People are using encrypted, private trackers. Because it takes a user account for access, Ethyl Eavesdropper is not going to be able to discern who is doing what, where on those trackers.
People are wising up and using encrypted VPN services.
People are using LANs for file sharing. WAN connections are becoming more expensive, so college students in a dorm just leech off the local file server, and not bother with torrents.
Sneakernet. With 3+ TB external hard disks, one can shuttle a lot of data down the hall.
The economy is slowly improving, so people are hitting iTunes and Amazon for tracks.
I have to disagree about "modern music" being crap.
The difference is that in the past, good bands got the spotlight and were heavily promoted.
These days, what gets the promotion dollars are cookie cutter bands who wouldn't even be able to croak out anything near a melody if it wasn't for Antares's Auto-Tune product. Why do they get promoed? Because it is cheaper to hype some naiive and malleable stars for a few years, then find some new meat when the news stories about their rehab and DUI misadventures hit the press.
There is still good music being made. However, you won't be finding it on the radio (unless you happen to have an independent station). It will be through services like Pandora, last.fm, and other places, not to mention Web forums and word of mouth that one finds bands that don't suck.
Trust me; there are a lot of new bands that are worth the ear; they just don't have the huge money behind them that Justin Beiber and Ke$ha do.
Only downside is that Spotify isn't available in the US. Yes, you can proxy, but it takes gymnastics to get it working on your Android or iPhone, especially if you want a subscription.
The only analog of that in the US would be Rhapsody and the Zune Marketplace. After my effort in trying to cancel Rhapsody service (when URGE [1] moved to them), I would hesitate on recommending them.
[1]: MTV/Microsoft's URGE was one of the best subscription music services, although it had a relatively brief lifespan. It actually had decent band articles, showcased new bands and was good at recommending new bands.
iPhones, especially the iPhone 4, have a decent erase mechanism which allows for a secure method of zeroing it out. When the device is told to erase itself, it just zeroes out the master key and replaces it with another from a cryptographically secure RNG. This is a quick, but secure way of ensuring that the data on the device is rendered inaccessible.
Just to be safe, if I were packaging an iPhone up for resale, after doing an erase from the Settings menu, I would do a DFU restore of the firmware as well, especially if the device was jailbroken before.
I have encountered laptops that only ship drivers on the installed image, where a critical driver is not downloadable from their site. For example, a major brand laptop I had would only allow its USB ports to run in USB 2.0 mode on the original image, and no drivers were present anywhere else.
I also keep the original image around as a bonus if I sell the laptop. This way, the next owner has the laptop as close to being out of the box new as possible.
Very true, which is why I state "with reservations". One fear I have is that a system like this would be put in place at subways and other public places where crowds go. Yes, it might catch the one fugitive who really wanted to see the Cubs win yet another World Series victory, but we as a society have to ask ourselves if the balance of security versus privacy is worth it.
Sadly, because of what happens at airports, we know that most people would happily climb into a vacuum bed for the whole plane trip if it was supposed to enhance security.
I probably wouldn't have noticed the documents, because the first thing I do with a new computer is make an image of it, toss the image into an archive bin, then whip out the DBAN or HDDErase media and zorch the drives.
This does three things -- ensures that any data previous to me is gone (because there are stories of even new devices having dubious content on them), checks to see if all sectors are readable/writable, and randomizes the data stored, so when I encrypt the drive using TrueCrypt or BitLocker, data that might have survived being written over will just be random numbers and useless for decryption attempts.
It is always a good habit to zero out media before using it, be it a USB flash drive, a MicroSD card, or a hard disk, just for the reasons above. It also is a good habit to do another thorough zeroing out before letting someone else have the media as well, for obvious reasons.
When interviewing I'd be asked about my *arrest* record at many places (Fortune 100 companies on down), but not about convictions. Since I'm lucky enough to have no record in either department, I passed that test, but asked multiple HR droids why someone arrested but not convicted mattered, and got the response that was stated in my previous post.
Essentially it is used as a filter so the HR people have fewer applications to sort through.
If faced with having to have an on-the-fly fingerprint scan by a police officer, versus being handcuffed, stuffed in the back of a patrol car, fingerprinted, mugshots taken, and all that other stuff because of a potential suspect match, I'll take the fingerprint scan.
