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The important detail missing is that the couple wasn't searching for bombs. It appears the police added the word "bombs" to cover up their amateur-hour faux pas so that an investigation sounds reasonable.

That doesn't appear to be correct according to the fine article:

The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms ‘pressure cooker bombs’ and ‘backpacks.’

I like a hate-on against the budding police state as much as the next Slashdotter, and for all I know, they could very well be monitoring your Google searches, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.

According to Wired, it was actually a former employer that reported the searches to the police after finding them on the man's computer. It's not at all surprising to find that private employer is looking through and monitoring their *own* systems.

Too bad this comment will probably go unread and unmodded amongst the 600+ or so at the time of this posting.

Thinking about http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/07/3d-printed-aston-martin/
I wonder how small the 3d scanning tech could go?
Could a fake bulky dslr battery pack fit a 3d scanner under a camera?
Bring a tethered laptop and a friend for the day at the show and scan away?

The "visit" was from the Suffolk County Police Department, NOT from the Feds. This is the statement released by that Police Department:

Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence Detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms ‘pressure cooker bombs’ and ‘backpacks.’

After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject’s home to ask about the suspicious internet searches. The incident was investigated by Suffolk County Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Detectives and was determined to be non-criminal in nature.

If the police indeed had direct access to the Google searches then it's bad regardless of whether it's a local or Federal LEA. But if what the SCPD is saying is true, then there is really nothing to see here, as all espionage was done by the employer and that is probably even legal.

I don't know if I believe them or not, although the Google snooping does seem a little too sophisticated for a local PD.

0111 its getting interesting:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/30/govt-knows-best-white-house-creates-nudge-squad-to-shape-behavior/
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-domestic-propaganda-officially-aired-2013-7
Also recall the classic http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
If all that fails:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/

I really did - until I caught wind of that xKeyScore deal going on too!

Man... that did it for me, don't know about the rest of you guys.

* :(

(Yes - I openly "shot my mouth off" MORE than a few times here, & I am NOT "hiding behind" any handle/nickname either etc.-et al... imo, probably risky to do, but I am a HUGE FAN of truth, & those guys weren't telling it!)

I don't understand them - I really don't:

They're given this GIGANTIC position of trust by the people, & they're outright telling us bullshit about "DIRECT" intercepts (when Narus devices + discrete math directed graphs pretty much tell them what-is-what ANYHOW... then that xKeyScore deal came out today too, completely making me realize that what I've been spewing here all week was correct, that "absolute power, corrupts absolutely").

Someone PLEASE, convince me otherwise! I would like that, since we're THE greatest nation on this planet, that proves the planet CAN live as one nation, achieving levels of excellence that are unparalleled in history!

(I mean, hey: For Pete's sake - This crap's right up there with when you find out your woman's screwing around on you - you DON'T want to believe it, even when it's staring you in the face!)

---

1.) Clapper & Alexander outright LIED to congress (twisting words using DIRECTLY! Well, might as well be, using directed multigraph discrete math work & NARUS devices set @ the "choke point" nexus of communique.

2.) Just like how they CLAIM there is no easy CENTRAL way to query their own mail but they do it to everyone else - I found that hilarious & disgusting, since mail is really DBMail and to select/insert/update/delete into those, you NEED to have abilities for that... What they told us, unless someone can show me otherwise, is total bullshit. Hypocritical bullshit). I.E.-> We can do it to you, but nobody can to us @ the NSA... that's bullshit.

3.) Screwing with protesters was from the FEEBS http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy [guardian.co.uk]

4.) The IRS used against political opponents of the current regime in office http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal [wikipedia.org] & got caught - nobody lost their job.

Same with Clapper & Alexander... WTF!

Heck, they lied to Congress, nothing was done. The head of the IRS didn't lose her job either. I suspect that Clapper, Alexander, & the IRS head told Obama "Pal, you fire me? I will let the dogs out on the FACT you gave ME THE 'GO-AHEAD' to do these things and I will take you down with me. Try it!". That's how "politicians" operate. Thuggery, bribery, etc.!

