Although I find the claim that you can hear 45KHz+ frequencies dubious, even assuming you can hear that, it doesn't necessarily mean the technique is useless; there's a difference between hearing a frequency and filtering it from noise. I'm guessing you don't have a very good nervous bandpass filter at that frequency, for instance -- so hiding a signal in nearby noise could be possible for a such a system.

There are plenty of noise sources around us -- fluorescent lamp ballasts are in the 10s of KHz, CRT scanning is likewise in 10s of KHz, switching power supplies can be in the 10s of KHz, etc. It would be relatively easy for this system to operate nearby a noisy part of the spectrum, which would likely render it very difficult (especially at such high frequencies) for humans to tell anything was going on.

Seems silly, yeah. Though there are certain very peculiar setups where this might be desirable, for example: computer 1 has network access, computer 2 does not, but gets the occasional USB thumbdrive from computer 1. If you can manage to infect computer 1, transmit it to computer 2, then you can gain get keylogging data from computer 2 in real-time (as opposed to waiting until someone plugs in a thumbdrive to computer 2 and then back into computer 1, where you can send over the network again).

Of course, if the whole reason computer 2 isn't connected to the network is security, you'd hope they have better security on their USB drives...

You know, because the sound card probably isn't working right anyway (and forget about the mic).

(Joking, joking...built-in and USB soundcards work just fine on all my Linux computers.)

Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but it seems to me there should be stronger differentiation between various DRM schemes (as you allude to, as streaming vs. not streaming). In the one model, I pay for a good (an album, let's say). In the Old World, I would have purchased a vinyl/tape/CD, which in principle could not be taken away from me (ignore wearing down records, laser rot, etc.). I, as do many, have a philosophical problem with certain DRM schemes applied to this problem -- I buy something which can later be taken away from me. Not cool.

With the streaming paradigm, though, I don't have a philosophical problem with it: when I pay my Netflix bill, it is with the understanding that I can stream as much of the available content as I want, when I want -- and that's it. At no point can Netflix really cheat me out of my content, because it was never my content to begin with (at least, that's how I view it).

Personally, I think there's a strong distinction between the two cases, but perhaps that's just me.

($750/50MB)*1.3MB ~= $20. Ouch!

If it was structured in such a way that it was only legal (hah) to get phone location data once per transaction, then I don't see this as particularly invasive -- if you're paying with a credit card, they already know where you are.

Of course, as you say, if they are tracking your phone all the time, then...yes, I would certainly have a problem with this. Likewise, if it was a "you must have your phone to make purchases" sort of deal, then that would be really obnoxious (my parents live in the boonies with sporadic cell coverage).

Don't be so sure -- from TFA (page 2 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...):

Maybe stick with the PDP-10 ;)

Here's to hoping that it gets implemented in a vanilla-GNU/Linux-compatible fashion! (As opposed to the existing Android or Chrome OS implementations which, AFAIK, are incompatible with vanilla GNU/Linux.)

...try telling that to Stallmen et al!

Seriously though, maybe it makes me a Bad Linux User, but I'm absolutely ok with the state of nVidia drivers: installation is a piece of cake, 2D and 3D performance is great (I think 3D performance is on-par with Windows [OpenGL, obviously]).

I don't have any experience with new ATI cards under Linux, but I've had hit-or-miss luck the times I've used slightly older cards (interestingly, I've had much better luck with 3D performance than 2D...horrible tearing/update problems in 2D, but Nexuiz/OpenArena work fine...).

Sorry, I think my post wasn't entirely clear. My main point is that an entity taking advantage of a broken system, while clearly not being part of the solution, isn't the fundamental problem; the fundamental problem is the broken system.

By all means we should limit the *legal* power that the police have -- however, I think relying on the police to self-regulate is bound to fail, and we should indeed make it a legal obligation to "exercise good judgement" (or whatever language you like). Imperative in this, though, is that there are real penalties for *not* exercising good judgement -- I'd like to see something like patent troll laws applied to warrants/wiretaps, where the police department is penalized (substantially!) for abusing the system (legitimate wiretap = no problem, hundreds of ill-founded wiretaps = full/partial revocation of wiretap privileges).

Right; but do you think law enforcement should be punished -- in a legal sense -- for failing to exercise good judgement? I think the answer is a resounding "yes," but if there are no laws explicitly saying that what the police are doing is wrong, then how should we proceed?

Yes, I agree that good judgement should be expected -- but I think that when the police do not exercise good judgement, it should very much be a legal issue.

Yeah, I agree, especially on an individual level -- people should try to be Good. And a Good/altruistic police department would be awesome (and these do exist in some parts of the world/country, I'm sure...but certainly not the ones mentioned in TFA).

My issue is that it is currently legal for the police to, as you say, "push so hard that undue suffering is caused." Yes, it's a dick move for the police to cause undue suffering, but the root problem -- in my mind -- is that it is seemingly legal (or at least seemingly nonpunishable) for them to do so.

I think we both want the same thing out of the police force, we just have different regulatory ideals; you think (from my understanding) they should regulate themselves to be Good, I think they should be forced to be Good from a legal perspective.

*you're. Whoops.

I would agree with points 1, 3 and 4 (or 0, 2 and 3, if your into that sort of thing). I think it's perfectly reasonable for an institution to request favorable treatment -- but the fact that the legislature passes it is the real problem, in my mind.

I have no problem with Verizon or Comcast requesting special treatment; but once "requesting" turns into "buying," then I have a problem with the system that allows this behavior.