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See here. This is how the local security on Android works

That is how it was intended to work. Not how it actually does work.

Did you bother to read the article or even the summary? You seemed to take the inflammatory headline and run with it without actually verifying if it is true.

I did read it. I apparently read more than you because I got down to this link:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10162929-83.html

Which is the EXACT point the OP made! There is no Gatekeeper for Google Apps. Their policy states that certain apps ask for permission because some, like this one, didn't.

But then again, you're doing this on your "beleif" so actual fact does not matter.

I provided the links to back my points.
Found that "expressly stated going to sell your data" Apple quote yet? Or, is it... your belief?

You realise iPod nanos specifically were notorious for screen scratches, so much so that Apple owned up to it and had to pay out a $22.5million settlement? -

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10149328-37.html

Sure not all device screens scratch easily, but the problem is you don't know which ones do until it's too late and you've scratched it, and as some quite blatantly do (you're welcome to do more Google searches yourself to find plenty of evidence to that effect) you've got to be quite stupid to risk it.

The U.S. House wants to collect DNA from people merely arrested. And they'll pay the states to do it.

From a randomly selected article

We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," Viacom said in a statement. "We intend to seek to have these issues before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as soon as possible."

Control. Fanboys may defend Apple's control for various reasons, mostly using cognitive dissonance

FYI, when you get called a troll, it's for bullshit like this.

You feel that? Thats called irony. When the biggest Mac troll on slashdot tries to call someone a troll for bullshit. Now the next time you want to call someone a troll you need to take a good, long look in the mirror first.

They want to stop the hackintosh, they want to prevent more clones and they want to control what the end users experiences.

As for "controlling what the end user experiences". That's overstating things quite much. They don't want to control what the user experiences, with the fundamental exception that they want to exclude a set of very rational things. Primarily, buggy software, spyware, and ports which fail to make good use of the platform. They don't want control over my experience other than to help see to it that I don't have to deal with such crap. And when us "fanboys" say (as you said in your post) "it's for your own good and other such excuses", what we're saying is that "it makes the product better". That's why we willingly choose Apple products, so we don't have to deal with a bunch of crap. It's also a huge part of why Apple products do so well even when surrounded by competition whose primary advantage is less "control".

As for Mac and control, it's always been about control. Control over hardware and software. This is why its products like the iPod/iTouch/iPhone are encrypted, for control. People found they could start to alter the software on these devices like either use different software to load music on to these devices (like Amarok could before they encrypted the hardware) or even install their own firmware on the devices these people paid for and are normally under the idea (like anything else they buy) that they can do with it as they can. Apple saw that people were doing what they wanted with something they bought (that just happened to have the Apple logo) and they shit a brick. Now all of these devices are encrypted on the hardware level. It wasn't 'for your protection' as it was only being used by a very small minority.

And as for your claim that by being locked down it 'makes a product better', how? iPhones still crash (done it myself as have my friends), it's lock down nature hasn't help it's security, and all of it's 'attempts to make it a better product' by judging if an app should be allow has resulted in either plain old censorship to all out privacy issues from something 'approved'. This hasn't been able to make 'a better product' even after 3 years, and the issues are just growing. Restrictions like this have been tried before by different peoples of power through out history and every time its shown to be a bad thing for the same reason: when someone has power they are more then interested in using/abusing it. And no, Steve Job's isn't going to be the first person in the entire history of humanity to not succumb to the temptation.

This wont happen overnight, not even the RDF turned to eleven could pull that one off. It will happen over time in baby steps and be hailed by the fanboys.

It (although not the "it" you've been going on about) will be hailed because it will make our lives better. The "it" won't be locking down the Mac, or replacing Mac OS X with iOS, but "it" will be things like abstracting the filesystem

Her previous article (posted the previous day, for chrissakes!) is all about an iPhone app that has some of the same permissions as the ones that are "security risks" on the Android: Good Technology boosts iPhone security controls http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20008232-245.html?tag=mncol;title This is about an app that can REMOTELY WIPE your iPhone! On an Apple, that INCREASES security. On an Android, that could REMOTELY BRICK your phone. Wow.