Then - again: Out came xKeyScore! So much for not "directly" tapping us!

---

This guy had it RIGHT, as far back as 1997 imo:

Why shouldn't I work for the NSA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw

Prophetic... what's below is as well.

APK

P.S.=> Why was I so "bent outta shape"? This: I was told decades ago by a history professor of mine in collegiate academia this:

"Totalitarian regimes start with 'little laws' they pass, getting an inch, & reaching for a mile: Before you know it, you are Nazi Germany/Soviet Russia USA: DO NOT THINK IT CANNOT HAPPEN HERE" & what's going on fits that pattern, & imo @ least, the "ROI" on it being effective vs. "terrorists" is FAR OUTWEIGHED by the potential for misuse (especially by "mortal men").

and

Then this http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/money-nsa-vote/ (the "infamous they" say "talk is cheap"? Not when it's OUR tax monies in the BILLIONS it isn't & when it's clearly being used against us)...

... apk

Forget the masturbatory self-congratulation that is this report. They almost certainly have something to hide. A reporter at Wired submitted a FOIA request for Aaron's Secret Service file. A judge OKed the release of the file but then MIT intervened to block the release!

See http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/mit-swartz-intervene/all/1

Supposedly, it is _extremely_ rare for non-governmental entities to block FOIA requests. There must be something in there that MIT doesn't want to see the light of day.

It could easily be the name of the secretary that processed the relevant paperwork. The main legitimate reason to deny a FOIA request is if the documents make reference to someone who is still alive who might face danger or harassment if their name is released.

BRIBERY = ETHICAL http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/money-nsa-vote/ & lobbyist = synonymous with bribery no questions asked. Makes me laugh how "terms" are assigned to 'soften the blow' on things. (It's why I posted in your "funny +4" rated thread, because that, is truly 'funny' - So funny it brings tears to my eyes & not a a good way. Give 'em an inch, they're reaching for a mile. Before you know it, breathing will be a crime). I'm also honestly surprised nobody has submitted this as news to /.'s submissions page (I can't - ac poster, or not as easily as you registered user people can afaik).

Forget the masturbatory self-congratulation that is this report. They almost certainly have something to hide. A reporter at Wired submitted a FOIA request for Aaron's Secret Service file. A judge OKed the release of the file but then MIT intervened to block the release!

See http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/mit-swartz-intervene/all/1

Supposedly, it is _extremely_ rare for non-governmental entities to block FOIA requests. There must be something in there that MIT doesn't want to see the light of day.

I'm thinking 5-10 years.

I hope he gets 'time served' which is already 4+ years IIRC (could be 3). They kept him naked in a cell for months...it's legal but it's pushing 'cruel and unusual' IMHO...he's suffered enough. Justice is not furthered by keeping him locked up any more.

Now you mention Assange and GP mentioned Snowden....

I think the Snowden comparison is more apt. Both had involvement with Assange at some level, it was only as a channel to leak the info.

What sets Snowden and Manning apart are their methods and the motives behind them. Both were mid-level (at best) functionaries with **high level** access and their conscience dictated they had to act somehow. They're both a bit 'angst-y'...kind of in the 'it's all bullshit' camp.

The difference is, Manning was gay and being discriminated against by the military. Snowden didn't have a central personal grievance.

We see that difference play out in how they attempted to release the info. Snowden **could** have leaked anonymously but he didn't, IMHO b/c of malignant narcissism. There's an established way to leak info to the press anonymously and he did it the egotistical way.

By contrast, Manning tried to release anonymously, but the Wikileaks que for processing raw incoming data was taking too long and he didn't know if his submission was being read (b/c if it had been they should have gotten back with him or released it somehow or something...)...it's all in the Manning/Lamo chat logs

He only contacted Lamo (who was an informant/operative...he snitched at best) b/c he thought Lamo could get him direct access to Assange.

