All landline for me. Though I did get a BofA scam call on cell phone the other day.

They are not monitoring your computer until you give them access. That they are monitoring your computer is the ruse they use to give them access.

You're right, my legal basis was poorly worded. Let me draw it in an analogy, it's usually illegal to shoot someone, one exception is when they're shooting you. It's illegal to record someone without their permission on the phone in California (felony wiretapping law), unless they know they're being recorded or if they're doing something illegal. It's illegal to break someone hammer, unless they're using it to break into your house. When a computer hacker is trying to gain illegal access to your computer for illegal purposes, you can use whatever means short of physical force likely to stop said attack. On top of it not being illegal to defend yourself and help destroy a burglar's tools, you also have jurisdictional issues, and the issues that short of them stealing several million dollars no one is going to bother with attempting to prosecute anyone EVEN IF somehow they found a legal loophole to do so. And even if they DID issue a warrant, and these fraudsters are surely foreign, there is no way the US Government would ever allow extradition. So it's a moot point. But my previous reasoning did fail to show a good enough reason, I grant.

I've gotten 4 of these calls. I'm glad there's someone working on a way to scam the scammers, a la 419eater.org. I've tried to keep them on as long as possible and mess with them, the last one got so upset he told me, "You're an idiot, your mother's an idiot, everyone in your family is a big fucking idiot. F*ck you!" Before he hung up on me, it was adorable. I did, of course, record him to show to all my friends how funny it was. I can't keep them on for more than 5 minutes or so before they grow wise and flustered and just give up though. As no law enforcement agency is going to go after these guys, and they are running free, I'm pleased someone is working on a way to mess them up a bit. It's not going to be illegal to scam a scammer, as in order for the authorities to know about it the hackers would have to identify themselves to them, something they would never do. And there's no way Interpol is going to deal with it, just as they won't deal with our complaints.

Ignorant. "Police are scum." Way to mark them with one stroke of the brush. When you track your iphone to a "location" you're not handing the information to them on a silver platter. When it "pinpoints" your iphone it gives an area good to within several houses. If your iphone tracks to 123 ABC Street, your iphone might just be at 117 ABC Street, or behind that house at 123 DEF street. You're giving the iphone location isn't as good as giving the perp on a platter. Now, let me set your straight- Police love these cases in that IF they can find your iphone, they solve a case, and often solve several other cases as well. But it's not that easy- it's only easy for the police if you track your iphone to a park and there's only one person in the park. Do you think the public is really going to tolerate a police officer stopping 10 people in a park? They can't do that and get away with it for fear of public outcry- it's not good enough to go in court! Now, picture one of your common iphone thieves- he lives in a tightly packed apartment complex- your "phone location" could refer to several different apartments on that floor, or any of the ten floors! Iphone doesn't give which floor it's on. And there's many people in each apartment. So know you're talking about searching tens of rooms with hundreds of people. The police can't expend that kind of energy on property loss, it's not a money issue- it's a time issue- this is because there are a ton of crimes occurring every couple minutes and they have to respond to the most pressing ones. Now, when your phone is stolen from you by a person- that's a HOT call, lots of units will respond quick, because of a ROBBERY in progress. Usually, though, it's too late and the person is gone. Days later when you track your phone it's now a property crime response, not a violent crime response (as your original robbery was). You're ignorant to paint them with a "scum" brush. You don't know what you're talking about. They're busy. They would love to help. They know how much it sucks to have a several hundred dollar phone stolen. But often their hands are tied. It's the bad guy whose the scum.

I went with the Toshiba DVR610. I found the hardware conversion to DVD far superior to any form of computer conversion. I converted to DVD files directly and then used those DVD files to edit them into better DVDs on my computer with a program that could work with the files directly with no need for conversion.

I was reading through all the comments to see if I would have to mention this myself, but you beat me to it. The engineering costs of translating brain/muscle signals into mechanical signals I imagine would account for the bulk of the $42k engineering price of the other hand, of which the plastic printed model uses none.

The hard drive space to keep this information is negligible. It's text files. This kind of data has been used to solve murders, robberies, rapes, etc. If they have this database police can search for license plates that keep popping up around crime areas and correlate the bits of info. Let's be clear all agencies already retain this info, and all other LE agencies can request this info. What's happening now is they're just making the information more readily accessible to those who can make use of it.

It is easy to confuse causation with correlation. Without an experiment, causation cannot be shown. Data suggests correlation only. To a person whose never taken a statistics course (a statistics course should be mandated for all students, would decrease people's gullibility), said data might look as though the parents that help with homework CAUSE poorer test scores. To someone who's used to seeing this causation fallacy, I see a possibility that kids who are doing poorly in school are more likely to be helped with their homework by their parents, and therefore it's the poor cognitive ability which CAUSES the parent to help, and the poor cognitive ability CAUSES the poor test scores.

This is data that has been available, sounds like they are just doing a better job of networking said data. This should be viewed as a good thing, when law enforcement has access to information it can help solve crimes easier. Information is king. People are so paranoid of a police state, this is not indicative of that. This is indicative of intelligent networking and data sharing.

I store all my passwords in an openoffice calc file that's password protected. Additionally, that file is hidden on a truecrypt non discoverable drive. I feel relatively safe doing that.

Thanks! I've seen some pretty cool online courses (and I regularly take community college courses, but the programming ones fill up quick) but I'm the type where I need the stress of a physical instructor to make me succeed. It would be stupid to say I wish I was unemployed so I could do a program like this, but I wish there was one like it that allowed employed people, and at a lesser price. :-)

I never even knew these programs exist. My goal is to get back into development. I'm working in a completely unrelated field, having a Major in Cognitive Science and minor in computing. Anyone know of similar programs to these in the Los Angeles area for fully employed people, at cheaper prices? I love the idea of these programs...thanks!

First of all, I would ask you if you're very interested in the subject you are studying? If it's your first year, chances you are doing all your GEs and some of them can be hard and boring as hell. If it is a boring class, chances are your memory isn't to blame, because everyone reads and remembers boring stuff poorly. I speak from experience. After being a straight A student in high school, I went to one of the top 20 schools in the nation, only to realize I was failing after a year or so going there. I couldn't wake up for classes, I slept in most of the day, I couldn't pay attention, etc. For a student who prized himself based upon grades, I wasn't feeling great about myself. Luckily I found out about the student psychological services. Turns out I was suffering from a mild depression and ADD. ADD? How could that be possible, I'd been a straight A student and never ran around the classroom, though I did like to blurt comments out at my teachers when I felt so inspired. I was suffering from ADD, inattentive (daydreamer) non hyperactive type. The depression stemmed from my poor performance in school. I was given different meds for the ADD until we finally found one that worked, and I took it for about a year to get on track. Now, to the point, I ended up in the most awesome major- Cognitive Science. I found it insane and awesome all at once, it engaged my brain, I loved going to school then! I was able to stop taking the meds altogether because the material enthralled me that much! I've been able to stay off the meds for 9 years altogether because the material was that interesting. Two points- get yourself checked out at the school student psych services center. You may be suffering from depression, ADD, Insomnia, any other myriad of conditions they might be able to help with, sometimes just with techniques and not pills. Secondly, find a major you love not one you think that will love you in turns of money. Good luck.

True, I understand the general feeling and logic, but you still have to process the dna which has a high time cost. The metadata is already processed, so there's little upfront cost. Also there's little to no chain of custody if outside contractors unless they're law enforcement.