General Failure and Major Malfunction were reading my hard drive, looking for Private Porn. They all stopped when they ran into a Colonel Panic.

It can be done by scraping the database of cards, creating a model out of them, then matching the new card to the database.

So how much is this worth to you?

I would really hate to have all my files encrypted and inaccessible. I'd probably just pay the $500 with much begrudge.

That being said, as soon as I would get the encryption key and get my files back, I would post everywhere that the hackers did NOT give me the key after I paid the $500.

It's kind of like game theory. If enough people do the same, then fewer people would actually pay up, or the price would drop lower, thus proving an advantage for the victims.

Posting in the damn NYT that the hackers are true to their word assures that they have credibility, and just torpedoes the strategy above. In the same way that it's valuable for them to get the word out that they are (kinda) honest, it would be valuable for the victims to get the word out that they are crooked. Being the marketing and pricing geniuses they seem to be, they would surely lower the price if they had bad publicity. So in the name of future victims, I would like to sarcastically thank you Alina for giving those fuckers ammo. They'll probably raise their price now.

How long until someone flies a sharp tipped drone right into it?

Lets dissect your post for a sec, shall we?

I agree, it only makes sense.

This makes not sense at all. Why would they increase insurance for humans? Do you think humans will become more dangerous and reckless than they are now? Just because there are more self driving cars on the road? I completely disagree. I'd think that humans will be less prone to getting into accidents precisely because they'll be surrounded by more self driving cars, which are more predictable, better able to avoid accidents caused by another party, and won't give people road rage by acting like jerks.

What's the logic behind that? Insurance companies refusing to insurance which is profitable for them?

Here you're starting to make sense again. Conclusion seems straightforward - if the self driving cars are more efficient, less accident prone and faster than human driven cars, then as a society, we would prefer a fully automated transportation system. Remember that for the vast majority of us, going from point A to point B is a chore. We just want to get to point B as soon and as hassle-free as possible.

Sure, no surprise, there are people who like sailing, walking, riding the high wheel, why wouldn't some people like driving? The question is would you still drive if you have a faster and less stressful, even maybe a more productive way of getting to point B? Moreover, you probably like driving because you've been doing it for a long time and you grew up in a culture that does it a lot. In a few decades, people will be growing up with self driving cars all around them. Actually driving will be an activity practiced by few. It might even become a hipster thing.

I find that quote meaningless. X doesn't imply Y is one of the weakest and least informative relationships.

Note. I do like to drive.

I've got a black magic woman and she's trying to take a pebble out of me.

If there is no air, and no sound in space, then can you still hear the voices in your head?

I'm disappointed.
If Musk now said he was aiming to do it by 2013 I'd be more impressed.

You hear that *whooosh*?
That's the sound of a 1.21 gigawatts joke travelling back in time going over your head.

That's 1.2 Manhattans in imperial.

Russia, obviously.
The US is not going to the moon anytime soon with NASA's budget.

Or Catalonia to leave Spain. Or Wallonia or Flanders to split from Belgium. Or Bavaria to leave Germany.

Currently, heart disease is the SECOND most common cause of death in the world. I do believe that artificial hearts are going to be the future. But when this first goes mainstream things are going to get ridiculous. Where do I start?


Are popstars going to come up with songs about giving you the IP to their heart?
Are people going to find a heartbleed vulnerability ironic?
Can you leave the heart to someone else in your will?
Will you give the Crypto Key to your heart to the person you love?
Will a DDoS on an implanted heart be called a distributed heart attack?
Will an upgrade to a newer model be called a change of heart?
If you configure your heart rhythm to follow the interaction with a person. Will you tell them "I have my heart set on you?"
If you break the security protocol, are you breaking people's hearts?
If you download the Pledge of Allegiance into your implant, will you know it by heart?
If my heart's kernel gives an error message, will it be from the bottom of my heart?


Thank you, I'll be here all week. I've got more, but I don't have the heart to continue right now.

The only reason that the codec would influence the outcome is if it would generate artifacts that are somehow informative of the direction of time. In practice, codecs aim to keep as much information as possible while reducing the required space by finding regularities in the video. If the quality is sufficiently high, there would be next to no artifacts. Only in cases where the quality is extremely low there are tell-tale signs of the direction of time. Everyone has seen damaged Xvid movies I assume.

Can you stop the lazy commenting experiments that require zero effort? This was by no means lazy, it was a complicated computer vision task that required a lot of preparation and experimentation.