He's obviously part of that Anonymous group, and on the watch list.

But there are laws covering motor carriers, including FedEx Ground. My understanding (lawyers feel free to step in) is that they must carry goods per their tariff, which does not prohibit the equipment in question.

A carrier providing transportation or service subject to jurisdiction under chapter 135 shall provide the transportation or service on reasonable request. In addition, a motor carrier shall provide safe and adequate service, equipment, and facilities.

49 U.S. Code section 14101

" referring to metadata collection, that has been affirmed by a Supreme Court ruling that is 35 years old."

Uh, no.Smith v. Maryland was decided on two points.

First, the collection of very limited data which was specific to a single physical phone line, using a pen recorder which only captures a called phone number and time. The court placed significant weight on the limits of the data collected, saying:

"Indeed, a law enforcement official could not even determine from the use of a pen register whether a communication existed. These devices do not hear sound. They disclose only the telephone numbers that have been dialed - a means of establishing communication. Neither the purport of any communication between the caller and the recipient of the call, their identities, nor whether the call was even completed is disclosed by pen registers." United States v. New York Tel. Co., 434 U.S. 159, 167 (1977). [442 U.S. 735, 742]

Given a pen register's limited capabilities, therefore, ...

-442 U.S. 735

and continues to base its reasoning on those limits.

The government tries to use that to justify collecting "metadata" which includes MUCH more information, and which is collected in bulk against a large number of citizens. Unlike the wired phones in play with Smith, cell phones are much more effectively linked to specific individuals.

Second, the decision depended upon "no reasonable expectation of privacy" for the numbers dialed. It was in the days of the old Bell System, which didn't promise customers any level of privacy. Most, if not all, modern cell carriers have explicit privacy policies, from which customers DO gain a reasonable expectation of privacy for any information they provide to the carrier.

Your claim that modern activities have been "affirmed by a 35 year old case" are false at best, otherwise ignorant or deliberately misleading.

You're a net newbie, aren't you. Domain squatters are scum. Right there with spammers and con artists.

It's all very confusing. Are we supposed to support the domain squatter or the con artist?

OK, if you say so.

"Are you suggesting that the vendor will double the amount of capital investment in their electronics..."

No, I wouldn't think of blaming the vendor, when the issue is obviously that you have neither the knowledge nor skillset needed to understand how to do VPN deployments.

That's a lengthy strawman argument. But you still fail, the cost of a router which can do an IPSec VPN is under $40.

If you think Uber is worth $40B, or Instagram worth $33B, I've got some tulip bulbs to sell you.

In exactly what way does requiring all information to go through a VPN (a solution offered by the GP) prevent any of those things?

What are you babbling about? Define your terms, if you can. Which is the host? Which is the client? WTF are you talking about?

How quaint. The Feds haven't taken the Constitution seriously for generations.

I got a bunch of Monster video and audio cables, with really nice machined, gold plated RCA ends. They're great, mostly because they were also free out of a dumpster in back of a Best Buy. (I was there looking for a large piece of cardboard for a project)

"And if we can't, then no one can, anywhere?"

You're not only bad at statistics, but you're bad at logic, too. I never claimed impossibility. I simply challenged your claim that space-jumping technology is "very probable."

More to the exact point, you simultaneously claimed "that humanity overlook[ing] a blindingly simple technique for manipulating gravity" "isn't very probable," while claiming that a space-jumping fleet of invading space aliens is.

Your support for those claims consists of only "Well, if monkeys don't fly out of my butt, they could still fly out of someones!"