honzzz

The fact that they had the server image related to specific date - July 23rd - does this say anything about how they obtained the image? Can we infer that they did not locate or hack the real server (because they would continue to have access after that date) and that maybe somehow they got hands on some backup image or something? Can we infer anything else?

Your kids will see dicks, period. They can either see them with you and you can talk to them about that, explain possible dangers, emotionally support them and create the atmosphere of trust and openness to make sure that your kids come to you when there is something confusing or even dangerous... or you can leave your kids to see them on their own while you live in some kind of illusion that you have protected them from the things you did not want them to see. That is the only real choice you have.

I was born and grew up in communist Czechoslovakia. We lived close to Austria but obviously we could not go there until after the revolution. But after the Iron Curtain fell I went to Vienna with one of my brothers and my parents. To this day I remember the shock after we returned back from that short visit - everything just looked grey... grey buildings, grey people, everything looked dead and falling apart... one of the most depressing moments of my life.

The problem with authoritarian state is not that it is easy to personally get into trouble. The real problem is that the fear spreads and kills those fragile things needed to move the society forward - communication, cooperation, creativity. Incentives that drive people are perverted. In every society there are people who are pathological, cold, selfish, hypocritical, cowardly. Authoritarian states are wired in such way that it's favourable to those people - they get to the top and gain control over the society. Yes, it takes years, even decades. But so many lives are ruined in the process... and at the end the society is just broken beyond repair, you cannot trust even your closest relatives and everything starts to fall apart (and I mean that - at the end of the regime many buildings were not repaired for decades and they literally started to fall apart and sometimes you could not get hands on even the most basic stuff like toilet paper).

And don't forget... living in fear is going to cost you. Even when you are careful and you never do anything that would put you on their radar it still affects your life deeply... somehow it kills human spirit. You step back a little, start thinking about what you can or cannot say, you rationalize it... and pretty soon you don't even know who you really are any more. I remember Pavel Kohout (Czech writer and disident) talking about some of his colleagues, other writers, talented and promising... who compromised, changed their books out of fear... and never wrote anything decent again. Creativity needs freedom.

I also remember that after the revolution I went to some movie festival and there were some women - political prisoners talking about their experiences. Most of them were really old ladies and some of them spent more than twenty years in prison just for saying what they wanted to say. Some of them were tortured. But they were incredible, not bitter at all, without hate or vindictiveness, so strong, vital, they were even joking about it (really black humour) with charisma just squirting out of them. They decided to live their lives on their terms, not defeated by fear. They paid horrible price for that... and each of them said they feel it was worth it, they do not regret anything and that they are happy in life.

To be really happy, you need to be happy with yourself. And when you live in fear you kill that... each time you do something that's not really yours and is motivated by fear you kill little part or yourself. I am not judging. I totally understand that many people rather give up their freedom of expression or even collaborate with the regime so the regime would not ruin their or their children's future. I would probably give up under pressure. I am just talking about stuff that people from countries which have not experienced authoritarian regime yet might not realize.

Understanding what you are hearing, recognizing words is a very specific skill and to get better at this we need to practice this specific skill, we need to get over that annoying stage when you just don't understand what they are saying and you need to listen to it five times to finally get it - when you turn on subtitles you may practice other skills (grammar, vocabulary... skills which can be better acquired by reading books) but you basically turn off acquiring 'understanding' skill. That's one of the reasons why there are so many people who are very good at grammar and vocabulary and can easily read and write but cannot watch a movie or talk to someone because they cannot understand spoken word.

The idea was so successful here that the Facebook group has already more than 3000 people and now we also have Spanish parties and many other languages are starting to get traction. It's actually getting a bit out of hand - last English party was attended by so many people that we did not fit into the restaurant they booked for us, many people were drinking and talking on a sidewalk in front of the pub and I am afraid we were so loud that someone called the cops. That's what I call great language-learning opportunity.

1. I used to watch that American TV series "24" and I tried to repeat everything Jack Bauer said in the same way he said it... I even tried to mimic his facial expressions. People say my accent improved and nobody complained that I speak like a CTU agent. You can pick your favourite character.

2. There are great services like http://livemocha.com/ - you can do exercises and you can record yourself and upload it and native speakers let you know what mistakes you made - you do the same thing for people trying to learn your language. And even listening to yourself from the recording helps.

3. I got rid of the fear. At the beginning I was afraid to talk, I don't even know why, nobody is ever going to laugh at you. But I learned that foreign accent can even be good for you... it makes you interesting and it's a conversation starter - oh, how many of my friends I met after "that's an interesting accent, where are you from?"

