So, there seems to be a feature being included in all the software Bobo buys lately that all but forces him to REGISTER with some database or other, and if he refuses then the software will cease working. Beg pardon? Are they saying that after spending $550 for an INSTALLATION (non upgrade) version of Office 2000, I can only use it 50 times before my soul is forfeit? Yes, yes they are... The purveyors of this dark practice insist it is to protect them from 'piracy', but we think different... Observe:
 

• Many pieces of software actually TRACK you USING them. For example, Realplayer giving the Illuminati (or whomever) a running check on what music you're listening to and how often to 'better serve your needs'... Your needs for spam, I suppose, since that's all -I- get from RealNetworks besides constant hammering to 'upgrade'. More on that later, for now suffice to say: Bah. Sure, they give you the 'option' to NOT send them this information, but Bobo's network activity LEDs on his router gets strangely active at odd times - without any browser window being open. Co-inky-dink? No, clearly not.
• When you install your software, you already have to agree to a complex End User License Agreement (EULA), and thanks to Mr. Clinton, these are now in  the eyes of the law BINDING CONTRACTS. Now, folks, I'm no saint to be sure, but the idea of some corporation suing me under breach of contract for NOT using their product enough after install, using a competing product, or for uninstalling it altogether - seems to me to be a distasteful extreme that is just around the corner... Don't believe me? Then you must be too young to remember how Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer would UNINSTALL each OTHER when you installed either one. Since they can't attack each other anymore, that leaves who to lean on, do you think?
• They complain about piracy, but come on... Commercial software has copy-protection in place on all but the cheapest crap... And sometimes even on that... Most common is a modification of the dongle process that - after eating a gig or two on your hard drive for a full install - STILL won't let you play the damn game unless the CD is in the tray. Come on, folks. The reason I installed it in the first place was so I wouldn't have those long CD loads... Get a clue. I love people, no doubt, but do you REALLY think after -I- spent MY money that I'd just GIVE your shit to someone else? Like hell! Communism is DEAD. Mind you, I'm not above recommending a program that's good, but those are few and far between. And as if this bloated install, incomplete drivers, stubborn refusal to recognize my -USB- gamepad - which forces me to play from the keyboard, and CD-dongle wasn't imposition enough, I still have to sign up to some BS network and cough up my personal information in order to play? F.U.
• The average person (which is to say, non-GEEK) uses their computer 2 hours a day, tops. During which time, every site he's on will drop off a little ticket called a 'cookie' surreptitiously on their hard drive, which is akin to getting your hand stamped at a house party or nightclub... Nothing TOO noticeable, but you get enough of them and you might as well have a tattoo. Computer running slower than usual? Check out the cookies folder, where information about YOU from websites you were at months ago - and never returned to - still clutters the place up. A strange thing is that OTHER websites can scan your cookies to get an idea of who's coming to dinner. Invasion of privacy? Sure. Anything you can do about it? Smile contentedly as they assure you that they would NEVER raid your info, and then grab your ankles for step two... Heh.
• Lately, every site you come across insists you become a 'member' before you can SEE IT. Want news? Give us your info. Want jokes? Give us your info. Want chat? Give us your info. Want porn? Give us your info... Then again, considering the type of people that go after porn, maybe you SHOULD register them, but ONLY them - and maybe those weirdos that web-chat all the time. For myself, I have approximately four dozen Free Web E-Mail addresses that were a 'perk' with one website or another, not that I bother to check any of them, of course. I get enough spam in my e-mail client without wading like a cyber Ponce deLeon though the swamp of six thousand ads streamed through those web-based accounts for the bounty of MORE SPAM. Of course, some (Netscape) will let you download the pokey web-mail to your E-Mail client - for TEN BUCKS A MONTH. Blow me.
• Cheese and crackers, folks, I joined an ISP that demanded to know all they could about me - and then sent me twenty ads a day for items they KNEW I could care less about... Case in point, AOL. After they KNOW I rent, I kept getting ads for aluminum siding, hot water heaters, and central air machines... Now, in all fairness, I know that I put in that one of my interests was home-improvement, but that was supposed to be for HANDCRAFT. You know, stuff I can MAKE that I can take WITH me if I move? People, as a renter, I can't even drive a nail to hang up a PICTURE without forfeiting my security deposit. You'd think after they went through all the trouble to GET my info, someone would READ it, right? Guess not. And do they delete your info if you're no longer with them? Nope. I still get a '500 Hours Free' disk three times a week... Luckily I'm good with crafts, so I got some nice windchimes and suncatchers made entirely of ISP CDs. I even give them as gifts to fellow computer users, who get a charge out of seeing this drek being put to a better use than clogging up their hard drives... This pleases me..

