I'm pretty sure Prey uses a database of known wifi networks and their locations. For example, the Google Maps cars don't just take pictures, they also record a fingerprint of every 802.11 network they encounter; SSID, coordinates, the router's MAC address. There are public crowdsourced databases that do this, too. If you power up your computer and you're in range of a wireless network that's in one of these databases, Prey will locate you that way.

They can't bump to 38 until the built-in BitTorrent client is finished. 38.0.1 should have a couple of security fixes for that, plus a version of Gimp developed in PDFjs. I believe version 39 is slated to natively run Google Chrome.

Well they claimed Mitnick was capable of starting World War III from a prison cell, so I guess SWATing someone should be easy.

Why would he use an anonymous VOIP service to call the police, only to tell them exactly where he is?

There's a corporate website I worked on that (still, years later) sets a cookie named "Flavor" with a value of "chocolateyChip." It passed code review without objection, so why not? Things like that are harmless and I don't really think they're unprofessional. A lot of companies could probably stand to lighten up a little.

Yes, and Nixon would be considered liberal by modern standards. The Republican party has shifted American politics so far to the hard right that today's mainstream Democrats are barely left-of-center, and they're still railed at for being "socialists."

I've had to interact with a few services that use questions like this for authentication. Invariably, they ask things about me that even I don't know. "What was your monthly payment on the auto financed through GMAC in 1995?" With three close choices like $261.17, $263.41, and $264.28, so I can't ballpark it. Do people really keep records for a car they paid off 15 years ago?

It doesn't spread across the land by floating through the air, but it sure sucks when a fly ash dam breaks.

They appear to have fixed the problem by taking the entire application offline. Brill[i]ant!

He tried; Comcast doesn't do that (and I suppose this is why).

NSA isn't supposed to be collecting most domestic signals in the first fucking place. I'd rather not legitimize or excuse that behavior, I don't care who it might help track down.

I don't see that as a likely scenario. For one, most people who sign up for cable modem service are going to do whatever the nice people at Comcast say to do, which is why these "xfinitywifi" spectrum-blasting hotspots are showing up in the first place. And the users who are a bit tech savvy are damned sure going to want their own cable modem and router (whether it belongs to them or they rent it from Comcast) in their own home, to ensure they get the best speed possible.

Technical support forums all over the web are full of people bitching, whining, and moaning that they don't get satisfactory speeds from the CPE installed in their own home. Do you think everyone is going to order service but decline the equipment, with some master plan to use the neighbor's signal that's even weaker than what a router in their own home could provide?

Apps in the Play Store have always been subject to DMCA takedowns, along with the shenanigans DMCA makes possible. The "legitimate apps being held hostage" scenario already happens. For example, someone ripped off the Camfrog app, then filed a false DMCA complaint alleging that the real Camfrog app was infringing. Camfrog appealed the DMCA notice, and Google responded by taking down the real app for a day or two.

In fact it might have. Reporting the issue immediately would have given the affected emergency services a chance to get the message out via television, radio, Facebook/Twitter/etc. and use the opportunity to remind the public of the non-emergency numbers. A few days ago my local PD's domestic violence hotline had some kind of outage, and a temporary backup number was all over the news right away. A 911 outage would affect a lot more people, and the sooner they know to put out the info, the better.