Ok, the Indian government can tell Blackberry to give up its keys for a particular encryption layer, but what is to stop people from using RSA 512-bit encryption with their e-mails? Wouldn't this force terrorists to pay attention to what encryption methods they are using?

The problem is that the entire Blackberry infrastructure is built around them never having your decryption keys. The keys are generated by the customers, and stored on their own Blackberry Enterprise Servers and mobile devices. So, even if they wanted to eavesdrop on their customers communication, the only way that would be possible would be to release new versions of the BES with built-in back doors. If that was the case, I think customers would just switch to Microsoft ActiveSync, which uses SSL and is secure.

I can't help but think that all of these lawmakers don't understand how public/private key encryption works. They must think it works similar to the old wiretaps where you just connect two wires onto their line and listen in. Is there no way to explain encryption to these lawmakers in a way that they can understand? Maybe we need to resurrect zombie Ted Stevens to break out his "series of tubes" conversations...

o continue: I had many problems with upper management, one of which was their wanting me to 'tweak' time sheet accounting so that new entry level minimum wage employees were paid for as little as 75% of their legitimate hours worked.

That's actually a criminal offense (payroll fraud, or something similar) and you should have called your state labor commission and reported them right then and there.

Well two weeks after I left I found out the newbie replacement didn't perform the audit when I accidentally clicked on a bookmark at home (Putty) and I was suddenly in a server from my old job. I logged out and didn't feel particularly compelled to tell them that my keys were still trusted. About a month later I made the same mistake. The hole was no longer there. I thought to myself, "Good for him. I guess he's not so incompetent at all."

But curiousity a la Facebook and Twitter revealed that a server had actually gone down that day. Apparently there was a 'rm -rf' oopsy!!!

I hate to say this, but you could have ended up in jail for this little "oopsy". If for any reason they thought the "rm -rf" wasn't an oopsy, and was malicious, and someone did forensics on the server and determined you had logged on after your termination date, you probably would have had the FBI knocking on your door.

Not only is it the employer's responsibility to shut down access for terminated or resigning employees, it is the employee's responsibility to destroy any company data they might still have. This includes ssh private keys that might give them access to company systems. It's always a good idea to cover your ass, especially when dealing with former employers that are unethical enough to short their own employee paychecks.

When PCs became affordable for the average joe, the "average gamer" changed and Sierra could no longer afford to write games that catered to an educated audience. They were just too small a part of the market.

Speaking as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the Sierra games as a kid (and Monkey Island, Infocom, and many others) I think this is a bit of a cop-out. Sure, there is a huge market of "twitch" gamers that never existed back in the 80s, but that doesn't mean the educated market disappeared. If anything, the educated gamer market is even larger than it was back then, as hardware has gotten cheaper. What has happened, I suppose, is that only the big mega-hits get funded by the studios.

We need to go back to indie studios that are self-funded and deliver games that even small niche markets like educated gamers want. There is more than enough money to go around. If you make good games, people will play them (and pay you for them).

The posts from users running Linux on the forum are showing times that are 4-5x faster than those posting benchmarks from Windows. What's going on there?

If you RTFA you'll see the Intel engineer was asked by his coworkers that challenged him to do this benchmark using only a single socket system. What you have are Linux geeks with 2 way or 4 way servers that want to start a dick measuring contest.

I would say a 5 ghz. overclock is pretty damn impressive. If someone wants to put up a benchmark from Linux on their single socket system that beats his 50 second benchmark, I would be equally impressed. Putting up a result from your 4 CPU server that is only 10 seconds faster just makes you look pathetic.

Why would you assume that? The engineer from Intel was limited to using a single socket system. I could argue that there is something seriously wrong with your Linux compiled binary since you have 4x as many sockets and ran less than twice as fast.

If you RTFA you'll see they intentionally limited the Intel guy to 1 socket. What fun would it be if he ran it on an 8-way server in the lab that you couldn't even buy in real life?

In 1998, 2002, 2007 and 2008, there were zero US airline fatalities. No Boeing jetliner operated by a US airline has had a fatal crash since 9/11. None of the fly-by-wire Airbus models (A320 and later) operated by a US airline have ever had a fatal crash, not even the one that had to land in the Hudson River after a bird strike.