Like Hulu, yes.

The issues with Hulu though are:
catalog size, buffering, and portability.

Megavideo allows all of these, the third probably being a non-starter for the industry, but not as big a deal.

Hulu is a great start though, and the first place to look for something.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20007215-93.html

would probably be worth it. Though lack of all networks, and lack of movies may make it less so.

Hulu (at $9.95/month for back seasons)+ netflix streaming, would greatly reduce my cost on newsgroups (though not as much as the cost). Netflix already does.

The Hulu streaming would be a no brainer to me honestly. I hope they do it.

Though lack of buffers, and download to take with me are a hindrance, legitimacy has value.

That's why it only sells on the closed networks in the US.

Which closed network? T-Mobile? AT&T? Verizon? Sprint? MetroPCS? Is there even a single actual network that doesn't sell Android phones anymore? Go ahead. I dare you. Name a single one. Or did you mean Android only sold on all the networks of the US (therefore implying that all the networks in the US are closed)? Because, I can tell you. I'm currently in the UK right now, and there isn't a single shop in the UK that doesn't have Android devices on sale right now and that aren't selling like hot cakes. And sure, the iPhone is still very popular in the UK right now, but at the sales counter where it counts, it's getting assaulted by several very good Android phones that are all selling just as well as the iPhone. It's not fair fight anymore. One phone against 39 phones, several of which are actually far superior to the new iPhone.

That's why 75% of Android devices run v1.6.

No, it's more like 50% of the Android devices are running v2.1. I can cite my source. Can you even cite yours?

Being able to port desktop C apps over rather than rewrite in Java only becomes even more important.

Please repeat after me: The C and C++ apps of the Android NDK do not run on the Dalvik VM. The C and C++ apps of the Android NDK do not run on the Dalvik VM. Please repeat this one hundred times.

and the next thing you know "Android will be better next year!"

If anyone is saying that, and repeating it ad nausea um, you're the only one. I've corrected your strawman argument plus several of your other factual errors in your other threads. But you don't even seem to even read my responses, or even care about citing your sources.

http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=computerlaws/state-hacking-laws seems to show a list of some state based ideas on computer infrastructure use and access.
back from 2005 on wifi
http://news.cnet.com/FAQ-Wi-Fi-mooching-and-the-law/2100-7351_3-5778822.html "Are state laws about unauthorized access different?
Yes, but often not in an important way. Genetski says that "as a general rule, most states model their computer crime laws after (the federal law).""
So in the US they might be ok for accidentally collected the data and didn't share it.
Within in the US illegal to access computer data without authorisation could be an aspect too, secured or not?

Under the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995, a person can be held to have infringed upon a trademark for "tarnishing" it by using it in a negative context. The famous example is a case in which the slogan "Enjoy Cocaine" was used in Coca Cola's distinctive script and was judged an infringement without the more typical trademark litmus test of creating confusion in the marketplace.

"Parody under the law doesn't magically fend off trademark infringements," said Gregory Phillips, attorney with Howard Phillips and Andersen. "In our view, this is the same thing as 'Enjoy Cocaine.'"

They apparently think that a glorified letter-writing campaign is a match for the lobbying (aka "bribing") money that a major corporation can throw at Washington. That's almost as adorable as an environmentalist in Texas or Alaska writing his Congressman asking him to oppose big oil. Even if you could get the FCC to listen, the lobbyists would just get their slaves in Congress to override them (just like they did on net neutrality).

You still have to write Java apps. You're still running in a virtual machine.

I think you're confusing the Android Scripting Environment (ASE) with the Android Native Development Kit (NDK).

With the first, you can write Python, Perl, JRuby, Lua, Javascript, etc, that will translate down to Dalvyk bytecode, and with the second one, the Native Development Kit, you can write C and C++ that can bypass the Dalvyk VM entirely if you wish, starting from version 1.5 of the android development kit.

