To further your "decision maker" argument. I'm responsible for a budget where we regularly buy a large number of mac computers every year. Everywhere possible, we have held off on mac purchases. In some areas, we are actively planning to move to PCs. While I am a life long (30 years) Mac user, I find myself frequently advocating against the Mac precisely because of what Chuq articulates. Apple is an enormously successful company, and they have found success in walking in IBM-like footsteps. They make products that appeal to the mass rather than to the edge, and they decide on aggregate data rather than vision. It's going to continue to work really great for Apple for a long while to come.

No one in the market has figured this out yet. There is a zygote of users out there that are hungry for better solutions but who have nowhere to turn to. No one out there is really 'disrupting' Apple. But it is a solvable problem, and someone will make it so. When someone does, I'll be moving my circles in their direction.

If a trade war occurs with China, consumer prices will significantly inflate. Tech company stocks will fall significantly, as a large amount of gear is sourced internationally. For those with an interest to keeping your 401(k) safe, I suspect the first thing is to consider which companies source to China, as opposed to countries that use Taiwan, Korea, Japan, etc. Hmm. I wonder if anyone has made just such a list; e.g. "How to prepare your 401(k) for a trade war with China"!

My opinion of Hayden just bumped up by quite a bit. It is common sense (not to mention historically rigorous and logically sound) to suggest we need strong encryption and that back doors are a terrible idea. But, what a victory to hear a public official take this position. So much more of this needs to be happening!

I think what we are seeing here is progress, albeit slow and with a long road ahead. Their stated purpose of having a dialogue is, in itself, an important and positive step forward. Comey's remark on skepticism being fair, but cynicism being problematic, is reasoned and nuanced. I think this is a good sign that the intelligence community is starting to grapple with the need for open discussion, and is making a case towards that end.

This illustrates the moral depravity of the author's viewpoint entirely.

We aren't fighting the system if we say "The bankers steal from us, so let's steal as they do." On the contrary, it is a clarion call to become evil like them. It is an injustice and tragedy that those who that participated in the financial crisis have not been held to account, but the tragedy becomes catastrophe if we follow in their footsteps.

As others indicate, it is certainly possible to overcome this challenge. Practically, I wonder about cost to scale. The cost efficiency argument is cost to build out and maintain the solution versus the labor cost of manual changes.

Security hasn't been mentioned, and is rather important. Principally, I would want to know about (a) the regulatory requirements and (b) the risk of whatever security controls you would put in place (e.g. the loss potential) versus the value gained.

All of that said, if I owned a company doing what you described, I would certainly investigate options six ways from Sunday to find a better method, and I would suspect a better one than what you described is possible.

The US tax code for expats is presently highly problematic. There is good cause to have little faith in near term remedy. The decision on citizenship is considerably long term. My dad gave me advice as a teenager that has been the most valuable guiding light in my life: in whatever decisions you make, tend towards solutions that open more doors of future opportunity than they close. Us citizenship doesn't really limit opportunities, but it certainly has present day liabilities. Renouncing citizenship is a relatively inexpensive option. Gaining citizenship is considerably more expensive.

Beautifully stated.

The core components of information security are often misunderstood. The triad of confidentiality, integrity and availability are important to consider. There is a symbiosis between these three components. For example, if confidentiality and availability is highly restrictive, can we really be confident in the integrity of the data with so few people who have such limited access?

The old adage, being so tragically expressed here in real world terms, that the only "secure" computer is locked in a vault at the bottom of an ocean belies the very nature of security. For data to be useful and meaningful, it must be accessible to the people who need it when they need it. Failure to properly deliver accessibility will consequently build pressure on confidentiality (e.g. it will be shared inappropriately) and/or data integrity (e.g. the data will grow stale/irrelevant/etc).

A typewriter is a medieval instrument for data security. Because they have rockets, they might as well start building castle walls. They are, in essence and by design, surrendering. Sun Tzu would be proud of such an adversary that could create this result. Masterful.

Perhaps one of the more important works in the geek lexicon of art. The book and the film were very inspirational for me. For the first time as a child, I understood and could relate to that thing we have called pattern recognition. The moment in the film at the chalkboard was etched into my mind -- that that is is that that that is not is not is that it it is. Understanding the differences between people, and understanding them in their depths without glorification, is such a positive thing.

We are lucky to have art such as this and for all you old folks (over 30, naturally), ask the geek kids you work with or know to read the book or see the film. They may never have heard of it!

D'oh!

Fair enough, but speak for yourself. I am going to live forever. :)

Great post overall, just one comment:

Infinity and void are incredibly powerful concepts, but I don't think "never" is particularly useful, especially when describing a universe for which our body of knowledge is so incredibly limited.

Corrected that for you.

Physicists brought us the dark energy hypothesis, not mathematicians. This is an important distinction: dark energy is not used to solve an equation, rather it is a phenomenon that we can indirectly observe.

Black holes, Dark energy, Zero point energy -- there are so many nascent concepts that hint at great disruption to our theories but that have not had the time to sort themselves out. Humanity rigorously worked on the concept of gravity for several hundred years before we had our Einstein.