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Because, as the news keeps reminding us, it's a scary world out there. Drug-Resistent Gonorrha If you need me, I'll be in my parents' basement.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/speciation-in-action/

There you go. Now you can admit you were wrong and we can all move on.

Reminds me of Judge Jackson in United_States vs. Microsoft. He got so pissed at Microsoft's behavior in court that he said some rather unfriendly things about the company in interviews (see http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/02/42071).

Which was probably not so smart and might have contributed to his verdict (breaking up Microsoft) being overturned on appeal.
I always wondered why he did not keep his mouth shut and sanction Microsoft's legal team instead. They did some things that might have counted as perjury, such as presenting a faked video as evidence.

• Sneak and Peek: https://ssd.eff.org/your-computer/govt/sneak-and-peek
• Stop and Frisk http://www.nyclu.org/stopandfrisk
• Warrantless Wiretapping http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/07/federal-appeals-court-says-warrantless-wiretapping-is-legal/
• License Plate Readers http://www.policeone.com/police-products/traffic-enforcement/license-plate-readers/
• Civil Seizure http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20091112/METRO/911120388
• Forfeit without Trial http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/megaupload-judge-recusal/
• Extraordinary Rendition http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/rendition701/
• Assassination without trial http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/middleeast/secret-us-memo-made-legal-case-to-kill-a-citizen.html?pagewanted=all

Many people are laughing all the way to the morgue.

If they wish to arrest him -- then issue an arrest warrant.

Where have you been the last two years? They did issue an arrest warrant.
And after a court circus, the UK agreed to extradite him. That's exactly why he jumped bail and went to the Ecuadorian embassy in the days between losing his appeal and his actual extradition.

He's a fugitive according to UK law, and has an arrest warrent in Sweden. What more do you want them to do to get him to face his charges? Have the people who posted his bail and who he swindled by jumping it press charges and get him extradited from Ecuador?

Who do you think you are writing such a thing? An appellate court judge?

Judge John M. Rogers wrote for the majority: (.pdf)

        If a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal. The law cannot be that a criminal is entitled to rely on the expected untrackability of his tools. Otherwise, dogs could not be used to track a fugitive if the fugitive did not know that the dog hounds had his scent. A getaway car could not be identified and followed based on the license plate number if the driver reasonably thought he had gotten away unseen. The recent nature of cell phone location technology does not change this. If it did, then technology would help criminals but not the police.

Oops! Sorry your Honor, my bad.

...is here

In the U.S., the 5th Amendment prevents someone from being required to turn over their password.

This is still unsettled. The 11th Circuit Court has ruled that passwords are protected under the 5th amendment. However the 10th Circuit has chosen not to intervene in a lower court decision that forced a woman to decrypt her laptop.

This is going to have to go to the Supreme Court eventually, and I think you can guess how the fascist majority of justices will decide.

On technology and civil liberties issues, Ryan has generally voted along party lines. Ryan opposed net neutrality bills; voted to extend the Patriot Act’s roving wiretaps and to immunize telecom companies from legal liabilities for cooperating with warrantless government surveillance. He co-sponsored a ban on internet taxes. Ryan initially approved of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which WIRED editorialized would “usher in a chilling internet censorship regime,” but backed down in the face of a pressure campaign from the internet-freedom supporters. Activists on Reddit cheered Ryan’s reversal on SOPA — and appear to have reactivated the Ryan thread now that Romney has tapped him to be vice president.

Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/paul-ryan-vp/

Voted YES on terminating funding for National Public Radio.
Voted YES on retroactive immunity for telecoms' warrantless surveillance.
Voted NO on establishing "network neutrality" (non-tiered Internet).
Voted YES on increasing fines for indecent broadcasting.
Voted YES on promoting commercial human space flight industry.
Voted YES on banning Internet gambling by credit card.
Voted YES on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access.
Ryan co-sponsored permanently banning state & local taxation of Internet access
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Paul_Ryan_technology.htm

On technology and civil liberties issues, Ryan has generally voted along party lines. Ryan opposed net neutrality bills; voted to extend the Patriot Act’s roving wiretaps and to immunize telecom companies from legal liabilities for cooperating with warrantless government surveillance. He co-sponsored a ban on internet taxes. Ryan initially approved of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which WIRED editorialized would “usher in a chilling internet censorship regime,” but backed down in the face of a pressure campaign from the internet-freedom supporters. Activists on Reddit cheered Ryan’s reversal on SOPA — and appear to have reactivated the Ryan thread now that Romney has tapped him to be vice president.

Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/paul-ryan-vp/

Voted YES on terminating funding for National Public Radio.
Voted YES on retroactive immunity for telecoms' warrantless surveillance.
Voted NO on establishing "network neutrality" (non-tiered Internet).
Voted YES on increasing fines for indecent broadcasting.
Voted YES on promoting commercial human space flight industry.
Voted YES on banning Internet gambling by credit card.
Voted YES on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access.
Ryan co-sponsored permanently banning state & local taxation of Internet access
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Paul_Ryan_technology.htm

On technology and civil liberties issues, Ryan has generally voted along party lines. Ryan opposed net neutrality bills; voted to extend the Patriot Act’s roving wiretaps and to immunize telecom companies from legal liabilities for cooperating with warrantless government surveillance. He co-sponsored a ban on internet taxes. Ryan initially approved of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which WIRED editorialized would “usher in a chilling internet censorship regime,” but backed down in the face of a pressure campaign from the internet-freedom supporters. Activists on Reddit cheered Ryan’s reversal on SOPA — and appear to have reactivated the Ryan thread now that Romney has tapped him to be vice president.

Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/paul-ryan-vp/

Voted YES on terminating funding for National Public Radio.
Voted YES on retroactive immunity for telecoms' warrantless surveillance.
Voted NO on establishing "network neutrality" (non-tiered Internet).
Voted YES on increasing fines for indecent broadcasting.
Voted YES on promoting commercial human space flight industry.
Voted YES on banning Internet gambling by credit card.
Voted YES on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access.
Ryan co-sponsored permanently banning state & local taxation of Internet access
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Paul_Ryan_technology.htm

From http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/06/crashplan/:

Here is what the folks at ioSafe have to say about fire ratings and temperatures: “In a house fire, temperatures will typically be in the 800 to 1000 degree range. Spikes at around 1500 degrees may occur in the ceiling area, but on or near the floor, temperatures in the 300 to 400 degree range are more likely. We test for worst-case temperatures (1500 degrees) but, in most situations, drives will not be exposed to that. We ain’t lost a customer’s data yet :)”

YMMV, of course.

Check out Cow Clicker. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_cowclicker/all/

SSH? over the phone? for social engineering? enlighten me.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/

"Apple tech support gave the hackers access to my iCloud account. Amazon tech support gave them the ability to see a piece of information — a partial credit card number — that Apple used to release information."

This seems a silly topic. We've recently seen what a bad thunderstorm can do. Of course a Cat 5 is a risk, don't ask stupid questions.

John Gilmore of the EFF said, "The Archive is helping people to understand that BitTorrent isn't just for ephemeral or dodgy items that disappear from view in a short time. BitTorrent is a great way to get and share large files that are permanently available from libraries like the Internet Archive."

In other words, the EFF is working towards legitimizing BitTorrent so that illegal uses can continue unabated. I'll go ahead and say what I've been saying for a long time: the EFF has been a pro-piracy organization for a long time, and this is just another example of the EFF skulking around on the fringes of the piracy issue, trying to make moves that help pirates.

Some more quotes from the EFF, just because I know Slashdot doesn't want to listen when I say that the EFF is a pro-piracy organization:

"EFF: Piracy Not the Problem" - http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1999/09/21645
"there is no evidence out there that "Internet piracy" is leaving us with fewer creators or fewer copyrighted works” - http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/most-pirated-movie-makes-heaps-money
"EFF Releases ‘Switzerland’ to Test if Your ISP is Throttling BitTorrent" - http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9677/eff_releases_switzerland_to_test_if_your_isp_is_throttling_bittorrent/
"EFF defended StreamCast Networks, the company behind the Morpheus peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software, in an important case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 23, 2005" - http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/

Dave Winer, an early supporter of the EFF: "I gave $5000 to the EFF when they started, I think it was in 1990, with the noble goal of protecting freedoms as our technology and culture move online. I think I have supported every cause the EFF has adopted since then, but that’s no longer true. I gave this a lot of thought, believe me, and had a long email exchange with Brad Templeton, the chairman of the EFF board of directors, and think they have become as radically polarized as the entertainment industry, and like Hollywood are now working against the interests of those they were meant to serve. The issue appears to be copyright, and it appears that the EFF believes there should be no copyright. The problem with the EFF position is that in order to remain consistent, they have had to say that copyright doesn’t exist — if a policy or law restricts what a user can do on the Internet then that is a bad policy or law. The courts can’t agree with the EFF. I don’t agree with the EFF."

