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At least it's far less creepy than alternative methods that are being used. I can only imagine the less scrupulous software in the future that will start hiding that functionality in the app without notifying users.

The article at the root of this raises some interesting points. I've just traded my 2008 Volvo for a 2002 model, partly because of the reduced complexity. The 2008 had an additive tank (for emissions reasons) that cost me £250 to get refilled when it ran out; the 2002 is of a generation with less need for complications which are expensive to service.

Really how did they get around congress?

http://www.wired.com/2012/05/r...

The sales of computers are going down last years, and there are more other devices in the age of "Internet of Things" that are harmful for the freedom of the users. Even simple climate control is not your device, but is designed to spy on your family habits, "phone home" - all in the name of optimizing your utility bills. In the US the practical disadvantage of this unfreedom can likely be just unsolicited junk mail, in other countries with higher corruption levels this data can be sold to burglars who will visit your home when the heating/AC is set on "vacation" level. Freedom of the users of the devices (including all 4 classic components) is much broader then just that of the computer operators, and the choice if free/non-free is not only about your philosophy, but be a matter of survival.

As for Richard Stallman - I just can not see, where is that his one mistake. For years there are continuing attempts by others to create "hardware GPL" but there is no universal solution (we use exactly the combination mentioned in the article: GPLv3 for software/firmware/FPGA and CERN OHL for the hardware) caused by fundamental differences of the software and hardware. His last year article http://www.wired.com/2015/03/r... provides a lot of practical instructions how to build free hardware in a not-yet-so-free hardware world, there are "levels of design".

Seriously, more than a decade ago: http://www.wired.com/2004/04/i...

The point produced a depressing recognition. There's a logic to P2P threats that we as a society don't yet get. Like the record companies against the Internet, our first response is war. But like the record companies, that response will be either futile or self-destructive. If you can't control the supply of IDDs, then the right response is to reduce the demand for IDDs. Yet as everyone in the class understood, in the four years since Joy wrote his Wired piece, we've done precisely the opposite.

This wasn't very hard to figure out that when you look at how easy it is to make weapons. The technicalities of terrorism are easy. You can learn most everything you need at the library and always could. You can build bombs, and you can do it without anyone knowing. Its technical work but its nothing compared to some people's hobbies.

The real question is, why doesn't something so easy happen every day? The problem isn't what is easy, the problem is why would anyone do it. The real enemy is the perception that there is a goal that it can accomplish, and you can't fight that away.

For those who are trying to hand wave the issue with a broader "well, we shouldn't do things that make people angry *tsk* *tsk*", while addressing the root drivers will help mitigate the numbers of potential incidents, in a world where people have differing opinions, you'll always have a few folks who disagree strongly enough that they may just try to do something like deliver a dangerous payload via unmanned platform. Very least, you're going to have criminal elements that are going to try and exploit this technology for recon or more direct support in committing crimes, maybe even violent support. Therefore, you're going to need this technology to some degree whether through jamming or even outright shooting it out of the sky.

NSA Helped British Spies Find Security Holes In Juniper Firewalls Quote: "... British spy agency GCHQ, with the knowledge and apparent cooperation of the NSA, acquired the capability to covertly exploit security vulnerabilities in 13 different models of firewalls made by Juniper Networks..."

Secret Code Found in Juniper's Firewalls Shows Risk of Government Backdoors Quote: "This is a very good showcase for why backdoors are really something governments should not have in these types of devices because at some point it will backfire."

New Discovery Around Juniper Backdoor Raises More Questions About the Company Quote: "Juniper added the insecure algorithm to its software long after the more secure one was already in it, raising questions about why the company would have knowingly undermined an already secure system."

Juniper 'fesses up to TWO attacks from 'unauthorised code'

'Unauthorized code' that decrypts VPNs found in Juniper's ScreenOS Quote: "And it may have been there since 2008, making this a late contender for FAIL of the year."

How to log into any backdoored Juniper firewall -- hard-coded password published

Juniper promises to fix ScreenOS cryptography ... eventually

Listen up, FBI: Juniper code shows the problem with backdoors Quote: "FBI director James Comey should be taking notes: The Juniper debacle shows why security experts are up in arms over government-ordered backdoors."

Another quote from that article:

"Cryptographic backdoors are one of the best ways for attackers to break into systems. '[The backdoors] take care of the hard work, the laying of plumbing and electrical wiring, so attackers can simply walk in and change the drapes,' Green said.