With almost all employers these days, just an arrest for any reason on a record (even if charges are dropped) means no chance of ever finding meaningful employment [1], keeping out of the handcuffs is paramount to keeping any type of meaningful career.
[1]: A lot of employers view arrest records as more meaningful than convictions because, "a thug can buy themselves an acquittal, while if a cop considers someone guilty enough to pull out the handcuffs and do the paperwork, they are guilty in this company's book."
Nay, the tinfoil hat actually amplifies the mind control rays.
This isn't to say China is evil or the people that run the country are out to destroy everyone. As of now, it is a trading partner, and has a potential to be a world leader.
However, things can change in governments in a heartbeat. Someone in the year 2000 would almost be surprised at how the US has changed, in reality and perception in the events that happened 1-2 years later.
You can't run life with a tinfoil hat on, but there are things that can easily happen.
Ironically, China is working on things that one would consider "entitlements" in the US. They are making steps to fix their health care system, which was broken by misguided reform in 1978 or so. China also pays for a full education for its citizens, up to and including foreign exchange transfers. This gives them a competitive advantage because a Chinese citizen does not have to fret about student loans compared to a US citizen with a similar education.
The ulterior motive is that Google's interests are different than ISP's interests, and that ISPs may end up bullying Google to give preferences to their customers in return for Google's traffic not being "slowed down".
If people knew that an ISP was throttling, Google can point that it is the ISP's doings, not Google. Right now, a slow website is usually the website owner's problem, and the ISP would likely never get blamed, especially if traffic to other places was not affected.
China can easily militarize, and start an offensive military campaign. Of course, other countries would stop trading with them, but the internal economic momentum a full scale armed conflict would gain them would easily offset that.
After Seoul is a charred ruin and Taiwan flies the red flag, there are old wounds -- as of now Japan is essentially defenseless other than a token army. Would the US step in if Japan started being attacked by ICBMs and Chinese aircraft carriers? With these new theaters of war, it may be unlikely, especially if there was threat of nuclear retaliation.
Of course, there is the Middle East. Nothing is stopping China from making deals with nations that are already anti-US, setting up military posts in return for oil, while providing weapons and training for anti-US troops. No Western power is going to attack a Chinese post because they don't want to get glassed. It is pretty feasible for an easy score of oil resources without real fear of reprisal other than "OMG, sanctions!" yelled out at a UN meeting.
No, after China flips the switch from a trading partner to a military empire, there is no going back, but their presence as a superpower would be far increased, especially by using the "are you sure you want to start a nuclear exchange over this piece of land?" gambit.
Think this wouldn't happen? People said the exact same thing about trade issues between countries before WW I broke out.
I wouldn't go that far against China, because for the most part living conditions are improving. People are moving from the rice paddies to their equivalent of Suburbia.
However, the ability to say what one wills is completely different. If I wanted to arrange a protest march where I live, other than some paperwork (so the police can clear traffic and announce to people to find another route), I can pretty much have any message (even unpopular) walked to the state capitol building. Someone does this in China, and they might stand a chance of ending up in a mental home, prison, or dead.
China isn't all bad:
They are getting a stable middle class while here in the US, there is a marked erosion of it.
They emphasize education, while here in the US, education is mocked, or even considered against religious beliefs.
Being a blackhat is considered an honorable profession there, as good as a crack team soldier. Here, someone with "offensive" hacking skills who makes themselves known ends up either in prison, or suffering GeoHot's fate.
China's government is building infrastructure, both Internet and physical. It is a good concept that seems to be lost here across the pond about investing on things past the next fiscal quarter.
My fear is that China has one thing the US doesn't right now; nationalism. Will China decide to go for some low-hanging fruit like Taiwan is anyone's guess.
It does for the Chinese. It strengthens them and weakens the West. There will be a point where they won't need to continue exporting cheap stuff, where they have not just resources and wealth, but technology.
Then, expect to see some really nasty things happen:
First, there is the low hanging fruit, Taiwan. This little island has been a prize just out of reach, and it is only a matter of time before China gets bold enough to annex them. Think the US would start a nuclear conflict over an island? Won't happen. It is only a matter of time before this becomes just as part of China as Hong Kong did.
