Wrong... Windows 3.0 Program Manager supported multiple, overlapping windows. Win8 is a regression to Windows 1.0x, which did not support overlapping windows--only maximized & tiled. We didn't go back to 1990-era capabilities (3.0), but back to 1985-era capabilities. Is there a hack that will allow me to run the tiles in 4-color CGA mode???

Where Win8's crappy Metro tile desktop program loading thingy falls apart is when you have multiple shortcuts that have the same name. How does that happen? Simple: "Uninstall". Not "Uninstall (program"), but "Uninstall". With the Start Menu, "Uninstall" is under the folder of the program (or even in the Win3.x Program Manager Group). No such info on Win8's StartClusterfuck...

...but they do have a valid point with this one. Right or wrong, Congress has forbidden state & Federal agencies (e.g. FBI, ATF, etc.) from putting together a list of gun owners. Period. It wouldn't take any stretch of the imagination to realize that the "government" (NSA, FBI, ATF, etc.) would have 99% of the gun owners' phone numbers out there simply by querying for phone numbers of gun shops, ranges, etc. All it would take is for an NSA snoop to do a simple SQL query "WHERE phone_num in ('222-333-4444', '333-444-5555', '444-555-6666', ...)" and they have such a list.

The NSA's phone snooping does offer the ability to create such a de facto list... Sure, there could be some false-positives (e.g. the non-gun-owning wife of the gun store shop's owner) and some false-negatives (e.g. the militia man who doesn't own a phone or have access to "thar Intar-webs"), but I can't see it not being 98-99% accurate...

Now the conservative Congress-critters who voted to keep the NSA snooping but who are also financed by the NRA are likely to change their minds...

But the on-site / server backdoors are necessary unless there's some unknown backdoor built into SSL that the NSA, MI6, IDF, etc. can utilize. By default, my GMail uses HTTPS, but the NSA's backdoor to Google servers negates that advantage.

So, unless there's an unknown backdoor built into SSL, as long as Runbox.com uses HTTPS, how should "Australia, the UK, the US", etc. know what was transmitted unless they use a brute-force attack?

Just yesterday, NPR indicated that US-based cloud platforms stand to lose between $21 billion and $35 billion over the next few years over the NSA scandal... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=210570888 . Lavamail and Silent Circle shut down unexpectedly & destroyed all data they had to not get caught up in the scandal...

No, they don't. Sure, those born in the USA in a hospital and those who have passports are generally known. But there are people who don't know they even are American citizens, as they were born in a foreign country & had one parent who might dual-citizenship, yet have never set foot on American soil... I doubt the NSA knows those peoples' names & doubtful they're throwing out data associated with those people... I doubt the NSA knows unless the IRS comes knocking on those (unknown) citizens' doorsteps. (Happens to Canadians all the time...)

IIRC, one of the people who was supposed to be sent to Guantanamo a decade ago turned out to be a US citizen (by birth)--he even had no idea...

Oh wait... According to John Oliver, if some NSA system gives me a 51% "foreignness" rating, I must be a foreigner and not a US citizen.

Well, I feel confident...

Given everything that I've heard about PRISM over the past few days, I have one major question...

How do they know who is a US citizen and who isn't?

I don't remember being asked nor answering a "citizenship question" when signing up for GMail, Hotmail, Facebook, Skype, YouTube, etc. Is the NSA data matching names to (known) citizens and throwing out that data? Kinda tough to accurately do so for the "Bill Smiths" of the world, not all of which live in the US. Are they building a profile of everyone by address, thus assuming US residents are "citizens"? If I set up a fake Hotmail account as "Bubbles Sanchez" and say I live in Miami (and my ISP says I'm in Miami), does that make me and my data a "citizen" in the eyes of the NSA?

Or are they simply vacuuming up everything from these sites and TELLING US they're not looking at US citizens' data, simply because they don't have a decent way (let alone a fool-proof one) to tell who is a citizen or not?

Since I'm using "Start Is Back" to give me a Start menu and not go into Metro directly, what are all those apps sending to others about me, my PC, and what I'm doing???

One of my complaints (and yet another 3rd party utility to get around Win8's shortcomings) is that the Windows Update icon no longer shows in Desktop. In fact, if you have Windows Update set to inform but not download updates automatically, and you use an automatic logon, Win8 doesn't show you any warning that updates are available in either Desktop or Metro...

No, but some terrorists with scuba training could cause a little bit of a problem... Hell, unless you tell the populace where their underwater nuclear reactor is (you know, to look out for possible trouble), a bunch of divers in the water "over there" wouldn't raise any suspicions...

Umm, you still have the issue with the residents, hippies, etc. As a beachfront resident, would you feel safe knowing that 5 miles outside your big windows you have a nuclear reactor--as opposed to a wind farm? To add, hippies do like "the sea", fish, and underwater nature, so that doesn't really change. The only thing that would change is that the local government's objections end at the city limits, which may be at the shore...

"Respect my authoritah!"

So, according to this prosecutor, if someone looks for porn on a PC used by a spouse, especially if protected with a password, then that spouse is hacking and faces felony prosecution? Looks like the bar would be set even lower to prosecute, especially if there was no official legitimate safety concern (e.g. for the child)...

Better tell the makers of the USB devices that secretly load tracking software on PCs (forgot the name) not to sell their devices in Michigan. It would only be logical that the prosecutor would have to go after the device maker's officers as accessories in the commission of a felony...

Whether felons have the right to vote & the restrictions posed on them is a state matter.

Only 2 states, Kentucky & Virginia, deny felons the right to vote for the rest of their lives, although Kentucky has a process to restore that right. Other states disallow voting for felons in prison, on probation, on parole, etc.--just depends on the state. Maine & Vermont allow felons to vote while in prison. Oddly, "felony disenfranchisement" laws have been found to be constitutional .

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement

For some reason, TFA only mentions Safari. No mention of IE (though Silverlight is mentioned) or Firefox, just Safari & Chrome. I don't know if that's because the author hasn't gotten around to testing Firefox or if it's immune--but Silverlight & Flash could be holes for FF.

Frankly, I never trusted Google's ability to vet Apple's (Webkit) code for security holes... And I just don't trust Apple.

And what the hell is "HTML5 database storage"--and why would I want to give any app persistent storage? Seems like a great way to store malware...

I recognize that styles can be customized by different users. However, when it comes to college students, few people change the base styles that come with Word. The example I was citing was getting files from 3 different people, none of whom use Word for anything beyond basic word processing, and attempting to cut/paste parts into into a file to submit to a teacher as a group paper. Margins, tab stops, bulleting, source OS (Windows vs. Mac), etc. may all be different, but that wouldn't cause conflicts in a well designed product (of which, Word is not).