NSA Helped British Spies Find Security Holes In Juniper Firewalls Quote: "... British spy agency GCHQ, with the knowledge and apparent cooperation of the NSA, acquired the capability to covertly exploit security vulnerabilities in 13 different models of firewalls made by Juniper Networks..."

Secret Code Found in Juniper's Firewalls Shows Risk of Government Backdoors Quote: "This is a very good showcase for why backdoors are really something governments should not have in these types of devices because at some point it will backfire."

New Discovery Around Juniper Backdoor Raises More Questions About the Company Quote: "Juniper added the insecure algorithm to its software long after the more secure one was already in it, raising questions about why the company would have knowingly undermined an already secure system."

Juniper 'fesses up to TWO attacks from 'unauthorised code'

'Unauthorized code' that decrypts VPNs found in Juniper's ScreenOS Quote: "And it may have been there since 2008, making this a late contender for FAIL of the year."

How to log into any backdoored Juniper firewall -- hard-coded password published

Juniper promises to fix ScreenOS cryptography ... eventually

Listen up, FBI: Juniper code shows the problem with backdoors Quote: "FBI director James Comey should be taking notes: The Juniper debacle shows why security experts are up in arms over government-ordered backdoors."

Another quote from that article:

"Cryptographic backdoors are one of the best ways for attackers to break into systems. '[The backdoors] take care of the hard work, the laying of plumbing and electrical wiring, so attackers can simply walk in and change the drapes,' Green said.

Not even close

If its vital, use a typewriter, secure limited amounts of paper files and hold face to face meetings in a secure room with only trusted staff. Works well during policy creation. Use the internet to push out a final policy statement, not create policy over years, weeks via junk encryption.
Learn about good quality encryption so that years of plain text data are not just sitting on fast internet facing servers.
As for AV brands: The global reach and trust means they are getting reports back of bespoke 5 eye crafted code in the wild.
AV brands that have the ability to understand every users network and create complex reports in near realtime.
Suite of Sophisticated Nation-State Attack Tools Found With Connection to Stuxnet (02.16.15)
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/k...
That is the real issue. The tame crypto academics, consumer OS designers are the way in. AV brands that can understand and get a wide range of reports are starting to see what was and is been done to wide open export grade OS's and hardware.
The other issue is the numbers of contractors and brands selling one time, unknown, not yet found access tools to govs/mil.
Well staffed AV brands are slowly understanding how to more protect wide open junk consumer OS's and then tell the world.
Gov funded malware is having less of a free open window for access over years to months or been patched or discovered in use..

I still get a chuckle about the time when Windows crashed and took down a battleship. If cars crashed like peoples' desktops, it'd look like a crash-up derby on the city streets...

The joke used to be, "The day Microsoft starts making a product that doesn't suck is the day they start making vacuum cleaners."

To be fair, Macintosh used to be an acronym for Most Applications Crash If Not The Operating System Hangs.

Yea...that works well doesn't it?

Since you are the one making the claim that all these oppressive laws are out there, why don't you provide an example of a law that an ordinary citizen risks getting arrested for without knowing such a law existed?

I'm not the parent poster, nor am I making the same claim he/she did in that laws are just to oppress people (I agree some laws have been used for this, but they do seem the exception and not the rule)

I only wanted to address one part of your reply separately, specifically "provide an example of a law that an ordinary citizen risks getting arrested for without knowing such a law existed?"

Now I must first point out that the chances of being actually arrested or even prosecuted in the following examples is pretty low, rare even (again, the exception more than the rule) but in each example it has happened at least once (once too many IMHO, for what little that's worth)

But there are plenty of laws people break all the time without even knowing it, and if the right person/people pressed the issue legally, you would be successfully prosecuted for breaking them (facts are facts after all.)
Some allow for arrest and jail time, if a judge so wished to do so.

One good technical example fit for slashdot - do you own a smartphone? Do you ever enable wifi?
If so chances are very good you have broken the law repetitively every day.

When the phone passes near an open unsecured AP, the phone by default will try to connect to it.
Perhaps just to read the MAC for location services, perhaps to use for data over the slower and more expensive cellular connection.
Either way if you haven't obtained the explicit permission from the APs owner to do this, you have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for "gaining unauthorized access to a computer, network, or a website"
This is a 3rd degree felony, up to 2 years in prison, and up to $10000 in fines.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/84...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
http://seclists.org/isn/2006/M...

I notice your slashdot handle is "bws111". Does that happen to be the initials of your real name? Well even so the extra numbers brings you back against the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for "using a false name during an online registration process"
http://www.wired.com/2009/07/d...

