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It has seen the end of Jack Thompson,
It has seen the end of a RIAA lawsuit,
The end of copyright cops,
The end of Comcast's forging of RST packets,
It will soon see the end of the Empire itself!

For Google:

"Beta means we don't want to be limited to the features we are offering, said we would offer, or offered once but no longer. We don't want to be accountable for any problems you have with the product. We don't want to be held to account for any promise we made concerning the product, even its existence. And we want to be able to change anything about the product without notice, no matter the impact, without consequences."

Or more succinctly: "You are on your own. Good luck with it".

From what I can tell, Google doesn't bother with alpha releases. It's all beta, and it's all good.

The evil meter didn't even have to budge for this one...

Apparently the hacker had to supply her birthdate, ZIP code, and where she met her spouse.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/palin-e-mail-ha.html

www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/02/70179

Show the same casual user the receipt for the 1080p TV at their local Circuit City, and watch that jaw close right back up.

The TV playing behind me right now cost me $65. It's a 19" tube-TV, it's about 4-5 years old, and it has many years of life left in it thanks to the automatic down sampling done by the Dish DVR and the DVD player that gets occasional use. When we watch DVDs, we usually do it on our laptop computers. And even with the dish DVR, we're just as likely to go to digg/slashdot/myspace/youtube or use NetFlix for movies as watch the TV.

The problem with the TV is that it's a limited medium; you sit and watch movies or shows on it. No matter how much you spend on it, the TV is still a TV. But $500 gets you a decent, intro-level laptop.

The laptop can play a movie at comparable resolution to your $4000 "1080i" plasma TV. But, after watching your movie, you can then do some blogging, read the news, chat with a buddy, play a game or two. All on *your* timeline. Think about it... what are you doing right NOW!?!?!

I hate to say it, but once the price becomes reasonable, the long tail beats mass media every time.

But Joe Lieberman is a Democrat

This is sarcasm, right? You do know Lieberman isn't a Democrat, right? It's hard to tell.

Tm

Tell that to the developer who wrote Trism and made 250.000 dollars in two months: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/app-store-is-a.html

These kinds of proposals all ignore the potential damage that drivers do already, and yet seek to extend the ability to inflict that damage, without any increase in holding people accountable for that damage or misuse in general.

I used to teach driving, I know how bad many drivers are. I have also been hit by cars while riding my bicycle many times, and hauled away in an ambulance twice. The drivers never even got a ticket for running stop signs or failing to yield on a left turn, which were the causes of the two near-fatal "accidents".

A big part of the problem is that we perceive that driving is now so safe, with seat belts, air-bags, etc., we do not need to be concerned about it any more. Something Hans Monderman started to question: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html, with some success.

Drivers are also shielded from public reaction to bad behavior, behind sheet metal, glass, sound-proofing, which pedestrians are not. Ever notice how polite most people are when walking around? How often do you hear "pardon me", "Go ahead, you first" and other niceties between folks just walking around? Even in NYC I rarely ever see people give the finger or shout obscenities to between pedestrians. Between drivers, I se this all the time.

There is a quote somewhere that best safety feature in a car would be a steel spike sticking out of the steering wheel pointed directly at the drivers chest. I agree. If drivers actually faced the same likely hood of death and injury those outside the cars do, we would all be safer. At least after Darwin got caught up.

Trains, ships and planes are all safer than automobiles, yet we hold the drivers of automobiles to a far lower standard than we do the other three, while studiously ignoring the carnage autos cause.

If anything, we should make driving autos far MORE dangerous to the driver, to increase perceived danger, thereby increasing the caution drivers employ, at the same time raising the level of accountability to levels in proportion to the dangers autos represent when compared to other forms of transportation.

Make all cars convertibles, with open windows so that drivers are not shielded from public ridicule or anger when they do something stupid, require name and address posted on all cars just like is required for commercial vehicles. Wnat to be anonymous? Fine, hire a car and driver owned by someone else, that has that owners name and address on it, who in turn will be held responsible.

