...they took tens of millions of medical records too, which they weren't entitled to...

Actually, from RTFA, it appears they were entitled to them. From the article:

By giving them the servers, the IT personnel effectively waived the fourth amendment protection. As painful as it might have been to watch, the IT personnel should have said "NO! I do not consent to you taking the servers." rather than hand them over. If the IRS thugs then did rip them out, now you have a fourth amendment violation.

It's the same thing if a cop tells you to empty your pockets/purse/backpack etc on the hood of a car. The proper response is "I don't consent to searches." and do nothing. The cop may do it anyway, and you shouldn't resist if they do, but now you have an illegal search, which puts you in a better positon in court.

FBI SMASH TOR!

The post above was modded funny, but maybe it's true. It could be that the FBI's supposed "struggle" isn't one at all. Could they have already figured out how to penetrate it and are releasing this misinformation in hopes of snaring more people who now think it's safe? Remember, cops, including the FBI can legally lie to you, and have no hesitation about doing so.

One in a million instead of one in two millions. I guess it would still not overload the average office clerk to double check that many people. Yes, it would be a nuisance, but a minor one...officials should be informed that a negative on a biometric scan is NOT necessarily a proof that the person is not who he claims to be.

Unfortunately, the number of times this will happen legitimately is still low enough when it it happens, the person who's iris has changed will automatically be assumed to be a scammer or criminal. If it happens fairly regularly, as some have suggested, then negative scans are just going to be assumed to be false negative, and there will be some simple procedure to "fix" it that criminals can exploit.

...It boggles the mind that some would step so clearly out-of-bounds and risk something exactly like this...

Not really. It's that corporate (or government) shield thing. The people directly responsible aren't paying to defend the lawsuit, and they won't pay a single penny of any damages that may be awarded. They certainly won't do a single day of jail time if they are found to have broken some law. At best, they may get some extra training and be reassigned.

Since there is no real risk, they have no reason not to step out-of-bounds.

...any control message it receives to a known port on any computers it can find...

That's something the original article doesn't mention: Is the listening port on an infected computer static or not? If it's static, then a simple, and therefore quick, nmap scan of an IP space will reveal possible infected hosts on a network. You'd need to do further investigation to weed out the false positives, but it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a fingerprinting query to further narrow it down. Depended on how well it's set up, just looking for nginx Web servers may be enough to get a good idea of infected machines.

If it's random, then look for port scans coming from infected machines. Still would be some false positives, but you can narrow down the list fairly quickly.

If the listening port changes daily, hourly, etc. based on a formula, then you'll need to reverse the formula. And it would have to be based on a formula for the other nodes to find it without the noise of a port scan. But once you do reverse it, then you're effectively back to the static port scenario.

...Our divorce lasted longer than the pre-filing marriage - and this without kids or any significant property at stake...

If it helps any, I've been through that first hand too. You're not alone. In my case, the judge twisted the knife even more. My last grandparent died, one I was close to, right before my court date. Never mind the court had already reset the date 3 times (ex had nothing to do with it). I asked for a reset so I could attend the out of state funeral (Ohio, I'm in TX, so it's not a short trip). Judge refused. Then, very late in the day before the funeral, the judge changes the date anyway. Too late for me to make it to the funeral (which was early in the morning). I hate the judge for that more than all the other ways she screwed me over.

...i give my SMBs Comodo Internet Security which is free for BOTH home and business use and works great..

While I do use Comodo myself, don't think for a second that it's anti-virus engine is very good. It's not. If you want a good AV scanner, go with Kaspersky or Bitdefender, although neither are free :(.

Where Comodo shines it's defense plus engine, which let's you know that something suspicious is going on. Answer properly the pop-ups, and nothing will get through. But that's the key, "Answer properly". I don't believe the average computer user can do that.

...Maybe someone can tie it [HJT] in with the signatures for Housecall or clamAV...

I can tell you that from my testing, relying on clam is extremely risky. I'd love to recommend a FOSS solution, but I'm submitting stuff it misses virtually every time I find malware and test clam against it.

We shouldn't allow such complex laws that we need lawyers.

We wouldn't need lawyers to interpret the laws if we didn't elect lawyers to write them.

Besides, if you really did forget your long passphrase, no time in jail will likely 'make you remember'...

True, but what matters is the judge's opinion. If he (or she) thinks you're faking, you're doing time in jail. Actually, I've seen judges that would throw you in jail even if they did believe you just as a power trip or they just don't like you for ___ (fill in excuse). No, these people shouldn't be judges, but they are and that's the reality. Probably what happened to Chadwick.

...As long as the law reasonably "promote[s] the Progress of Science and useful Arts," it's probably Constitutional, even if there would be a better way to achieve that goal...

Except it doesn't. The creator has already been paid to create the work. Going back and paying him (or her) again isn't going to magically create more works. Others will probably make the arguments for me that long copyright (and patents) can actually inhibit progress, so I'll skip those. This law wasn't intended to promote progress. It was intended to line some Congressman's pockets with "campaign contributions."

...Is the star dead or dying?

I read it as the star was dying and it engulfed the planets. Now the star is dead and shrunk back down, and they found some planets are still there.

My sarcasm detector is on the fritz, so I can't tell, but just in case...This is a common MO for car burglars according to Houston PD. They aren't really on the cell phone. They're walking around looking for stuff in cars to steal. Again, it's walking around the parking lot, not walking to or from the parking and store.