South Korea is also a prize, and having their puppet to the north start a protracted conflict in order to cripple the Western economy by a thorough shelling of Seoul would be a major military coup. China wouldn't even be faulted if state of the art weaponry (both conventional and nuclear) managed to appear in the DPRK. The US involved in North Korea also means another theater of war that the West has to fight but China doesn't.
It would almost be trivial for China to cripple the Western economy in just 24 hours by a two pronged attack (overrunning Taiwan and getting Kim to shell his southern neighbor), with little to no threat of retaliation from the US. China knows this, and the only thing stopping them from this is because they still have intelligence to gain from Western businesses and a benefit from one-sided trade practices.
Depends... if you make people realize that retribution is swift and certain, they are not going to attempt another organized protest chain on a wide scale. Of course, there will be the firebrand or two, but after those are dealt with in a public manner, there won't be many who will step up to the plate.
Harsh regimes do keep control, and keep control for a long time, and China's is definitely not going anywhere.
Bad thing is that the next step up from having the conversation ended is having a knock on the door with the special black van pull up, with the next of kin being notified they owe the Chinese government the cash for the lethal injection chemicals before they get the body back (sans usable organs for transplants, of course.)
It will only get worse, as the squeeze is put on people who dare get in the way of how devices get controlled. For example, I'm sure what happened to Geohot is going to ensure that the next guy who is bright enough to find a break in someone's hardware is not going to publish it, similar to HD satellite where a few people might have a way around it, but breaks in its security will never be divulged to the masses.
I dread to see what lies in store for us 10 years from now. I'm anticipating:
Real time monitoring of devices, so if an iPhone reads from a Cydia site, its IMEI/ESN would immediately be thrown off the cellular network, similar to how a modern IPS will lock a machine from getting out of a subnet if someone starts running nmap.
Healthchecks, and NAT enforced from core routers to home routers, where if someone isn't running a trusted OS with a hardened DRM stack and anti-IP forwarding/proxying measures, it will not get Internet access.
Insta-account locking of people's Apple IDs, Google Marketplace accounts, and such if a rooted/jailbroken device is detected by any of the above with their ID attached.
Games will be locked to consoles. Lose your next gen PS-3 successor, re-buy all your games, just like someone who loses their license dongle with Steinberg products has to re-buy Cubase and their VST plugins. Complain against a game company? They will insta-block all access to all games.
The sad thing is there is -NOTHING- to check the tide of more invasive and less free devices. Another genius that publishes a crack like Geohot will just be racked up on civil/criminal charges, and someone hiding behind a VPN will end up having what happened to the guy who got Palin's password.
Follow the money; look who benefits from having FB be the guardian for information.
With stuff tied to FB accounts, it gets rid of anonymity, or at least forces uses to keep creating profiles in order to access things. In any case, everything viewed through one FB profile is all tied together, making it easy to follow a breadcrumb trail.
The reason why FB is used over a website is pure laziness -- it is quick and easy to type some stuff, let FB format it, stick some pictures in a decently attractive layout, chuck a few bucks at FB's advertising department to get some eyeballs flying that way, and call it done. I know this, as I am guilty of doing this for some personal stuff myself.
The ideal would be to take reliable nuclear reactors, such as the traveling wave reactor design. Have it near a large desalination plant. Then pump the water where it needs to be.
Desalination takes a lot of energy, thus the closer one locates an energy source, the better. Then once it is usable, it can be piped where it is needed.
The one notable thing about the N1 is the fact that if you are clued enough to fire up adb and fastboot oem unlock it, the device is yours to install what the heck you desire on it.
I really hope AT&T inherits T-Mobile's hacker-friendliness. This way, a device that is bought unlocked and not connected to a provider, such as a Nexus phone, or some of the higher end HTC phones several years ago could be used.
I personally would pay some more (although not double or an insane amount) for a device that is made for people to root/jailbreak/re-ROM, something like a modern version (with a decent dual core CPU, decent memory, etc.) of the N900 that ships with Android, but can have any OS of choice put on. Let people who think rooting is wrapping plant tendrils around a device keep buying consumer level units; it would be nice to have a "pro" phone that is well designed and made for techies.