Get involved in a collision on a public road: Suspend all driving privileges until fault is assigned. Then continue the suspension for all at fault in proportion to that fault once assigned. Get involved in a fatal crash: Revoke all driving privileges for life for those found at fault.

Travel is a right, using a lethal machine to do so is not. Extending the ability to use that machinery by increasing perceived safety for the drivers, and shielding drivers from the consequences of misuse, without also holding people accountable for misuse will only make things worse.

Even in cases that are deemed to be of imminent need to gain access for wire tapping a field warrant must be submitted and reviewed by a judge to ensure the process followed standards set in place for proceeding with such action.

What standards? FISA? If they were all just "doin' their jobs," why was it necessary to amend it and provide immunity for the telcoms? An amendment I might add, considered unconstitutional by many, something that hasn't yet been determined by the courts. You're just telling me here what's supposed to happen. That would be great, but it falls somewhat short of reality:

Domestic spying widespread

F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets

Wiretap Whistle-Blower's Account

NSA's Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data

Yes, there is an approval procedure, too bad the Bush administration saw fit to bypass it (something they only admitted to doing after being caught at it, BTW). Constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald states it thus:

Congress passed a law in 1978 making it a criminal offense to eavesdrop on Americans without judicial oversight. Nobody of any significance ever claimed that that law was unconstitutional. The Administration not only never claimed it was unconstitutional, but Bush expressly asked for changes to the law in the aftermath of 9/11, thereafter praised the law, and misled Congress and the American people into believing that they were complying with the law. In reality, the Administration was secretly breaking the law, and then pleaded with The New York Times not to reveal this. Once caught, the Administration claimed it has the right to break the law and will continue to do so.

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(back to your regularly scheduled response:)

Guantanamo is no different than any other prison run by the military in a time of war. As a matter of fact, prisoners held in American military prisons are treated better than those held by any other country in the world. The majority of the people there were actually captured on the battlefield actively trying to kill our soldiers. Several who have been released were subsequently killed or recaptured on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan.

Oh, I'm sure the camp is very nice. Of course, the "war" we are referring to here, is a never ending war on a methodology, rather than one on a nation that could actually come to an "end" at some point. So presumably, these guys are going to be there until they die. And since even some who are tried, don't get released because of a "security threat," one ponders the actual relevance of trials in the process. If some of these detainees were not actually involved in terrorist or violent acts against our soldiers, how would they prove it? Perhaps you would like to cite Hamdan vs Rumsfeld as an example of how the "system works," because subsequently Hamdan and Khadr were released?

And, there's the distinct possibility that some who have been released have been inspired to subsequently join our opposition because of the way they were treated by the US in the process. Find it hard to buy that? Now you know how I feel about your claim that Saddam "might" have buried some WMDs or passed them to Syria. (Why do you think they call it apologetics?)

But I would be willing to accept that Guantanamo is "no different than any other prison run by the military in a time of war." One thing that is different though is the amount of visibility such things have in the modern information age, which in my opinion, is a good thing. It's harder to keep abuses hidden now, th

I would have been amazed if a structure as complex as this worked the first time the switch was thrown. Think about how simply enormous the LHC is. It has miles of wire, gigantic magnets that have to be perfectly synced and placed with amazing accuracy. It's not like LHCs are turned out every week. Gigantic super colliders are HARD to build.

They'll eventually iron out all the problems and can proceed to cause the world to end.

Here is the patent application in question.

You'll notice the June 28, 2007 filing date. The earliest reference I can find to Intelliscreen is that it was in early beta in May of 2008. Indeed, Intelliborn didn't apply for a trademark on "Intelliscreen" until May 23, 2008 (TM App. Serial No. 77482276). Also note that the product requires a jailbroken iPhone. The iPhone wasn't even first jailbroken until July, 2007!

Thus, it seems almost certain that Apple came up with the idea long before Intelliborn had a product on the market and very likely long before Intelliborn came up with the idea at all.