I say let Manning out and throw Snowden in his cell.

That's also what I would think Julian Assange would get if the Federal Government got their hands on him.

Probably. Maybe less. See, Manning and Assange and Snowden...their leaks harm the US government, but the real enemy is **illegal actors** within the government.

The CIA is an empty vessel. An organization with a legal purpose. Beuracratic inefficiencies aside, theoretically in a democracy if the people allow and it is legal then it has a right to exist.

It's when **people** within an org like the CIA use their position for criminal activity...OR when the **leaders** above the CIA as an entity use it as an arm for their **own** illegal activity...same thing...one feeds into the other...

So it's the Military/Industrial/Illuminati Complex that is, IMHO, working over Assange.

If oil interests infiltrate a government and use its military (while engaged in legit military actions) to **also** help their business interests by securing a supply chain...and in that course laws are broken, who is to blame???

For me I can put *some* blame on a system that bueracratically screwed up self-policing it's own policies...but the main share of the blame is not the entity, but the **people** who MAKE THE DECISIONS...

So Assange's enemy is not, in the end, the US government...it's the people who USE that government to further their own illegal interests.

Yes, you rightly may point out that the US would arrest Assange immediately if they could. I won't disagree...my point is that **people want leaks** and that includes the **good people** in government.

There is a way to leak information that **exposes illegal activity** even if it is from the most powerful government in the world, that does not result in the leaker in prison.

Assange, Manning, and Snowden all should have taken notice from Deep Throat and the leakers of the Pentagon Papers...all of whom enjoyed privacy and long careers.

See subject & this -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/ + REALITY-> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/money-nsa-vote/ & the "rigged/bribed vote" to defund the NSA being defeated (by 7 votes... ) - NOW: What I've always wondered is WHY taxpayers aren't allowed to direct their money to programs THEY SEE FIT TOO? After all - it's our money! Why? Shit... see above. , & before he, JFK on "Secret Societies".

Take a read (anyone surprised? I'm not) -> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/money-nsa-vote/ since we truly DO have "the best politicians money can TRULY buy".

The real truth of the matter is that you can't fit a terabyte onto something the size of a fingernail. Even if you could, you would never be able to afford it.

Let's hop a time machine back to 2009. Oh look: Terabytes of storage on something smaller than a fingernail being prototyped. In other news, the microSD working group updated their specifications to include 2 TB storage in that form-factor. That same year, someone got the idea to stitch a bunch of microSD cards together to create a 1 TB drive that would fit on a finger. And earlier this year, Kingston released a 1 TB thumb drive, which is, as you might expect, the side of your thumb.

So the 'real truth' of the matter is that this technology is only a few years away. And by the looks of things, it won't just be affordable: It'll be competitively priced with current solutions.

So I will ask the question again: Why are we continuing to invest in a technology that's many times that size and many fractions of that in terms of storage capacity by volume, dimensions, mass, or any other unit of measurement you care to throw out there? The answer is obvious: DRM. Optical media has been the medium of choice for DRM schemes since the first CD was released. That's its only relevance in the marketplace today.

The technology we have today greatly exceeds optical media storage, and there's been no breakthroughs in optics that suggest it can ever match solid state media for information density. It's dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. So what if I can't fit a terabyte on my fingernail right now, that it has to be the size of my thumb instead? That's still a helluva better than this latest optical media format! And it's available now.

According to Wired.com "[I]f you’re running it in a browser, Amazon Instant video, Hulu, Rdio, and HBO Go all just work. As did video from Wired, Gawker media, and Flickr slideshows." I have a Roku and love it, but I also have Comcast. That means, in its infinite retardery, I can not watch HBO Go on my Roku. If this really does work as well as Wired says it does, I can watch it through the Chromecast Chrome browser, making my Roku a paperweight.