This was known on day one. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20000585-56.html

Really? Again with the "desktop dead" speech? Haven't I heard this in 2006, 2007 and 2009? Does this guy really need to redo the same article we've been hearing for 4 years?

Author claims 2009 was the first year laptop sales surpassed desktop, but they were saying the same thing in 2008 and 2009.

The "desktop dead" story is dead, stop beating a dead horse.

I guess checking Google News for Internet Kill Switch is too much trouble.... this reply is at least as much for the person who said to get news from somewhere other than Slashdot, but it's been proposed and talked about by more than one Congressman. There are multiple bills mentioned in the below quote alone:

News about the Leiberman Senate bill has been in the mainstream press recently, and they've had hearings on it:

Philip Reitinger, deputy undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security, agreed that the executive branch "may need to take extraordinary measures" to respond to cyberthreats. But Reitinger said that "we believe it is preferable" to have a single organization--that is, an arm of the DHS--handle physical and Internet infrastructure rather than create a new office.

In addition, Reitinger said, the 1934 Communications Act already gives the president broad emergency power. "Congress and the administration should work together to identify any needed adjustments to the act, as opposed to developing overlapping legislation," he said.

Section 706 of that nearly century-old law says if there is a "threat of war," the president may seize control of any "facilities or stations for wire communication"--archaic wording that nevertheless would presumably sweep in broadband providers or Web sites. Anyone who disobeys can be imprisoned for a year.

The idea of an Internet "kill switch" that the president could flip is not new. A draft Senate proposal that CNET obtained in August allowed the White House to "declare a cybersecurity emergency," and another from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to "order the disconnection" of certain networks or Web sites.

Sorry, but NO song is worth that much.

CNET no longer hosts the program.

But LimeWire was Download.com's most successful P2P app - with 206,669,520 downloads.
241,000 downloads a week in March. LimeWire 5.5.7

The mp3 track retails for about $1.

The feature length video $15-$30. The video rental $1 to $5.

LimeWire profited from the unlicensed distribution of legally protected content on an unprecedented scale.

Disney can produce a "High School Musical" for $10 million dollars, then franchise the product for amateur production, ice shows, theme parks and so on.

The tween audience - mostly female - is on the fringes of the P2P demographic, and the return from video sales and rentals should be largely untouched.

But strip away $200 million in revenues and productions like Star Trek or The Dark Knight with $200 million dollar budgets become much harder to justify and finance.

The geek's file-sharing habits can have a real, negative, impact on production of the films he most wants to see.

So this will pump out the cubicle critters to run systems like
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/EU_social_network_spy_system_brief,_INDECT_Work_Package_4,_2009 and
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Mind_Your_Tweets:_The_CIA_Social_Networking_Surveillance_System
The only question is why do they need to make such bold public push for future workers? Hard to tap the shoulder of an entire graduating class for a private chat?
Fusion centres a growth sector in the USA?
NSA shifts to e-mail, Web, data-mining dragnet
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9890761-38.html

No.

No the problem was they initially turned up and then walked out.

"Spamhaus didn't mount a defense in the case; the ruling was a default judgment in absence of counterarguments." That's a little grey, but it sounds to me like Spamhaus didn't initially show up. If you've got a citation that suggests otherwise, please post it.

Judgement made in default != default judgement. Default Judgement = the defense is a no show. Judgement made in default = defense showed but stayed silent (or in the case of Spamhaus, walked out (= refused to answer) when the judge ruled that the court had jurisdiction)

Spamhaus/their lawyers f**ked up

How do you figure? Spamhaus (wisely, IMHO) looked at the case, decided they could spend boatloads of money fighting a frivolous lawsuit which they would *probably* -- but NOT necessarily -- win, or since they are not in the U.S.' jurisdiction, they could save themselves the worry and the stress by ignoring the lawsuit. The court that awarded the win to the spammer has no jurisdiction in the U.K. so as long as Spamhaus' CEO doesn't come to the U.S., what difference does it make to him? It's not like he's going to be extradited for this. If somebody sues me in a foreign country that I never intend to visit, the odds of me spending any money or effort to fight the lawsuit are somewhere between zero and none. Spamhaus did likewise.