For decades we have held that phone calls are private communications that require a warrant to intercept per the 4th Amendment. The Federal Government isn't arguing that they haven't violated the 4th. They're arguing that they're immune from any legal attempts to hold them accountable for violating the 4th.

That's terrifying. It's so bad it makes me think I've wandered into tin foil hat territory, until I read the article:

The San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that when Congress wrote the law regulating eavesdropping on Americans and spies, it never waived sovereign immunity in the section prohibiting targeting Americans without warrants. That means Congress did not allow for aggrieved Americans to sue the government, even if their constitutional rights were violated by the United States breaching its own wiretapping laws.

That's Terry Gilliam "Brazil" logic, right there. The government is literally arguing they're violating the 4th Amendment, but that no one has the authority to hold them accountable. Literally, that the King is above the law. This ruling is so bad that not only does it violate the Bill of Rights, it violates the Magna Carta.

I guess that you know of the cattle killing cyanide producing Texan grass. Like your surface of Mars analogy things are just getting weird and I cannot see them improving in the short term. Personally I am betting on seeing world wide misery, starvation, and death within this decade. I suspect mankind's arrogant belief that he can bend nature to his every whim will be the chief cause. Then again I am an optimist.

This isn't anything new, anytime you take something from the extreme cold and bring it inside you risk condensation.

Having worked at a commercial ISP in the Arctic for 3 years, I can tell you that it's a little different from Minnesota. A few hours isn't nearly enough time to let them sit. Our standard was 24-48 hours in the room the equipment was going to occupy before we'd attach cables and power on. Radical heating and cooling also meant that we'd re-seat RAM, NICs and other cards before booting as a matter of course.

And it's not just cold up there, it's also perfectly arid. Things get dry in southern Canada and the northern states in the Winter time, but not like they do in the high Arctic. It means that static discharge is a really big problem as well. I've seen sparks arc 2 or more inches from a hand to a door handle.

Well, Obama obviously has his reasons for not liking the space program. One look at this should tell you why. Or maybe a look at this. Notice anything they have in common? And something you don't see in either one of them?

Citation needed.

Right... because when the CIA backdoors equipment, they always post a page about it on Wikipedia.

You could start with this, though, to get the general idea of what they want.

Google's overheads for this product are much, much lower than Apple's. No glitzy stores, free operating system, minimal hardware development costs, and either direct sales or channel sales of the higher-margin 16GB product only.

So, it seems likely that Google is making a profit, just not a massive one, and this is likely to increase as components get cheaper. The Kindle Fire's cost of manufacture is down to $139 now, so they are no longer subsidizing either.

Your points are odd.

Apple's glitzy stores are cash generating machines. Their revenue per employee, per square foot, or almost any metric you care to pick is the envy of retail. They are the opposite of overhead drag.

Free operating system? Who do you think pays the development costs for Android? I don't even understand why you would say this. This is the one point where Google's and Apples costs are probably exactly comparable.

Minimal hardware development costs - they are probably lower, as they have left this to Asus, who probably does not spend as much on it as Apple does for a given design, but they aren't minimal, as Asus expect to profit from the device as well, and that design cost is, so far, spread across a much lower quantity of produced units.

Direct sales - Apple moves a ton of stuff through it online sales as well as its retail stores too.

With the volumes Apple is moving, their margins are absurdly high and there is virtually no chance Google is seeing anything comparable on the Nexus 7. It is far too high quality a device at too low a price for that to be so.

Google's overheads for this product are much, much lower than Apple's. No glitzy stores, free operating system, minimal hardware development costs, and either direct sales or channel sales of the higher-margin 16GB product only.

So, it seems likely that Google is making a profit, just not a massive one, and this is likely to increase as components get cheaper. The Kindle Fire's cost of manufacture is down to $139 now, so they are no longer subsidizing either.

I don't think 640x800 will be a problem. That's per eye for a start and not focusing on a single screen image. Plus this will work differently, it will wrap around your vision.

