Seems to me it's a little like the pot calling the kettle black. Yes, Jobs liked his closed-platform and saw computers and other gadgets as "appliances" to sell to people in closed boxes where you can't even change the battery. But he never said he was doing anything different, and he was very successful at it. In the end, his legacy will include his personal treatment of people, the "culture" he inspired, and the commoditization of computer-related technology.

The part RMS never seemed to understand is that not everyone views software as some kind of grail to protect. I do see his point, but most people don't, and if they did, most wouldn't care. It is a conspicuously self-centered and unyielding technologist's view of the universe.

And so I think it's a little silly to see a man who has contributed little more than his opinions to the world, maligning the reputation of a much more successful man. He may not be wrong, but who cares? Just one more opinion.

No, there was no damage. He just locked out the administrative functions for a while.

Let's get real. The fact of the matter is that nobody is breaking into your house and destroying your books.

Actually it is. You buy a book, download it, put it on your Kindle. In purchasing it, you took ownership of your copy. Then they break into your living room...er...Kindle and steal...er...delete your book. Is that not exactly what they are doing?

'I was more concerned for the person's life,' Sheriff Dale Williams said.

Bully for the cops, for a change! The guys who are supposed to protect and serve, who get such a bad rap in recent years, were trying to figure out how to pay a bill for a guy who was trying to off himself. Goddamit but that makes me feel good.

You're thinking of BTK. He sent some document or other to the police on a floppy disk (after asking THEM if there would be any way to trace it back to him). The document was written in MS-Word! They just had to pop up File->Document Properties and there was his name: Bob T. Killer (or whatever).

If it's a Word doc, you might consider going through it with a hex editor or doing an ascii dump on it, as your skills allow. New documents sometimes pick up information about the registered owner of the software, the computer, the date/time, etc. PDF files have such metadata as well.

Digital photos often contain EXIF information showing the model of camera, as well as the time and date the photo was taken. The whereabouts of the the owner of a camera of the same model listed might be quickly correlated to the time/date shown in the photos.

All this information is easily removed, but you should be careful to scrub the data itself, along with any devices used to transport it, while keeping your links to the source minimal.

Cheers!