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not a pirate, and I don't expect these programmers to work for nothing. It is not for me to see to it that these hard working folks are denied the benefits of their efforts... That's Bill Gates' schtick. For myself, I register my shareware - sometimes even sending extra if the product warrants it. Take one of my favorite shareware products: Getright. Now, I paid my money like a good boy, and as soon as the charge appeared on my statement everybody was suddenly offering the same thing 'integrated' into their own product FOR FREE. Internet Explorer has support for restarting downloads with just a reclick on the link... Netscape has SmartUpdate/Download... RealPlayer has RealDownload... God knows what else is out there to make me feel like a pinhead for BUYING a download manager, but that's not all... RealDownload and SmartUpdate REPORT to whomever WHAT you download, from WHERE, and WHEN... Jesus Christ, isn't it enough that they already know my personal info - now they have to know what I -download-?

Again, the THEORY is so that they know what you like so they can 'customize' themselves to your 'needs', but enough already. What if I download something that turns out to be something GRUESOME, such as a bestiality movie where I thought I was downloading a clip from the Animaniacs 'Buttons and Mindy'? Then the Illuminati (or whomever) automatically flag ME as a pervert, and the rep is shot. Of course, if I want, I can use something called an 'Anonymizer' which (supposedly) masks/hides where I go and what I do, and all for the low, low price of hogging HALF my bandwidth, plus about twenty bucks a month after the $50 install - with, you guessed it, ANOTHER registration process... Not to preach doom and gloom or fear-monger to the paranoiac, but THEY still have the REAL info, and will fork it over in a heartbeat to whomever comes for it - be it Federal Goverment, Marketing Department, Identity Thief, or Stalker - which, in case you're not catching onto the theme here - is in the ANONYMIZER's EULA.

See, that's the problem. Content and INTENT are disparate... How many of you clicked on a link for something innocuous and gotten some hardcore porno site? How many websites get 'sponsored' by such things and use CGI/Java/VBScript to open a window to something like that automatically - here lately even when you close the browser window stained with that crap, it automatically opens FIVE MORE with similar crap on them. And it's ALL being logged, folks. Don't kid yourselves. Privacy is an illusion at best, and not much of one to be sure.

Same thing goes for newsgroups... Sure, you could be sifting through the 4,500 spams  about horny housewives and hot Japanese schoolgirl rape-chicks in an ATTEMPT to find information on Sailor Moon, and on the other end someone's writing down that you're looking at the horny housewives and Japanese chicks... God forbid you set your news reader to download all the posts in a group to read offline, because if you DOWNLOAD that sick crap, then you're guilty of trafficking in it, PERIOD. Law's a sumbitch, ain't it? I can see you now... "But, I didn't download it ON PURPOSE... It was what was on the news server!" Well, kids, remember that EULA that you signed for your ISP? Remember the part where they state that they are not -EVER- to be held accountable for content on THEIR equipment, nor any damage done to you by giving you access to same? Feel free to recheck it.... Interesting how the law makes having the same stuff in two different places both legal and illegal, idnit?

Not to tread on someone's First/Fifth Amendment rights, or deny them the opportunity to make a buck, but THINK a little... The odds that someone in, for example, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.anime wanting porn are significantly greater than the odds of someone in alt.binaries.pokemon... No question, right? So why post the same 'Cum Get Some Hot Asian Teens' message in BOTH groups? Retarded? Where are the Illuminati with this one? All the putz does is alter their E-Mail address for the NEXT thousand posts, and -I- gotta go through the trouble of configuring ANOTHER jitbag to block from my Inbox. Are they saying they'd rather know that -I- still watch cartoons than know some scumbag is raping KIDS to send Polaroids to OTHER scumbags? Yes, yes they are...

THAT's my big problem with the whole 'registration' thing, folks. For all these hoops they make ME jump through so they can keep up with who -I- am and what -I- do, all sorts of creeps skip tra-la with their sick little fetishes, rampant piracy, and general hate for whomever they hate; yet nobody seems to be able to nail them. Of course, I know why they can't catch THEM...

They're too busy watching US.

You're welcome. See you SOON.