Not really.

A few of my friends were on MySpace, but it never had anywhere near the following that Facebook has. Facebook gained enough momentum that even people who struggle to check their e-mail setup (or had someone else setup) a Facebook account for them.

MySpace has some drinking buddies and kids I knew from high school/college. Leaving it behind wasn't a big deal.

Facebook has *everyone* I know. My parents, my siblings, my cousins, my coworkers, my classmates, anything you can think of - it's on Facebook. It will be very hard for someone else to come along and compete with that. I *hate* Facebook, but any new social network might have a better interface or better privacy settings or whatever, but it won't have everyone I know.

The HD is a mixed blessing. Sure - you get faster load times and you don't have to worry about disc wear. That's good.

But it also allows system upgrades/patches/install time/bugs and bug fixes. These were all problems PCs used to have that consoles didn't. And they suck. I hate buying a new game, coming home, being told my PS3 needs to update itself, then installing the game and being told the game needs to update itself. In the old days, when you sent your RTM build to the M, that was it. If you had a bug in the game, it would be there *forever*. If you had one bug that broke the gameplay, you had a ruined game. Testing was really important. So companies did it. Console gaming used to be a lot more user-friendly/bug free than PC gaming; because a PC game could be released *with bugs* and they'd just release a patch later.

From what I remember, Fallout 3 (while I loved the game) crashed all the friggin time until you had six months of patches applied to it. Before your console had a hard-drive and internet connection - that was a deal breaker. Now, well, just play your $50 game, crash, curse, wait a while, download, update, play some more, etc....

And it's not just issues with the individual games. It's the system itself. I *hate* buying a new a game, coming home, and being told I need to 'update my system'. What? I never, ever had to update my NES, SNES, SEGA, or GameCube. But now updating my PS3 is a regular occurrence. And look at all the problems that's caused - updates can actually take away functionality you already had (OtherOS). And, let's face it, at some point - you won't be able to update it anymore. Servers aren't free, and Sony has a long history of shutting down servers (without warning) when they weren't profitable. So, if you find an old PS3 in a box at some garage sale - you'd have a nightmare of a time figuring out what version firmware it has and what version is required by each game....I want to play Portal 3 - but that doesn't run unless the PS3 has Firmware 3.6 installed. And where on Earth can I find a 20 year old firmware update now that Sony has gone out of business/doesn't care?

Maybe it's just me - but I'm really sick of every game having an in-game story-line based tutorial.

You have to, essentially, 'click next' through 20 minutes of story line crap before you can begin to actually play the game. I miss spending two minutes looking at the controls in the manual while I install and patch the game (which can take a significant amount of time in itself) and figuring it out. Now, you can't skip the tutorial - and if you can - it also requires skipping through some very important/key aspects of the plot.

I was recently house-sitting and they had an Xbox 360 with a stack of games. I put one in (I think it was Dead Space two) at the same time my wife left to go shopping. When she returned she asked me how the game was and I said, 'I still don't know'

Laws are entirely theoretical until they are enforced. Until that point there is no difference between a law and a polite suggestion. The posted speed limit only has meaning if and only if there is a system that enforces that law. IE - in many parts of the US, there are many roads where 'everyone speeds'. Because 'everyone knows' cops won't pull you over until you are going some arbitrary speed faster.

The problem with cyber crimes (including credit card theft and identity theft) is that there is (largely) no enforcement. We don't enforce those laws. Mostly because we can't.

If we can make another aspect of these crimes both illegal and enforceable, then we could cut down on the crimes. But as it is now - there is no risk to the criminals. This is a true example that just happened to me on Monday....I had a friend whose e-mail was hacked and the hacker sent out e-mails to everyone on his contact list (from his e-mail address) saying he needed money. The IP address originated from Nigeria.

Call up the police and get them to act on that.
Go to the FBI website and report that IP address.
Call the local Nigerian officials and tell them what has happened.

All of them will laugh at you and say, 'Never send money to someone without verifying their identity'. We blame the victim. We say, '*YOU* need to be smarter and avoid dangerous activities'. Nobody *does* anything. I had a similar experience when my credit card number was used fraudulently....the investigation only went far enough to determine if *I* used the card. They didn't even try to track down the crook who used it.

