Is Too Much Information Really a Bad Thing?

An article on the Guardian website asks whether collecting too much information on innocent people makes it harder to catch the guilty.
At a certain point, data gathered to predict the weather overwhelms your capacity to add it to your

calculations efficiently, resulting in ever-longer runtimes that give less accurate predictions. It’s better to crunch [...]

Microsoft: It’s our product, we don’t need your permission

Microsoft Corp. has started updating files on computers running Windows XP and Vista, even when users have explicitly disabled the operating systems’ automatic update feature, researchers said today.
Scott Dunn, an editor at the “Windows Secrets” newsletter, said that nine files in XP and Vista — but not the same files in each [...]

Comcast: No Internet for you!

Comcast has warned broadband Internet customers across the country to curb their downloading or wind up on the curb.
The company has a bandwidth limitation that, if broken, can result in a 12-month suspension of service. The problem, according to customer complaints, is that the telecom giant refuses to reveal how much downloading [...]