Problem is Spamhaus originally appointed lawyers to go to the court. This was the mistake, when the lawyers appeared for Spamhaus, Spamhaus effectively 'appeared in court' (even if to contest jurisdiction). They should have, as you indicated you would (and as I would) not even appeared. If they had not appeared, then the CEO visiting the USA or not would have no effect as the case was heard in the Illinois court, and not in the federal court.

...the result was they had to pay a spammer for the f**kup.

Ummm, no. The result was a judge ordered them to pay a spammer for their strategic decision. It may be subtle, but there is a difference between a judge ordering you to do something and actually having to do it. As long as you are not in the judge's jurisdiction, you don't have to do anything they order.

Second issue in point, and a second mistake to make if you don't consult a lawyer. There is this little treaty with the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and most of Europe, known as the 'cross border enforcement treaty'. If you hold a judgement from a US court in your favour (not a default judgement - note the difference I mentioned above) against a UK entity you can apply to the UK High Court to have your judgement enforced, the ONLY defense against it is that the court where the case was heard did not have jurisdiction. Problem is Spamhaus worked out when it was too late that 'judgement in default' is not a 'default judgement' and therefore cross border enforcement would be applied. This is why they first tried to appeal the judgement (and were refused because they 'appeared') then appealed the amount of damages.

The simple facts were, they screwed up (they even admit it themselves that they "had advice which was incorrect") a judgement which is enforceable was made against them, they appealed on the only option - the amount of damages, and they won their appeal by having the damages reduced to $27k.

Net effect, they lost the case, they will pay or risk copping significantly more costs when/if it is brought to the UK high court for enforcement. That said, rumor has it, the game is not over, but only time will tell.

Note: this has been discussed to the death on NANAE where someone reportedly from Spamhaus responded with "please don't give the spammer ideas".

No the problem was they initially turned up and then walked out.

"Spamhaus didn't mount a defense in the case; the ruling was a default judgment in absence of counterarguments." That's a little grey, but it sounds to me like Spamhaus didn't initially show up. If you've got a citation that suggests otherwise, please post it.

Spamhaus/their lawyers f**ked up

How do you figure? Spamhaus (wisely, IMHO) looked at the case, decided they could spend boatloads of money fighting a frivolous lawsuit which they would *probably* -- but NOT necessarily -- win, or since they are not in the U.S.' jurisdiction, they could save themselves the worry and the stress by ignoring the lawsuit. The court that awarded the win to the spammer has no jurisdiction in the U.K. so as long as Spamhaus' CEO doesn't come to the U.S., what difference does it make to him? It's not like he's going to be extradited for this. If somebody sues me in a foreign country that I never intend to visit, the odds of me spending any money or effort to fight the lawsuit are somewhere between zero and none. Spamhaus did likewise.

...the result was they had to pay a spammer for the f**kup.

Ummm, no. The result was a judge ordered them to pay a spammer for their strategic decision. It may be subtle, but there is a difference between a judge ordering you to do something and actually having to do it. As long as you are not in the judge's jurisdiction, you don't have to do anything they order.

I haven't seen the context of this exploit-discovery-and-release mentioned. Lest we all forget:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20006509-265.html

Google leaks that they're moving away from Windows, cause it's insecure and it's use got them hacked by the Chinese. Microsoft says "Bah! We're more secure than anyone, we rock!". So Google publicly demonstrates evidence to the contrary that proves their point, and makes Microsoft look bizarrely incompetent. Microsoft responds by accusing Google of having the audacity to call their bluff.