Could you imagine if we did this with other crimes? The public outcry that would come from it?

"Well, most rapes happen at parties with alcohol and young males - it's too bad you got raped, but hey, next time....avoid parties with college guys and alcohol"
"Well, most hate crime happens to someone who is ethnically or racially different from the local population.....it's too bad you got your house burned down - but you should live with your own kind...."

But with cyber crime - that's exactly what we do.

"Well, memorize a different, complex, long, secure password for every site you log into. And change them. Frequently!"

I'm not against prevention, but it's a shame that we stop at that point. The only international cyber criminals that get caught are the ones who go far beyond scamming regular people. IE - steal my credit card, nothing happens to you. Defraud my wife, nothing happens to you. Hack into a large company and get a LOT of money or a LOT of information - you might get caught.

BRB - memorizing 30+ unique, secure, strong passwords.

Because that's a totally reasonable thing to do!

Nintendo doesn't get a free pass here either. They've done some historically bad stuff as well as super recent. I think there is even a boycott going on for their latest EULA/TOS that basically gives them the right to brick your device because they want to.

I think a lot of people are arguing against a false dilemma here. Some people would suggest *not* giving up privacy but would welcome a more unified front from law enforcement.

As it stands now, most cyber 'crime' is only a crime in the technical sense of the world. Call the police when your computer gets hacked and see how seriously the pursue it. Unless you are a large company, dealing with millions of dollars or customer information absolutely nothing will come of it. And that's 10X true when the criminal is outside of the US.

The FBI provides tips on how to avoid being a victim of online fraud. But I sure couldn't find a place to *report it*. Just yesterday (seriously) a friend of mine had his old Hotmail account compromised and a hacker (whose IP address originated in Nigeria) send out e-mails to everyone on the list requesting money be wired. If a guy were going door-to-door in the US, and pulling a similar scam you *could* call the cops and they'd probably show up and investigate. But, the guy in Nigeria....it's pretty risk free as long as he continues to target individuals.

It's not just 'computer crime', but anything less tangible than a stereo or a car. I had my debit card number used fraudulently at a mail-order catalog. I was able to get the company to tell me it was being shipped to my town (but they refused to give any more information). I went to my bank, who refunded the charge and said they would launch an 'investigation'. I went to the police who told me to fill out a piece of paper.

Months later, my bank sent me a letter saying that they'd completed their investigation and had found that the charge *was fraudulent*. That's it. They were investigating *me*. They decided that *I* didn't do it; so they refunded my money. *NOBODY* cared or went after the people who used the card.

You'd really have to be retarded to get caught doing any of these things. No wonder it's growing.

That's crap. Truthfully, I don't know enough about OSX or Linux, so, I'll qualify this by saying 'That's Crap In Windows'.

Sure it's *easy* to blame the user....but the truth is that computers are insecure. Maybe that's just an extension of the insecurity in our society, but the fact remains, IT guys and Programmers as a whole have not produced a secure environment for users. Even if the users were willing to learn more about the system they are using.

Visiting a website is enough to compromise a fully patched machine. And it's not just computers, cell phones and portable devices are included. Yes, let's blame the user who was sooooo stupid that they used the web browser on their fancy phone that was sold to them with the explicit intent of being used as a web browser. How dumb they are!

We say things like, 'Well Grandma, just use a different username and password for each site. And make sure each password is secure, letters, digits, punctuation....' What. The. Hell. Seriously?

But that's what we say. Like it's nothing. I have TWENTY SIX different passwords saved in my LastPass vault (that I've had for about 30 days). But it's the *user* that's stupid for not being able to memorize 26 different, complex, passwords? And yes, I know, there are tools to help but where does the typical user find such tools? I've been completely unable to find a guide that would take me from formatting / cleaning the MBR to a fully functional, secure, Windows install that gave step-by-step instructions for things like how to manage passwords, how to handle your backups, how to effortlessly encrypt your files and sync them to the cloud, how to secure your network, how to restrict your default user as much as possible, how to use the admin user to install new stuff, how to not save important files in a gmail, hotmail account because, when hacked, those files are available to the hacker....etc, etc.....At best you get a Windows nagware message saying to 'Install antivirus software' (which is largely ineffective anyway and seriously degrades system performance)

