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Uhm, No
Actually TOR is many things including downloading (AFAIK you can't do torrents though but maybe you can) but it's also for folks who fear reprisals from their governments or for people who don't want their activity tracked for whatever reason. The people who set up TOR do it to promote the freedom and anonymity in the use of the Internet. Yes it's that tool for all those dirty old men out there looking for hookups on Craigslist while at work.

There was an incident last year where an unsuspecting TOR exit node host was charged for the activities of their anonymous users in his local country. So the folks who support TOR (financially, hardware or act as hosts) don't take it lightly so people who use it shouldn't take it lightly either.

TOR is a great tool but you can also set yourself up with a SOCKs proxy very easily say on Amazon AWS (or any other cloud service) meaning, your encrypted traffic would go to their data center and exit out whatever local network pipe they use. It's not as sophisticated as TOR, where multiple hops are used but at least with Amazon's recent statement, they may resist secret demands for your info. You could also set up cascading tunnels of tunnels but meh, I'm already probably in some file somewhere with the FBI or the NSA just for saying you can do this. I guess I shouldn't mention I have a copy of the "The Anarchist Cookbook" should I? Crap I better burn it now. Oh crap, you can get it on Amazon anyway, so I guess they're now suspects.

Yes. this is the link.

You might want to read more arstechnica, which frequently gets cited on slashdot. They've done numerous articles (vs. blogs) on all aspects of this. They're a Conde Nast publication [as is Wired, IIRC] and are usually pretty credible. I tend to follow (and bookmark) articles on this. The two I posted were taken [quickly] from about 100 I've amassed and they all pretty much say the same thing.

But, you wanted an actual "study".

For example, this article is based on a study:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/12/report-data-caps-just-a-cash-cow-for-internet-providers/

The actual study [linked within the article] is:
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/capping_the_nation_s_broadband_future [*]

[*] If you dispute the data/conclusions, take it up with the authors.

There are other articles, from various publications, that talk about the disincentive for telcos to provide higher speeds.

If you want to know how easy it is to roll out fiber, check out sonic.net. They're a regional telco and ISP based in Santa Rosa, CA. They provide ADSL2+ throughout California at 3x the speed of AT&T's elite service at half the price ($40/month) with no data caps.

They're also rolling out fiber to the home as fast as they can and will provide their subscribers with that higher speed, at the same price, and, again, no data caps.

And once you bought a book (with your own credit card), and then decide afterwards that you want to put it out there for pirates, suddenly, you realize that it's not such a good idea.

You realize it's not such a good idea... and 3/4 of a second later you just download it from another source. So you've really accomplished little.

Has Apple's similar approach impacted music piracy?

"Apple embeds your account information in all songs sold on the store, not just DRM-free songs. Previously it wasn't much of a big deal, since no one could imagine users sharing encrypted, DRMed content. But now that DRM-free music from Apple is on the loose, the hidden data is more significant since it could theoretically be used to trace shared tunes back to the original owner."

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2007/05/apple-hides-account-info-in-drm-free-music-too/

Possession?

The way I looked, it is the uploading and downloading that may enter under the incidence of copyright law (upload infringes on the "distribution rights" while download infringes the "reproduction rights"). In some countries, the download is actually legal (as long it's not for profit)

Possession? I can imagine heaps of ways in which one can be in the possession of a digital copy without be necessarily responsible for copyright infringement.
Imagine someone places a bootlegged copy on the shelves of a movie rental store or in a library. Are these institutions to be held liable for that?
Assume one pays for a genuine fashion item but is delivered a good counterfeit (only an expert could tell the difference): is the buyer to be held liable for that?

Where? I don't even have a library within 40 miles of where I live, let alone one with a $20,000 router in it.

West Virginia

Actually Universal Access subsidizes low income phones. Your post is the first time I have heard someone say it was used for library equipment, care to cite any sources?

