Just finished reading the affidavit from the FBI. This guy was a dumbass. He used a gmail account to pay for the VPS service and used his home internet connection to connect to the gmail account. He used his own, hotel, and relatives internet connections to connect to the hosting provider without any sort of anonymizing service. The FBI used either an undercover agent or a confidential informant to eventually find the VPS provider. From there, he was quite easy to track. The FBI had been watching the guy for months. The affidavit suggested it was an undercover agent that was hired as a staff member on the website that lead to this case being cracked open.

Don't be naive. Of course the efficiency matters at this stage. If this is just as efficient, or more efficient than burning the fuel in a turbine, then it's ready for use now. If it is not, then we know that more research is required. The GP was asking "Is this ready for use, or is this one of those technologies they say we will be using 20 years from now?" He framed that in the question of efficiency because that is how you would measure whether this is a viable method of generation or just a technological marvel.

Are you volunteering to be the first to die for your cause? Or did you just mean that other people sh

The CIA has been using British intelligence to spy on US citizens since they were first banned from spying on citizens in 1976.

Maybe in your country credit card security is an illusion, but in the United States (where this battle is currently set to take place), it is not. If I use my ATM card at a store and my account gets stolen, I'm screwed. The bank does not have to give me back my money until after it concludes its investigation. With a credit card, the bank has to credit my account the disputed amount. All of the consumer protections are geared towards credit cards. CurrentC wants you to use your bank account in an EFT so that the retailers do not have to pay the credit card transaction fees. CurrentC provides zero advantage to consumers, and nothing but disadvantages over CC and Apple Pay. CurrentC will lose because it only benefits retailers. Unless they completely stop accepting credit card, no one will bother with CurrentC. And if they stopped accepting cards, then Amazon would be quite happy to take even more market share from brick and mortar retailers.

Not sure what happened there... sorry for the messed up quote. User error I am sure.

I know of no jurisdiction in the US that requires you to physically change license plates every year. In Florida, the license plate is owned by a person and can be registered with another car when the plate owner sells or transfers a car. In California, the plate is tied to the car and they will not issue you a new plate unless you buy a car that has been taken by lien, drug forfeiture, etc. We just have stickers that you put on the plate to show you've paid the fees for the year.

Perhaps because, in the USA, don't you physically change the licence plate every year? In the UK the licence plate is permanent and is all that the police nornally need to know. You could physically and illegally change the number plate for a false one, but so you could change my VIN in the windscreen - only looks like a strip of metal stamped with the characters.

No. He already paid for the team. So he has already realized the loss. The question is whether its a short term loss, or not. Either way, if you or I were to purchase a home and then sell it for a loss, we could choose to do the exact same thing: amortize the lost money over the course of many years. As a homeowner you're given the option of realizing the loss in a single tax year, an option he did not have with this loss. The only difference between this and a homeowner who loses money is the scale. The fact that most homeowners cannot afford to lose that kind of money is a separate issue having to do with wealth distribution.

The victim in the dongle incident was unusually sensitive. That is why a key element in such cases is that the personal has to externalize their discomfort and tell the perpetrator that they are uncomfortable in the situation. If someone is unusually sensitive then the onus is on them to let people know. If you're doing or saying something that is questionable, it should be obvious, based on the person's reaction, whether you should stop.

In any reasonable jurisdiction, harassment IS subjective to the receiver of the attention, but they must notify the culprit that they do not appreciate their attention. Any reasonable person should be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable with their behavior, and modify their behavior towards that person accordingly. Where it becomes tricky is when the harasser is in a position of authority. A subordinate may not feel like they can say no. In that case, it is up to others to determine whether or not it was reasonable for the harasser to know that their behavior was unappreciated.

How do I know what a product does without sales or marketing? Someone has to know about it in order for word of mouth to take effect. And what is word of mouth but a viral marketing campaign? I agree that most products are average or mediocre, but to say that sales and marketing is completely useless on a desirable product is naivety at its finest.

My point is that you can't depend on the language to protect you. I'm not saying you should ignore good technology choices because you know better than those crazy compiler people. But I do not believe that it is possible to create something that is completely unhackable. Perhaps you can create something that is non-trivial to exploit, or that is unexploitable using known techniques, but that doesn't mean that you can create a software/hardware combination that is completely foolproof. There will always be risk associated with any device that is network accessible.

I think he meant gulag. The AC has no retirement plan, and so was planning to retire to "Club Fed" so to speak.

Tattoos can be damaged or destroyed. People can get your password when they video tape you undressing at a department store changing room, or even by implanting hidden cameras in your home. But I supposed if someone went to those efforts to get your pacemaker password, they would find some way to kill you.

Last I checked, programming languages are designed and implemented by human beings. Even if a programming language can decrease your attack surface, there could still be an exploit associated with the interpreter/compiler or a mistake in implementation of the language. When an omniscient being develops your language and its corresponding dev tools, I would say you may have a meaningful point.