In all seriousness: who are these institutions? And do they have bullet-proof methods to warn everyone when (probably not if) they receive NSLs to ignore and keep certain code in place, upon pain of PMITA prison time?

Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like it already has a crack in the shifter retainer plate and the housing below the shifter (visible in one picture but not another). Also seems odd that he didn't seem to go through the whole pattern, but just first to second. Maybe the printed clutch failed.

I suppose it is well-nigh impossible to ever 3D print semi-conductors, but I hope someone is at least researching the concept.

I think printing your own guaranteed backdoor-free hardware would be a far more important blow for freedom than 3D printing yet another killing machine.

Pod Bay door control.

If every OS and system on the planet is merely your plaything, you are now not just a government agency but a standalone entity that can completely self-fund without leaving a trace, and thus answerable to no one, most especially mere elected civilians.

And if the Senators or POTUS get uppity, well no one that achieves those offices are innocent, thus they are completely blackmailable, if not subject to out and out threats (especially their families).

I think this is the main reason every man that now becomes President ends up with gray hair, regardless of their age.

Clarke's The Sentinel was the fore-runner to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The TLAs will never allow 100% transparency of all the silicon that would expose their mandated backdoors.

"Science: we're all about _coulda_ not about _shoulda_"

No doubt quite a few despots and TLAs are following this news closely.

Being able to 100% protect the President is something they have to get right the first time, and every time.

Seeing how crap they've been over the last several years (hooker scandals, fence jumping guy with a knife gets INTO the White House, etc.), I'm suspect that only applies if the POTUS is White.

The article specifically addresses the issue of standing:

"The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures included a slide from a classified NSA presentation that made explicit reference to Wikipedia, using our global trademark. Because these disclosures revealed that the government specifically targeted Wikipedia and its users, we believe we have more than sufficient evidence to establish standing."

So instead it will be thrown out as 'fruit of the poisoned tree' (stolen documents).

Same police state, different day.

Weird how most bug exploits result in pretty much every OS reacting with: "I don't know what you want, so here's the keys to the kingdom! (escalation)" instead of: "I don't know what you want, so I'm jumping out of the window and taking you with me! (system crash)."

The GOP (other than small enclaves such as frat houses) is demographically doomed. Much like Fox News, their largest core group is rapidly graying and not being replaced at a high enough rate. In the long run even abject, rapacious greed isn't enough to keep them as a viable party. But they are not going quietly, screaming racist and misogynist epithets as they rapidly slide into oblivion.

Look at it as an insight into how people REALLY feel--when they're not compelled by threat of expulsion/arrest/harassment to be polite and politically correct.

The other harsh reality is that the source of easily +90% of this garbage is spewed from the orifices of white men, symmetrically bell-curving around college age.

[Provided our enemies accommodate us by propping their vehicles up at the optimal 45-degree angle.]

But then again, at the beginning, so was asbestos.