I believe he is referring to this story:

West Virginia Library $2000 router

However, this was not paid out of the "Universal Access" fund (which is a tax collected by the phone company that they pocket, nominally to better service in rural areas) but from "Federal funds" (which is monies collected and dispersed by the government, although in this case the goal was similar)

He is talking about this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/why-a-one-room-west-virginia-library-runs-a-20000-cisco-router/

I never hear anything to indicate it came out that fee though.

I wouldn't try too hard to convince the "Derpability" crowd.

I would. There's a known solution to derpability problems, which may start becoming commonplace as feature sizes decrease to 8nm. The endurance of an SSD can be increased dramatically by designing the chips to bake their floating gates periodically.

How is the webcam different from the ones on every iPhone, iPad, Android phone and tablet and PCs/laptops?

And you the famous anti-MS hater zealot considered buying Xbox? C'mon, stop making up things.

I did a search for your handle to answer one of your replies and damn man ur all over this thread.
Two things come to mind here; a very large percentage of post are to benefit a product or company (not real) and damage control.

To answer your reply, every iPhone, iPad, Android phone and tablet and PCs/laptops normally aren't set-up prominently in the living room to watch everybody.

Noticed a reply below that says: " If the XBone webcam is obstructed the games will not play." that's totally unacceptable.
Read this: "Meet the men who spy on women through their webcams"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/rat-breeders-meet-the-men-who-spy-on-women-through-their-webcams/

It's all over the internet. Here for one:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-access-to-zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/

It seems to me that when Microsoft's involved, "responsible disclosure" guidelines should be adjusted to immediate public release, as long as MS is feeding exploits to hackers before fixing them.

It's all over the internet. Here for one:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-access-to-zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/

Sure, why not? MySQL is crap. MySQL is crap. 10 years later, MySQL is still crap. MariaDB and Percona are less crap, but still crap.

Oracle is on-par with PostgreSQL, with some drawbacks, and you can argue and haggle--personally I think Oracle is inferior, but you'll get dissenters and they *are* in the same class. MS SQL Server is inferior--it's a good product in its space, but its space is a subset space of PostgreSQL. More to the point, Oracle and MS SQL Server are both closed, proprietary pay-ware; PostgreSQL, MySQL, DB2, and SQLite are free. That means the argument is essentially PostgreSQL vs MySQL.

PostgreSQL actually functions like a real database (MySQL does a lot of crap it shouldn't), outperforms MySQL, has working replication now (FINALLY, since around 8.0-ish, a few short years back), has BETTER replication than MySQL, and is about as easy to set up (I learned it in about 30 minutes). In general it's a better product as a database. Since it has no real drawbacks besides blunt protocol compatibility (i.e. a MySQL-specific app can't talk to PostgreSQL, either because of network presentation protocol (MySQL protocol 3306) or application protocol (MySQL-specific command language)) compared to MySQL, and many advantages, it's essentially a higher-quality and thus better piece of software.

Optimally, RedHat, Debian, Ubuntu, SuSE, etc should provide the best MySQL possible--Percona, MariaDB, whatever--while providing the guideline that PostgreSQL is a better product. Because, hell, they're already endorsing by dumping MySQL instead of simply including both Percona and MariaDB. The issue is that the political chip of saying, "X is better than Y," is very volatile. We could sit here and hash out merits and come to that exact conclusion--but even then, when we're all convinced that this is FACT and not OPINION, what do you think would happen if RedHat and Ubuntu both flatly said, "Use PostgreSQL, MySQL is crap"?

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/iphones-can-auto-connect-to-rogue-wi-fi-networks-researcher-warns/

IIRC Sony lost in court a class action against them over it, or at least settled in a favorable manner to PS3 owners (e.g. partial refunds or something).

No, the case was dismissed.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/12/judge-dismisses-other-os-class-action-suit-against-sony/

Google signed up to Prism long before apple

troll harder

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/new-leak-feds-can-access-anything-in-your-google-facebook-and-more/

Warrants were not served.