For example, take the Motorola Atrix. Yank the signed kernel protection, et al. Have source code, binaries, and OS images available for download. Charge $100 more. This would be an ideal device. Perhaps have Webtop as a Linux distribution so it can easily be modded, perhaps built from source like Gentoo.
Since the hardware would be identical to the "consumer" model, economies of scale would be to AT&T/Motorola's advantage. The hardware modders would be happy, and the additional cost would not just cover the cost of having the files available, but also cover the dumbasses who call in to customer service with "I just re-ROMed my phone with an alpha build, and bluetooth doesn't work." Also, since the baseband chip is separate, there are no issues of dangers to the cellular network.
IIRC, Sprint had the chance to buy TMO. Why they didn't? Because Sprint is sitting on two redundant networks, CDMA, and iDEN. Adding GSM would just mean they have another set of towers to look after.
Instead, Sprint chose to go and work on WiMax technology... IMHO, stupid because everyone else is going LTE and with tower sharing agreements, it means not having to worry about as many antenna emplacements.
Sprint could have easily put in SIM card functionality. In fact, China, Korea, and Japan all use R/UIM cards which are functionally identical to SIM cards, except use CDMA technology. Sprint and Verizon chose to break the standard and not have that technology in their devices.
The future will be interesting when everything goes LTE/WiMax, and the older technologies get shut down, just like AMPS did. Sprint will be on its lonesome with their Clear stuff, and everyone else will be tower sharing.
What shows that we are near the tipping point is the PS3. It remained unbroken for a long time (4+ years, an almost unheard of amount of time), and the one person who cracks it wide open is being made an example of by Sony's legal team.
Yes, devices will be cracked, but there will become a time where it takes so much time to do so, that it becomes irrelevant. For example, if it took 2-3 years to find a workable JB on the iPhone, and by then, people have upgraded to at least two models hence, victory has been accomplished by the cellular carriers.
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Thank you for the recommendation, I've not heard of this service, but definitely will give them a trial.
I'd say it is a combination of factors:
People are using encrypted, private trackers. Because it takes a user account for access, Ethyl Eavesdropper is not going to be able to discern who is doing what, where on those trackers.
People are wising up and using encrypted VPN services.
People are using LANs for file sharing. WAN connections are becoming more expensive, so college students in a dorm just leech off the local file server, and not bother with torrents.
Sneakernet. With 3+ TB external hard disks, one can shuttle a lot of data down the hall.
The economy is slowly improving, so people are hitting iTunes and Amazon for tracks.
I have to disagree about "modern music" being crap.
The difference is that in the past, good bands got the spotlight and were heavily promoted.
These days, what gets the promotion dollars are cookie cutter bands who wouldn't even be able to croak out anything near a melody if it wasn't for Antares's Auto-Tune product. Why do they get promoed? Because it is cheaper to hype some naiive and malleable stars for a few years, then find some new meat when the news stories about their rehab and DUI misadventures hit the press.
There is still good music being made. However, you won't be finding it on the radio (unless you happen to have an independent station). It will be through services like Pandora, last.fm, and other places, not to mention Web forums and word of mouth that one finds bands that don't suck.
Trust me; there are a lot of new bands that are worth the ear; they just don't have the huge money behind them that Justin Beiber and Ke$ha do.
Only downside is that Spotify isn't available in the US. Yes, you can proxy, but it takes gymnastics to get it working on your Android or iPhone, especially if you want a subscription.
The only analog of that in the US would be Rhapsody and the Zune Marketplace. After my effort in trying to cancel Rhapsody service (when URGE [1] moved to them), I would hesitate on recommending them.
[1]: MTV/Microsoft's URGE was one of the best subscription music services, although it had a relatively brief lifespan. It actually had decent band articles, showcased new bands and was good at recommending new bands.
iPhones, especially the iPhone 4, have a decent erase mechanism which allows for a secure method of zeroing it out. When the device is told to erase itself, it just zeroes out the master key and replaces it with another from a cryptographically secure RNG. This is a quick, but secure way of ensuring that the data on the device is rendered inaccessible.