Roku only makes sense if you're a Time Warner Cable customer and you buy one the nicest Roku models, which of course makes holding onto your first-gen/second-gen Roku (for who knows how long) a no-no becuase these don't support Time Warner Cable's app. Having a Roku is a must in most newer Time Warner Cable markets (such as Louisville KY, where I live) because the ability to offer more HD channels than what you'd get through the cable box.

I wonder if an IR LED baseball cap would over-expose and foil retina cameras? I don't remember the time frame but there was a Slashdot article (IIRC) in the last year or so that cited a study that showed that our retina patterns change over time. Polarized wrap-around glasses would take care of that and might also fox facial recognition cameras.

Of course, this is only one metric that can be used for tracking. This ByteLight thing where the LEDs interact with your phone's camera requires an app, so it's not a passive biometric that requires foxing. If you don't load and run the app, you don't get the messages that say X is on sale. http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2013/01/bytelight-indoor-mapping/

Little details always mess numbers

When you can buy a full-featured Roku 3 for only $100, I don't really get it either.

According to Wired.com "[I]f you’re running it in a browser, Amazon Instant video, Hulu, Rdio, and HBO Go all just work. As did video from Wired, Gawker media, and Flickr slideshows." I have a Roku and love it, but I also have Comcast. That means, in its infinite retardery, I can not watch HBO Go on my Roku. If this really does work as well as Wired says it does, I can watch it through the Chromecast Chrome browser, making my Roku a paperweight.

Wrong. OCR still can't defeat reCAPTCHA - however depending on the prize there's a multitude of other ways to do it which do not involve OCR including low paid workers in third world countries being served the captcha and solving it for the automated algorithm, or in the case of Ticketmaster, where the prizes were monetarily substantial, a group of miscreants going to the trouble of databasing just about every Captcha solution they could find. One group also was able to p0wn the audio version of reCAPTCHA for a while until it was upgraded. Another group has claimed they use OCR to defeat reCAPTCHA, but have never proven that to be the case and if they can, why not prove it?

Citations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReCAPTCHA
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/wiseguys-plead-guilty/

From Wired's Dongle Style review:

Yes, you can play local video. At least some of it. A not-strictly-speaking legitimate copy of Black Mirror in MKV file format played magnificently on our television when we dropped it in a Chrome browser window.

Likewise, if you’re running it in a browser, Amazon Instant video, Hulu, Rdio, and HBO Go all just work. As did video from Wired, Gawker media, and Flickr slideshows. We ran photos from Facebook fullscreen. We watched a live Flash stream of a Braves game on an extremely shady bootleg site that spawned approximately a gazillion Chrome windows in the background.

Good luck getting one though.

Hardware USB, SATA, HDMI, WIFI 802.11 standards Software OpenGL ES, JAVA, HTML5

exFAT file system driver liberated from Microsoft

"A student and programmer using the name “rxrz” has posted a large chunk of a proprietary Microsoft file-system software to GitHub, claiming that she’s liberating it for the open source world. She says that the software was leaked from Samsung,

Rxrz became interested in exFAT while trying to scratch an itch. “Basically, I just got one of those large 2TB external hard drives, and needed to share the data with my friends and family,” rxrz said in an e-mail interview. She was using Linux, but needed to share data with people on other platforms, so she decided to try to fix it. “I just felt that more people who use Linux end up in the same unfair situation all over the planet, and just don’t know that there’s a source for this driver on GitGub,” she says. “The more I have read about exFAT, the worse I felt about this whole ‘proprietary’ story.”

Microsoft’s exFAT licensing terms rankle some open-source advocates, like rxrz, who say they’re overly burdensome. “All I’ve done is given the community of open source developers and linux/android users a way to finally share data between all major OS’s without any excessive impact on the performance,” she wrote on GitHub."

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/07/samsung_code/

TFA asserts otherwise. Apparently onstar and integrated infotainment systems can obtain same access to CAN bus access as the OBD port.

