I would warn that should you switch away from Verizon in the future to be sure to turn in all equipment regardless of length-in-service.

It’s the same greed on the part of the content producers which causes cable tv rates to constantly spiral upwards – and of late, the TV crowd has found a new and unfair way to do business. FCC rules mandate a cable supplier to provide the same “experience” as over-the-air. Thus the cable supplier must carry local broadcast channels. The unfair comes about by the TV stations’ insistence on being PAID by cable to carry programming which is otherwise available FREE over-the-air… and to have had courts decide in favor of the TV stations.

Meanwhile the consumer feels the squeeze of higher prices, and blames the distribution system – when in fact it is the content supplier who’s made the price go up. Eventually though enough people will boycott the distribution systems to where the content has no outlet… and that brings us to SOPA/PIPA/ACTA and other coercive methods to remove the pesky Internet out of the picture and force us to just sit and be good little bumps on the couch.

On the desktop side, tools like PSI are great, and I wish more people used them. Then again, most people don’t even know such tools exist or that there’s a need for them. Users absolutely have a responsibility to keep their systems up to date. But the industry also has a responsibility to do a better job communicating what is expected of users and making it easier for users to meet those expectations.

There are a lot of tools available that allow users to keep their software up-to-date, such as Secunia’ Personal Software Inspector (PSI).

Rightly or wrongly so, users and system administrators are the primary reason computer security is a problem. There is more to it than laziness, but it’s a good place to start! LOL