Ever use sarcasm a lot like I do? Most of my slashdot posts use a ton of it, and in many US states that is a crime.
Disorderly Conduct laws frequently make it a crime to write anything that disturbs another person, and worse some states don't even require publishing that writing to the public, nor excludes fiction, for it to be a crime.

Illinois has such a law with a max $1500 fine and 30 days in jail.
Oklahoma has such laws where if your fictional writing describes a person being injured or killed, you can be arrested for "planning to cause serious bodily harm" with up to 10 years in prison.
Chicago has such laws and has actually acted on them.

Note all for "disorderly conduct":
http://www.wired.com/2007/04/t...
http://www.wired.com/politics/...

In California (and I believe other states) anti-grafitti laws state it is a criminal offence to have a permanent marker in public.
It is illegal simply to possess "broad-tipped indelible markers" or "aerosol cans" in a public place (such as when leaving the store you just purchased your new marker from) because they can be used to commit acts of vandalism.

Since you are the one making the claim that all these oppressive laws are out there, why don't you provide an example of a law that an ordinary citizen risks getting arrested for without knowing such a law existed?

I'm not the parent poster, nor am I making the same claim he/she did in that laws are just to oppress people (I agree some laws have been used for this, but they do seem the exception and not the rule)

I only wanted to address one part of your reply separately, specifically "provide an example of a law that an ordinary citizen risks getting arrested for without knowing such a law existed?"

Now I must first point out that the chances of being actually arrested or even prosecuted in the following examples is pretty low, rare even (again, the exception more than the rule) but in each example it has happened at least once (once too many IMHO, for what little that's worth)

But there are plenty of laws people break all the time without even knowing it, and if the right person/people pressed the issue legally, you would be successfully prosecuted for breaking them (facts are facts after all.)
Some allow for arrest and jail time, if a judge so wished to do so.

One good technical example fit for slashdot - do you own a smartphone? Do you ever enable wifi?
If so chances are very good you have broken the law repetitively every day.

When the phone passes near an open unsecured AP, the phone by default will try to connect to it.
Perhaps just to read the MAC for location services, perhaps to use for data over the slower and more expensive cellular connection.
Either way if you haven't obtained the explicit permission from the APs owner to do this, you have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for "gaining unauthorized access to a computer, network, or a website"
This is a 3rd degree felony, up to 2 years in prison, and up to $10000 in fines.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/84...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
http://seclists.org/isn/2006/M...

I notice your slashdot handle is "bws111". Does that happen to be the initials of your real name? Well even so the extra numbers brings you back against the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for "using a false name during an online registration process"
http://www.wired.com/2009/07/d...

Ever use sarcasm a lot like I do? Most of my slashdot posts use a ton of it, and in many US states that is a crime.
Disorderly Conduct laws frequently make it a crime to write anything that disturbs another person, and worse some states don't even require publishing that writing to the public, nor excludes fiction, for it to be a crime.

Illinois has such a law with a max $1500 fine and 30 days in jail.
Oklahoma has such laws where if your fictional writing describes a person being injured or killed, you can be arrested for "planning to cause serious bodily harm" with up to 10 years in prison.
Chicago has such laws and has actually acted on them.

Note all for "disorderly conduct":
http://www.wired.com/2007/04/t...
http://www.wired.com/politics/...

In California (and I believe other states) anti-grafitti laws state it is a criminal offence to have a permanent marker in public.
It is illegal simply to possess "broad-tipped indelible markers" or "aerosol cans" in a public place (such as when leaving the store you just purchased your new marker from) because they can be used to commit acts of vandalism.

Since you are the one making the claim that all these oppressive laws are out there, why don't you provide an example of a law that an ordinary citizen risks getting arrested for without knowing such a law existed?

I'm not the parent poster, nor am I making the same claim he/she did in that laws are just to oppress people (I agree some laws have been used for this, but they do seem the exception and not the rule)

I only wanted to address one part of your reply separately, specifically "provide an example of a law that an ordinary citizen risks getting arrested for without knowing such a law existed?"

Now I must first point out that the chances of being actually arrested or even prosecuted in the following examples is pretty low, rare even (again, the exception more than the rule) but in each example it has happened at least once (once too many IMHO, for what little that's worth)

But there are plenty of laws people break all the time without even knowing it, and if the right person/people pressed the issue legally, you would be successfully prosecuted for breaking them (facts are facts after all.)
Some allow for arrest and jail time, if a judge so wished to do so.