The Supreme Court already ruled that warrantless GPS tracking is unconstitutional.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/supreme-court-holds-warrantless-gps-tracking-unconstitutional/

Also, the Supreme Court already rule that GPS tracking without a warrant is already illegal. Which is what this data gave the NSA. GPS data from the phone and/or cell tower.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/supreme-court-holds-warrantless-gps-tracking-unconstitutional/

Hmm...

When I went looking on Google, I saw lots of stuff about running Linux on the wii, but the following is the only thing I found about the wii running Linux as delivered!

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2006/10/7939

I'm a Trisquel GNU/Linux user at the moment. Here's some reasons why GNU/Linux works for me, and why I'd never go back to Windows:

Conveniences (for me):

• A program is only an apt-get install away. No more downloading random programs from the interwebs and hoping for the best. Hence, there's less of a need for anti-virus scanning programs.
• There is only one updater, not ten.
• I get all of the programs I need, plus more.
• Highly configurable.

.
Freedoms and other advantages I get by using GNU/Linux as a user:

• All programs I download have source code available, without technical and legal restrictions on how I use it.
• No malicious features (that I'm aware of). It's free (as in freedom) so malicious features can be found and removed easier.
• Maybe one day I'll be able to tinker with programs on my system.
• Some Windows and Office versions say that I can't make money by using their operating system, I have to identify myself, I can't copy programs to other computers for file compatibility, and so on. There is a EULA for just about every program on Windows.
• I don't have to worry about Windows DRM deleting my files (even if it's just a bug). This happened to me when I tried moving DRM'd files between drives and the license keys had been revoked by Microsoft.

I've seen estimates of the brain's computing power ranging from 38 PetaFLOPS, which Tianhe-2 is approaching, to 6.4 ExaFLOPS, which was the estimated computing power of all the computers on Earth in 2007. I suspect the actual figure is closer to the latter than the former.

your typical home router that is still being bundled by ISPs doesn't support IPv6, it seems only 'high end' or after-market routers tend to do that, probably because the amount of firmware memory in these cheap routers is limited.

Is the firmware for IPv6 necessarily much larger than that for IPv4? I would have thought that the complexity would be similar. On the one hand you don't need NAT, but on the other you need more complex filtering.

I've heard good things about SpiderOak. Can't say that I've ever used it myself, though.

That's standard operating procedure for Facebook. They don't just have a single server that everybody in the world logs in to, and they don't update everything at the same time.

Whenever new code is deployed, it is sent to a small group of servers, tested on the group of users there, and then finally pushed out to the rest. If something is broken by a new release then Facebook's Reverting is for losers! policy applies, and anyone affected by the bug just gets to live with it until it is fixed.

Don't be surprised if it looks like you are logging into a completely different facebook.com from everybody else you know, because there's a good chance that you are.

"But the group from Cambridge showed it was possible to build relatively simple compounds into a three-ring chemical that could then be converted into cytosine, an RNA component. Now, they've revisited that work and shown that all of the precursors of that reaction can be made with little more than cyanide."

That's a lot of hand waving going bye bye.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2009/05/origin-of-life-building-an-rna-world-from-simple-chemicals/

Building blocks, like cytosine????

  ""But the group from Cambridge showed it was possible to build relatively simple compounds into a three-ring chemical that could then be converted into cytosine, an RNA component."

http://arstechnica.com/science/2009/05/origin-of-life-building-an-rna-world-from-simple-chemicals/

How does it arrange itself into life? Or at least the precursors?

If only we had science for an answer.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/simple-reaction-makes-the-building-blocks-of-a-nucleic-acid/

"all the reaction required was copper ions and some UV light."

So called "building blocks" have not been proven to be so, or ever shown to be able to create anything that one would think is life. It's a cop out statement.

How does it arrange itself into life? Or at least the precursors?

If only we had science for an answer.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/simple-reaction-makes-the-building-blocks-of-a-nucleic-acid/

"all the reaction required was copper ions and some UV light."

