There isn't any "Emergency Call" text on my lock screen. (Android 4.4.2 on a Verizon Wireless Droid RAZR HD.)

Our main problem is that our cell phones are our only phones. We don't have a land line. So if we need to call 911, we need to be able to access our phones. More than that, though, we have 2 young kids and if they need to dial 911, they need to be able to pick up our phones and call 911. As it is, teaching them to swipe to open the phone, click on the phone icon, and then dial 911 can be tricky. (Compared with "pick up the land-line phone and press 911".)

If anyone knows of any app that keeps the phone locked out (so you need to enter a password to get into your apps) but which enables easy dialing of 911 (or selected people on your contact list). I'd be more than happy to hear what they are. That would be the perfect balance between securing your phone and keeping it easy for my kids to use to call 911 or relatives who live close by. (Not that those lock-screen passwords are perfectly secure, but they're better than swipe-to-unlock.)

Not only that, but they're being told not to take no for an answer. Using your car analogy, it would be like this:

Mechanic: "So your car has a blown gasket which needs to be replaced. I also noticed what might be a tiny spot of rust. Would you like a whole new paint job?"
Customer: "No thanks. Just the gasket now."
Mechanic: "Are you sure? Your car would look great with a new coat of paint."
Customer: "No paint. Just the gasket."
Mechanic: "We could even change the color."
Customer: "Just the gasket. I don't want any paint."
Mechanic: "Ok, I hear you. I'm just trying to figure out why you wouldn't want a nice, new coat of paint on your car. Don't you want your car to look nice?"

(Repeat for 20 minutes until they finally, grudgingly replace JUST the gasket.)

Mechanic (presenting you with the bill): "Before you pay, would you like an air freshener for your car? Or how about these lovely fuzzy dice? We can also sell you new mats for your car. Your old ones looked a bit worn....."

No, that's only if they find a whale and a bowl of petunias near the ISS.

They look completely different. Watch:

Human
*puts forehead ridge on*
Alien
*takes forehead ridge off*
Human
*puts forehead ridge on*
Alien

In unrelated news, Clark Kent and Superman look NOTHING alike.

You had me agreeing with you right until the "I know that blacks..." line. Yes, there are some people who think they can scare anyone with a dirty look. There are people like that who happen to be African-American and who happen to be Caucasian. The color of your skin doesn't make you give people dirty looks and act aggressive. (Socio-economic status is more at play than race alone.)

I will agree with the "don't be hostile" advice, though. This doesn't mean that you have to roll over and do whatever the police order you to do. Just make sure that you are being polite when you refuse. Of course, this isn't iron-clad protection. If a police officer decides you are a threat (say, because you are a young, black man and he's a racist idiot on a power trip), he can beat you up and then tell the world that you were aggressively charging him. Especially if the only witnesses are other police officers.

In many cases, these big ISPs are also big Cable TV providers. Netflix (and Internet Video in general) threatens their Cable TV model and so must be dealt with. They can't simply block all access to Netflix. The FCC might be weak willed but it still has enough of a spine that it wouldn't ignore this. (Not to mention the lawsuits and bad press that the company would get.) Since they can't block it, they attack it with a two pronged attack:

1) Institute data caps and overage fees. This means there is no a hard limit on how much Internet Video you can watch. They might be forced to set them high at first, but that also means that they can leave them where they are and lock out HD streams. (Note that Time Warner Cable wanted to make a 5GB cap but was forced to back out of that plan due to bad press and customer outcry.) In the case of overage fees, this will direct money to the cable companies' pockets in case users still try to watch Internet TV. It also makes Internet TV more expensive so that Cable TV will look like a better deal by comparison (even though that "more expensive" is the result of the cable companies' overage fees).

2) Make fast-slow lanes. If Netflix doesn't pay up, their site will be slow and nearly unusable. Then the cable companies can tout how you won't need to wait for their video services to buffer. If Netflix does pay up then the cable companies make money off of Netflix. This will also force Netflix to raise their rates (to cover this new cost of doing business) resulting in a more favorable - to the cable companies - Netflix/Cable TV price comparison. (Just like the overage fees.)

So this isn't just the big ISPs not wanting to pay to upgrade their networks. It's also them protecting their old business models against these newfangled competitors.

Given my experience, thieves don't need to go that far. The people who stole my identity used a completely and utterly incorrect Mother's Maiden Name and were still approved. (They also tried to immediately change the address on the card and get a $5,000 cash advance before it was activated. None of these things raised red flags, apparently.)

I agree that it is fraud and that it's ridiculous that the result of Identity theft is up to the affected person to prove/clean up. I don't think that the name "Identity theft" puts the blame on the victim, though, any more than "car theft" puts the blame on the owner of the stolen car. (Before someone complains "identity theft isn't theft because you still have your identity", imagine if someone kept "borrowing" your car while you slept but returned it every morning with more scratches and dings. You'd still have use of it when you wanted it, but the value of the car would drop quickly and it would be up to you to pay the repair costs. This is what identity thieves do to your credit.)