Really I'd like to see this paired with Tobii eye tracking http://www.tobii.com/ which looked amazing the last demo I saw on line. You could maybe boost the detail where ever the eye look,s like normal eyes work, but I was thinking more game interaction since you can react and interact faster with something on screen just by looking - they should have this in main stream gaming co op games would really take off - i.e highlight an area of interest to your partner, or attack an enemy, or block an incoming attack, trace a path to use with your eyes. [or look in a direction and press a button to move towards it, movement seem to be the biggest problem this would be quit novel] etc.

Second, paired with Leap http://leapmotion.com/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/gesture-controls-get-a-huge-boost-with-new-leap-interaction-system/ if one was placed on the headset facing down it could track arm and hand positions.

Then if you could track the headsets location in a room you could design games around an arena with real movement. Now that would be awesome.

You heard it here first.

Germany just demonstrated in June 2012 a military tactic for taking out the vaunted US Stealth F22 Raptor in close combat and it works.

I bet Iran is paying close attention to this.

That expensive US stealth fighter can be had by the more nimble Germans!

It appears United States Navy Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert was proved right, the stealth advantage can be defeated in a real war!

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/f-22-germans/

No one is offering to let the Germans try it on the stealth F35 in a mock fight for obvious reasons (Obama's election?) but I bet that tactic may work on the F35 too.

The Wired update for 7/31/2012 has the US military spin doctors claiming the test was flawed as no German Typhoon will ever get close enough for 'close combat' in a real shoot out so you need to read the whole article to see for yourself.

What a waste of money!

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/f-22-germans/

"...individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.

The results were a surprise to the Germans and presumably the Americans, too. “We were evenly matched,” Maj. Marc Gruene told Combat Aircraft’s Jamie Hunter. The key, Gruene said, is to get as close as possible to the F-22 and stay there. “They didn’t expect us to turn so aggressively.”"

I don't doubt this report. However, my understanding is that the point of F-22 is to conduct its engagements at long-range and avoid these close-range knife fights. If the threat gets to dog-fighting range, the F-22s have screwed up and lost their greatest advantages.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/f-22-germans/

"In mid-June, 150 German airmen and eight twin-engine, non-stealthy Typhoons arrived at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska for an American-led Red Flag exercise involving more than 100 aircraft from Germany, the U.S. Air Force and Army, NATO, Japan, Australia and Poland. Eight times during the two-week war game, individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.

The results were a surprise to the Germans and presumably the Americans, too. “We were evenly matched,” Maj. Marc Gruene told Combat Aircraft’s Jamie Hunter. The key, Gruene said, is to get as close as possible to the F-22 and stay there. “They didn’t expect us to turn so aggressively.”"

Hey, we do too!

So, serious question: Is this a stunt? Is there going to be a sequel? Please let this be an excuse to announce a sequel.

Last I heard they were pretty far into it; could they have already filmed it? Does anyone know if it would have fit into the major players' schedules since March?

Do people live up to that standard? I don't know lets see:
"A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects"

Have you been "synthesized" to similar specifications?

But this isn't the point, I was more thinking about overwhelming complexity and the following article discusses a few examples:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_causation/all/
and beyond that states "Even when a system is dissected into its basic parts, those parts are still influenced by a whirligig of forces we canâ(TM)t understand or havenâ(TM)t considered or donâ(TM)t think matter."

We build systems where we have this interconnectedness under control. Whenever you have to deal with biology you don't. Ultimately you will also be faced with the problem of explaining yourself, which sounds impossible to me, but never mind.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/ff_rabies/all/

Android Handhelds and related:
http://obscurehandhelds.wordpress.com/
http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/8/3072142/power-a-moga-controller-hands-on
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/odroid-the-android-gaming-handheld-now-shipping-to-android-gam/
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/android-gaming-tablet-looks-remarkably-similar-to-sony-psp/
http://arpandeb.com/02/2012/gadget-preview/3-handheld-android-gaming-tablet-consoles-review.html

Android dominance:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57448990-235/gaming-handhelds-relegated-to-niche-status-by-ios-android/
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Nintendo-claims-the-iPhone-killed-the-handheld-game-console_id29533/

Shouldn't be that bad? They are taking cells and injecting them where they don't naturally occur. That can have side effects such as cancer. I'm not saying it's not promising but there have been far too many wild claims about it and far too many clinics treating it as some magic cure without any regard for patient safety.