Hand waving/science/facts/whatever.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/simple-reaction-makes-the-building-blocks-of-a-nucleic-acid/

since it is Windows 8 it has the option to turn SecureBoot off, for fuck sake even Microsoft's own device, the Surface Pro, allows SecureBoot to be turned off

We don't know if it's an ARM system, which (unlike intel ones, like the Surface Pro--buyers, look carefully for that "Pro") do have the Restricted Boot bug.

but like the issue of UEFI we do have a pretty good idea about it

Given the above, and that Microsoft can even dictate which archs can turn off Secure Boot and which cannot in the first place...no we don't. Have they signed a contract to not change their mind? (Remember, IE10 Metro went from plugin-free--"yay, no more Flash!", said many--to one of the browsers with its own Adobe Flash--"wha!?", the many wondered.)

Google has already tried this.

I really don't understand why people are even discussing this anymore. I have this game, it sucked, it was 20 something years ago - no one should care. Moon Patrol was the shit.

Indeed, that is why the previously linked arstechnica.com story includes:

reports suggest the dump may also contain unsold consoles, PCs, and even prototypes of the Atari Mindlink controller

The "oh we'll find 3.5 million copies of E.T." is just the satire -- that they'll have to dig through waist-deep crap to get to the gems.

What, they haven't disobeyed the blatantly illegal gag order? Why the hell not?

Because NewEgg's attorney doesn't work for them.

"Screw them. Seriously, screw them. You can quote me on that." --Newegg Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng

From what I remember of the 80s, Amstad, Amiga, Sinclar, Atari were tiny players in the PC market that didn't amount to much. Kind of like where Windows, Blackberry, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch are now on phones.

http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/4/
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5/
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/6/

I don't think that phones now are any worse compared to PCs in the 80s. In fact it's better because both of the major OSes use a significant amount of free software.

From what I remember of the 80s, Amstad, Amiga, Sinclar, Atari were tiny players in the PC market that didn't amount to much. Kind of like where Windows, Blackberry, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch are now on phones.

http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/4/
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5/
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/6/

I don't think that phones now are any worse compared to PCs in the 80s. In fact it's better because both of the major OSes use a significant amount of free software.

From what I remember of the 80s, Amstad, Amiga, Sinclar, Atari were tiny players in the PC market that didn't amount to much. Kind of like where Windows, Blackberry, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch are now on phones.

http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/4/
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5/
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/6/

I don't think that phones now are any worse compared to PCs in the 80s. In fact it's better because both of the major OSes use a significant amount of free software.

How was the rootkit installed? Can you please elaborate on what security failures were involved?

Not sure if you are looking for how he did it, or indirectly doubting the story, but in case this is in doubt - there are plenty of Linux rootkits.

http://blog.sucuri.net/2013/02/linux-based-sshd-rootkit-floating-the-interwebs.html
http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/208193935/New_64_bit_Linux_Rootkit_Doing_iFrame_Injections
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/11/new-linux-rootkit-exploits-web-servers-to-attack-visitors/
http://packetstormsecurity.com/UNIX/penetration/rootkits/
http://www.slideshare.net/AndrewCase/omfw-2012-analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits-with-volatlity

list could go on for quite a while..

Because there's no history of a recording device on a Microsoft OS getting hijacked for the lulz.

heterogeneous Uniform Memory Access is really what one should be paying attention to. With that tech in both of the upcoming consoles and major support from the same, Intel better watch out.