Dear LekkoscPiwa, did I get it right?

I am sure you did not mean it that way but it might be interesting to know that many people would be seriously offended here if you included Russians into the perception of 'them' - people from outside of the Eastern block do not see internal differences important to people who lived inside - like the fact that 'Rusáci' occupied us for many years and are still perceived as the enemy by many people here. To make a simplified example to make it understandable - imagine someone talking about 'you western countries' and including example of 'your' behaviour - Nazi Germany.

And also Eastern Europe is apparently not as homogeneous as I made it to be - there are big differences for example between catholic countries like Poland and atheist countries like Czech Republic (tolerance to homosexuality, abortion and stuff like that are strongly related to religious views). Despising Jews? I have seen it way more in Western Europe than here.

And if you are black or Hindu or Pakistani please excuse that some people have some bias... please try to understand that this has been very closed society and up until recently there were no black or Hindu or Pakistani people at all. People could not travel during communist regime... there was basically no opportunity to learn tolerance to different cultures etc. Yes, there are some racists here (like everywhere else) but I believe that Czech people are generally above average tolerant. But I am obviously biased.

1. I was able to happily work and live in Spain for couple of months with no knowledge of Spanish language whatsoever. It certainly limits your choices to a certain degree (I worked for one UK-based company which sent me to Madrid and it would have been difficult to find any Spanish-speaking job if I had to) but it's easier than you would think.

Now I live in the Czech Republic and I regularly visit 'English meetings' (imagine weekly organized party where anybody who speaks English is invited) and I know many foreigners (some of them are my close friends) who happily live here for years without any knowledge of Czech language.

2. Children - oh, how many times I was envious of their incredible adaptability. If they are younger than 10 - wherever you go they will have new friends in two weeks and they will speak fluently with no accent in 6 months. I had seen it many times with children of my Czech/Slovak friends when I lived in UK and I can see that now with children of my foreign friends living in the Czech Rep. 8 years old daughter of my Spanish friends speaks Spanish, Russian, Czech and English without any noticeable accent - her family moves a lot and I believe she will benefit from that tremendously. Children are so good at this that they don't need language lessons - they just pick it up from their peers while playing in a sandpit.

I base this mostly on what I see around me but I just tried to quickly google something and what I've found seems to support that - for example http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-hom...

I don't know about xenophobia - I don't see it but if there is something above the average it would probably be related to the fact that people are not used to 'xeno' elements because this has always been pretty homogeneous and closed society.

I had previously spent 7 months in the US and I had lived in UK for 2.5 years and now I live in the Czech Republic. I guess this is very subjective but I believe that for example this country currently offers way more freedom than the "land of free" or UK. It has its downsides but not as many as an average citizen of western country would probably think. You could live pretty comfortable "nice apartment, designer clothes and BMW" life in Prague if you wish so (not that I do). It's not how Americans usually imagine Eastern Europe and because of the past people are more sensitive about government intrusion and the government is weak - do not conflate Eastern Europe with Russia with that weird authoritarian shit (the anti-gay law etc.) - this is completely different world here.

Just my $0.02 - it's about personal priorities. And it still feels weird just saying this... given what I thought 25 years ago.

EDIT: I should not have said 'countries that were NOT part of Soviet Union' - certainly not all of them, for example I hear really nice things about Estonia and I am sure that not all ex-Soviet countries are like Russia.

You call one of them - he claim he has the rights. You call the other - he claims he has the rights. Now what?

And try the other perspective... try to imagine that you are the store owner and now someone makes you responsible for making sure that none of thousands of your suppliers is doing some dirty business... it's going to cost you a lot of money and despite that you can never be certain and you will basically live in constant fear of a lawsuit. That's huge burden on any business and it's very inefficient. That's one of the reasons that we have courts... they have tools that business owners simply do not have and only they can (somehow) reliably determine who is doing legitimate business and who is not.

Generally I understand your anger but I think that the concept of 3rd party responsibility is very dangerous and can create more damage than the fraud it is trying to prevent. If we make companies liable for actions of their clients they will preventively block everything that they are not absolutely sure about which would create huge chilling effect. And we already have one great example - see how widely is DMCA process abused to stifle competition, suppress criticism etc.

And it might be helpful to try to understand the mentality of post-communist countries. One of the biggest damages that communist regime did to our society is the perception still engrained in minds of many that 'if you don't steal you are stealing from your family'.

It is totally plausible that the fraudulent developer is just 'trying their luck' and all it would take to stop them would be threatening them with the lawsuit. One letter written by your Enghlish speaking lawyer hired over the internet - $500 and you will be done with it.