In fact, only personal data here is worth something. How can we give a meaningful vote if no single person used more than a few of these machines, and remembers some media hype on a bunch more, but far less than all?

So yeah, this whole survey is a scam.

See, if you gave the above answer, you would get a SpaceX job as an engineer due to the detailed, exact nature of your answer. Or maybe a job in their legal department.

If you just casually said "the North Pole," you would get a SpaceX job as a manager of engineers.

Bwaahahaha!

"I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove anything"

It's the Bart Simpson defense!

[Beetlejuice voice] And it just keeps getting funnier *every* *single* *time* I see it! [/Beetlejuice voice]

How about you just stick your fingers in your ears and go; "Lalalala, I can't hear you! Lalalala!".

Too funny!

Strat

It happens I could use remote USB port functionality.

(Right now I want to run, on my laptop, a device that requires a Windows driver and Windows-only software. I have remote access to a Windows platform with the software and driver installed. If I could export a laptop USB port to the Windows machine, it would solve my problem.)

So NetUSB is vulnerable. Is there an open source replacement for it? (Doesn't need to be interworking if there are both a Linux port server and a Windows client-pseudodriver available.)

I skimmed the start of the paper. If I have this right:

  - Essentially all the currently-deployed web servers and modern browsers have the new, much better, encryption.
  - Many current web servers and modern browsers support talking to legacy counterparts that only have the older, "export-grade", crypto, which this attack breaks handily.
  - Such a server/browser pair can be convinced, by a man-in-the-middle who can modify traffic (or perhaps an eavesdropper-in-the-middle who can also inject forged packets) to agree to use the broken crypto - each being fooled into thinking the broken legacy method is the best that's available.
  - When this happens, the browser doesn't mention it - and indicates the connection is secure.

Then they go on to comment that the characteristics of the NSA programs leaked by Snowden look like the NSA already had the paper's crack, or an equivalent, and have been using it regularly for years.

But, with a browser and a web server capable of better encryption technologies, forcing them down to export-grade LEAKS INFORMATION TO THEM that they're being monitored.

So IMHO, rather than JUST disabling the weak crypto, a nice browser feature would be the option for it to pretend it is unpatched and fooled, but put up a BIG, OBVIOUS, indication (like a watermark overlay) that the attack is happening (or it connected to an ancient, vulnerable, server):
  - If only a handful of web sites trip the alarm, either they're using obsolete servers that need upgrading, or their traffic is being monitored by NSA or other spooks.
  - If essentially ALL web sites trip the alarm, the browser user is being monitored by the NSA or other spooks.

The "tap detector" of fictional spy adventures becomes real, at least against this attack.

With this feature, a user under surveillance - by his country's spooks or internal security apparatus, other countries' spooks, identity thieves, corporate espionage operations, or what-have-you, could know he's being monitored, keep quiet about it, lie low for a while and/or find other channels for communication, appear to be squeaky-clean, and waste the tapper's time and resources for months.

Meanwhile, the NSA, or any other spy operation with this capability, would risk exposure to the surveilled time it uses it. A "silent alarm" when this capability is used could do more to rein in improper general surveillance than any amount of legislation and court decisions.

With open source browsers it should be possible to write a plugin to do this. So we need not wait for the browser maintainers to "fix the problem", and government interference with browser providers will fail. This can be done by ANYBODY with the tech savvy to build such a plugin. (Then, if they distribute it, we get into another spy-vs-spy game of "is this plugin really that function, or a sucker trap that does tapping while it purports to detect tapping?" Oops! The source is open...)

Roads without semis aren't designed for semi loading - so those roads do get damaged by cars. Noone surfaces their driveway (the private bit of road up to your house - sorry don't know what the US calls this) to the standard of interstate highway. Likewise, local residential roads are not built to that standard either (although typically to a higher standard than a driveway).

Additionally, weather and vegetation will eventually damage a road even if it has no traffic at all. For metalled roads that only have foot traffic and bicycles, this is, to all intents and purposes, the only source of damage.

The rich live close while the poor have to commute

It's funny that those living way out in the suburbs are "the poor".

Have you seen housing rental rates in NYC, the location the OP was talking about? Granted, in many locations it's the reverse, but the OP's point re: NYC is generally accurate.

Strat

Assuming a reasonable pressure (no trains with flanged wheels trying to drive down the highway) then the damage comes from axle load and not pressure for standard road building materials.

It's the (hopefully elastic) deforming of the roadbed that leads to the damage - typically due to surface cracking that then lets weather in - and so below a certain axle weight (which will depend on the design load of the road in question) the damage is essentially zero.

No metalled road designed for cars (or even just foot traffic) will be damaged by bicycles at anything like the rate that weather (and vegetation) will damage it anyway. No road designed for significant truck traffic will be damaged by cars[1]

It would, of course, be possible to design a road that a 90psi bicycle tyre would damage more quickly than a 40psi car tyre but, in practice, it would be more expensive than one that a bicycle wouldn't damage if a car wouldn't.

[1] Cars under hard acceleration can damage the top surface of a metalled road independent of any flexing of the road bed - I've seen this on a steep uphill after a slow bend - every driver hits the throttle at the same point at the bottom of the hill. Once there is unevenness to the surface, whether from the weather or trucks, dynamic loading from cars can rapidly accelerate the ongoing damage.

And of course, only the "right kind" of politics.

Well, if you want a summer of kids rioting in the streets, this is a great plan. They certainly won't be impeded by having to go to work.

...We first teach them basic reading, writing, math, history, and critical-thinking/problem-solving skills that are sorely lacking among HS grads?

Oh wait, can't have that! The little bastards might figure out how screwed they are by the crony-capitalist fascist oligarchy and actually be able to change the status-quot!

Strat