Re "In practice, you didn't hear of Tor and/or proxy SSL/HTTPS services, did you?" Lets hope all the 'bugs' have been fixed :)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/flaws-in-tor-anonymity-network-spotlighted/
As for "proxy SSL/HTTPS services" how many average users would use one if reading a US news site and clicking on a file download link?

just google '3d printed hand boy' and bring the tissues

I did, and found this, thanks... http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/robohand-how-cheap-3d-printers-built-a-replacement-hand-for-a-five-year-old-boy/

- - -

"These are the days of miracles and wonders." - Paul Simon

They aren't dropping client-server XMPP, just server-server XMPP. 3rd-party clients still work with Google servers (albeit only for one-to-one text chat). AFAIK, that is not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. See: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/hands-on-with-hangouts-googles-new-text-and-video-chat-architecture/

Try this: Why European forecasters saw Sandy’s path first

The ECMWF, for example, utilizes an IBM system capable of over 600 teraflops that ranks among the most powerful in the world, and it's used specifically for medium-range models. That, fundamentally, is the reason their model frequently outperforms the American one. The US National Weather Service’s modeling center runs a diversity of short-, medium-, and long-term models, all on a much smaller supercomputer. The National Weather Service has to do more with less.

So there's no reason for this to be the case, other than laziness

There is a concept of "rational laziness". Where's the return on investment for making and testing an Android/x86 version of an application? In addition, several applications already appear to be at or near Google Play's 50 MB limit with one architecture alone, such as LibreOffice.

Some the concerns raised here were addressed in the survey. Check out this quote from this Arstechnica article.

About 33 percent of abstracts were categorized as endorsing the consensus, with 0.7 percent rejecting it. The remainder made no statement discernible as either. So among the abstracts with a clearly-stated position, 97.1 percent backed the consensus.

But what about the others? Did those abstracts not state a position because the consensus is so well-accepted as to make doing so unnecessary? Or was the human impact on climate often presented as uncertain in these papers? To answer this question (and further verify the ratings of the other abstracts) the group sent a survey to the authors whose email addresses were listed with the papers—over 8,500 in total. The survey was completed by 1,200 of them, who rated their own abstracts using the same criteria as the research group.

Of the abstracts that the research group had rated as not expressing a position the authors rated more than half of the papers as endorsing the consensus. Overall, 62.7 percent were self-rated as endorsing the consensus, 1.8 percent as rejecting the consensus, and 35.5 percent as having given no position.

So of those that expressed a position, 97.2 percent endorsed the consensus and 2.8 percent rejected it according to the authors of those papers.

I see it as pretty clear that the scientific consesus is that anthropogenic global warming is occurring. There is not considerable disagreement among climate scientists.

According to this article, it actually is much faster than conventional computers... but only for problems that can be mapped to it well, and currently a lot of problems don't fall into that category.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-nsa-secrecy-upheld/

http://arstechnica.com/business/2006/10/8105/

http://www.infowars.com/google-exposed-as-nsa-front/

http://epic.org/foia/epic_v_nsa_google.html

It's a publicly accessible website that anyone with a decent browser can access. So yes, it's part of the open web. Closing it off by not providing an API is a dick move by Google, but it's not like they're detecting particular browsers and then blocking access.

Not for lack of trying.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/google-maps-windows-phone-and-an-avoidable-mess/
http://wmpoweruser.com/now-google-is-blocking-windows-phones-from-accessing-maps-google-com/

Whoops. "Open Web", indeed.

The SHIELD Act was introduced by Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR) on February 27, 2013.

It creates a "loser pays" system for certain types of lawsuits, in which do-nothing patent holders will be forced to pay the defendant's legal bills if they lose their lawsuit. However, losing defendants won't have to pay, so it's more like a "losing plaintiff pays" system.

Following up, another act introduced by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on May 2, 2013, seeks to dramatically lower the cost of patent litigation.

Call/write your congressman.

The SHIELD Act was introduced by Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR) on February 27, 2013.

It creates a "loser pays" system for certain types of lawsuits, in which do-nothing patent holders will be forced to pay the defendant's legal bills if they lose their lawsuit. However, losing defendants won't have to pay, so it's more like a "losing plaintiff pays" system.

Following up, another act introduced by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on May 2, 2013, seeks to dramatically lower the cost of patent litigation.

Call/write your congressman.