Wow. Another article on /. about how everyone concerned about radiation from Fukushima are just neophytic morons and radiation isn't all that bad.

And, after all, the radiation is far below background levels.

Except there is no background level of Cesium 137 because its only created by humans.

Except that there's an enormous difference between background radiation levels of naturally occurring elements and between the hot particles from nuclear reactors which, when taken into the human body, typically remain for decades, emitting harmful alpha radiation and continually causing severe damage to surrounding tissues which can and does lead to cancer.

Dear Debian developers/committee members, et al: Please can you guys just go meet some place relaxing, share some beers together, enjoy yourselves, remember the beauty & magic that is Free Software and Debian in particular, and brainstorm together with your brilliant minds on the next steps forward?

Please. We love (and need) you.

Please, book a weekend or even a week or two at some really nice spa somewhere or a resort and just be yourselves and enjoy the fact that you are brilliant guys and important leaders of one of the most important projects on Earth.

I was thinking that the only possibilities for the theft to happen would have to be either a) there's an administrative access to the POS systems which was breached, kind of similar to what you are saying; or b) there's some manipulation of the physical infrastructre at (a) store(s) in addition to POS malware. For example some malicious host could be inserted in the pathway of communication of the POS systems. My guess is that that isn't too likely.

More likely is something like a), or what you suggest. There was a breach in the firewall, most likely something that was permitted for administrative purposes but turned out to sloppy/insecure.

Too bad with security breaches like this one doesn't generally get an opportunity to look at the topology involved and see what actually happened with the breach. It would be a very interesting thing to study.

Based on what the article says about what happened - that it was actual POS malware - I still am not able to figure out a methodology that would enable such an attack to work.

Let's say someone manages to put malware on a POS device. Ok. But now how would that malware be able to communicate any information to the thieves? I cannot imagine that the POS device is just sitting on the 'net without a strict firewall in front of it allowing it access to one - and only one - address: that of the company that provides the line/aggregates the data which feeds ultimately to the merchant account provider who handles the transactions for the company.

If the POS malware tries to "phone home" with data, it should never ever be able to connect.

So the issue to me becomes more than whether a POS device actually got malware on it - what kind of setup could exist such that the device would ever have the opportunity to connect with any other host than the predesignated one it is allowed to???

I hope every one of the grubby mofo's goes out of business and that all vehicle manufacturers follow Tesla's lead in this matter.

Wow running a new desktop enviornment in Windows would be awesome but I can't imagine Microsoft not crapping its pants massively over this and blocking it every way possible.

Almost but I said home server for a specific reason. It doesn't have to be connected to a big screen at all. I have a $150 small-form factor box that runs headless and acts as a file server plus serves a few other functions. The most expensive device in the setup is probably the laptop/tablet device, not the home server.

The tablet and laptop will merge in the future. Just as now, there will be an array to choose from - more svelte models and more heftier ones, but few will want to own a laptop and a tablet in the future. They will merge.

But IMHO the home server is something important.
The home server could also morph with the router/modem. Thus new routers now increasingly have NAS-like functions and many other functions as well.

Windows 8 with Classic Shell is the way to go. Even with Windows 7 Classic Shell was already the way to go.

But what's so important about the one device for everything idea? It makes sense to have at least one dedicated home device a.k.a file server a.k.a media server etc., one ultra-portable thing like a smartphone, and also a portable thing like a laptop also.

The laptop could conceivably replace the home server but there are a lot of reasons why I always want a dedicated information appliance in my home.

I would think there are very few people who would never travel and want to have a powerful information appliance with them (i.e. not just a smartphone).

Where convergence will occur is when tablets morph into laptops, or laptops morph into things like tablets with detachable keyboards.

What about a universal remote like a Logitech Harmony? I always wondered how well those work with your type of setup.

Just wanted to add here that it is possible to bypass the attempt to force the user to create an MS account during 8.1 upgrade by simply DISCONNECTING THE INTERNET.