Microsoft today implemented its 100% Data Confidentiality package for T-Mobile Sidekick, comprehensively protecting users' contacts, email and messages from any possible attacker.

"Our data security is impenetrable," said Steve Ballmer, "and will reassure everyone of the data integrity of our Windows Azure Screen Of Death cloud computing and Windows Mobile initiatives."

Microsoft plans to leverage the new confidentiality mechanism to finally purge the horror of Vista from the face of the earth, in the same manner as firing all the contractors who knew how to build Windows 2000 and having to reconstruct Windows XP from bits of NT 4.

Microsoft Sharepoint users looked forward to a similar denouement as the only safe way to scour their hopelessly incompetent organisations from the world in a manner that would not infect successor organisations.

Microsoft is putting together an outsourcing proposal to the UK government for data protection.

Illustration: Secure Windows data storage mechanism.

And to me that is the big problem with 7 (and was my problem with Vista). I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade from XP. Eventually, I'll have to buy a new Windows box and I'll end up getting stuck with 7 (or maybe 8 depending on how long I hold out). But for me there is no incentive to upgrade to 7.

SSL was indeed made to solve a different problem. And while sometimes ocassionally inconvenient IMO it's much better than the alternative.

Setting up services that work on a basis of "It's the same server as yesterday" only works well in two cases: When it's a company system, and when it's your own home server.

In the case of a company this works only until a certain point. It'll instantly become a problem if at your company people travel, and a server gets a new key for some reason while somebody is abroad.

In the case of doing it a home, you're knowledgeable enough already, so making a CA cert shouldn't be such a big deal. And current tools like tinyca make it very easy, no need to mess with openssl commands.

For most of the normal people such systems are not only not effective, but harmful. Knowing that a bank's cert is the same it was yesterday is of absolutely no use to anybody who doesn't work in the bank's data center.

Tip: If you want to link to specific part in youtube video, you can add #t=1m3s etc on it, ie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcFUDvTFokg#t=1m40s

Also adding &hd=1 gives hq/hd version.

That grey monster devouring a sweet little bunny wabbit is a grey herron!

This despicable monster is a plague worse than the biblical locusts. Swarms of these screeching monsters peck at pets and small children, make an awful mess pulling anything edible out of the garbage containers, and cover the city with their immense splashes of their foul, abrasive excrement. You think pigeon poop is a problem? A herron poops puddles the size of a pigeon! Oh and the screeching! Have you ever heard one of these monsters sing? Inflate a balloon, then stretch the nozzle while you slowly deflate it. Imagine that sound getting married and having a child with the screeching of a dinosaur from a 1950's movie, that's what it sounds like.

The worst part is, you can't do a damn thing about them. You can't shoot them because burocrats in Brussels think these freaky miscreants are 'rare' and 'protected'. You know what, these feathered meat golems only seem rare, because they all seem to have flocked to these parts.

Amendment XXVIII - Strike the following: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". Replace with: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for Times not to exceed 14 years to Authors, or 25 years for Inventors, the limited Privilege to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

The actual time limits can be debated, but they need to be set in the constitution, not left to a congress that can be bribed with corporate donations.

right. I would have no problem with that. in that instance, information isn't hurting anyone. what's hurting [me, hypothetically] is what the jurors decide to do with that information, as well as the general jury selection and judicial processes.

Here's an article on this that is a bit more technical.

The brain is really awesome about getting the right wiring for interpreting signals. For example, the widely publicized "seeing tongue" research.

Depends entirely on the make of the car. My VW's outlet is on all the time, and my previous vehicle, a GM, had it on all the time too (though I think the behavior might have been selectable).

FWIW, Unisys has accomplished much the same thing with MCP (compatible with older Burroughs A-series and B-series mainframes going back into the mid 1960's, and OS 2200 (compatible with the 2200-series and 1100-series platform all the way back to the UNIVAC 1108).

I don't know how many Unisys mainframe shops are left, but there are still several major ones in the airline industry, and I've seen Burroughs-compatible Clearpath servers in the strangest places. Those things are quite scalable.

Can you sell the GPS tracker on Ebay if you find one stuck to the underside of your car? What's the going rate for a GPS tracker that hasn't been detuned for civilian use? Is it even legal to own/sell? How would that ebay page read? "Uh, found this tracker stuck to the bottom of my car with a magnet. Buyer assumes all risk that US Government may track you down and request it back. Seller assumes no responsibility if you become an assailant in the US Federal court case against me".

Sounds like a warrant is needed to me.

From the same page you linked:
>** Volume pricing:Volume discounts, site licenses, and corporate-wide licensing are available for environments larger than 1,000 managed resources. Contact Zenoss Sales to learn more.

So I call BS on the $500,000-$900,000/year number you gave.

I was really impressed by Zenoss, which has all the slick features that cost the earth from vendors like HP for Openview. You get automatic discovery, CMDB inventory, availability monitoring, alerting, and performance graphs all in a web portal.

You get open source, commercial support, and a good community of users and plug-in developers. The best of both worlds IMHO.