The problem is finding the balance. But it's not like we are terribly of the mark. (Heck, even the widespread violation of privacy has hardly had any impact on liberty. Mostly because despite the "wide net collection" the actual interpretation and sharing of said information is still very regulated. At least in the intelligence community. Eg. The people in Fort Meade might know what Porn I watch, but not the pencil pushers in Washington).

I am very happy living in "a western Country" despite the countless shortcomings. While it can always be better, I've seen much, much worse.
As my fellow compatriots have already stated, it wasn't the Munich Olympics disaster. But it was an easy mistake to make, considering that this lead to widespread changed in the German security and intelligence establishment. (Eg. The formation of the (in)famous GSG 9 being the most prominent example).

+1

I've heard you need an ID to buy a pre-paid phone? ;P Does that fall under your "balance" category? Damn, you can't even legally sell Dead Island in your country.

Germany isn't the best example of freedom and security balanced :P

Germany missed the Maastricht criteria several times and to be honest Angela Merkel is like Jon Snow - she knows nothing and she does nothing, we have elections next month and everything runs in "just keep it quiet till october" mode...

LOL, I don't worry about being downrepped. It means nothing and is usually used by some users just to attack people whose opinions they disagree with. It's funny when I write a post critical of the US and then get downrepped by a bunch of Americans -- it's childish, but there ya go.

Besides, I've never hidden the fact that I despise the US government and much about the country although I've liked most Americans I've met -- weird, eh? . Makes me laugh every time because, honestly, if you live your life worrying about your 'rep count' on GOG, you have a pretty sad one, IMO :)

One thing I learned over 20-odd years of living in the US, though, is many Americans are politically and internationally naive. Few ever leave America (80 percent don't own a passport) so they see things in black and white because they've never been anywhere else to see how other people live and how other cultures often do things much better than America., nor have they gone through what many Europeans or Asians have with their governments.

So you get the America is good, everyone else is bad but particularly Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba mentality -- basically any other country that tells the almighty American government where to stuff itself.

I think some of it comes from knowing, if they would only admit it to themselves, America's days are numbered as the world leader and, if I'm correct, it's coming faster than many people think.

its classic We're Losing Our Empire mentality. We British did the same thing, and then woke up one day no longer owning half the world and highly pissed about it :)

And no, I don't trust Microsoft as far as I can throw them as they willingly handed over personal information of millions of users to the NSA, and then tried to pretend "they fought it". So, that there's a potentially fatal flaw in Win8 -- nope, no surprise there either - particularly as I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft knew it was there when they released Win 8. They've done that before. :)

Are we talking about Microsoft and security holes ? Isn't that a textbook case of Hanlon's razor ?

I wholeheartedly agree. While we can all strive for an even better world to live in, it's hard to deny that our digital times offer more rewards than risks.

.. and this is not very elaborated, no offense meant. Masstricht criterias have barely something in common with Bloodygoodgames arguments and what Merkel might know or not is pure speculation.

Totally agree, people nowadays can't apreciate to wake up each morning and still have his head on his neck ;)

It's weird, because westerners think Asian countries are more restricted when, in many instances that's not the case at all. I can buy a phone anywhere I want and a SIM card for it and use it immediately. Register it? Why would I do that, nobody else does.

Sure, we have hundreds of thousands of websites supposedly 'government blocked'. In reality, however, they're blocked and then unblocked and, if you use a proxy or VPN, you can read what you want anyway. So no restriction there either.

We also don't have the insane rules of the west, as Asians tend to believe if you're an adult you should be able to take care of yourself. So, if you fall off a high mountain where there wasn't a railing, it's your own fault. You should have been looking what you were doing :)

I think I'd go nuts living somewhere like the UK, where the political correctness is so out of control they are now criminalizing commentary on internet forums and on Twitter. The latest is going to be you could end up in jail in the UK if you end up saying the wrong thing about an opposing football team or football player on Twitter or Facebook. Heaven forbid, according to the UK government, we need the police to protect us from internet trolls :)

Isn't it Occam's or is there another razor I don't know about? :)
Hey, that guillotine was quite busy in your country there for a while :)
I was actually surprised the last time I was in Spain to have to sign up for a month's worth of wireless internet with my passport. No passport, no internet.

In Thailand you just buy an internet card at the local 7-11 for 5 bucks and key in the security code. They have no idea who is using it and they don't seem to care.

I just read about it in an other thread the other day ... and now many more things makes sense.

/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

Edit: the hanlon razor reference is about windows 8 and backdoors .... the thread went wild and I'm late on the wagon, so I think I need to be accurate :)

I didn't know that.
That was an effective contraption, is it not ? Just showing it here and there made people think twice or thrice. Brilliant.

Oh that's interesting. Thanks

Hanlon's Razor -- Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Heinlein's Razor (supposedly said by Einstein) - Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.

LOVE it :)

And yep. We Brits hanged them while you French just chopped their heads off. Much faster and more efficient :)

Ad 1. It's good to hear people have more common sense than the legislature. Because criminals would not use real IDs anyway, so people seem to understand such regulations don't lead to anything.

Ad 2. I think I've read that Dead Island got listed on some List B and can't be sold in Germany, but that might come from misunderstanding of German law by foreign journalists:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/30/dead-island-banned-in-germany/
http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/29/dead-island-riptide-producer-baffled-over-franchises-ban-in-germany/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-29-techland-not-shocked-by-germanys-dead-island-ban