People should understand that patent applications are (generally) not published the moment they are filed. Instead, they are usually published 18 months after the filing date. Just because we are now seeing the application does not mean that it was only now filed. In fact, it usually means just the opposite.

"I don't e-mail. I've never felt the particular need to e-mail." also:

"I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself," McCain told the New York Times in an interview that appeared Sunday. "I don't expect to be a great communicator, I donâ(TM)t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need."

It is clear the man lacks all electronic publishing clue. His attitude and experience are all too well represented by the people bringing us ACTA.

Kinda reminds me of this from a little while back: http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/2007/03/novell_launches.html/

Absolutely, an Open Source electronic voting system seems like the perfect solution.

The best approach in my mind would be to build the thing almost from the ground up with the intention of being:

1. Simple
2. Secure
3. Reliable
4. Scalable
5. Transparent (code-wise)

Seems the first thing a lot of Open Source coders tend to gravitate toward when thinking of a new hardware-software integration project is Linux. However to meet these goals I think the community ought to ensure that the project is highly tailored to this particular project, with virtually no extraneous functionality.

Google turns up a couple interesting links on the open source voting concept:

• http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2004/01/61968
• http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/

From my reading of the RIAA's memorandum http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/vexatious.pdf

(1) Their actual complaint itself said NOTHING about his blog. This looks like a bad slashdot summary of a bad article. The blog was mentioned only in background.

(2) They are criticising him and his client jointly for obstructing the discovery process and needlessly dragging out the court process.

(3) The reason they mention his blog is because (in their view) his blog posts substantiate their claim that he and his client have obstructed the discovery process and have dragged out the court process.

It's true that they point out that his motions were posted on his blog. But they're not criticizing these blog-posts at all.

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/03/epilepsy

wired confirmed that mccain campaign confirmed the hacking, and one of mail senders confirmed it was one of her emails in there :

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/group-posts-e-m.html

our summary still says there is no way to confirm ingenuity of the wikileaks material - you dont need to - mccain campaign confirmed it.

Note that there is no easy way to tell if the material on Wikileaks is genuine or a hoax.

Wired has confirmed from one sender, Amy McCorkell, that the displayed message from her to Sarah Palin is genuine.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/group-posts-e-m.html

It has been confirmed by her campaign and Amy McCorkell, the sender of one of the emails that has been posted.

I was just trying to be funny. But if you want to debate, here it goes:

I don't blame the Chinese people - China has a rich history and culture - I blame the government. I have been to Hong Kong and Taiwan.

There are thousands if not millions of toys and products that have been recalled from Chinese Manufacturers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/02/business/02toy.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_export_recalls

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSPEK15755920070813

Do a google on: china lead recall - only 337,000 hits are returned!

And China is considered one of the biggest havens for piracy.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13617619/

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/07/71300

I even "visited" markets in both Taiwan and China where I saw pirated versions of almost every Microsoft and PC software package for sale for a fraction of what they are supposed to retail for. I saw CD's, Movies, everything for sale for a fraction of what the real product costs.

And before you suggest that the products were not pirated, may I add that the manuals with the software were cheesy xeroxed copies. And the CD's and DVD's didn't come in standard cases....

Any place like this would be busted in a few days in the US.

Granted, I haven't been to the mainland, but most of the products probably come from there....

These are facts... The only "people" hurt by denying them are the Chinese people, because as their products get a worse reputation, their economy will suffer.

Recognize also that due to the "firewall" the chinese government has on internet access, that few chinese are probably even aware of the criticism of the Chinese Government or the product recalls or the piracy...

Yeah, the US government kind of sucks. But at least I can read about it and talk about it, without my news or speech being "censured"...

And I can go to a coffee shop, get drunk on Caffine, or go to a bar, and get drunk on beer, and bitch about the US and living here without fear of being thrown in prison because I don't "agree" with my government...

People are lazy, and would just keep their cards in their wallets. Let it read it through the wallet.

Personally? I don't trust anything that doesn't require actual physical contact. Go ahead and put a smart chip in, but put some contacts for the reader to connect to. Radio frequency is too easy for people to fuck with. Not to mention we've had a great track record with insecure RFID badges, right?

