Or even just expensive.

Nobody used BitTorrent? LoL

ISPs had/have whole groups trying to stomp it out.

And it was a nightmare due to NAT even then.

It just got worse with CGNAT.

Always has been. Google got sued for doing it over a decade ago with street view cars.

That is why they need WiFi info for ‘fine location’.

How else would they have been so prepared?

It’s even weirder I think? Because the people in power are clearly incompetent AND making the average persons life shitty, they clearly can’t be in power due to a conspiracy.

When if anything, that seems to support it being the result of shenanigans?

They can be effective at acquiring power and bad at wielding it.

But it seems to me like they're enriching themselves just fine.

Peter Principle strikes again!

My point is ‘bad’ at using power is relative

Isn’t the point to be in charge regardless of competence or popularity? That is real power.

Those things are far more necessary for an Employee than an Owner.

Isn’t it literally one though?

I've always considered it to be some marriage of convenience moreso than some kind of formal thing. And at any rate arguing over whether there's an explicit cabal or not very badly misses the point.

Those references often have no actual relation to the answer. A surprising amount of the time, if you check them they’ll prove it wrong.

Good luck figuring that out.

Chances are, the thieves were monitoring the local dispatch over the radio (rural departments are not usually doing anything fancy) and knew exactly how long they had.

Amusingly, most of my old qnap hardware ran Ubuntu pretty well