One good technical example fit for slashdot - do you own a smartphone? Do you ever enable wifi?
If so chances are very good you have broken the law repetitively every day.

When the phone passes near an open unsecured AP, the phone by default will try to connect to it.
Perhaps just to read the MAC for location services, perhaps to use for data over the slower and more expensive cellular connection.
Either way if you haven't obtained the explicit permission from the APs owner to do this, you have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for "gaining unauthorized access to a computer, network, or a website"
This is a 3rd degree felony, up to 2 years in prison, and up to $10000 in fines.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/84...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
http://seclists.org/isn/2006/M...

I notice your slashdot handle is "bws111". Does that happen to be the initials of your real name? Well even so the extra numbers brings you back against the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for "using a false name during an online registration process"
http://www.wired.com/2009/07/d...

Ever use sarcasm a lot like I do? Most of my slashdot posts use a ton of it, and in many US states that is a crime.
Disorderly Conduct laws frequently make it a crime to write anything that disturbs another person, and worse some states don't even require publishing that writing to the public, nor excludes fiction, for it to be a crime.

Illinois has such a law with a max $1500 fine and 30 days in jail.
Oklahoma has such laws where if your fictional writing describes a person being injured or killed, you can be arrested for "planning to cause serious bodily harm" with up to 10 years in prison.
Chicago has such laws and has actually acted on them.

Note all for "disorderly conduct":
http://www.wired.com/2007/04/t...
http://www.wired.com/politics/...

In California (and I believe other states) anti-grafitti laws state it is a criminal offence to have a permanent marker in public.
It is illegal simply to possess "broad-tipped indelible markers" or "aerosol cans" in a public place (such as when leaving the store you just purchased your new marker from) because they can be used to commit acts of vandalism.

Because folks might bother hacking crap like FitBits or baby monitors or drug pumps or Barbie dolls, or maybe even cars, but it's not like a refrigerator has ever been proven to be insecure.
Oops.

Because folks might bother hacking crap like FitBits or baby monitors or drug pumps or Barbie dolls, or maybe even cars, but it's not like a refrigerator has ever been proven to be insecure.
Oops.

I'm not accusing her of a crime. I'm accusing her of either incompetence or horrible judgement, given her position as one of the few Original Classification Authorities in the executive branch ( https://www.whitehouse.gov/the... SecState is the first Department mentioned. ). She should have known better. Maybe she did know better, but chose not to do better - that'd be worse.

Further, she was expected (one could even say "ordered by the President") to take Classification Training annually: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the... section 1.3d:
"All original classification authorities must receive training in proper classification (including the avoidance of over-classification) and declassification as provided in this order and its implementing directives at least once a calendar year. Such training must include instruction on the proper safeguarding of classified information and on the sanctions in section 5.5 of this order that may be brought against an individual who fails to classify information properly or protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure. Original classification authorities who do not receive such mandatory training at least once within a calendar year shall have their classification authority suspended by the agency head or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4(d) of this order until such training has taken place. " You can't argue that she was unfamiliar with this issue.

Even more, as a former FLOTUS, as a former Senator, and ESPECIALLY as Secretary of State (analogous to a Foreign Minister in other countries), she should CERTAINLY expected that her communications would be a primary target by foreign adversaries. She had high-level conversations with advisers, communications with/about other foreign leaders and diplomats, national policy issues, internal State Department policy issues. We already know the NSA is interested in this kind of stuff for other countries (most recently the shit with Israel) ; pretty much everyone else would love to have this information on the US as well. We're all self-important geeks here who think the NSA is watching all of us as we play video games and post on Slashdot and Reddit. How can anyone give a pass to a Secretary of State, who has real, LEGIT reasons to suspect she'd be targeted?

And then there were the political games she's been playing in the aftermath, instead of handing shit over, lawyering up and taking her lumps if necessary, and moving on. If it cost her an opportunity at the Presidency, oh well, that's what accountability at that level means; its not as if she didn't have POTUS aspirations back then. The world knew it. (More of a reason to suspect she'd be targetted by other intel services, actualy). Instead, she avoided having to turn stuff over as long as possible, tried deleting stuff, hand-selected things to turn over, plays this stupid shrugging game, insults our intelligence by saying "“It was on property guarded by the Secret Service and there were no security breaches. So I think that the use of that server certainly proved to be effective and secure.”". (Yes, she said that. http://www.wired.com/2015/03/h... )