Existing LCD panels can't change their direction of polarization on the fly, which means you won't be able to watch those Dreamworks or Pixar movies in 3D at home using the same glasses.

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mods/magazine/16-09/pl_screen

4) Dual monitors - This is one I've wanted to try as I have 2 monitors of the same make. You set up 2 monitors side by side with a mirror angled in such a way that one eye sees the reflection of one monitor when looking straight ahead while the other eye looks directly at other monitor. The driver then shows a mirrored stereo perspective on the second monitor.

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mods/magazine/16-09/pl_screen. You'd still have to get drivers, but it's a start.

Never happened.

A quick google shows that the bill does indeed not prohibit MS software entirely, but it sounds like it does prohibit a pro-MS preference:

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2005/09/29/peru-rejects-microsoft-windows
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/perus-green-light-to-opensource-software/2005/09/28/1127804508352.html
http://news.cnet.com/Perus-president-approves-open-source-bill/2110-7344_3-5907226.html

And some older articles that sound a bit more extreme (like I remembered it):
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2002/07/54141
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/19/ms_in_peruvian_opensource_nightmare/

No sooner do I post this than "McCain makes a sharp right turn on stem cells." http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/mccain-on-stem.htm

So much for one of the last remaining good points of his platform.

Scientists "preach" that true science is the observability, repeatablility and testability of the phenomena it seeks to explain. Yet scientists are still unable to create even a simple protocell directly from organic compounds. Show me evolution from the ground up to prove that life is not divine.

What you ask is maybe not so far off at all ...

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html

"Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life
A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life."

Paradoxically, the article uses the word "created" in a headline about that exact evidence which you ask for to show the opposite.

Proven? It failed. I'm not sure that's the horse you want to hitch your cart to.

I have no idea about anything regarding Toyota and Ferrari. I can tell you, however, that McLaren and Ferrari were involved in a huge scandal just this past year. This was a big deal.

Fuck that. Try Mad Mag's from `79.: 67 blades.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/play.html?pg=4

So would I. VW has one.

Unfortunately too many uneducated Americans don't do the math, they just see one price. Most of my fellow Americans also think that paying $250/month for 72 months is better than paying $350/month for 48 months for the same car.

A long loan term with lower monthly payments can be a good decision, if the difference in payments is invested. Say the loan interest is 6% and you're able to earn 8% by investing, you come out 2% ahead. Also with lower monthly payments if for any reason you end up having financial trouble, for instance if you lose your job and don't find one for an extended period, the difference in payment amounts may mean the difference between keeping and losing the car. Otherwise you're right about people being in debt up to their eyeballs.

Falcon

One of the first was the Dodge ESX, which managed 72mpg by the third prototype.

Another promising one is the VW Golf disesl hybrid. Claims to reach just under 70mpg. This one might become commercially available.

And back on topic, I own a 2007 Prius. And I would have been just as happy to buy one of these Ford Diesels. Probably happier, since I believe that gasoline is eventually going away. Biodiesel is the future. Here's my favorite breakdown of a biodiesel future.

Ford is being absolutely positively stupid. Sell your Ford stock ASAP. Any company that makes decisions this poorly is going out of business.

Somebody's a bit off....

Hmm, I'm not old enough to have seen the entire series, but I vaguely recalled something about Captain James T. Kirk encountering a salt craving creature. The Salt Vampire

Perhaps (s)he/it can be of assistance?

NSIYHJFL (Not Safe If You Have Just Finished Lunch) :P :P

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multimedia/2007/11/gallery_star_trek_monsters

Rock Band 1 for Wii was a joke and a mistake, I agree. However, it has been strongly implied (if not confirmed) that Rock Band 2 will have both online play and DLC. See for example http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/08/harmonix-rock-b.html or http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/06/rock-band-2-for-wii-wont-skimp-on-features/. Since you should really be comparing GH:WT to RB2, not RB1, it's no longer an obvious choice.