I would really like to know who this kind of doublethink hijinks work on. Doesn't Microsoft know that we form our own opinions based on information that we can get anywhere?

http://solar-aid.org/

Solar Aid has several solutions that are better. They promote locally manufactured or at least assembled devices. They help with PV systems. They have an interesting light that provides more light for a longer time, it's far cheaper, it charges phones and other small gadgets and was designed by students at Leeds. Plus Minus Design was also able to address the need for local maintenance with a simply designed product assembled through snap-in parts and repairable with basic tools. http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20001768-54.html?tag=mncol

http://solar-aid.org/projects/health/lighting-malawian-homes.html We will train 120 young people orphaned or affected by HIV/AIDS in Northern Malawi in solar skills to build these solar lanterns. We will help source and import solar and LED materials to Malawi.

Cnet even ran a piece over a year ago talking about Lenovo's response to subversion of the facial recognition system at a hacker conference. The general gist of the response was basically "we only use it on consumer grade laptops" and "we're constantly working to improve it".

Obligatory link: Clicky

Or how about "No, I'm not going to buy my kid a POS Mac."? I'm sure at least one Windows or Linux adminstrator's child goes to high school there.

Or they did the research and have notice issues with Macs like how those new iMacs had broken screen issues, or how the MBP's had failing graphic cards, or the Snow Leopard bug deleting the home folder... You might be a bit worried. Sure, you could have mailed them back and waited weeks for the repairs, but when your talking school work you need something reliable. Not to mention, not everyone has a good experience with OSX (just check the Apple support forums) and why would anyone want to buy another laptop when their current one works perfectly anyways?

2.1GHz huh? That's not a 1998 processor. The fastest Intel processor available in 1998 -- late 1998 -- was a 450MHz Pentium II Xeon. Neither Vista nor Win7 will install on anything even close to that.

It wasn't until 2001 that Intel crossed the 2GHz line, and 2002 when there was a 2.1GHz processor in their lineup. That, I think, sets the tone for analyzing the rest of your system specs.

That 1998-era 50GB drive? Umm, no. Drives in 1998 time were generally in the single-digit gig range (much too small to even install Win7). Here is the announcement of a series of new machines from Dell that year:

http://news.cnet.com/Compaq%2C-Dell-ship-new-computers/2100-1001_3-212040.html

We'll get back to that announcement in a minute.

IBM released a 10G drive in July 1998:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/15-years-of-hard-drive-history,1368-2.html

So that pretty much sets the upper limit of what would have been available. 50G drives were around in 2002-3, which is probably not coincidentally the same time frame as your 2.1GHz processor.

Now, the G1 mentioned in the article above was a pretty good Dell system in 1998, the kind of thing you bought to run NT4. Its maximum RAM? 256M, one quarter of what you say you installed.

I'm too lazy to go figure out at what point it was possible to buy a Dell desktop system that was expandable to 1G, but I am willing to bet it's somewhere around 2002, just like all of the other specs of your system.

So I would have to conclude that you actually installed Win7 on a 2002 or 2003 era machine, and it will run very poorly with only 1G RAM; my personal experiments showed that the systems' responsiveness was downright awful below 2G (32-bit).

Cheers!

Basic phones are getting rarer, but they aren't that hard to find. I found this article a few minutes ago, supposedly updated today:

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-basic-phones/

Oddly, the top entry has a camera, a goof on their part.

The thing is that people that reject the cameras are a small enough market that it might not be worth giving much attention to.

all of whom were working on a similar concept

No they weren't, enterprise was just one of their stupid directions.

Yes they were. LL says so: http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/06/09/a-restructuring-for-linden-lab?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+SecondLife+(Official+Second+Life+Blogs+-+FEATURED)

More sources: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/06/10/second-life-creator-linden-lab-downsizes-morphs/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20007260-36.html http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364893,00.asp

I am sorry, but Apple does receive a kickback from AT&T.