Onstar can do many things to your car outside your control. Remember when they were bragging about how they could disable your car if someone stole it? It worked by disabling the throttle, forcing the vehicle to idle, so the perp would pull over to the side of the road. My guess is that if they can do that, they can controll a whole lot more. They can remote diagnose car issues, so that means they access things like timing, engine temps, vacuum lines, no doubt much more. And if they can read them? Who knows?

And you don't even need to subscribe! http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/gm-includes-free-remote-start-on-2014-models-060713.html

How about that? They can start your car remotely. Umm, that means they can stop it remotely.

How about this? They track you for free, and sell the data. Of course you are anonymized. Until you aren't.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/onstar-tracks-you/

The 'etch-a-sketch' drawing is from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Conceptual Site plan, you fucking moron.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1

OK, He Didn’t Cause Hurricane Katrina. But He Is Guilty of Fraud. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/haarp-fraud/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas gets you started

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/interactive-web-patent and from the last paragraph,
Those companies include: Apple, Argosy Publishing, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, JP Morgan Chase, New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises International, Rent-A-Center, Sun Microsystems (bought by Oracle while this litigation was underway), and Texas Instruments.

http://www.law360.com/articles/146435/argosy-first-to-settle-with-eolas-in-web-patent-suit has what I would guess to be an informative article but it's behind a paywall.

For the amounts of settlements, good luck. Many if not most entities settling out of court do not, or are enjoined so can't, divulge amounts. Often one has to go on rumor, "unidentified sources" and the like. But do look at the names of the companies who settled; most have fairly deep pockets even on small margin.

They did release a browser. they did offer licensing.

Right after another browser had been released, two years prior, incorporating the very same elements Eolas patented. What the inventor of this prior browser freely gave to the world (he declined to patent it), Eolas tried to keep for themselves by patenting it.

Lets talk about specific facts instead of hand-wavy personal feelings.There was prior art.

One piece of prior art in particular, the Viola browser, invented by Perry Pei-Yuan Wei, an artist, software engineer and then a student at the University of California at Berkeley. That browser dates back to 1991 and its plug-in capabilities to 1992, nearly two years before Eolas filed for its patent.

Since you are referring to the state of the internet at that time, lets hear from Tim Berners-Lee himself how it was like :-

Berners-Lee described Viola as “an important part of the development of the web.”

The jury was shown an e-mail from Pei Wei to Berners-Lee dated December 1991 — almost two years before Doyle’s invention — which read in part: “One thing I’d like to do soon, if I have time, is to teach the parser about Viola object descriptions and basically embed Viola objects (GUIs and programmability) into HTML files.”

Later Tuesday, Wei would testify that he had demonstrated interactive elements working in the Viola browser to Sun Microsystems in May 1993 — several months before Doyle claims to have come up with his invention.

Berners-Lee described how the web community at that time wasn’t focused on patents or even money — Wei simply put his invention online for free.

If you read the decision of the US Federal Court of Appeal, it is clear that Eolas was aware of the invention of Viola because Pei Wei himself told them on 31 August 1994. Eolas went to Pei Wei's website and downloaded and read his paper. They went ahead anyway and filed their patent on 17 October 1994.

As for whether or not the Eolas patent was obvious, it was so obvious it was even mentioned in the 1991 letter to Berners-Lee.

So. If you rush to patent something obvious that was already shown by someone else, so that you can use the patent to sue large numbers of companies for money, what are you called?

Personally I think over regulation is the problem. Wired agrees:

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/

Google (or somebody like them) would be more likely to come if it weren't so hard to.

Completely wrong. Even if all the regulations were changed, even if they were completely eliminated, we would still be in the same situation we are today. The person who wrote that article demonstrates that they have no understanding of the issue when they say:

Deploying broadband infrastructure isn’t as simple as merely laying wires underground: that’s the easy part.

Running wire to every home in the country is difficult, expensive (even without all the regulations) and very time consuming. That's why Verizon abandoned their rollout of fiber and why Google will do the same after they connect a couple of cities.

