Although they deny it, it sounds to me that the City of London police went out specifically to target any protester that was using the word cult to describe Scientology. Also I find it strange that they had ready-made court summons to issue to any protester they believed breached the Public Order Act. Is that usual?

I could be wrong but from what I understand manufacturers of sound cards and graphics cards are deliberately crippling some features that are present in the hardware and then selling the same card as a lesser model. So the $50 card is exactly the same as the $100 one but with some features disabled.

I don't know if that is the case here but Daniel K may have re-enabled features that Creative disabled on purpose and they see him as stealing the $50 they would have made on selling the same card to the consumer as the next model up.

Echoing people above my first thought when I heard that multiple cables had been knocked out of action was Cryptonomicon.

Though Neal Stephenson sites his data haven for reasons of the narrative in the novel on a fictional island state of Kinakuta that is geographically close to the Philippines I think the most likely real world equivalent would be Bahrain or as chaostheantihero said above one of the UAE.

I'm more inclined to believe it was due to some kind of Leviathan than sabotage though.