One small link(there are lots of others)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9803657-37.html

Even if your argument were factually correct, which it is not, exercising a modicum of common sense would explain that it is AT&T who gain from exclusivity, not Apple

Err, if my post was factually correct(which it is), then Apple is gaining financially big time on every iPhone user.

To suggest that Apple were the ones who demanded exclusivity is laughable, and that they did so out of greed, is simply irrational. Why the hell would they willingly restrict their own potential sales? You sound like just another anti-Apple jihadist, willing to distort facts in any way you can to demonstrate that Apple is "evil".

Who suggested that Apple demanded exclusivity? All they demanded and demand is dollars. Why did they renew the agreement again? Because if they added Verizon to the supported network list, they would lose the money fleeced from every iPhone user. This just shows that all they care about is dollars and not customers who have to put up with shitty service.

And you sound like a blind dumb fanboy who can't see past his nose.

The guy admitted in a cnet interview that he did NOT tell AT&T for fear of them coming after him. link

What I think is going on here, is that Obama is being called awful simply because he's not a savior.

Obama voted to give immunity to telcom companies for their help in spying on Americans. He also signed a bill creating larger government and denying liberty, ie the Health care Bill.

I wish Obama were continuing none, but at least now the economy has been pulled back from the cliff.

Like the economy wouldn't have improved without Obama and it never runs in cycles.

Sorry I already know how government health care is, unfortunately I am on it and it, Medicare, sucks. Instead what he, and congress, could have done was to give everybody the same tax breaks employers get for offering health insurance. If that weren't enough then give those unable to afford insurance a check for, say $4000, then let them buy insurance in a relatively free and open market. With millions of people shopping for insurance policy issuers would compeat with each other to sell insurance.

Falcon

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Storagetek-tape_drive_hg.jpg

More info on CERN's infosystems for the collider, as they're the Tier-0 site (which means, in realtime, they take the raw detector data, strip it to the bare essentials, and than shove it out to Tier-1 sites at up to 40Gb/s (depending on the detector/experiment):

http://news.cnet.com/8300-11386_3-76-2.html?keyword=CERN

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10413951-83.html

they already have - seems like they did exactly what they did with other setups..

we start going on a grey area and the 'net turns into a unsafe place where you can be illegal just by clicking a link.

We're already there.

"When did gold farming start? First reports were in Central America and Mexico in about 2003." I remember gold farming in Asheron's Call in early 2000. Here's a link to a blurb about Sony's problems with EverQuest in April 2000. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017_3-239052.html

That's OK. Now that you've found it, I'm sure Doctorow will remember it too ;)

"When did gold farming start? First reports were in Central America and Mexico in about 2003." I remember gold farming in Asheron's Call in early 2000. Here's a link to a blurb about Sony's problems with EverQuest in April 2000. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017_3-239052.html

"Show me a car that can win the Indy 500"..... Unfortunately it wasn't this one...trust me...I know... http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9723221-1.html

So it'll take what...a couple of weeks for them to port the existing iPhone Android ROM over. Best of both worlds!

Wait, didn't Apple already step on Cisco's trademarks before with the iPhone?

Gizmodo has shown in the past that they are too immature to be allowed attend these types of events.

Not only Gizmodo, I could argue that the same goes for the whole Gawker network. Take a look, for instance, at Jalopnik, the automotive sibling of Gizmodo. It is written by a bunch of immature imbeciles.

CNET News: According to Wagstaffe, a special master is an unpaid agent appointed by the court to make sure judicial orders are followed. Special masters are typically volunteers, mostly former judges or law professors, Wagstaffe said. They are supposed to be unconnected to the cases they are working on. Wagstaffe said he was under court orders not to reveal the identity of the special master reviewing Chen's possessions.

Gizmodo has shown in the past that they are too immature to be allowed attend these types of events.

Yes, just like they had to pay Major League Baseball, the American Presidential Inaugural Committee, and the 2008 DNC to use Silverlight*.

