I have always felt like someone should create a Privacy stamp of approval or a way to certify that a product adheres to certain hardware specs regarding privacy.
Being approved by this group would allot you to stamp your product was found secure by a 3rd party group like this.
A product would have to use a mini relay or something like that to physically disconnect the connections from the camera and microphone of any device when its not in use, and when in use show that the connections are made with a LED light that is hard wired to the same relay, with no way to bypass in software.
You may use a physical shutter for the camera and some way to disconnect only the microphone, but have a 3rd party certify this would go a long way to have open security cameras in a room in my house etc, something I would never do with a security company able to watch you 24/7, but if when they watched a red light lit up very bright and could not be bypassed might work.

"Wow, you are completely wrong on that one. I'm not even sure why you would think the market would treat that the same. Does the bank treat you the same when you fail to make a mortgage payment as when you fail to pay an electric bill? No, they don't."

Yes actually they do, its called a credit record and every blemish is just another reason to not let you borrow money. This is similar in that its not so much who you pay and when, the markets will react to any perceived threat of not getting money back from a investment. Reality is not even so much the issue, if people think you are not going to pay back a bond the markets will have major issues.

WTF? No this was a vote about the debt ceiling, not about Obama Care. Bush raised the debt ceiling 7 times without this kind of BS.
The very thought that the Republicans would play chicken at all with an economy that is trying to come back from a collapse is fucking totally ridiculous.
The people voted Obama back in to office with Romney running against Obama Care, they lost! and since then have tried everything they can to stop it, threating to shutdown the government was just another way of them not wanting to admit they lost the election and therefore do not get to overturn the presidents landmark Health care bill.
This was nothing more than Republicans hoping they could force the president to overturn Obama Care by holding the economy hostage, pure and simple. I do not see how any rational person would see this any other way. They should have voted to raise the debt ceiling for no other reason than that's what they are there for.

I agree, Myst was boring to me, people say the graphics looked great? I bought it and was bored.
DOOM was what woke me up, it was also release in 1993, and had a FREE version that made Myst look like crap. I was hooking 2 PC's together with a DB9 serial cable to play DOOM 1 vs 1 and can remember the first time a saw my buddy run by me in a level and was amazed, nothing had done that before!

Agreed! stuff like this is exactly why Apple lost the Desktop OS battle years ago, and is exactly why it will loose the phone market in the end.
I like Apple, I think they have great ideas, but they then lock them down and ruin them because they want to much control.
I have bought iPods, iPads, but know own a Galaxy S3 because it let me stick a Micro SD card in it, and has way more open hardware support.
I will give Apple credit for great idea that then are easy to copy and make better because of more open hardware support.

Its nice thinking and all that, but this will never happen, you might get governments to agree with this even, but Pandora's Box has been opened the vast wealth of information on the internet, and power of controlling it, is too much. When you send anything out in to the world, be it a physical package or ip packets, someone is at the very least going to record who you sent it to and when. Encryption just makes them want to look at that package even more.
The only way to make sure no one is watching is to not send it out on the public networks, unplug, don't go outside!
If you want them to tell you they are not watching, they can do that!

BTW, I have seen the Pebble and Sony watches that are just Bluetooth extensions like I want, but they do not seem to be able to actually take a call on the watch, they just let you get messages/email or apps on the watch.
It would be nice to be able to use a small speaker phone on the watch even if I had to hold it to me ear, nothing expensive Bluetooth devices like this that just go in your ear are pretty cheap, but I wear glasses and wearing one on my ear the whole time would suck. I just want a cheap Bluetooth watch that is a small speaker phone that lets you see whole is calling, make calls to a small contact list or number, and maybe text message support also. But I could find nothing.

Actually I was just looking for a Bluetooth waterproof watch that would vibrate or something for when I am riding my jetski, because I do not want to drop my expensive phone in the water when I need to make a call or take a call.
So I did a search on Amazon and found nothing but non Bluetooth cell phone watches just a couple days ago.
I do not know why someone would want a cell phone in a watch its not going to be as nice as current phones are, and you would have to pay for a another carrier contract and separate numbers etc. Bluetooth to a phone in a waterproof bag inside my ski is what I was looking for and could not really find that.