Argument for the latter case (that math should be taught early and well and rigorously in small chunks) would be the game DragonBox:

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/06/dragonbox/all/

William

But they do work so well with the NSA.
The NSA will not tell you how, why, when or ....
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-nsa-secrecy-upheld/

You could get something like a hummer with whale penis skin leather...almost.

http://m.wired.com/autopia/2009/11/dartz/

when was there a case where a dude stabbed 50 people to death

Why 50? I find 8, 7, 4, with a couple seconds of searching on google.

Killing 50 people with a firearm still gets you into the record books.

Guns are only designed to kill things.

Not worth it to try to change your mind, but as long as you hold this, yeah, we're not going to agree on things. Especially when you get somebody like me who's convinced that sometimes killing something is the best solution, so it's best to have a proper tool for the job when you do have to kill something/someone.

He's come out with some pretty apocalyptic predictions, such as his 1988 chart showing 3 different scenarios, all of which are looking to be way off the mark.

You're kidding, right. Hansen's 1988 projection for the CO2 release scenario that best matches what actually happened is way off (indeed, it is almost surely within the range of error of the temperature data, particularly after properly adjusting for unpredictable short-term effects such as volcanic eruptions. So if his projection is "apocalyptic," I guess reality is as well.

Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University predicted an ice free arctic by 2015.

Funny how a speculation of one scientist somehow mutates into an absolute prediction. Here's what Wadham was actually saying in 2007: "It might not be as early as 2013 but it will be soon, much earlier than 2040." So a rough estimate of no ice at the height of summer, sometime between 2013 and 2040, and probably toward the low end (estimates of other climate scientists range as high as 2100), probably toward the low end, somehow becomes an absolute assertion that there will be no ice at all in 2015. And how is that apocalyptic? Arctic ice is floating, so it's not as if it will contribute to rising sea level. It will certainly be convenient for navigation. It is important mostly because it is yet another indicator of the warming trend.

And here's [sciencedaily.com] another prediction for some catastrophic sea level rise.

And once again, this turns out to be not a definite prediction, but a warning that there is considerable uncertainty on the high end regarding the speed and magnitude of the sea level rise, and that while the IPCC estimate is about a third of a meter in 100 years, it could plausibly turn out to be three times as large, particularly since the melting seems to be occurring faster than projected. This is, in fact, an honest account of current scientific knowledge. Is this apocalyptic? It will certainly be very expensive to deal with, even if reality turns out to be toward the low end of estimates--expensive enough to more than justify the comparatively modest costs of CO2 mitigation. A lot of people will need to move inland, producing huge numbers of refugees. But do you really consider it to be an apocalypse?

It wasn't just Paul Baran, of course, but the main concepts were invented/discovered in his series of papers from RAND at a time before anyone else was talking about such a thing (late 50s, early 60s):

    Introduction to Distributed Communications Networks
        - http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_memoranda/2006/RM3420.pdf

    - distributed mesh network of cheap, heterogenous component parts (the topology is analytically derived as optimal for retaining connectivity after possible partition events), supporting wired and wireless links
    - mail-like asynchronous address/packet-based routing of
    - digitally encoded fixed sized data blocks (inspired by "Morse's code"))
    - adaptive topology based on flood-filling neighbor/connectivity information throughout the network.

This was shelved for 5-10 years for being thought a bad idea by the AT&T engineers that DoD listened to at the time (they were designing progressively more monolithic hierarchical networks with very expensive switching equipment requiring very profitable professional administration), and was picked back up in the later 60s, when it was ironed out and then re-invented by many of the names now famous for it:

Here's an excellent discussion about this between Baran and Stewart Brand:

    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.03/baran_pr.html

You didn't cite a single source.

I thought I was pretty up-front about where those came from, and I don't think I presented it as my own, comprehensive research into the market intricacies of mobile platforms.

But if you wanted my search terms, I think it was something like, "piracy ios vs android" or "developer ios vs android". Going a little further for those who don't want to look...

First one was probably: http://www.diasks2.com/post/20172033158/ios-vs-android-a-comparison-for-first-time
or maybe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/jun/10/apple-developer-wwdc-schmidt-android
or maybe
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/05/android-app-sales-piracy-matters-seasons-dont/

There are about a billion more if you care to read them.