Just to be safe, if I were packaging an iPhone up for resale, after doing an erase from the Settings menu, I would do a DFU restore of the firmware as well, especially if the device was jailbroken before.
I have encountered laptops that only ship drivers on the installed image, where a critical driver is not downloadable from their site. For example, a major brand laptop I had would only allow its USB ports to run in USB 2.0 mode on the original image, and no drivers were present anywhere else.
I also keep the original image around as a bonus if I sell the laptop. This way, the next owner has the laptop as close to being out of the box new as possible.
Very true, which is why I state "with reservations". One fear I have is that a system like this would be put in place at subways and other public places where crowds go. Yes, it might catch the one fugitive who really wanted to see the Cubs win yet another World Series victory, but we as a society have to ask ourselves if the balance of security versus privacy is worth it.
Sadly, because of what happens at airports, we know that most people would happily climb into a vacuum bed for the whole plane trip if it was supposed to enhance security.
I probably wouldn't have noticed the documents, because the first thing I do with a new computer is make an image of it, toss the image into an archive bin, then whip out the DBAN or HDDErase media and zorch the drives.
This does three things -- ensures that any data previous to me is gone (because there are stories of even new devices having dubious content on them), checks to see if all sectors are readable/writable, and randomizes the data stored, so when I encrypt the drive using TrueCrypt or BitLocker, data that might have survived being written over will just be random numbers and useless for decryption attempts.
It is always a good habit to zero out media before using it, be it a USB flash drive, a MicroSD card, or a hard disk, just for the reasons above. It also is a good habit to do another thorough zeroing out before letting someone else have the media as well, for obvious reasons.
Personal experience when hunting for a job.
When interviewing I'd be asked about my *arrest* record at many places (Fortune 100 companies on down), but not about convictions. Since I'm lucky enough to have no record in either department, I passed that test, but asked multiple HR droids why someone arrested but not convicted mattered, and got the response that was stated in my previous post.
Essentially it is used as a filter so the HR people have fewer applications to sort through.
If faced with having to have an on-the-fly fingerprint scan by a police officer, versus being handcuffed, stuffed in the back of a patrol car, fingerprinted, mugshots taken, and all that other stuff because of a potential suspect match, I'll take the fingerprint scan.
With almost all employers these days, just an arrest for any reason on a record (even if charges are dropped) means no chance of ever finding meaningful employment [1], keeping out of the handcuffs is paramount to keeping any type of meaningful career.
[1]: A lot of employers view arrest records as more meaningful than convictions because, "a thug can buy themselves an acquittal, while if a cop considers someone guilty enough to pull out the handcuffs and do the paperwork, they are guilty in this company's book."
Nay, the tinfoil hat actually amplifies the mind control rays.
This isn't to say China is evil or the people that run the country are out to destroy everyone. As of now, it is a trading partner, and has a potential to be a world leader.
However, things can change in governments in a heartbeat. Someone in the year 2000 would almost be surprised at how the US has changed, in reality and perception in the events that happened 1-2 years later.
You can't run life with a tinfoil hat on, but there are things that can easily happen.
Ironically, China is working on things that one would consider "entitlements" in the US. They are making steps to fix their health care system, which was broken by misguided reform in 1978 or so. China also pays for a full education for its citizens, up to and including foreign exchange transfers. This gives them a competitive advantage because a Chinese citizen does not have to fret about student loans compared to a US citizen with a similar education.
The ulterior motive is that Google's interests are different than ISP's interests, and that ISPs may end up bullying Google to give preferences to their customers in return for Google's traffic not being "slowed down".
If people knew that an ISP was throttling, Google can point that it is the ISP's doings, not Google. Right now, a slow website is usually the website owner's problem, and the ISP would likely never get blamed, especially if traffic to other places was not affected.
Disclaimer: This is pure speculation.
China can easily militarize, and start an offensive military campaign. Of course, other countries would stop trading with them, but the internal economic momentum a full scale armed conflict would gain them would easily offset that.
After Seoul is a charred ruin and Taiwan flies the red flag, there are old wounds -- as of now Japan is essentially defenseless other than a token army. Would the US step in if Japan started being attacked by ICBMs and Chinese aircraft carriers? With these new theaters of war, it may be unlikely, especially if there was threat of nuclear retaliation.