Keep in mind, these vehicles are piloted by trained professionals and inspected by engineers multiple times a day, and have backup systems for everything. If we built cars like airplanes you would have to have two engines and two braking systems in every vehicle just in case the first one failed in traffic. You would also need an FAA approved flight plan just to travel to the grocery store.

It has been proven that a car with ABS brakes can stop faster than the old "pump the brakes rapidly" method. So, when you need to stop fast, feel free to mash your foot to the floor as hard as possible and let the ABS brakes do their thing. I know it creates that funky pulsing sensation as the brakes pulse hundreds of times per second, but it truly can stop faster than you can by pumping. Don't try to second-guess the automatic systems... just let them do their job and hopefully prevent an accident.

I'd rather be able to charge things with standard USB ports, cables, backup batteries, etc, as they were intended, than charge with Apple-approved chargers 2x as fast.

That sounds nice until you consider that it takes almost 8 hours to fully charge an iPad over a USB port. I'd rather plug it in for 5 hours to the Apple charger than wait so long.

Is there a practical reason that the iPhone / iPod cannot be recharged and / or synced via a simple USB mico connector interface?

Yes... Profit!

No, actually, if you RTFA, the iPhone has 2 charging modes - one uses 500ma, which is the upper-limit of a standard USB port, and a quick-charging mode which uses 1000ma. The iPhone needs to do a power negotiation to determine if the port is capable of providing 1000ma of power. This requires some signaling.

So, in an effort to provide a superior product that can charge twice as fast from a wall charger, but won't fry your computer by drawing too much power from it's computer port, Apple put some logic in the iPhone and some corresponding resistors in their charger.

Or, naw, you're right, Apple just wants to charge everyone for everything...

i hate when manufacturers do crap like this to keep peripherals locked into a more profitable licensing agreement. Apples tendency toward total control is one of the things i don't like about them.

It's also possible, you know, that Apple wants to make sure your several hundred dollar iThingie just doesn't get fried by a USB charger that doesn't put out the right power signal.

Yawn... These are sales from January to June - before the iPhone 4 was released. People were intentionally holding off purchases because they knew iPhone 4 was coming out. Wake me up if they outsell iPhones for the next 6 months.

This is a great comment, and reflects my deepest regrets about the Obama administration. Obama had a brief chance, when he was first elected, to wipe the slate clean, fire the federal reserve chairman, and start doing real investigations into the war and financial crimes that were perpetrated by Bush, Cheney, Greenspan, and Bernanke.

Instead, he decided to give them a pass in order to not be divisive politically. What has he gotten in return for this? Absolutely nothing. The Republicans still filibuster every vote and are determined to run our economy into the ground even further so that they may run him out of office in 2012.

By not standing up for what is right, he has just proven to the American people it doesn't really matter who you elect. The bad guys will ruin your country and the good guys will give nice speeches while they just stand aside and let the bad guys ruin your country.

I firmly believe that if we had real criminal investigations into the last administration, people would not be so willing to vote R in the 2010 midterms. Instead we get circus show trials of 2 corrupt dems, Rangel and Waters, that will ensure a Republican victory.

I'm not denying climate change, far from it, I am saying that there are aspects of it that smell of bad science, and the demonisation of skepticism is a very dangerous precedent. I'm sick of the whole debate honestly, but one thing I know for certain: climate scientists, a while ago and ever since, bought into the politics of the debate, and as far as I'm concerned they can go fuck themselves

Translation: you're not denying climate change because that would make you sound unreasonable, considering the vast amount of evidence, so instead you'll perform an ad-hominem attack on the messengers. This is a standard tactic of climate deniers.

I guess some people harbour angry feelings towards him for releasing that military video - something along the lines of loose lips might sink ships. I think more good than harm came from releasing the video, but I can see where it strikes a nerve with some people.

To me, this highlights the crux of the problem with Slashdot - moderators with a political agenda. Just because some Slashdot readers might have a negative opinion of his previous work releasing the helicopter videos because their politics don't agree with him, they downvote a potentially interesting story. Whether you agree with his agenda or not, you have to admit it would be an interesting interview.

Now I fully expect this comment to get down-modded by the exact same people that down-modded the interview in the first place.

Slashdot over the years has turned from a forum that used to house excellent discussions to a tyranny of the majority - democracy at it's worst where any few idiocracy wannabes with mod points can make sure your post never gets read, not because it is an unworthy post, but because they don't personally agree with it.