Running all new wiring is a waste of time and money when we already have the infrastructure in place to give people decent speed. If I wanted, I could get 50Mbps from my local cable company. It's not fiber speed but its fast enough for me - and most everyone else. But it's ridiculously expensive, and, it's rendered worthless by monthly bandwidth caps. We know what the problem is -- lack of competition. But having a dozen different companies all running their own wires all over the place is neither practical nor desirable.

We've already wired the entire country. Twice. Running more wires is not the answer. Until we break the broadband monopoly and force the existing companies to open up their networks this problem will remain and everyone reading Slashdot today will be dead and gone long before Google or anyone else wires the entire country with fiber.

Personally I think over regulation is the problem. Wired agrees:

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/

Google (or somebody like them) would be more likely to come if it weren't so hard to.

Well . . . the police purchased all of these weapons and armor so in case there was an emergency they would be prepared. It would be a shame if there was not an emergency and the equipment was wasting away at police headquarters. I guess they need to generate some emergencies so they can use that stuff.

In a lot of cases they're getting the stuff for free

I live close to the new NSA data center in Bluffdale, Utah. Currently we are under a drought with widespread municipal water restrictions, yet the NSA surveillance center requires 1.7M gallons of water daily to operate.

Water rationing guarantees more cheap water for big industry. Power rationing guarantees that big industry does not need to produce more energy for the same rates. Let's not get into recycling. All these things are taken to the extreme, making normal people's lives harder, and rich people's easier. Don't take more than you need, but never feel guilted into taking less.

I live close to the new NSA data center in Bluffdale, Utah. Currently we are under a drought with widespread municipal water restrictions, yet the NSA surveillance center requires 1.7M gallons of water daily to operate.

You're both wrong. Google is the government.

All this banter about the NSA = bad or Echelon = bad or the requirement of warrant is entirely missing the point. The truth is that this fundamental lack of privacy is guaranteed to happen. We live in an era when recording data is so cheap and so easy that it's happening accidentally, automatically, as a daily part of living life. Last time I had contact with the police, my phone recorded the entire thing from my pocket. Audio quality was quite good, too. With 32 GB of space on my phone, I could literally record my entire day, every day, and keep days worth of audio on hand in case something "interesting" happened. Oops! What happened to the privacy of those around me?

But, the problem isn't the computers recording your every move, it's the secrecy with which it's being done and the lack of accountability that secrecy gives rise to.

This was predicted years and years ago and the brilliant, understandable answer to avoid abuse is simple: transparency .

I don't think that cops should have the option of wearing cameras; I think that no arrest should ever be done without them, and simply lacking the arrest footage should be enough to dismiss the case. Any and all public places should be open to be recorded without further notice. And all recordings of public places or of public officers in the performance of their duties should also be public. (with an appropriate time delay)

Some areas are already experimenting with these ideas and the result is nearly 90% reduction in police misconduct complaints. The privacy of our actions is far less important than the abuse of the information collected.

Oil can be used to make electricity. So can coal, natural gas, sunlight, biomass, flowing water, and wind. When was the last time you saw a wind powered car driving down the road (though this one is pretty neat). Or a coal powered car? Nuclear powered? We do have natural gas powered vehicles, but how difficult would it be for you to use it in your car? We have a glut in natural gas right now, and it provides about 30% of our power. So, those Tesla owners are (on average) powering 30% of their car on natural gas (made in the USA), and the rest on coal, nuclear, or the others I mentioned above (all made in the USA). So, you go ahead and keep financing terrorists and the countries that support them by propping up oil prices. And you can also keep threatening our national security by keeping us reliant on other countries for our energy. I will get an electric car. And I will be confident in my ability to use it regardless of who we go to war with because it uses the most flexible fuel source... all of them.

Before megaupload was raided, they were fighting a false DMCA claim against Universal. Now, because of the raid the case is over.