Of course, there is the Middle East. Nothing is stopping China from making deals with nations that are already anti-US, setting up military posts in return for oil, while providing weapons and training for anti-US troops. No Western power is going to attack a Chinese post because they don't want to get glassed. It is pretty feasible for an easy score of oil resources without real fear of reprisal other than "OMG, sanctions!" yelled out at a UN meeting.
No, after China flips the switch from a trading partner to a military empire, there is no going back, but their presence as a superpower would be far increased, especially by using the "are you sure you want to start a nuclear exchange over this piece of land?" gambit.
Think this wouldn't happen? People said the exact same thing about trade issues between countries before WW I broke out.
I wouldn't go that far against China, because for the most part living conditions are improving. People are moving from the rice paddies to their equivalent of Suburbia.
However, the ability to say what one wills is completely different. If I wanted to arrange a protest march where I live, other than some paperwork (so the police can clear traffic and announce to people to find another route), I can pretty much have any message (even unpopular) walked to the state capitol building. Someone does this in China, and they might stand a chance of ending up in a mental home, prison, or dead.
China isn't all bad:
They are getting a stable middle class while here in the US, there is a marked erosion of it.
They emphasize education, while here in the US, education is mocked, or even considered against religious beliefs.
Being a blackhat is considered an honorable profession there, as good as a crack team soldier. Here, someone with "offensive" hacking skills who makes themselves known ends up either in prison, or suffering GeoHot's fate.
China's government is building infrastructure, both Internet and physical. It is a good concept that seems to be lost here across the pond about investing on things past the next fiscal quarter.
My fear is that China has one thing the US doesn't right now; nationalism. Will China decide to go for some low-hanging fruit like Taiwan is anyone's guess.
It does for the Chinese. It strengthens them and weakens the West. There will be a point where they won't need to continue exporting cheap stuff, where they have not just resources and wealth, but technology.
Then, expect to see some really nasty things happen:
First, there is the low hanging fruit, Taiwan. This little island has been a prize just out of reach, and it is only a matter of time before China gets bold enough to annex them. Think the US would start a nuclear conflict over an island? Won't happen. It is only a matter of time before this becomes just as part of China as Hong Kong did.
South Korea is also a prize, and having their puppet to the north start a protracted conflict in order to cripple the Western economy by a thorough shelling of Seoul would be a major military coup. China wouldn't even be faulted if state of the art weaponry (both conventional and nuclear) managed to appear in the DPRK. The US involved in North Korea also means another theater of war that the West has to fight but China doesn't.
It would almost be trivial for China to cripple the Western economy in just 24 hours by a two pronged attack (overrunning Taiwan and getting Kim to shell his southern neighbor), with little to no threat of retaliation from the US. China knows this, and the only thing stopping them from this is because they still have intelligence to gain from Western businesses and a benefit from one-sided trade practices.
Depends... if you make people realize that retribution is swift and certain, they are not going to attempt another organized protest chain on a wide scale. Of course, there will be the firebrand or two, but after those are dealt with in a public manner, there won't be many who will step up to the plate.
Harsh regimes do keep control, and keep control for a long time, and China's is definitely not going anywhere.
Bad thing is that the next step up from having the conversation ended is having a knock on the door with the special black van pull up, with the next of kin being notified they owe the Chinese government the cash for the lethal injection chemicals before they get the body back (sans usable organs for transplants, of course.)
We encounter this in the US too. For example Spotify.
It will only get worse, as the squeeze is put on people who dare get in the way of how devices get controlled. For example, I'm sure what happened to Geohot is going to ensure that the next guy who is bright enough to find a break in someone's hardware is not going to publish it, similar to HD satellite where a few people might have a way around it, but breaks in its security will never be divulged to the masses.
I dread to see what lies in store for us 10 years from now. I'm anticipating:
Real time monitoring of devices, so if an iPhone reads from a Cydia site, its IMEI/ESN would immediately be thrown off the cellular network, similar to how a modern IPS will lock a machine from getting out of a subnet if someone starts running nmap.