Second was probably: http://www.develop-online.net/news/38848/Android-app-pirated-2300-more-than-iOS-edition
Though here's one that says 90% - http://keyeslabs.com/joomla/blogs/i-think-im-becoming-an-android/136-android-the-perfect-piracy-storm
and one that says they had 83%, if you prefer - http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/05/wired-uk-android-game-piracy/

Third was something like: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-ios-vs-android-fragmentation-2012-6
or
http://opensignalmaps.com/reports/fragmentation.php

Of course there are another 8 gazillion results for each of these. I said only what I saw.

That aside, many of these are topics we've covered extensively here on Slashdot. If you think it's all FUD, you're obviously welcome to discuss and I'll be interested to see it. I have no real vested interest in the results besides being a user.

Here is a story that says iOS Apps generate 6 times the revenue of Android Apps, not due to downloads or unit sales.. Perhaps this is due to lower app quality on Android, but more likely it is simply LESS BUYING and MORE PIRATING.

So unhappy iPhone users and poor quality apps is what drives iOS app sales? Have you looked at Apple's customer satisfaction numbers??

Take a look at in-app purchases of iOS vs. Android.. Fewer than 2% of Android users are likely to get off their wallet and spend a little cash online.

I'd guess somewhere between $750 million and $500 million... but both of those figures may be before tariffs—note that Apple makes off with a whopping 30% of each app sale.

Interestingly, the July Wired has an article about Eugene Kaspersky pushing for and ITU takeover of the internet and an end to anonymity.

It's not paranoid if it's reality.

It's not a theory if it's documented.

Sometimes I think an complete end to anonymity and having total transparency instead would be an option. If someone abuses this, you look up his location and go sort it out with him.

Of course it wouldn't work this way because people of power who want to abuse this would still be able to hide. We would need a kind of communism in which everyone has the same power and access to the same data, with no exceptions. Wouldn't work that good probably.

Still, thinking that you actually can be truly anonymous without *huge* effort is wishful thinking. You're basically hiding successfully from your peers only. Following the trail at least to whoever pays for the net access you're using is trivial if you can get your hands at the data. The data is there anyway. It's just that only *them* can use it. What's good about that either?

Interestingly, the July Wired has an article about Eugene Kaspersky pushing for and ITU takeover of the internet and an end to anonymity.

It's not paranoid if it's reality.
It's not a theory if it's documented.
And there's on conspiracy, it's just the usual TPTB grasping to regain some of the control that has slipped away from them of late.


Bradley Manning should be in an Allstate commercial.

F no! For $1,295, I'm wrapping this sucker up in several layers of aluminium foil and I'm taking it home to sell on ebay. The same goes if I find any nefarious-looking device stuck on my car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRMV7zi4h_k

But maybe US vice-president Joe Biden would agree about the founder of Wikileaks?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/19/assange-high-tech-terrorist-biden
"Asked if he saw Assange as closer to a hi-tech terrorist than the whistleblower who released the Pentagon papers in the 1970s, which disclosed the lie on which US involvement in Vietnam was based, Biden replied: "I would argue it is closer to being a hi-tech terrorist than the Pentagon papers. But, look, this guy has done things that have damaged and put in jeopardy the lives and occupations of people in other parts of the world."

See my other posts citing Chomsky on the double-think and double-standard in defining a "terrorist", which basically comes down to a terorist being defined as anyone whom somebody influential in the USA government does not like. And that apparently includes US citizens:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/drone-attacks-lawsuit/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/18/families-us-citizens-killed-in-yemen-drone-strikes-file-lawsuit/
"The wrongful death lawsuit, filed Wednesday, claims that the killings of U.S. citizens al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and operative Samir Khan were unconstitutional. Khan was the publisher of the terror magazine Inspire. ... The lawsuit says: "The U.S. practice of 'targeted killing' has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, including many hundreds of civilian bystanders. While some targeted killings have been carried out in the context of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many have taken place outside the context of armed conflict, in countries including Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Sudan, and the Philippines." "These killings rely on vague legal standards, a closed executive process, and evidence never presented to the courts. ... The killings violated fundamental rights afforded to all U.S. citizens, including the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law," the lawsuit says."