But EVEN if that guide did exist (and if it does, I'd really love a URL) you're still completely dependent on other people being secure. You might say, 'Oh, don't visit "bad" sites and you don't have to worry about the fact that even a fully patched, modern browser is vulnerable to malware' - but you are still depending on every site you do visit (reputable sites) to be secure. And, let's face it, they aren't. Big name companies get hacked. And if someone hacks a website and puts malicious code on the page, now your machine can get infected. It's easy to say, 'Oh, but that *hardly ever* happens' - which is fine, but it can happen.

Now, I'm not an unreasonable guy. I understand that you can never stop a user from *intentionally* running the 'HappyBunnies.avi.exe' file if they want to run it (without crippling his ability to use his computer). I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about everything else. When I visit a website, the website is free to tell my browser how to display stuff. When it manages to get my machine to execute arbitrary code, the system has failed. And it's *not* the user's fault.

Rooting the phone (often) voids the warranty.

Even if you accept that rooting is unlikely to cause damage, it prevents you from recouping your losses from other types of damage as well. If you, like most cell phone users, purchased your phone in conjunction with a two year contract from $CELL_COMPANY then rooting is a risk.

You also, effectively, forfeit any customer support you would have received.
'Okay sure, type in *228'
"Hang on, my leet custom ROM is different, so I'm going to type in %228"
'Umm, I'm sorry sir, we don't support leet custom ROM'.

I'm not against rooting phones. But it's more than just a mild annoyance.

Back when .MP3s were cutting edge and 'ripping' a CD took actual effort. 10-12 years ago (maybe longer). People used to say how evil the recording companies and 'labels' were. And how MP3s were going to change that. The internet was going to change that.

Anyone can make music now and share it with the entire world. This has been trivially easy for at 8 years. Virtually no cost at all. You can just record, upload and share.

But what came of it? Nothing. Not a thing.

As it turns out, there is something to be said for the recording industry. In spite of what hipsters and edgy teens say, they still spend the bulk of their money on mainstream crap produced by the very same people they claim to hate. All the while, saying how 'crappy' it is.

I'm not saying it's right; but I think the truth is that *they don't care*.

If you estimate the Ubuntu install base 20 million and they are aiming for 200 million in four years; that means for every one existing user you have, you need to add 9 more. It's far more important to appeal to the 9 who are new users than worry about alienating the existing 1.

Pick your poison....

If you go with LastPass - you get great integration/ease of use and you can access your passwords from any place with internet access. For that ease of use, you run the risk of LastPass's servers being hacked and hoping that the encryption they use is strong enough and that your password isn't vulnerable to a dictionary-type attack.

If you take your approach - you get limited integration/ease of use and you can only access your passwords from any place where you can access gpg.

In either case, if your local machine is compromised all of your passwords are stolen.

The company admits they had 'unexplained' traffic with more data coming from the database than going to the database. They were unable to track down the source of the traffic and have started some password changing strategy for the users.

If you think KeePass isn't vulnerable to attacks you just aren't being creative enough.

I think the biggest problem facing consumers it that...

1.) They want an awesome X - whatever X is.
2.) Is is sufficiently complex, there are only one or two companies that provide X.
3.) All companies selling X are d-bags.

You want an awesome console for gaming/media that doesn't involve the complexity of a PC? You have three options, Xbox 360, PS3, don't have a console.

Sony has a history of doing some really crappy things. The rootkit they installed was pretty horrible, I just read the wikipedia on it and realized it was much worse than I had previously known.

Microsoft has a history of doing some really crappy things. This is slashdot, so I don't feel the need to elaborate.

So, what's the 'right' thing to do? Creating a console and games are far beyond the means of virtually all of us. If you buy a PS3 - you are supporting Sony who is a d-bag. If you buy an Xbox 360 - you are supporting MS who is also a d-bag. Not having one is, of course, an option - but it's not a very good one. Even if *you* are willing to forgo the console, you know you are in the extreme minority. There are enough people who will pay, regardless of what the company has done, and they'll continue their ways. You just won't have any awesome next gen console.