Even if every single email she had on there was born and legitimately unclassified, they were at very least sensitive. And a bunch of unclassified things can be considered classified in aggregate. "(e) Compilations of items of information that are individually unclassified may be classified if the compiled information reveals an additional association or relationship that: (1) meets the standards for classification under this order; and (2) is not otherwise revealed in the individual items of information." (from one of the Executive Order links above as well)

The OS, unsurprisingly, allowed only tightly fettered access to web sites, using a whitelist approach that gives access to government-controlled or approved sites.

so it just like in USA

The US government doesn't block website that the government doesn't like, but instead uses raids to knock them off the Internet for everybody, and/or ICE confiscates the domain name.

Thanks for this good exposition. I think a time will come that this legal reasoning will be categorized with the medieval concept of animal trials. At lease we no longer hang pigs.

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/f...

Who said the application ran on no platforms and had no users?

I didn't mean literally no users as much as an insignificant number of users compared to the number of users that would be possible with a web application.

Prove it.

Native apps from "garage" developers: zero users on Wii U. Web apps from "garage" developers: greater than zero users on Wii U. Reggie Fils-Aime of Nintendo has said in the past that the company doesn't want amateur developers on its platform, that developers working in a "garage" exhibit negative qualities associated with contestants on American Idol . This means that for some subset of developers, the browser is the only way to get an application onto the platform.

If you build cross platform from the get go there is no huge overhead with native applications.

First, there's the overhead of obtaining hardware on which to test the build for each platform. You essentially have to buy a Mac, buy a copy of Parallels, and buy a retail copy of Windows. And beyond that, there's the overhead of getting approved to develop on certain platforms. For example, it can be cost prohibitive for a hobbyist developer to obtain and annually renew code signing certificates for Windows desktop, Windows Store, Mac App Store, and iOS App Store. And it's virtually impossible for a hobbyist to obtain code signing certificates on Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo console platforms in the first place.

Just use the right development environment for what you want to achieve.

That's fine once your company is big enough to afford "the right development environment".

The google cars are driving themselves already now. One could easily just replicate the technology they use and get those things onto the streets, right now. But it would be extremely risky, because google drives them in a fairly controlled environment, and the number of accidents that will happen will multiply by a large count. The question is whether one should start throwing a technology onto the markets when its still incomplete and not polished, or whether one should wait some years before that is possible.

Well, except technology doesn't age like a fine wine. It won't be mature technology before it has lots of real world testing and a lot of developers have worked on it for a long time to work out the bugs, both of which involve bringing a product to market and getting a cash flow going. Google's approach has been the Big Bang, when it's <agile>Done</agile> the car will drive itself and until then it will be a lab project doing controlled experiments. Tesla's approach has been to put it out there and let idiots abuse it leaving them to take the fall, while getting lots of paying beta testers who are formally required to be just as attentive as when it's off. I'm guessing that somewhere in the terms for using it, Tesla is getting data feedback.

Assuming the actual go-ahead for a fully autonomous consumer car that doesn't require you to pay attention will take longer than predicted, considering all the technical, practical and legal hurdles to be crossed the Google project might just linger and linger while Tesla gradually improves to fill the role while saying "Well it could drive by itself, but the law won't let it" or at least pretending their 95% solution could, as long as they don't have to prove it. From a safety and PR perspective it seems to work out for Tesla so far, the main concern have been the reckless and the reckless have mainly taken the blame. There still haven't been any big crash and media case where it did something horribly wrong.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2..." ADD_DATE="1449501567" LAST_VISITED="0">Lock up your top-of-racks, says Cisco, theres a bug in the USB code â The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/P...
http://www.wired.com/threatlev...
http://www.zdnet.com.au/cisco-...
http://www.zdnet.com/cisco-fix...
http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
https://isc.sans.edu/forums/di...
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.c...
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.c...

APK

P.S.=> So much for your faith in routers alone stupid (225 in total, 15 posts with 15 items each)... apk

"Hoverboards" for one. Shit, possibly, but interesting shit nonetheless.

Sorry still dont' get what is so bad. It doesn't compel sharing. THe objection I read here:

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/c...

is that only info "known at the time it was shared to be innocent PI" must be stripped . This is supposedly some sort of gigantic loophole. Well it's a true fact (damn those!) that in a DDOS the vicitm has small chance of sorting out the innocent from the guilty, so they therefore can't share that information? Makes no sense.

