He promoted the website using his real name attached to a gmail account with his real name as part of the address. They may not have found that out until they were ready to make a bigger case against him, but as I was reading the criminal complaint and saw that, I was dumbfounded that anyone could actually be that dense about security. Reading an older article, I see where he was asked if he was worried about law-enforcement agencies trying to track him down. He said "I have confidence in our security measures."

Yup: murderers, rapists, robbers, fraudsters... why do we bother with all these laws when some smart enough people will get away with each of these crimes.

I don't suggest that people shouldn't be prosecuted when caught or that nobody should bother trying to catch them, I just expect you to be aware that with the internet, there is a far lower chance of getting caught and prosecution has very little deterrent effect. I'm not trying to say "don't bother" so much as "it obviously isn't working very well."

It wouldn't be a threat if there weren't people who wanted to exploit vulnerabilities. Circular argument, sigh.

There are plenty of examples of companies that have done stupid things like putting customer information in a URL they didn't expect people to stumble onto. Bad security practices cause problems that go beyond "someone really clever might find a buffer overflow." If there weren't people who actually seek to exploit the vulnerabilities, there would be a lot more companies with terrible security practices and there would be a lot more accidental personal data breaches. It isn't circular, but obviously I needed to be clearer.

You know what makes a strong immune system? Exposure to germs. Guess what makes a strong internet society?

You know what germs aren't? Human. Stop reducing humans to factors in a flawed model.

An internet society is made up of computers and people. It is a complex mix and a model would need to be complex to represent it accurately. This however, is an analogy, and the analogy is solid.

Sure, let me know how that works out for you.

Meanwhile there will be many, many people who are getting away with doing bad things because they are smart enough to figure out how to and hard enough to catch that they can get away with it for a long time, maybe forever.

And your morality is what fuels some of them, at least the "build a better society" part. See the thing is that security vulnerabilities need to be exploited in both high and low profile companies in order for those and other companies like them to spend effort and money on security. The very thing that you believe is good for society would be ignored or even punished if it weren't for the very real threat that is posed by people who exploit the vulnerabilities. You may think they're immoral or amoral for doing it but they're providing a very valuable service to society even as they harm it.

You know what makes a strong immune system? Exposure to germs. Guess what makes a strong internet society?

Somebody beat you to it and I'm not talking about the film. There is a product called Solent intended to be an inexpensive meal substitute. Apparently it is not too bad, and leaves you feeling full (and gassy.)

A good story about somebody who tried it for a week: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/nothing-but-the-soylent-were-trying-1-full-week-of-the-meal-substitute/
Their site where you can pre-order: https://campaign.soylent.me/soylent-free-your-body

Pity I couldn't see the result of the link without an account. I'm genuinely curious if the officer is issuing invalid tickets. That sounds like a story in itself.

Agreed and well said. I'd add on that personally I'm offended that so many people think the cop is the problem for doing his job and enforcing the law.

I've long wanted to take a paintball gun to offending motorists. Maybe we can get together and start a newsletter.

Yay! Finally someone gets it... oh, wait, nope, what a let down. See, you started off so good, because yes, a cop should do his job. But then you totally miss the point by going on to talk about why this particular set of laws should be enforced as if the cop should be able to decide which ones he enforces and which ones he ignores.

Do you really want a country where every cop enforces the laws he likes and ignores the ones he doesn't? Do you even realize that is what you're advocating when you mix your message of applauding a cop for doing his job with your message of how the laws you like are good ones?

Pick a side people, do you want liberty? Or do you want laws that just make you feel safer?
Do you want justice? Or do you want cops to enforce the laws they agree with?

(Yes I know, of course you think anti-texting laws make you feel safer and I know you think they work. But first, I was speaking more generally and second, actual scientific studies on their effectiveness don't necessarily back that up.)

No, enforcing the law is not stupid, having a stupid law is stupid.

Seriously folks, this is exactly why we have such terrible government at every level. Voters blame the officer who is actually doing his job to follow the law rather than the morons who write and pass bad laws.

You unintentionally make a good point. Poster 0111 1110 didn't get into the intention behind causing someone irritation in return for being irritated, but did say "slowpokes don't like it when the tables are turned." It might not have been immediately obvious to you, but another way to put it would be "people who slow down traffic are causing irritation, possibly without realizing it; however, you can help them understand the reason it is irritating by demonstrating to them how it feels by slowing them down the same way they slow other people down."

The point you unintentionally make is that people who cause irritation to other drivers by behaving in a noncomformist way are probably too dense to understand the object lesson they're being given.

I suspect further that there is merit to your implied argument that irritating someone who is irritating you probably does little to improve their habits. People who feel frustration with driving are less likely to introspectively examine whether they might be guilty of the same thing, while being much more likely to spread the frustration on to other drivers.

