These are the kind of posts that make me still visit Slashdot regularly, you just don't get this most other sites. Thank you, that was very informative and well written.

How is that "missing the point"? Geeks are not exactly the vast majority here. Let's face it, we're actually a MINORITY when it comes to computing. I'm pretty sure Google will be pretty happy if they can hook the non-geek marked since that's where the money is. Getting Chromebooks for the mom/pop/younger siblings out there is exactly what Chromebooks are good at and it also happens to be a very, very large market.

Agree with you there, don't see the offense in being called a hobbyist. I'm in a management position now, but I still program at home every now and then so that I know more about what I'm talking about when I talk to my developers. Programming is fun and although I don't get paid to churn out code I still enjoy dabbling in it. By that I'm clearly a hobbyist and find no offense in that term whatsoever.

So what you're saying is that the police forces would have to use old-fashioned police work and target individuals they suspect rather than mass collect everything? Yes, clearly that proves this is a wasted effort.

For most people that's not an option though, since they leave as soon as they can after work and for many there are no alternatives to airplanes. Basically, they're idiots for moving so far away from their families they can't get to them in a short drive and idiots for not getting themselves jobs where they have a flexible schedule? Either that or you have an incredible naive way of looking at the world.

Yes that's the one, it changed name a while ago. I would prefer an OS solution as well, but I prefer DNT to Ghostery due to Ghostery's shady dealings.

I agree with you 100%. The issue I've found is that people are absolutely terrible when it comes to working with big numbers. Any chance of false positive is seen as a 1 in a million shot at best. People cannot comprehend how they could end up in that kind of situation, the chances are so slim. It seems to me many have forgotten the old saying that we're supposed to let 10 guilty people go rather than jail 1 innocent person since we're (the west) supposed to be a benevolent democracy.

As I usually say: every week there is someone who wins the lottery, and that chance is really, really small.

I think it's important to protect my privacy despite not having much they are interested in. I encrypt my harddrives, have my own domain with e-mail that I've set up with GnuPG on my workstation and laptop, I sometimes use the TOR bundle as well as a USB with Tails on it. The simplest thing is that I subscribe to https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.privateinternetaccess.com%2F to get proxy/VPN access to the net. Also, setting Firefox up with HTTPS everywhere, DNTPlus, NoScript etc. is important.

It doesn't take much to make their jobs harder. I use these things also for everyday items, it's not like I fire up PIA to "go dark and do evil stuff". I've plenty of friends that don't see the point of doing what I do when what I use it for isn't illegal, but privacy means privacy from prying eyes, I decide what I share with others.

Yeah, as if flying wasn't annoying enough I now have to listen to the person next to me talk on the phone for the entire flight? Roaming chargers will negate some of that I'm sure, but given that EU has also suggested that those charges should be drastically lowered as well... yeeeah, what can possibly go wrong?

But that would be socialism! The government is only supposed to keep us safe!

I didn't pay for the Debian install I have on my laptop. Wonder who they're selling me to?

No. There's a world of difference between the stuff I might put up on a blog, Facebook, G+ and whatever else social network exists, and the data I use my computer to handle. What if you're having legal troubles? IRS are after you? You have applications for a Betty Ford-like clinique? Tax returns? These are things that you're NOT going to be putting up on Facebook or your blog, but documents you might have to have. This is data Ubuntu has no business knowing that I have on my computer.

This is the world of open source software, "because we can" is ALWAYS a perfectly acceptable reason :)

To repeat what others have said; don`t confuse UEFI and secure boot. Although Microsoft is certainly pushing the secure boot bit, Intel were the masterminds behind UEFI.

Mine got bricked booting Fedora 18 XFCE..