Here are the phone watches I found.
http://www.amazon.com/ECOMGEAR-Waterproof-Quadband-Mobile-Bluetooth/dp/B00809X0VY
http://www.amazon.com/Water-Proof-Stainless-Unlocked-Mobile/dp/B0055A4E98/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_1
http://www.amazon.com/Tw810-Unlocked-Watch-Phone-Bluetooth/dp/B007SSNY00/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_2
http://www.amazon.com/G13-Black-Quad-band-Watch-UNLOCKED/dp/B0064U47HC/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_3
http://www.amazon.com/WaterProof-Stainless-Screen-Unlocked-Bluetooth/dp/B00EC0HZDY/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_4
http://www.amazon.com/Waterproof-Watch-Mobile-Phone-Unlocked/dp/B006XBMY9A/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_5
http://www.amazon.com/Digital_Family-Intelligent-Waterproof-Ultra-Thin-sensitivity/dp/B00AQUOX7A/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_7
http://www.amazon.com/MQ998-Phone-Watch-Mobile-Camera/dp/B0043V5QE2/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_8
http://www.amazon.com/N388-Unlocked-Screen-Mobile-Adjustable/dp/B00ATJC2GM/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_9
http://www.amazon.com/Worldwide-Ultra-thin-Touchscreen-Watch-Phone/dp/B008J9ZRDY/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_12

There are tons more also, I could go on and on.
Now someone find me a simple Bluetooth add on watch for my current phone that can make calls and receive them, a vibration of some kind when a call comes in would also be nice!

I am not sure why they can not do both, the issue I had with the DRM was that is was not possible to play a game if your internet was down for more than 24 hours, and I use my console on vacation allot where there is no internet. So why did they not let you choose if you want to use DRM you have to have the internet up every 24 hours, if your internet is down, stick the disk in the system to play the game just like you always have and it works while the disk is in.
I must be missing something.

I do not think you understand, I would not get a text message unless something is up, there is a issue, or a emergency.
I am sorry but if there is a good reason for someone to contact me, while watching my child, I should have the right to get a stupid message in a movie theater, its not a big deal, its a simple text message, or a vibration that I can walk outside to check on. People go out to use the restroom, and that must bother people, but its seems to be ok.
I am not a rude asshole, I constantly put myself in others shoes in my life and try not to trample on others, but I am just saying if I am in a movie and something bad happens at home I want to be able to be reached.

I am not sure why people are getting this upset, talking on the phone should not be allowed inside the theater, but you should be able to get up and take a call right outside the theater right? Also I am not that bothered by a person texting really, if they keep the phone down in their lap it does not bother me at all, but if others are that bothered by it, can there not be some kind of low light "movie mode" on phones maybe that would let you read some texts with only maybe gray text on black background or something so the light is very low? The reason I say this is because when I go to a movie theater now a days, someone else is watching my young child, and I HAVE to be able to be contacted at all times... period, if people do not understand that, then they have never had kids, or other reasons that far outweigh the importance of a movie. People seem to have the attitude everyone texting is a kid texting about silly shit, but I just need to simple check a text if I get one while watching a movie to make sure things are good at home, and I do not get many silly nonsense type texts, since I am in my 40's.

Agreed, I read the article about required internet connection and people post things at the bottom saying that's if you can read the article then you can surely connect your XBOX every 24 hours, and let the nerd tears flow! These people have obviously never lost a internet connection before, I have had my cable connection down for over a week once, and the cable company could not figure it out for that long, I also go on vacation to a beach house that has no Internet and also other remote places, and I bring my console to keep me sane. These people either do not think of these issue because they are to young and spoiled, or are just trolling. I also worry about the constantly connected camera, and even thou you can throw something over the lens, the mic would always be on, even if Microsoft did not abuse this, it does not mean some hacker wont. I will not let a camera sit in my living room constantly on, connected to the internet, period!

This mentality is not just about the Xbox, I was just arguing the other day that I was upset that allot of the new Android tablets had no SD card slot, and also everyone responded that you can use the cloud to stream all your audio and video! so why would you need more local storage, WTF? I even have a unlimited 4G wifi puck that I carry around and I can not stream video in all places I might want to watch it, and imagine if everyone wanted to stream HD video via the cell phone network all the time. I was also just arguing with Amazon.com the other day because I accidently 1-clicked a digital video and bought it, even thou I have 1-click turned off in my settings, the guy at Amazon told me that 1-click was always on for digital purchases, because its digital, and is bought right away (like that makes any sense) and then when I explained that I was just trying to get to a screen that explained if I could download a copy of the video, he asked my why I would ever need a local copy, when you can just stream it!
This cloud mentality is scary, if you ever lose your internet (cable) connection you will have nothing to do at all I guess, no games, no movies, nothing.

I actually have a PS3 and XBOX360 and tons of games I almost never finish, but buy them only when I go on vacation and take a console. I always play PC games when at home.

Except it is impossible to multicast across the internet to individual subscribers, while maintaining the benefits of multicast, you can use a VPN type connection for multicast across the internet, but then your back to a point to point connection.

It seems to me with Amazon.com doing so well and only getting better, UPS is making more and more money and sense as a way to get goods to houses in as little as 2 days.
I am not sure why the USPS jsut left this market alone, my they did not try to compete in this area.