Of course, I'll still be getting GH:WT for my Wii for a lot of other reasons, including a more complex drumset and these gems from the setlist announcement:
* At The Drive-In - One Armed Scissor
* Mars Volta - L'Via L'Viaquez
* Tool - Parabola
* Tool - Schism
* Tool - Vicarious

I knew Tool would have to show up in one of the games eventually, but I have to say I was very surprised to see both ATDI and The Mars Volta, two of my other favorites.

Ah, this PDF pointed to by Bruce Schneier is very interesting:

Continuous Tagging Tracking Locating

The police don't do a whole lot to stop killers before they kill

Wrong. Wrong.

and DRM doesn't do much to stop you after you crack it.

Wrong again. And once more. And don't look so surprised, but oops, you did it again.

Name a released (or available via warez) game with DRM that hasn't been cracked.

The existence of a crack does not imply that 100% of people who want to copy the game are going to find a crack and use it. And quite frankly I'm disgusted that you think so highly of piracy that you would think it would be.

Name a type of weapon that hasn't been used to kill someone. Name a safe that hasn't been cracked. Oh what's that, there aren't any? Well, guess we should allow people to run around killing others, and don't bother storing your money in a bank, just stuff it under your mattress, I'm sure that's just as secure.

Or alternatively, how about this: name a DRM system for software that makes the product less secure than it would be without DRM.

LOL this brings to mind an article from the last issue of Wired about the Russian cosmonaut training city - apparently the Russians have experimented with sex in orbit, but because of reduced bloodflow to the lower part of the body it's not as easy as it sounds.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-09/ff_starcity?currentPage=5

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/senate-committe.html

If this had been law about 5 years ago, then Milonic Solutions, a UK-based software company, would have been able to have push for the seizure of government servers hosting Senator Orrin Hatch's webpage. Slashdot covered the story back then. I wonder if anyone on the Senate Judiciary Committee remembers that -- and I wonder how many of them would have their own computers seized if they were the first to be searched.

How, then, can they use the management functions of the equipment if they can't get to it?

Terry Childs provided the passwords to the mayor on July 22. The city "...[was] able to regain complete control of the network," according to the deputy director of the Department of Technology Information Services.

A 40 KW nuclear reactor is about the tiniest nuclear reactor imaginable. I'm sure NASA isn't considering it because of its power density or its mass. Each one of the solar panel assemblies on the ISS could potentially generate 32 KW. The problem is the 28 day lunar 'day.' Solar power plants on the moon will see a significant drop in power during the lunar night (about 100% of rated power at most locations except perhaps the poles). Therefore, long duration missions would require batteries. Supplying 40 KW for 14 days would require massive batteries (and also more than 80 KW of solar arrays). Based on my back of the envelope calculations, you would need something about 3 times the size of the Fairbanks Battery Backup. Additionally, nuclear power is more scalable. Knowledge gained with operating tiny nuclear reactors on the Moon could also be used with larger reactors that far outstrip any potential competition by solar power.

By 1991, 92 groups of researchers from 10 different countries had reported excess heat, tritium, neutrons or other nuclear effects.[73] Over 3,000 cold fusion papers have been published including about 1,000 in peer-reviewed journals (see indices in further reading, below). In March 1995, Dr. Edmund Storms compiled a list of 21 published papers reporting excess heat and articles have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Physical Review A, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, and Journal of Fusion Energy (see indices in further reading, below).

The generation of excess heat has been reported by (among others):

* Michael McKubre, director of the Energy Research Center at SRI International,
* Giuliano Preparata (ENEA (Italy))
* Richard A. Oriani (University of Minnesota, in December 1990),
* Robert A. Huggins (at Stanford University in March 1990),
* Yoshiaki Arata (Osaka University, Japan),
* T. Mizuno (Hokkaido University, Japan),
* T. Ohmori (Japan),

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion#Experimental_reports [wikipedia.org]

"Despite a backdrop of meager funding and career-killing derision from mainstream scientists and engineers, cold fusion is anything but a dead field of research. Presenters at the MIT event estimated that 3,000 published studies from scientists around the world have contributed to the growing canon of evidence suggesting that small but promising amounts of energy can be generated using the infamous tabletop apparatus."