Re your link to the 2006 "It’s Legal - The solid legal basis for the administration's surveillance program"
The joys of “inherent authority” for accepted foreign vs domestic intelligence thats drifts in as warrantless searches seem to be back in the news again.
It is no longer 2006 or 2008 and the ability to pull another "state secrets" defense wrt spying in American will be legal fun.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/state-secrets-defense/
The US could go for a legal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora solution with some new domestic cover via rubber stamped case-by-case “special needs” efforts. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/in-secret-court-vastly-broadens-powers-of-nsa.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Not really, that's a lovely media graphic and all, but the proper placement of the batteries is shown here, here and here

Anyhow, the batteries are kept below the passenger compartment, and the damage appears to be along the top of the fuselage (just in front of the vertical stabiliser) - I can see no visible visible damage around the area of the aft batteries.

Footage of starboard side
Footage of port side

We seem to be moving to a merger of corporate and government security.
The private sector seems to be in the news wrt cybersecurity in the past few days.
A new view on cyber offense http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/?p=110420-ga
Terms like network hygiene http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/28/us-army-blocks-guardian-website-access.
The internet seems to be taking on a whole new role wrt to security from the desktop to corporate to the role of media.
The fun of "citation needed" to many of the bigger questions around private contractors just to 'look after' as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A seem to have become more clear to many people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora

Here's one example. There was a leaker in 2005, too, who was also charged with espionage. Remember Thomas Drake?.

I certainly don't, and I had been paying attention back then. In 8 years we probably won't remember Snowden's name either. The US populace is even less well informed (or willfully ignorant), so you can bet that around 2020 there will be another leaker telling us shocking things about how the NSA has a running log of everybody's Google Glass feed.

Here's one example. There was a leaker in 2005, too, who was also charged with espionage. Remember Thomas Drake?.

I certainly don't, and I had been paying attention back then. In 8 years we probably won't remember Snowden's name either. The US populace is even less well informed (or willfully ignorant), so you can bet that around 2020 there will be another leaker telling us shocking things about how the NSA has a running log of everybody's Google Glass feed.

Here's one example. There was a leaker in 2005, too, who was also charged with espionage. Remember Thomas Drake?.

Here's one example. There was a leaker in 2005, too, who was also charged with espionage. Remember Thomas Drake?.

Apparently you're very ignorant of the prominence this book has. It is considered one of the greatest sci-fi/fantasy books of all time.

NPR (National Public Radio) has it on their top 100 list of all time at 3rd. : http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books

Same at Amazon : http://www.amazon.com/Best-Science-Fiction-Novels-Time/lm/RIBUB5MTVYA03

Tied for 2nd for sci-fi at Wired: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/12/and-the-winner-is-readers-choice-for-top-10-science-fiction-novel/

Pick a list for sci-fi/fantasy and you will find it no lower than 5 or so all-time.

Any real sc-ifi enthusiast that has ventured beyond the "quality" offered by Hollywood there is absolutely no denying Ender's Game is not just mainstream, but in fact among the elite. The sci-fi public very much loves Ender's Game. Chik-Fil-A ranks ~10th among the fast food public behind fine establishments like Dunkin Donuts and Pizza Hut. And yet the very act of attempting a boycott of Chik-Fil-A to punish them for the same political position was a spectacular backfire, generating record sales.

In cases like this it appears to me to be less about defending the political position of the boycott target, and more about defending the right of a business owner, or business itself, to HAVE a political position and the right to defend it. No one likes having other people's position forcibly shoved down their throat. It's good to know that when they see it happening to others they demonstrate their distaste.

You could point to exactly the same effect in the protests levied against JC Penny's for hiring Ellen DeGeneres (a married gay woman) as a spokesperson. (http://jezebel.com/5909347/homophobic-protest--from-one-million-moms-actually-boosting-jc-penney-sales)

It is, of course, a difficult subject to study – since the super-rich have no interest in putting themselves under the public microscope. There have been indirect attempts, however, for instance: Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior" (see popular accounts if you don't have PNAS access).