Healthchecks, and NAT enforced from core routers to home routers, where if someone isn't running a trusted OS with a hardened DRM stack and anti-IP forwarding/proxying measures, it will not get Internet access.
Insta-account locking of people's Apple IDs, Google Marketplace accounts, and such if a rooted/jailbroken device is detected by any of the above with their ID attached.
Games will be locked to consoles. Lose your next gen PS-3 successor, re-buy all your games, just like someone who loses their license dongle with Steinberg products has to re-buy Cubase and their VST plugins. Complain against a game company? They will insta-block all access to all games.
The sad thing is there is -NOTHING- to check the tide of more invasive and less free devices. Another genius that publishes a crack like Geohot will just be racked up on civil/criminal charges, and someone hiding behind a VPN will end up having what happened to the guy who got Palin's password.
Follow the money; look who benefits from having FB be the guardian for information.
With stuff tied to FB accounts, it gets rid of anonymity, or at least forces uses to keep creating profiles in order to access things. In any case, everything viewed through one FB profile is all tied together, making it easy to follow a breadcrumb trail.
The reason why FB is used over a website is pure laziness -- it is quick and easy to type some stuff, let FB format it, stick some pictures in a decently attractive layout, chuck a few bucks at FB's advertising department to get some eyeballs flying that way, and call it done. I know this, as I am guilty of doing this for some personal stuff myself.
The ideal would be to take reliable nuclear reactors, such as the traveling wave reactor design. Have it near a large desalination plant. Then pump the water where it needs to be.
Desalination takes a lot of energy, thus the closer one locates an energy source, the better. Then once it is usable, it can be piped where it is needed.
The one notable thing about the N1 is the fact that if you are clued enough to fire up adb and fastboot oem unlock it, the device is yours to install what the heck you desire on it.
I really hope AT&T inherits T-Mobile's hacker-friendliness. This way, a device that is bought unlocked and not connected to a provider, such as a Nexus phone, or some of the higher end HTC phones several years ago could be used.
I personally would pay some more (although not double or an insane amount) for a device that is made for people to root/jailbreak/re-ROM, something like a modern version (with a decent dual core CPU, decent memory, etc.) of the N900 that ships with Android, but can have any OS of choice put on. Let people who think rooting is wrapping plant tendrils around a device keep buying consumer level units; it would be nice to have a "pro" phone that is well designed and made for techies.
For example, take the Motorola Atrix. Yank the signed kernel protection, et al. Have source code, binaries, and OS images available for download. Charge $100 more. This would be an ideal device. Perhaps have Webtop as a Linux distribution so it can easily be modded, perhaps built from source like Gentoo.
Since the hardware would be identical to the "consumer" model, economies of scale would be to AT&T/Motorola's advantage. The hardware modders would be happy, and the additional cost would not just cover the cost of having the files available, but also cover the dumbasses who call in to customer service with "I just re-ROMed my phone with an alpha build, and bluetooth doesn't work." Also, since the baseband chip is separate, there are no issues of dangers to the cellular network.
IIRC, Sprint had the chance to buy TMO. Why they didn't? Because Sprint is sitting on two redundant networks, CDMA, and iDEN. Adding GSM would just mean they have another set of towers to look after.
Instead, Sprint chose to go and work on WiMax technology... IMHO, stupid because everyone else is going LTE and with tower sharing agreements, it means not having to worry about as many antenna emplacements.
Sprint could have easily put in SIM card functionality. In fact, China, Korea, and Japan all use R/UIM cards which are functionally identical to SIM cards, except use CDMA technology. Sprint and Verizon chose to break the standard and not have that technology in their devices.
The future will be interesting when everything goes LTE/WiMax, and the older technologies get shut down, just like AMPS did. Sprint will be on its lonesome with their Clear stuff, and everyone else will be tower sharing.
What shows that we are near the tipping point is the PS3. It remained unbroken for a long time (4+ years, an almost unheard of amount of time), and the one person who cracks it wide open is being made an example of by Sony's legal team.
Yes, devices will be cracked, but there will become a time where it takes so much time to do so, that it becomes irrelevant. For example, if it took 2-3 years to find a workable JB on the iPhone, and by then, people have upgraded to at least two models hence, victory has been accomplished by the cellular carriers.