The working assumption is the NSA will use this is some cynical manner to just grab everyone's data. People, the NSA already HAS everyone's data. All the times we connect, to where for how long etc etc etc. Ditto DHS and who knows who else whether you're behind a VPN or what (according to the bragging going on in leaked documents).. so.. they want more of what they already have? Seems to me this just highlights for them what to look at (which they already collected and had stuffed away somewhere). So no, I am not seeing the uptick in the privacy threat. But I stand to be corrected by anyone who knows better.

I just read an (old) article this morning about using gold and DNA to detect dark matter.

I'm not a physicist and really know nothing about the subject, but it would be interesting to know if the Chinese are attempting to detect dark matter using the aforementioned substances.

Article here.

Just like how the USA's no-fly list only contains the names of people who are too dangerous to allow on board airplanes, right? It's not like there could be a clerical error that takes years and multiple trials to get fixed due to nobody being willing to admit that they checked the wrong box on a form, after all.

You don't believe it? They also had a commercial where their CEO announced his social security number, and challenged anyone to try stealing his data

And LifeLock CEO Todd Davis (SSN on the freaking LifeLock ad graphic in the Wired article) had his identity stolen 13 times - for those that didn't know.

Boeing collects $13B in subsidies from taxpayer https://www.washingtonpost.com... http://america.aljazeera.com/o... http://www.cheatsheet.com/busi... then spies on taxpayer. http://heavy.com/tech/2014/11/... http://www.wired.com/2014/11/f... http://www.usnews.com/news/art... Not cool, Boeing.

If by may not be stellar, you mean something dragged from the deepest bowels of hell

Colourful, but devoid of information.

And who says government will be a monopoly?

It is obvious. Local governments already make life hell for would be ISPs. When those same towns start running their own little Internet-projects — paid for not by voluntary customers, but by captive taxpayers — they will shut off the competition completely.

Do spoilers *really* ruin a movie? Are you not entertained because someone told you about a piece of the story?

Yes... in storytelling, the mystery is part of the journey. Appropriately, you can read some of J.J.'s thoughts about the role of mystery, but I will attempt my own explanation here:

I can see a random collection of wookies, droids, and other space crap anytime I want but that's mere eye-candy: you don't create a coherent package of suspense, relief, grief, joy, etc. that way. Those emotions must be constructed in a particular order. You must get to know a character and their situation before you can care about them; you must care about them before you can feel intense suspense about their fate; you must have feel that they were imperiled before the absence of peril is cause for relief, and so forth. For instance, Rawling could have had Snape kill Dumbledore at the beginning of the series, instead of during book 6, but then you wouldn't have cared about Dumbledore's death (because he's simply a generic Gandalf archetype at that point), and you wouldn't have agonized over Snape's loyalties. The mid-series scenes of Snape being bullied as a student would have given us the satisfaction of preemptive justice, and we wouldn't have been able to share in Harry's introspective discomfort at learning that his father could be a real jerk. Sequence matters.

What about movies that do that whole backwards in time style that show the ending first?.... that is technically a spoiler, right? Yet it doesn't detract from the movie because it is out of context.

It's not a spoiler at all because the story is presented in the order constructed by the storyteller. Again, sequence matters (not necessarily chronological sequence). A good storyteller will use flash-forwards and flashbacks to construct the sequence which best accomplishes their goal as a writer/director. For instance, you could "sort" the scenes in Buffy so that all the flashbacks occur at the beginning of the series, but watching this would feel random, like reading a history book with every other paragraph blacked-out. When Buffy rejects Spike in the Bronze, our empathy for him is heightened because we were introduced to his tender background as a failed poet in the same episode; emotionally this is a double-whammy because we've been cornered into liking the bad guy and (momentarily) disliking the hero. Would we have even remembered the flashback had it been shown ~100 episodes earlier? You could also "sort" Memento so that it's big reveal comes in the center rather than at the end, but this straightforward version wouldn't capture the protagonist's confused, angsty state near as well.

All of that said, the flash-forward is often a crutch for bad writing: I always groan when a movie opens with a flash-forward showing some dramatic moment from the final conflict. That's a clue that the movie's about to dump 30 minutes of slow exposition/character-building in your lap because the screenwriter couldn't figure out how to pull you into the action immediately (other than by cherry-picking a scene from the end).

People still watch shows about WW II and we all know how that turned out.

Granted, but I'd argue that the screenwriters behind movies like The Great Escape and Downfall took this into account when figuring out how to build the story. Also, other WW2 movies (like Memoirs of a Geisha) use non-historical characters who ultimate fate isn't known to the audience in advance.

