Nah, that was just PR for the masses. You weren't around for the internment camps during WWII or the McCarthy witch trials, but you should've been around for the CIA's involvement in South America and Iran.

America stands as much for liberty and freedom as China stands for money. Liberty and freedom are convenient lines to trot out to the masses when the government wants to take some otherwise unpopular action (just like money is convenient to keep the masses quiet, but all over the world, not just China). The real motivation behind America is imperial power via trade. Unlike the first and second ages of imperialism, the people in power in the U.S. realize you don't have to own the land, you just have to control what the land produces.

Sorry to burst your bubble. Outside looking in can be as limiting as inside looking out. It's best to have both perspectives.

His main point is that we should more cautious of Google than we currently are. This is based on the idea that every company, after a certain point, will begin manipulating the government for continued dominance and the ability to expand to new markets, Google being no exception. He backs this assertion using Eric Schmidt's close ties to Washington which is a bit shaky, but the premise is historically accurate.

He occasionally goes into a bit too much hyperbole and too deep rhetoric, but some of the links between Google and the U.S. government he mentions to reinforce his point are unexpected and interesting nevertheless. For example, the fact that Google was supplying the NSA with search technology to sift through the collected data is news to me, and a bit alarming at that. That they're collaborating technologically with the shadier parts of the U.S. government in search, and others like maps, is not surprising, but still a little disappointing.

The big thing that's not mentioned in the piece is Google sharing the data they've collected using their consumer-facing products with the U.S. government. Now that would be a bombshell. That's not the assertion here, but Assange does drop hints that even if it's not happening currently, it's bound to happen soon enough.

In any case, I think we should be wary of Google, both because of the power they wield over information on the internet, and because they continue to insist they are doing "no evil." Unlike Assange though, in the same way that George Washington set a precedent by stepping down after two terms as President (he could very well have crowned himself if he wanted), I'm waiting to see if Larry Page's Google will set a precedent before I pass final judgment on Google's corporate existence. But that doesn't mean I won't continue to be suspicious of Google's activities in the meantime either.

You're misunderstanding. There's no default wallpaper because the wallpaper now consists of Unity's equivalent to Metro tiles. It's not so much one wallpaper as it is multiple animated posters.

I suspect Assange hasn't really done much these past year or so is because of Snowden's leaks. The leaks on NSA's illicit activities, and the U.S.'s response to them, have completely dwarfed every other whistleblowing discussion. At this point, more leaks would just be lost in the crowd.

It's also why Snowden's been fairly quiet too with only one or two revelations every so often. He's already got the ball rolling on discussions on government invasionof personal privacy, security audits, etc. People today are more aware of just how badly they've been violated by their government than ever. So long as that ball keeps rolling and doesn't stall, there's no need for him to give it a push.

Things are a shitshow anyway. Between Western Europe's fear or Putin despite their governments' reluctance to do anything about his land grabs, ISIS threatening to destabilize the Middle East, the ebola outbreak that will certainly affect everyone if it's not brought under control very soon, the riots in Hong Kong, and all the other usual stuff (drug cartels, extreme weather, etc.) there's strife in almost every part of the world. People really aren't going to be interested in what happens abroad if their own country is losing stability.

Better yet, don't go to the airport. You're probably being tracked on dozens of cameras via your face alone. You could cover your face with something to prevent tracking, but that might cause other problems.

These systems, assuming they are in place, are not active systems. They're passive systems, used to address events after the fact. Somebody jumps the terminal exit? Track them back to when they entered. Somebody caught with a bag that didn't go through security? Track them back to the person who gave it to them. That kind of stuff.

Anyone that paranoid about tracking should basically avoid the larger parts of society. Live out in a cabin in the woods near some small town, or in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere. Hell, that's what most people trying to avoid being tracked already do.

You're looking at it wrong. You're looking at things from an ideological perspective.

Most voters are looking at things from an economic perspective. If keeping these people in power are going to keep them their jobs, they're going to vote that way. Even if they end up losing their job ten years later due to a collapse in their entire industry, money in the pocket now trumps any imaginary gains ten years in the future.

Sorry, that's just how the world works.

The URL text contains the title of the story it's pointing to. Just hovering over the link, or pasting the URL in between the double quotes of <a href=""></a> will tell you where the link is going.

There's incompetence, and then there's gross incompetence. Guess which one this falls into.

As another reply has already stated, the counterfeit chips are marked with FTDI, so the chips counterfeiters are infringing on FTDI's trademark.

But your larger question is if the counterfeit chips are (otherwise) legal. Since they're using FTDI VIDs, and misreporting themselves to the host as FTDI chips, they may be violating some standard body's rules. But other than the blatant trademark infringement, there may be no legal violation. Not that it matters, because the counterfeiting is done in China, and such behavior is not illegal there.

The IBM-PC clones pretty much did the same thing in the 80's. Except they did a proveable clean room implementation and marketed themselves as "compatible." The proveable part was important against IBM's lawyers looking for copyright infringement, and by marketing themselves as merely compatible, they were not infringing on any trademarks either. It's quite possible if these chips called themselves FTDI-compatible and not FTDI chips, they may very well be legal.

Device manufacturing companies may just avoid FTDI chips outright. This is especially true if some suppliers are mixing the real chips with the counterfeit chips.

Worse, since it's coming through Windows Update, the engineers working on Windows Update might outright blacklist FTDI. And Microsoft would be at least partially liable for any bricked device, which would make their lawyers a bit uncomfortable. I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft release a patch in the future to automatically unbrick the affected devices.

A device which slows mice down enough to be pointed at is indeed a technical marvel to be venerated.

Even power users get the UAC prompt for certain things. But if they don't have local admin, the point is still moot.

"Look at that star! It's so bright, like it's pointed straight at us! That can't be ri--"

You're more easily tracked via BitTorrent than any other medium.

Well, it's technically tracking downloads and uploads, not necessarily viewing behavior, so maybe that's an advantage.

The Obamacare site had the same problems.

Oh, you mean for Slashdot to put out a shitty beta and randomly throw people into it, thereby driving visitors away. That might work.

Wait, you're not?