Sadly, as was my experience during my identity theft, the companies just don't care. The credit card companies see the fraud as something to write off as a cost of doing business and then they move on. Capital One actively blocked both me and the police from investigating. They told me "we can't give you the address on the card with your name on it because if you go and kill the person, we'd be liable." They would just ignore when the police called. (Calls routed to a voicemail box that was never answered.) The credit agencies are even worse. They see your credit file as a profit engine. New lines of credit on your credit file help drive their profits. Anything that blocks this is bad for business. So protecting against identity theft is bad for business. As far as the fraud goes? Well, that's the little people's concern, not theirs. (I was lucky that I caught it when I did or I'd have been fixing the problem for a long, long time.)

Not "sheeple" so much as having other pressing financial concerns. If your money is being driven towards home repairs, car repairs, medical costs, and trying to maintain a decent standard of living (not extravagant but putting food on the table and clothes on your family) despite rising costs of living and non-rising-to-match salaries, you aren't going to have the money to hire a lawyer and you aren't going to have the time to take off of work to fight a court case. Unfortunately, our legal system is set up so that fighting for your rights takes money that many people don't have. So if you sue someone and offer a quick low-cost settlement, they will take it because it's the one that will eat less of their precious income.

Just because someone can't afford to do X doesn't mean that person is a "sheeple" for not doing it. Especially if doing X would cost money that instead is being used to feed their family and put a roof over their head.

Maybe, but maybe not. I know someone whose identity was stolen and used by a criminal who was arrested. Despite the fact that the guy looks NOTHING like the criminal in question (different height, weight, skin color, etc), he found himself fired from his job for having a criminal record and harassed by police officers who just assumed he was the criminal. It took him years to get anyone to even listen to him and even then it took years to fix the problem as one fixed system would get "re-infected" as the bad data flowed back in from other systems.

I'd agree with you. Using a person's name, address, social security number, and date of birth (all items included in the hacking), you can steal someone's identity and open lines of credit in their name. Then you run up a big tab, buying electronics and the like, and let the person whose identity you stole deal with the bill. This happened to me awhile back, except I was lucky that the thieves paid for rush delivery of the credit card before changing the address from mine to theirs. The card arrived at my house and I was able to cancel it before any real damage was done. (My credit file is now frozen so nobody - not even me - can open new lines of credit unless I thaw it first.)

If you download stuff that the rights-holders don't want to sell you, and you end up paying $20, of which $10 goes to the copyright holder, that's pretty damn decent.

Don't you mean "If RightsCorp claims you downloaded stuff, you end up paying $20"? Because that's all it would take, a claim. If I were RightsCorp and this was in place, I could claim you downloaded my copyrighted material and have your ISP block all of your access. You would then have 3 options:

1) Cancel your ISPs account and sign up with another ISP. If there's another ISP in your area, that is. And if that other ISP isn't participating in RightsCorp's program and/or hasn't blocked you already. (In other words, chances are you could only do this once.)

2) Lawyer up and sue to clear your name. Meanwhile, you have no Internet access and you are spending much more than $20 (in time AND money) to fight the case. Then you have to fight more to get attorney fees paid. Or maybe RightsCorp will just drop the fee after the initial lawyer letter that cost you a couple hundred to draft up.

3) Pay the $20 and move on with your life.

Like the RIAA before them, RightsCorp is counting on the fact that the best option for most people is option #3. They don't need to detect any actual copyright infringement. They can just make claims where ever they feel like it and let the money flow in.

All someone needs is your name, address, SSN, and birthdate and they can use your identity to open a credit card in your name*. Trust me, I know this from personal experience. If the thieves hadn't paid for rapid delivery of the credit card and THEN changed the address on the card, the card would have been delivered to them, not me. I wouldn't then have realized what was up until the collection agencies were banging down my door and my credit rating was in shambles. Instead, I was able to cancel the card though now my credit file is frozen to prevent future lines of credit being opened (since my information is already out there).

I'll agree that it's ridiculous that address/SSN/DOB are used as the secret key to your credit account. Unfortunately, that's the way things are and until they change this breach means millions of patients are at risk for identity theft.

* As an aside, that mother's maiden name "security" question on the forms? Let's just say that the TSA provides more security than this does. The thieves got it obviously wrong and the credit card was still approved by Capital One.

My first thought upon reading this summary? What about the Mythbusters?

In many episodes, they've rigged up a remote control setup to a car. Many times, it has been because testing a particular car myth would be too risky with a person actually inside driving the car. They've even gone so far as to have a camera setup so they could see where they were driving.

I'm sure there's a learning curve here - not everyone could stop by their local hobby shop and remote control enable their car in an afternoon - but learning curves aren't a hindrance to people who are motivated enough. (i.e. People who want to commit acts of terrorism.) They could even put some sort of dummy in the car to keep people from realizing that the car was driving itself. Then again, they are "motivated" enough to not care if they kill themselves in the process so they could easily just load a car up and drive it where they want it to be.

Self-driving cars aren't any more of a threat than any other piece of new technology. Yes, some people will use it for bad purposes, but many more people will use it for good purposes. If we banned any technology that anyone ever used to harm another person, we wouldn't have any technology left at all.