As to the all-too-familiar cries of "conspiracy theory! conspiracy theory!" – you ought to find a less tired and trite means of arbitrarily forcing closure on discussion. Considering 'conspiracy theories' have routinely been borne out in history (e.g., COINTELPRO, Iran-Contra, and oh let's see - warrantless blanket surveillance?), the knee-jerk reaction that conspiracy theories are inherently ridiculous is itself a tremendous ideological victory.

The irony is that people who cry "conspiracy theory!" are actually proposing something much more ridiculous: That the very small collection of men who own and control most of the world do not meet and discuss their interests behind closed doors, and do not leverage their tremendous wealth and power to further their personal interests. That the consistent policies of governments from every stripe over decades and decades to extend corporate power and the preeminence of property rights above all other rights (including national sovereignty, in the case of free trade agreements) has somehow been a coincidence – with no influence from the power holders who benefit from these decisions.

Truly the reactionaries and nay-sayers propose the wildest theories of all...

had little time on the 777 (though he had 10,000 hours overall)

Correct. He has 10000 hours in other planes (inc 747) and he'll have thousands of hours in a simulator and have passed the 777 exams in said simulator, but he only had 48 hours in the real thing. Inescapable fact - everyone has to do something the first time. The modern simulators are now so close to the real thing there should be no difference though. Hell the parts from the simulator can be used as spares for the real thing, that's how similar they are!

The other pilot had over 1000 hours on the 777 and 12000 hours total. He also had all the same controls... even if the pilot's lack of experience was an issue the copilot should have spotted the issue in plenty of time. The problem was their approach speed was dropping far too quickly and they didn't try increasing it until it was too late

We'll have to wait for the investigation to see the full facts of why that happened.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/muscovy-duck-sex/

One wonders: was Todd Akin extrapolating from his experiences to the females of human species?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/muscovy-duck-sex/

Secondly, how do you know that every warrant is granted? Do you have proof of that? If so, I would like to see that.

It's stated in a report from the Justice Department, released by Harry Reid.

And just because you say that is the case, does not make it so.

Back at you, with your "well there are safeguards and rules, they're secret, but they work." Because you say it is the case? I think there is ample reason not to trust those statements, considering the credibility of those such as Clapper and Pence, and other reasons, as I have pointed out.

Or are you trying to claim that we do not know if they are doing their job?

Of course we don't, and they claim they need privacy, not transparency. That's suspicious right there, and from a group that has a history of using secrecy to hide abuses.

Keep in mind that we do not want to tell those legitimate targets that we are looking in, that we are doing this.

What targets? Is that secret too? All Mike Pence says is that they are "bad guys." To me, the bad guys are mainly right there in the building where Mike Pence works. I think Mike Pence is talking about US Citizens, that seems to be the target. Irregardless of who they are trying to catch, the end does not justify the means. They claim to be "protecting the American people," but when they do that by lying, and hiding secrets, I doubt their sincerity. Besides, their sworn duty is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, first and foremost. Claiming it's okay to violate the Constitution for "public safety" is, itself, Treason.

im going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet

Well, there you go.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/10/flywheel-hybrid-system-for-premium-vehicles/

There are flywheel systems that are purely mechanical and don't use electricity for transmission or storage of energy at all.

2. What is the point of having a contest if you're not going to pick the winner?
They should not hold a naming contest if they're just going to pick the names they want anyway.

The IAU makes these decisions.

Showalter's contest was no more than a publicity stunt. That said, the rules were clear.

For two weeks in February, anyone with a computer could vote for their favorite names, or suggest ideas of their own. The caveats: Names needed to represent characters bearing more than just a passing relation to Pluto, the Greek god of the underworld, and must not have already been bestowed upon a celestial solar system object.

The People Have Spoken, and Pluto's Tiny Moons Have Names

Vulcan --- Hephaestus --- god of fire and forge, fails on both counts.