff to illegally copy in future", neither of which is exactly altruistic. They might like to portray it as altruistic, but it is rather self-centred.

Also, most of them won't be motivated by financial gain, but they are motivated by a lack of financial loss. The majority of file sharers probably illegally copy games and music because they "can't afford" to buy the game and so just take it because they can (there is no physical barrier/loss/presence that can be detected or otherwise make it *feel* like a crime compared to shop lifting). That way they get to enjoy the product and not pay for it either. Kerching!

That'd be the "other" definition of file sharing - the one that focuses on the technical aspects (sharing any file and leaving legality out of it) rather than the one that the big labels and media like that focuses on politics and the illegal aspects ;)

and no used copy's on ebay does not count or even the old copy in the bargain bin at the store.

Why don't they count? Surely they're still available if you can pick them up in a bargain bin?

So what we need is a whistle-blower within the whistle-blowing organisation? He'd better also tell us where they buy their coffee from, what they think of all of the latest TV shows, celebrities and politicians, and all of that other "vital" information that the world just needs to know!

Does the list of important sites have anything to do with war crimes and other events of dubious legality that shouldn't be covered up? Does the world benefit from knowing what the Americans internally think of various politicians?

It isn't just about uncovering shameful/illegal things that the governments would rather people know about but that they probably shouldn't have done anyway. It is about being "open and honest" - seemingly to an unnecessary extend, based on some of the leaks. Not revealing the control centres is not open and honest, and therefore seems a bit hypocritical.

Viol8 hit the nail on the head.

I don't know, I'm not sure I'd quite be that unfair to the Mail!

So you don't watch sport, but you "know" that F1 is terrible and noisey with poor commentary? That's okay, I don't rock climb, but I'm sure it is really easy and something that my two-year-old son could do without breaking a sweat ;)