From TFA:

Eligible borrowers who do decide to take advantage of the discharge option should be aware that the forgiven debt may be considered taxable income. The Obama administration asked Congress in its 2017 budget proposal to get rid of the tax penalties for disability discharges, but meanwhile borrowers may find themselves paying taxes on the forgiven loans.

So if you owe $100,000 on your loans and it is "forgiven" then you've just made $100,000 and need to pay taxes on it.

And the IRS is not so forgiving.

Not to mention what that may do to any disability payments you may be receiving.

And he confuses "secrecy" and "privacy".

Secret - criminals are secretly planning a crime.

Privacy - Your daughter getting dressed in her bedroom.

There is NOTHING wrong with "absolute privacy". The government needs to put more effort into their job and not just lobby to get more access to webcams.

Yeah, this PLANET might have already been visited by extra-terrestrial intelligences. But the odds are very, very slim.

And even slimmer are the odds that we (as a species) were visited.

And even slimmer still that our government has collected any information on.

And even still slimmer that our government would manage to keep such a secret.

Siri also has a male voice option. I have a friend and that's the option she chose.

STOP USING WINDOWS!

Probably not an option. Since the OS decision is usually based upon what what software will be running on it.

But how can the "guard themselves against these attacks"? Maybe they can't. But first try recognizing the means by which machines get infected. Can those be blocked? Limited?

Secondly, backups. Lots of backups. And testing of the backups. Even if you are infected, you should be able to recover from backups.

Third, SEGMENT YOUR NETWORK. Machines that can access CRITICAL SYSTEMS should not be connecting to the Internet. If someone outside the office needs access then give them a Citrix session or equivalent.

Finally, monitor your network for things like this. Know what the normal traffic is and look for the abnormal instances. It takes a lot of time to encrypt a lot of files.

Of course you aren't. Everyone who isn't in the government was saying this since the FBI first demanded it.

But the real terrorists do not use encryption like that. They don't have to.

The government is trying to push the narrative that the world is just like a Hollywood movie. It isn't. We do not need to give up our privacy so that the government can fight the "bad" men.

When you weaken encryption, you just make the "good" people more vulnerable to criminals.

If you are not on at least ONE government "watch" list then you're doing something wrong.

For that purpose, dirty bombs and the way they've been hyped in movies and the media, as you've stated, are perfect for terror attacks.

That is where it is wrong.

It is the FICTIONAL accounts that are scary to the uneducated masses.

If you had enough radioactive material to make a "dirty bomb" there are, literally, HUNDREDS of ways to terrorize more people for longer periods of time with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko

That troubling part is that as incompetent as they may be, they're still quite highly effective.

But they aren't. In the USofA, you are more likely to be killed while moving furniture than by a terrorist.

If someone kills you tomorrow, it will probably be someone you know (friend or family) or a traffic accident.

I used to work for an insurance company. You could get a "terrorism" rider on your policy at additional cost. That cost? $1. And it was pure profit for the company.

The problem is that our news agencies and politicians are SELLING the idea of a terrorism threat for their own benefit.

The naive part is the interest in a "dirty bomb" in the first place.

Why take on the significant additional risk of discovery for something that won't inflict much more damage?

A "dirty bomb" only spreads radioactive material in the area where it explodes. So it is easier to just rely upon shrapnel and the explosion. Any radioactive material they could get probably wouldn't do more damage than that. Most of it just isn't that damaging. Except in large quantities over many years.

It's the news shows that have played up the "threat" of a "dirty bomb".

And didn't it turn out that that dam wasn't even connected to the Internet? And that the "problem" was that it had NEVER worked?

Ooooh! Scary Iranians can DoS our systems. Just like any 12 year old with a copy of Low Orbit Ion Cannon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Orbit_Ion_Cannon

First Obama demands that encryption be b0rked for US citizens and now this?

There is no real risk for the attackers.

And, if the ransom is that low, there is more incentive to just pay it rather than spend the time/money to recover everything themselves (and miss some things and have to pay it anyway).

The attackers are in this for the money. One HUGE score would mean more incentive for politicians / police / FBI / etc to try to find them.

A thousand smaller scores mean that this is just-something-that-happens and we-should-get-used-to-it. And the money keeps rolling in.

Since your air-gapped computer doesn't have network capabilities (duh) the only reasonable way to do that is with a USB drive.

Not if you really do not want that key to be leaked.

USB drives are too easily compromised.

Use a CD drive instead. Yes, you CAN still buy them. And verify the CD on a different computer.

So why is someone plugging a USB drive with FIREFOX into an "air gapped" computer?

Looks like they've re-invented "sneakernet".

Seriously. If security is that important that you air-gap a system, why aren't you locking down the USB ports?

I once worked for a company where all the executives took a week long "retreat" to work on improving the business.

After a week of working together, they added one line to the "value statement".

Not the "mission statement".

Not the "vision statement".

They extended the "value statement" to include a line about valuing the employees.

And a few years later that company went under.