Makes me wonder why Microsoft don't just throw that money at legislators to pass a law which requires Americans to use Microsoft Software. Makes a lot more sense given America's political climate.

* Fortunately, MLB realized the folley of their ways and dropped Silverlight shortly afterward. The other two examples were only one-time events...but to be fair, there were plenty of ways to view the latter two in Flash as well.

According to the video in this article Dell executive Ron Garriques says that fitting it into a pocket was "really the whole design point".

The article says SpaceX got $278 million from NASA to develop the rocket. Apparently we spent $1.500 billion on Ares in FY10 alone, and spent $445 million on a single sub-orbital test flight for Ares in '09.

A few points:
1) A criminal prosecution will at least get you a public defender.
2) The standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt", big difference.
3) The Google style safe harbor is part of copyright law, so forget that.

Also, it is quite likely you could get someone like EFF on board. Ask the file hosts to submit support briefs and so on. I couldn't find anything on any freenet hosts being arrested, but there are definitely examples of TOR exit node operators being raided and/or arrested. Examples: 1, 2. Eventually, it was all dropped. Unlike TOR which makes unencrypted exit requests looking just like a normal end user, there's very little grounds for arresting anyone over a Freenet node. I guess you can go for the hypothetical maybes, but many thousands of people in many countries all over the world have run it for years now and I haven't read of a single case yet.

With this in mind, how could this law firm prove that it was me that actually downloaded the movie? What with wifi and all them nasty stealers of bandwidth, exactly how could you prove to even a preponderance standard (the civil standard) that it was me who did the deed?

Same way they always prove it, by filing a discovery motion to have all mass storage devices (e.g. computer hard drives, external hard drives, flash drives, tapes, etc.) turned over to a third party for expert examination. If the files are there, you did it. If the files were deleted, but still on drive, you did it.

FYI: You don't have have to overwrite data 7 times or even 30 times to erase on today's drives. Once is enough. The original recommendations were based on 1980s technology with large magnetic domains and inaccurate servos. At today's densities, the slop you were trying to overwrite just doesn't happen.

(And yes, I did get this information from an known expert in computer forensics.)

The DoJ is investigating some of "Apple's business practices".

Falcon

That's what happens when you're a monopoly, you get to act like a douche and nobody can do dick about it. And since Apple owns over 70% of the PMP market and 90%+ of the HDD PMP market, well that means they can pretty much do anything they want. Why developers trip over themselves to develop for a platform that can have all their investment thrown into the shitter on a whim is beyond me though.

of course their ability to act like a monopoly may be coming to an end with the DoJ widening the scope of their investigation. If Apple did what has been alleged and threatened anyone who participated in Amazon sales then they should be busted, and be busted hard. Using your leverage to get better deals for yourself is one thing, using it to hamstring competitors is another. But TFA just shows any company that spends any serious time and money developing for iStuff is just crazy. Better to just spend a weekend making a fart app and be done with it.

The island of Diego Garcia used to be a favourite for such phone scams. Phone companies have international agreements to tranfer money, a portion of what they bill for international calls. In the case of the scam calls to Diego Garcia the money could be siphoned off by middlemen because Diego Garcia did not have agreements with all phone companies (bad credit rating?) and the money was routed indrectly. Something similar is happening here. The Irish Communications Regulator blocked direct dial calls to a list of countries to cut down on such fraud http://news.cnet.com/Ireland-launches-phone-fraud-crackdown/2100-1036_3-5377387.html

Well, I think they're headed to ChromeOS long-term. While this particular report may be true or not since it's based on anonymous sources, Eric Schmidt himself said that this would be Google's response during the Atmosphere event. He also indicated that they're moving toward eating their own dog food at every level, and that wasin or around a discussion of ChromeOS (I'm going from memory). I took the interview as a whole to be an indication that Google wanted to move to ChromeOS and Apps for as much of the internal stuff as it could.

Here is a report of the interview: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20002315-265.html