Talk about... what, exactly?

At some point, I got fed up with running anti-virus software on my Windows XP PC. The benefits never appeared to outweigh the hassle. And AV software IS a hassle.

After a year, I can't see any downside to this.

Note that I'm a smart computer user who keeps everything patched and up to do, as well as knows how to configure a hardware router/firewall.

You owe me one new Sarcasm Detector. My current one just overloaded.

My wife and I just rented it, too. Just to see.

I stopped watching at the vampire softball scene. Ugh, so bad.

This is exactly what they do.

The problem is (and someone figured this out), John Smith might ALSO have a IMDB account. And if we compare the date and star ratings from his IMDB account with his Netflix accout, we can accurately figure out who 1122113 is. Some people actually did this.... that is, took the completely anonymous ratings, and used those ratings to match up with an unanonymous source, and figure out information.

So Netflix is doing it right, I think. It's just that the Netflix data can be used IN COMBINATION with other sources to reveal identities.

Yes... I use the word "first" in a very loose sense. :)

As I suggested in the linked XKCD forum, now that the puzzle is solved, it would be really nice to have a full write-up of the entire thing, including the unsolved puzzles themselves and a little more detail and background about the whole thing. That would have made for a much more interesting story to the general public.

Direct linking to an unorganized web-forum thread isn't really much of a story. Oh well.

For what it's worth, the puzzles in the XKCD book were really fun. They ranged from pretty simple (ROT-13, etc) to fiendishly clever. Even though every comic is available online for free, I'm glad I spent the money on the book.

I was lucky enough to solve the final puzzle myself, and therefore happened to be the first person to have all eight keys and decrypt the message. As lame as this might sound, it was pretty thrilling.

Ha! Can you imagine!

"Boss, we decrypted the message! They key was 0x0000...01!"

Someone posted a picture of their girlfriend's rear end with a sharpie sticking out of it to a popular anonymous image-sharing web board.

Unfortunately, the image contained EXIF data, including latitude and longitude. It was quick work to come up with a name and address and all sorts of other information...

Good times.

My, what a yummy slime mold!

Low Bastard Ping? I think you mean LPB... :)

Ahh, I remember those days. I had a shirt with a network jack on it that said "LPB", and my DSL was the envy of my friends.

Ugh. I just read that affidavit.

That is some seriously messed up shit. I've seen a lot of crazy stuff on the internet, but that makes me feel a bit sick...

If she actually DID the kill the poor sap, and we find out that she posted about it beforehand on her FB page, everyone would be up in arms... "Why didn't someone do something about it? This could have been prevented!"

We can't have it both ways.

I recently heard an NPR article about this kind of thing.

Using real time MRI, someone could be presented with flashcards of common objects (screwdriver, igloo, flower, etc). When they thought about those objects, certain areas of the brain lit up.

The scientists said that when you think of a screwdriver, there isn't a single "screwdriver" area that lights up. Instead, you think of how it looks, what it feels like in your hand, what it's used for. You might think of construction workers, or your favorite screwdriver in your workbench at home. So lots of areas in the brain "light up".

What's amazing to me is that it appeared to be the SAME AREAS for DIFFERENT people.

As an example of this, the NPR production assistant (who was just visiting and helping with the interview) got hooked up to the MRI and was shown the flashcards. The computer, by looking at her brain, successfully guessed 10 out of 10. Even though the computer "learned" from someone else!

I suppose someone who'd never seen a screwdriver before wouldn't have the same sort of response, so it's probably limited to people with the same cultural backgrounds.

Pretty neat stuff.