True - but I thought the downfall of custom circuits was that sometimes the operator chickens out. Obviously, those who plan these devices didn't find manually operated or time controlled mechanisms as effective as this, or they'd still be using them...

It's probably just an academic discussion because really, the chances this was going to happen or will happen again are probably slim.

I'm guessing they used an old phone or a burner that was recently (re-)activated and the spam was just sent to a random telephone number with a known-mobile exchange prefix.

Interesting. I wonder if this delivery method will cause countermeasures to be used to prevent attacks?

Perhaps governments may look at shutting off text messages in a given area, or from a given set of towers, if they perceive a threat to the area.

They already have the rights to kick anyone off PSN that they want to. The fact that you aren't paying for it doesn't mean there aren't any TOS.

They most definitely do store copies of those messages. These records can be subpoenaed and used in a trial like any other telephone records. Many, many examples exist.

Facebook and such, I feel, should be considered public if you have any common sense. Search engines are caching this stuff, it's backed up on volumes all over the place, it's transmitted to others' computers and mobile devices.

Especially if you are one of those who doesn't bother to have privacy settings locked down, I don't feel that we have any reasonable expectation of privacy on facebook and I think judges will continue to interpret things that way.

Remember, ISPs are evil traffic-throttling anti-neutrality daleks

In 2000?

They don't have enough money to pay for their bandwidth after they send me a piece of junk mail every single day.

It might be particular to my trip, but for me the gas costs about $60-70 each way, while a plane ticket typically runs $250-$300 (before all the extra fees and add-ons).

It might only be a two hour flight, but transit to and from the airport along with wait times stretch it out to not being any faster than car, or only an hour or two faster.

Depends on the factory. I know numerous people who have worked for Ford making big salaries doing things that are definitely minimally skilled.

I looked into Amtrak for a regular trip I make, which by car is 7 hours.

It would take more than 12 hours for me to go by Amtrak, and a ticket would cost more than the gas my car consumes on the same trip. That's not even including the fact that if I take a train, I won't have a car when I get there and will have to pay more for additional transport.

Long distance rail transit currently offers nothing attractive for most of us.

I agree. How about we try to employ people in emerging, leading edge industries instead of wasting time and effort propping up mature, minimally skilled ones?