Found it: "Death wears bunny slippers". Patch is about half way down the article.

in the cable internet areana it's anything but a free market in the US right now

Thanks be to the local governments.

Allowing the townhalls to run Internet-service will not improve things — it will kill off, what little competition there is.

Ah, and your online behavior will be subject to the town's laws — written by the same folks, who set up speed-limits and school lunches.

quasi-monopolies we currently enjoy

So, you'd rather have the real monopoly of the townhall running Internet-services, than the quasi monopolies? Considering, it is the local governments, who are impeding Internet-service provision competition to begin with, your stance is not just foolish, it even seems malign.

when the people want to band together and do something

Such people form a private company. Whatever government does, is done poorly. Internet-service included — 15 years ago we were arguing on these very pages about the wonderful "municipal Wi-Fi"...

when is the last time a passenger jet design was constructed and flown by a "test pilot" to shake out the bugs and check for nasty handling behavior?

You are aware that there still are test pilots who fly prototype commercial jet prototypes and often even push the limits of what those vehicles can do. They test sub-systems for potential failure modes and do other things to "shake out the bugs and check for nasty handling behavior" under extreme conditions that likely would never actually happen on a routine flight.

Admittedly the engineers of these vehicles have a long history to draw from and they are doing mostly minor incremental changes with each new model that is being made, so those test pilots are usually not risking life and property during those test flights.

Such test flights are still a part of any aviation certification program and are required by the FAA before certification is granted for that model.

not done.

Yes, the US Department of Homeland Security, famous for having given guns to drug smugglers that kill US people http://www.washingtontimes.com... and have been leering at naked pictures of US airport travelers http://www.wired.com/2012/05/b... can't even stop weapons from going onboard http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/... now want to give us advice on cyber[sic]-security.

I'd rather take security advice from the seventeen year old kid next door. He is probably more up to date, in better shape mentally and physically, less corrupt, hasn't let any terrorists cross the border, armed them, or allowed them into airports. And finally, I KNOW he's actually made it through high-school.

Ehud

He's already mentioned exceptions in these two interviews.

Thank you! That was *exactly* the other case that I was referring to... when I preempted the claims that "this has already been tried in court" by pointing out that in both cases (Boucher and the one that I couldn't remember) the cleartext was already known to be incriminating.

Thanks for finding the other example that I couldn't remember. That is indeed the case that I was thinking of. As I recalled, and as the decision in question discusses the defendant had already provided information as to the contents of the drive in a prison phone call.

http://archive.wired.com/wired...
http://spectrum.ieee.org/biome...

Blaster bolts do not travel at the speed of light. Certain technical details aside, and pending revision from the "new canon" forthcoming, blasters fire charged particle bolts at sublight speeds estimated by frame analysis by the Mythbusters as averaging 130-135 MPH (roughly 60 m/s), although they inexplicably described blaster bolts as "lasers" despite no canonical or practical evidence.

Rhett Alain of Wired did a much finer study for his article "An Analysis of Blaster Fire in Star Wars" and found that while hand-fired blaster bolts in the movies range between 15 - 225 m/s, the vast majority average 15 m/s. Ship-mounted blasters are significantly faster, but virtually always travel at approximately 2,500 m/s.

Also, the Death Star had plenty of point defense on the surface, but not positioned well for the trenches (which it was reasonable to believe one would have to be insane to attempt to fly in), and at least 7,000 TIE fighters. The fighters were not deployed because the rebels attacked with so small of a force they weren't deemed a practical threat until it was too late.

People will just tend to drive more on the days they can drive, because the streets will be less crowded. It'll still be about the same amount of pollution.

The effect is similar to building better roads hoping to reduce congestion, it doesn't work: http://www.wired.com/2014/06/w..., http://www.perc.org/articles/s...

Many high-tech workers, however, do not take advantage of such benefits for fear of falling behind at work or missing out on promotions.

The final item in the summary and from TFA caught my attention. Reuters was absent of details on a study proving this statement. The best thing I could find was a a Harvard Business Review article here:
https://hbr.org/2015/11/3-ways-tech-companies-are-offering-parental-leave

Linking to a study here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

With highly questionable methods - age, gender, socio-economic background, etc. etc. bias anybody?

