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Comment But would you inquire (Score 1) 562

just what DNA discloses about the current metabolytes in one's system?

I'm pretty sure your DNA does not change when you have a beer, and I'm pretty sure there are no DNA mutations that uniquely and reliably signal the ingestion of any psychoactive substance.

Now, maybe other tests are done as well, and the DNA is used just as a label for your file, instead of "sample subject #012345".

Comment Re:Why not batteries (Score 1) 296

Because the cars are already there and fully expensed for personal transportation. This is not about optimal investment. It's about making use of pre-existing noggins.

While we're at it, why do I have to run a compressor for the refrigerator in my kitchen when it is exactly thirty degrees Fahrenheit outside, only six feet away, where another giant compressor creates heat for the interior of the house, and incidentally heats the interior of the refigerator?

Comment Re:misleading & likely incorrect (Score 1) 85

Couldn't help noticing that Ashburn, Virginia is on the list of legitimate hops; it appears to be the last legitimate hop before detour.
The original UUNET headquarters, now Verizon's Network Operations Center.
Fortunately it is in a remote area far from the meddling hands of federal agencies and their contractors, the sleepy Dulles corridor.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How do you protect your privacy these days? Or do you? 1

An anonymous reader writes: The NSA snoops traffic and has backdoors in encryption algorithms. Law enforcement agencies are operating surveillance drones domestically (not to mention traffic cameras and satellites). Commercial entities like Google, Facebook and Amazon have vast data on your internet behavior. The average Joe has sophisticated video-shooting and sharing technology in his pocket, meaning your image can be spread anywhere anytime. Your private health, financial, etc. data is protected by under-funded IT organizations which are not under your control. Is privacy even a valid consideration anymore, or is it simply obsolete? If you think you can maintain your privacy, how do you go about it?

Comment Just Say Yes (Score 1) 143

Try not selling.

You will find yourself outside the offices of the company which you founded and grew without outside capital , screwdriver in hand and an attorney at your side, jimmying open the locks because the investment bankers you tried to fire had the locks changed. Your newly hired comptroller, selected with input from the bankers, will stay on for a few weeks, leaving you a note with "do not try to track me down" in the last line, and he will turn up along with the majority of your employees in a firm you had declined to purchase because its booked business was bogus. Because Mary Jo White is the United States Attorney for your district, no one worries about prosecution. True story.

Rarely have I met with a venture capitalist who did not start trying to deal out my other shareholders within five minutes of an introduction.

In the end, business is about cash-in exceeding cash-out, a condition that can be met one of two ways: 1) buying an interest in a firm and selling that interest for a higher price or 2) selling better stuff for a lot more than it costs you to create. 1 requires a lot less talent and discipline than 2, and not just because investment bankers don't have to take returns from disappointed customers who bought their hype.

If SnapChat's founders really made this call, then they are toast, but I doubt it. They are following the guidance of investors. Most likely, declining this offer enables them to use their now highly-inflated shares to acquire other assets, trading movie-set houses for real houses.

Submission + - Facebook Patented Making NSA Data Handoffs Easier

theodp writes: In June, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg blasted 'outrageous press reports' about the PRISM surveillance program, denying that Facebook was ever "part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers." What Zuckerberg didn't mention, and what the press overlooked, is that the USPTO granted Facebook a patent in May for its Automated Writ Response System . Like the NSA-enabling systems described by the NY Times on the same day Zuckerberg cried foul, the patent covers technical methods to more efficiently share the personal data of users with law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in response to lawful government requests via APIs and secured portals installed at company-controlled locations. "While handing over data in response to a legitimate FISA request is a legal requirement," the Times noted, "making it easier for the government to get the information is not, which is why Twitter could decline to do so."

Submission + - The Operations of a Cyber Arms Dealer

An anonymous reader writes: FireEye researchers have linked eleven distinct APT cyber espionage campaigns previously believed to be unrelated, leading them to believe that there is a shared operation that supplies and maintains malware tools and weapons used in them. The eleven campaigns they tied together were detected between July 2011 and September 2013, but it’s possible and very likely that some of them were active even before then. Despite using varying techniques, tactics, and procedures, the campaigns all leveraged a common development infrastructure, and shared — in various combinations — the same malware tools, the same elements of code, binaries with the same timestamps, and signed binaries with the same digital certificates.

Comment Most peculiar (Score 1) 256

GCHG is a British thing. i.e. not much oversight from US branches of government.

Mr. Snowden worked for United States agencies only, yet he is the one disclosing this "retail" operation.

Plus, this sort of operation is "out of character" for the United Kingdom.

Is it remotely possible that the two countries do each others' dirty work, especially in cases one might have an advantage in avoiding oversight?

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