I've seen exactly that behavior in people I consider courteous and reasonable drivers most of the time. They'll experience rude driving behavior and as it sours their mood, they will then be less inclined to be courteous to other drivers. "Well if nobody is going to let me merge, I'm not going to let anyone merge either."

Because it works. As sad as it is, that's what people want to hear about when they turn on their TV or radio.

The biggest problem is that it actually makes sense. Do you want to be represented by someone who has proven they're untrustworthy? Do you want to be represented by someone who has admitted they have a history of mental instability?

It doesn't even matter what her campaign might have looked like because they were playing whack-a-mole. Seriously, that's how they referred to it. Read the article.

I agree with quite a bit of your post, and the most of the things I disagree with, I believe are rational positions that I can agree somebody reasonable can hold even if I don't. But you led off with the single thing that I take exception to.

The debate is over what's an effective way to protect our security.

Sorry. No. That IS NOT what the debate is over.

The debate is over what right people have to privacy from their government.

shhh

The person asking the question thinks the solution to needing to provide Wifi Hotspots is to use cellular based devices and maybe try to find a way to get better 4G coverage.

You're trying to solve the wrong problem. Using 4G to provide wifi has several drawbacks, first is cost. Second, you can't get the bandwidth you really need, and third, you have to compete with every device there trying to connect to thier cellular provider. Provide hotspots with Wifi Routers getting their connections from a wired source instead. Ideally, you'd run wires to your wifi access points but if you can't do that very well in some places, use wifi repeaters.

If putting wires to the places you need access points is really a serious problem that you can't solve with wifi repeaters, then use microwave. It's not too expensive to set up and it can give you a no-wires high bandwidth internet connection for long distances.

Since the wrong question was asked, it is hard to provide the right answer, but here are some tips:

• If money isn't the problem, let AT&T provide Wifi. It might even be the cheapest option since you may not have to buy the equipment. At least find out how much it will cost you. (Other service providers might work as well, I just haven't had others offer to provide proposals in the last few years.)
• If you're thinking "but LTE is good enough" then read this: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/broadband-grudge-match-cable-vs-dsl-vs-4g/
• If you're needing to provide large crowd service, say 20,000 people plus in a small space, read this: http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2010/08/new-series-how-to-deliver-wifi-for-10000-delegates-properly.html
• If you're questioning whether you should provide wifi, read this: http://www.asaecenter.org/Resources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=181334
• If you think you need to set up wireless access points at distances that make cabling impractical, read this: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/78459.html
• If you don't need that kind of range, and just need better wifi coverage, look into Wifi repeaters, like this one from Radioshack for $99.99: Amped Wireless® High-Power Wireless-N 600mW Smart Repeater, Model:SR10000 Catalog #: 55055046

Agreed and I'd like to expand on the "test my custom" to "everything."

At work I run and admin web servers, mostly Apache. I choose Apache because I have the most experience with it and have developed a feeling for how much I can trust various configurations. I don't have that level of experience with Nginx. However, I like Nginx better and feel like it would be better suited to meeting our business needs. So I need to spend a couple years getting better aquainted with Nginx, what can go wrong, how they find and handle security issues, how quickly patches come out, how easy it is to handle stop-gap measures, etc.

I can only do that somewhat freely at work because there are different restrictions on what I can do with machines at work and what I'm willing to have fail at work. If I can run Nginx at home for a couple years, I don't have those restrictions. It's hardly reasonable to consider my hobby tinkering a business and unreasonable for me to have to upgrade to a business class service just to give me the ability to ensure I understand how to configure the hardware, software and services I am trying to learn.

I tried FreeBSD for a while at home. I absoutely love some aspects of it. After a couple years, I decided I didn't like the upgrade cycle, but I didn't learn that at work and shouldn't have to. I tried OpenBSD too and discovered some drivers didn't like some of the hardware I was using and that would have been a misuse of my time to discover at work since they don't pay me to play around learning new stuff. I'm a better admin professionally because of my hobby experience at home.

I too had to ask and answer "what is a server?" I have an old Cisco router a couple switches and a 1U server with no onboard hard disk. The Ciscos have built in telnet and web server interfaces. Even my wifi router has an onboard web server for configuation. Surely they wouldn't consider the Ciscos and wifi router servers? Of course not. The 1U dell needs a tftp server to function and can run various systems but none of them necessariy have to offer externally available software servers of any sort. That doesn't sound like a server to me either. In the end, I try to keep my homework limited to a couple things I'm tinkering with and not offer anything the general public might be interested in from my home connection and I believe I'm operating within the spirit of the rules. That doesn't stop me from wishing that the rules were actually more clearly established along reasonable lines. As an admin of a network myself, I believe that it is my job to ensure not only that we have clear rules about what is allowed and what isn't but also to ensure that dangerous or abusive use is curtailed by technology, not a "you find out that you broke the rules only after you've gone far enough to be punished" approach.