This is not historically correct. Most of the currencies containing specie do not get melted down and are instead exchanged at or near their melt-down value. It's more of a wealth store than a product that is melted down and recycled.

How do you feel about online piracy? What is the success story for the government's attempts to end it? What about Wikileaks - what has been the success rate of slowing them down? Why is the government suddenly going to be so much more successful at stopping Bitcoins than at stopping BitTorrent?

BlackBerry phones are encrypted as OP suggests, so when a user forgets a password, then there is nothing BlackBerry can do to help the user.

This is one of the reasons I think the next 10-15 years could get interesting. There was a story a couple years back about how a company had failed an appeal against a troll that had a patent which broadly covered distributing digital music. IIRC, the patent was going to expire in 2017. There are a lot of patents like this that have been filed in the 1995-2010 period and I think the more savvy small businesses will begin searching expired patents and making them work for their needs.

"The few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons." Frédéric Bastiat, The Law.

And, by extension, participation in the legal system.

It definitely takes some getting used to. After having used it for so many years, it doesn't add any measurable time to my browsing any more.

In my experience, even tech types who understand security risks don't like to use NoScript. It makes browsing a bit of a chore. (I use it religiously and Chrome's failure to fully support a similar add-on is one of the reasons I don't use it.) I would think that if the guests have issues with browsing with Linux, then NoScript would be unacceptable.

So your argument is that the LG Dare is a more popular phone and platform than BlackBerry? You are wrong.

'Smartphone' is a general term, but this article is about specific smartphones. "Our stash consisted of two iPhone 3G models, two Motorola Droids, an LG Dare and an LG Optimus. (We had hoped for a BlackBerry, but nobody had one.)" As usual, BlackBerry is not only excluded from the test, but the technology 'journalists' had to throw in a swipe at BlackBerry, which, to me, is an admission of their own incompetence. A BlackBerry device probably would pass the test with flying colors, just as these devices do with most every security test. I'm not claiming that BlackBerry should be best selling phones or that they are the greatest ever, just that credit should be given where it is due.

Direct link to pdf: richards.pdf.

The shredder is the only one I didn't use, but a friend did when we were in training on the ship. I had no idea what he was doing that day and he showed up at lunch looking like he just walked through a snowstorm.

When I was in the Navy, we had equipment to destroy classified (paper) material onboard the ship. I always wondered what the logic in equipment selection was, but there were certain approved ways of destroying classified materials based on classification. Lower levels of classification could be disposed through this garbage disposal like thing that had sea water running through it. Next level up was an JP-5 fueled incinerator, and for the highest level was a mechanical shredder that would turn paper into the finest powder.

What if someone just wants to have a 'supplemental' income? Offering services or selling small items of some sort. Bitcoin would present a great way for these people to avoid taxes, which is the goal of many people involved in such activities. The higher the tax rates, the more difficult it is to transfer from bitcoin to USD, the more likely that people will begin operating exclusively in Bitcoin. Rest assured, if people begin amassing wealth in the form of bitcoins, a market priced in bitcoins will develop.

Unless they don't use conventional currency at all. They get paid in bitcoins, and they spend bitcoins.

Many days, I don't understand the mods.