"MIT's Peter Hagelstein, on the other hand, said "cold fusion" reactions have yielded surplus energy from as far back as the initial experiments in 1989. Verification of these controversial results is not the problem -- many labs around the world have reproduced parts of the results many times. "

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/08/cold_fusion?currentPage=all# [wired.com]

U.S. Navy Report Supports Cold Fusion:
http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue44/navy.html [infinite-energy.com]

""Last March, scientists at the annual conference of the august American Physical Society heard presentations on cold fusion. Next month, the Second International Conference on Future Energy will be held in Washington, D.C. The vast majority of physicists remains skeptical, but at the Office of Naval Research, six of the nine experiments performed produced an unexplainable amount of excess heat.""

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060808/REPOSITORY/608080316&SearchID=73253345954312 [concordmonitor.com]

"Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a tabletop accelerator that produces nuclear fusion at room temperature, providing confirmation of

Atheists require faith to believe that there is no God, and nothing else outside their perceived world. In reality, this viewpoint requires more faith than any religion, because all religions offer "proof" that they are true.

Care to share that proof? Atheists do not have faith in the belief there is no god, they are skeptics and to date not one individual or organized group of faithful followers of any god have provided a single shred of proof which is compelling evidence of the existence of a god.

Oh, and a couple of important points for the faithful to keep in mind...

Unless you subscribe to every theological rendition that has ever come to be or currently exists, guess what, you are an atheist yourself. Do you believe in Zeus, Apollo, all of the many Hindu gods, etc. ad infinitum? If you deny the existence of these gods then you to are an atheist. :P

And a heads up, not believing in some magical being does not automatically mean believing in only what you perceive. For the most part atheists have no problem with science and things that cannot be perceived but can be tested. Example, you cannot perceive an electron, but you sure can test the properties of electrons and other atomic particles once you've developed the technology necessary to measure those properties. Can't say the same for some magical being dreamed up in your head. Then again there are studies of electromagnetic fields and how they can be used to induce a religious experience.

Just have the display in your brain. Sensory prosthetics.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/esp_pr.html

It's not so good if you need someone else to look at your screen. But I suppose you could just "virtual-telepathically" send them a screenshot or url to a live stream from your "personal server" to their personal server.

>High speed data connections to every data center of every cell phone service provider. We are talking OC3s at a minimum.
Paying the network admins, sysadmins, production support analysts, managers, accountants, and executives of every company, even after they leave the company and/or industry. Oh, and some of those people will have to falsify financial reports, SOX compliance, etc. which can get them sent to jail, so it won't be cheap.

Is there something secret about this? Don't be even a little surprised if exactly the scenario spelled out at the start of this thread is exactly what's happening. The best part is, the telecoms have already been pardoned for their part in it all.

How's this trolling? A little bit of an bromide but... My brothers Diesel Jetta gets 45 to 40mpg as a commuter, it has tons more torque. And just to clarify, he doesn't milk it, he drives it like he stole it day in and day out. And no matter how much luggage he carries, he gets about the same mpg for the same driving(city/hwy that is).

Here have some fun with these:
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/09/vws-prius-killi.html
http://www.transmitmedia.com/golfTDI/

And also: Who is considering the Carbon foot print to make these cars instead of using the ones we have until they are dust? Buying a new car is probably the most irresponsible thing to do. Buy an old, used car, keep it tuned. And it will cost you less to purchase.

What difference does it make to reduce this 18 months to 9 months log retention period?

Will Google anonymize logs in other countries too?

How about Google China? It respectfully hands over logs to the authorities on demand anytime. Same with Google India.

Uh, e-mail _is_ private. Need a warrant to search it.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/06/appeals_court_s.html

This would allow you to generate a new code for every communication, preventing your replay attack.

Already done. In fact, if there is an "unclonable" RFID chip, my money is on it being in cars before your passport.