Volunteers (N = 371, 131 men) participated in exchange for partial fulfillment of their Introductory Psychology research requirement. Of these, 50% were White, 30% were Asian, 4% were Black, 6% were Hispanic, and 10% reported another ethnic identity. The design of the experiment was a 2 (target race: Black, White) × 4 (family leave condition: childcare, parental care, two controls) × 2 (participant gender) between-participants factorial. We used two control targets; one who asked a HR officer for more hours (rather than time off), and one who merely inquired about his employee benefits. We included the latter control condition because it was possible that asking for more hours would be viewed as particularly masculine (e.g., ambitious). However, preliminary analyses showed no significant differences between the two control groups; they were therefore collapsed.

If anybody can find other research surrounding this topic - I'd love to see it. The "best" article I could find was one from Wired:
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/t...

Effectively commenting its about the culture surrounding parental leave at a company - not the actual company policy itself. Netflix policy - unlimited vacation - but highly frowned upon if you take it. Where I'm at - if you have a child - we COVER YOU and there is NO penalty to your career for taking leave. The only email you send out better have pictures of your newborn - that's it. Anything else we'll frown at you for trying to work while you are on parental leave. Same goes for vacation.

Disclaimer: I work in a Tech Hub outside Silicon Valley. If this truly is representative of the culture of Silicon Valley, I really feel sorry for the folks working out there.

4) Unless you think Russia is somehow behind the paris attacks, there is nothing that ties Snowden with said attacks-- and even that is just supposition. (There is shit little Snowden has given Russia besides PR.)

I posted before, Assange advised Snowden to go to Russia, and ignore concerns about the “negative PR consequences” of sheltering in Russia because it was one of the few places in the world where the CIA’s influence did not reach.. Snowden himself, chose Latin America, but the consequences proved that Assange is right:
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/e...

The story, by Greg Miller, recounts daily meetings with senior officials from the FBI, CIA, and State Department, all desperately trying to come up with ways to capture Snowden. One official told Miller: “We were hoping he was going to be stupid enough to get on some kind of airplane, and then have an ally say: ‘You’re in our airspace. Land.’ ” He wasn’t. And since he disappeared into Russia, the US seems to have lost all trace of him.

Bolivian President Aircraft was forced to take off for searching Snowden.

Oops, I meant to say PS2 backwards compatibility, not PS3... http://www.wired.com/2015/11/p...

They get location, tech details about a call (unique ID numbers, traffic data), If needed voice prints, voice or message content, mapping or gov malware push down to allow a phone to be activated (live mic) or tracked.
"Turns Out Police Stingray Spy Tools Can Indeed Record Calls" (10.28.15)
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/s...
Why? Parallel construction. It gets around needing a warrant, taking to/entering details into any court system or having any telco database knowing who is been looked at.
Both court systems and telco databases can be seen by *many* different people as a sensitive case is been investigated.

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/i... is a great read and it reminded me that I still have some power as a humble user. It also reminded me how much time I must've spent over the years "debugging" Ad Blockers. It's far better to do wthout them if you can. I run 3 web browsers on my Mac. One of them (guess which it is), I run with Javascript turned off. It's fast and clean. I can always turn JS back on if I really need to for a particular web site. Alternatively I can simply switch to another browser with JS turned on if I want to handle it that way.

I seem to recall they asked "is this in your password?" (Or similar.) Then they monitored the output. Then they put the password together. "Is this the first letter of your password?" I think they mentioned something along the lines of being able to narrow it down even further. I did a quick search and I'm not able to recall or find where the article is but I'm pretty sure it was on this site and I think that's what the AC was referring to. I've no idea how accurate the findings were or nor if it is in use anywhere. I am also thinking it might have been with an MRI.

I did find this:
http://www.wired.com/2012/08/b...

That mentions use of an EEG. I could have sworn it was refined and using either a CT or MRI scan??? However, that article is about the right time-frame, so that may be it it it may have just been conjecture, in the other article, about what the future could hold?

It is produced in raw form as a byproduct of coal production and is so cheap that it is used in lithium batteries that are bought in the store and thrown away after a single use.

Unlike many of the rare earth materials necessary for battery and solar panel manufacture, iron pyrite is (at present) quite plentiful and easily available.

That is kind of funny, because Bitcoins are incredibly easy to trace. Many things are being broken up by the ability to trace bitcoin. The blockchain keeps track of every transaction, so if I record the bitcoin ID, and transfer you the bitcoin, it can be tracked through every transaction to where you finally pull out the money, where it becomes obvious who owns the wallet by the account that receives the money.

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/p...

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/21...

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.co...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/an...

They pretty much have to be a hacker to access a tractor these days.