And see also:
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/05/29/analysis-how-obama-changed-definition-of-civilian-in-secret-drone-wars/
"As the Bureau's own data on Pakistan makes clear, the very first covert drone strikes of the Obama presidency, just three days after he took office, resulted in civilian deaths in Pakistan. As many as 19 civilians â" including four children â" died in two error-filled attacks. Until now it had been thought that Obama was initially unaware of the civilian deaths. Bob Woodward has reported that the president was only told by CIA chief Michael Hayden that the strikes had missed their High Value Target but had killed 'five al Qaeda militants.' Now Newsweek correspondent Daniel Klaidman reveals that Obama knew about the civilian deaths within hours. He reports an anonymous participant at a subsequent meeting with the President: 'You could tell from his body language that he was not a happy man.' Obama is described aggressively questioning the tactics used. Until now it had been thought that President Obama was initially unaware of the civilian deaths. Yet despite the errors, the president ultimately chose to keep in place the CIA's controversial policy of using 'signature strikes' against unknown militants. That tactic has just been extended to Yemen. On another notorious occasion, the article reveals that US officials were aware at the earliest stage that civilians -- including 'dozens of women and children' -- had died in Obama's first ordered strike

I'm not a Muslim but I had read that in many cases allowances can be made: people observe the fast between sunrise and sunset in Mecca.

A similar exception was made when the first Muslim astronaut was in space. Wired has an interesting writeup on the subject.

More links:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/06/motorcycles-pol/
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/11/autos/hy-throttle11
http://ecomodder.com/blog/motorcycles-scooters-great-environment-wrong/
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2852/whats-better-for-the-environment-a-scooter-or-a-car

The Wired article claims that this is being challenged by a small telecom company called Credo.

WiFi sniffing was not to collect personal data. It was a 20% project to get an idea of what sort of traffic was on WiFis these days. No one ever looked at the actual data, and none of the data ever left the lab.

It shouldn't have been collected, and it was recognized as a privacy concern but they went ahead with it anyways. Google then lied about it by saying it was a "mistake" and "unintentional". They then asked the FCC to black out embarrassing findings that contradicted their public statements: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/

Like I said, it was not to collect personal data. That data was picked up as extra payload. The data was just part of an experiment to see what the distribution of traffic was like on WiFis these days. The data was never used for any commercial purpose. Everything in that article backs up what I said, except for the wild speculation on the part of the author. Just because it was transferred to the Oregon datacenter for storage doesn't mean it was used commercially. It was just in the engineers files. You say things like "embarrassing findings", when the fact was that they didn't want personal names released to the public.

Not deleting email was just a matter of the way data is replicated in the datacenters.

Deleting it is just a matter of replicating the deletion.

Yeah, I sorry, but it is not that simple. In a huge system like Google's, thing are marked for deletion, and then overwritten later on when the space is needed. There is no point in zeroing out anything, since the data is all encrypted anyway.

The Buzz fiasco was just a mistake.

I'm seeing this excuse a lot. That's quite a "mistake" to make.

So, you are saying that it was not a mistake? That they did it intentionally? That there was some motivation for them to, what was it, reveal status messages to peoples' contacts?

No, it was a stupid oversight. It slipped by.

I don't see how Google was abusing a loophole when the 2009 Google code was written two years before the 2011 loophole was written.

Reference? I did a search for: "google safari 2009 2011 cookies" and didn't find what you are talking about.

You're not looking hard, or you are using the wrong search engine. Try, "google ftc focused on 2009 help page". It's all over the place.

And as for keeping data for too long, I don't know what you are talking about. Generally, Google likes to get rid of that stuff as soon as possible.

Believe me, I'm even more baffled by your comment. Google hoards information, as their whole business is based on knowing as much as possible. I have no idea where you got this idea that Google likes to throw away data: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/google-keeps-your-data-to-learn-from-good-guys-fight-off-bad-guys/

Google might extract general trends from your information, to help guess what you might be searching for. But the actual information is disposed of fairly quickly. I think it's six months or so.

As for pervasive tracking, all google cares about is what sort of car you like. They could care less about any actual personal data.

But governments, hackers, and misbehaving employees do.

Yeah, good luck breaking into a Google datacenter. You have no idea.

Welcome to the real world.

Well, duh, that was my entire point. In the real world Google is