Would it actually be illegal? Im not a lawyer or anything, but im not sure what crime it would be. Using the exploit to hack someone would be illegal, but I cant see why developing and selling an exploit would be

The union in this case is University of California workers, so probably not as big a lift as organizing a union in Corporate America. Still, a nice acheivement for those involved

Running fiber is really expensive, and even if you are willing to invest the capital, getting access to utility poles or permission to put a trench through someone’s property is arduous, maybe not even possible in some cases.

Don’t get me wrong, it would be great if we had more fiber infrastructure in more places, it does provide societal benefit, but it’s not necessarily viable to do if motivated by generating profits alone

So does it grow back or is it a ‘one and done’ type thing?

I’m in the lucky position that I get to run Linux on my work machines in an otherwise Windows environment (helps that I’m in the IT dept). Enterprise apps are actually a lot better about supporting Linux these days. Zoom, WebEx, TigerConnect (healthcare focused HIPAA compliant messenger) all have native Linux versions. Also, the CrowdStrike EDR agent supports Linux too, which was helpful to get approval to run Linux. Support is good in IT specific tools too. VMWare remote console and VMWare Omnissa Horizon client also support Linux natively, so I use Horizon to connect to a VM when I actually do need Windows. Most of the Cisco management tools that aren’t web based work too, e.g. CUCM RTMT, but they are in Java so not too surprising. The only stickler really is Microsoft products. I use Teams, Sharepoint and Outlook as PWA though, which is good enough for me (do all my actual document editing in LibreOffice though). Typically the only thing I actually need to log into actual Windows VM for is Windows Server Management Tools to manage AD, DHCP, DNS etc