Not quite accurate. The Netnod server 'causing the problem' claims to have and be serving proper information, but the Chinese instance of that server is having it's data stream filtered by China (on the presumption that nobody outside of China is getting information from that server). The problem arose when a couple of high-volume servers (one, or more, in Chile and one, apparently in California) got their root query packets routed through China and ended up filtered the same way that internal-Chinese queries get filtered.

To solve that problem without having to wander through layers of Chinese technical and political bureaucracy, the easiest solution was for Netnod to simply 'turn off' routes to it's Chinese server until the relevant Chilean and Californian routers get less problematic setups.

The root of the problem (if you'll allow the pun) is that China is silently hacking data from legitimate root servers that go through their systems. Normally this only affects users inside of China but, in this case, part of 'The Great Firewall of China' leaked out into the rest of the world.

Something like that .. Netnod apparently claims that the data on their server is accurate, so either China was hijacking the connection generally, or they were filtering the results being returned. This wasn't a problem until the server (and it's hacked data stream) started being accessed by machines outside of China due to a (silly but otherwise benign) routing change.

I recently ran into a situation where ... having around a hundred chairs that would need to be moved around quickly during a function, I asked the hotel for a chair dolly. It was refused on 'safety' grounds... Lawyers had determined that, if they lent us the equipment they would be responsible if our volunteers hurt themselves with it.

So our volunteers were left slinging the chairs around by hand.

For our next function, we used a different hotel.

Gas companies whine to keep wind from passing them.

If this 'random error' came out of a two-bit fly-by-night operation putting together a proof of concept, I might accept that it was just an oops, but that's so far from describing Microsoft that it's not even worth considering.

• this came out of Microsoft, a company with almost infinite resources.
• Microsoft has a history of 'errors' that turn out to be to the detriment of their competition (some later proven to have been malicious.
• This whole antitrust process has taken place at the highest levels of the company. It's highly unlikely that this page was 'just thrown together' without massive high, middle and low management input and oversight into the design.
• It puts IE mostly in the most preferential location (first or last in a horizontal choice panel)
• this is such a mind-numbingly and trivially 'bad' implementation, that the summary points out that you could probably [only] find one programmer that stupid in a freshman computing class.
• even if this was a random mistake, the chances are only 1 in 5 that IE would have randomly been given the starting position that gave it this most preferential outcome.
• I don't know about you, but me and my friends figured out, by grade 1, which starting points of 'enie, meanie, miney, moe' gave the counter the preferential result for small numbers of players (less than 6)

One simple, if cynical, explanation for how this occured is that someone at Microsoft came up with this simple, but predictably bad, implementation and then they figured out which starting position gave IE the best final position and that's the order that went out to production. It would have taken less than a programmer-day of experimentation to figure out which input array gave the optimal distribution and that kind of investment is completely worthwhile given what Microsoft sees as being at stake here.

For a country^W company with a history like Microsoft's, there's really no reason to be cutting them slack on a high-stakes 'error' that resolves in their favour -- In fact, it's a combination of such 'errors' that put them into the sights of anti-trust investigators in the first place.

Finally -- even if this was the result of massive managerial oversight, the error is now in the open, and the fix is (a)almost trivial, and (b)available on Wikipedia.
if MS doesn't fix this problem now, then I'd cite that refusal as evidence that the 'error' is really intentional.

In that case (as stupid as it is), they knew that they were making the pictures. In this cases, the pictures are being taken without their permission or knowledge. That difference known as Mens Rea, and is a necessary element for someone to be convicted of a crime.

A lid on the webcam would defeat theoriginal stated excuse for having this setup (figuring out who has a stolen web-cam). That having been said, there was a long-time-ago article about Flash apps being able to turn on a web cam without user intervention (a 'feature' which then, apparently, had fail-safes added to it). ... but any (pre)installed binary will be able to do this without such failsafes.

so the long answer is that lids on web-cams are a good failsafe to have on any such device even though they would have defeated the stated intent of this (clearly illegal) spying program. Hardware disables on built-in microphones would also be a good privacy guard.

Consider (again) the following, completely predictable, scenarios for pictures captured of students who think that they're in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

• A student walking around their room Naked (straight out of the shower, changing, and/or just not worried about being seen by anybody else)
• A student making out with their boy/girlfriend.
• A student masturbating.
• etc., etc., etc.

Now, consider that you're talking about high-school students -- almost all of whom are going to be under the age of 18. All of a sudden, you're out of the realm of a simple class action lawsuit, and looking at a charges of 'Creation, Possession, and possibly even distribution, of Kiddie Porn'. . . .

Now, that may not do much more than garner some more interesting headlines, but if you throw in counseling charges against the high-level managers who concieved of, OKed or mandated this stupid idea, I expect that anyplace where a similar plan is in place, the programs will be suddenly stopped. -- and to be honest, I'm more interested in getting this stupidity shut down now than I am in starting a witch-hunt against stupid school administrators.

No. Kiddy porn laws make the recipient of the pictures the criminal, not the kids in the pictures. This isn't like prostitution laws where the hooker is usually jailed, and the John may get a bye.

We're squeamish about oral sex (i.e. talking publicly about it). This leaves kids participating in sexual activity blindly (OK. Adults too). Lack of knowledge doesn't mean lack of action, just lack of intelligent action.

Unfortunately, some people seem to think that lack of training about the issues around sex will discourage kids from participation in sex that has been the norm since long before we understood enough to talk about (or, for that matter, even had language to talk about it). It's a process that only works for people who confuse belief and hope with reality.

I think that this explains why some of these same people confuse things like fantasy gaming with real devil worship. ..... and it explains why states that have the most restrictions about sex education also tend to have the most STDs and teen pregnancies.

Remote areas without gas pumps probably won't have roads that a vehicle like this can use, either.

I have a friend who does destructive testing of Lithium Ion batteries --- apparently the engineers get freaked out when a pierced battery doesn't explode. The thought of a fragile battery like that, big enough to provide decent range, that close to my body gives me the willies.

I just played with a friend's netbook, while fixing it (turned out to be the PS cable).

It's small, and simple. It netboots, has 1GB of ram and drove my 19"monitor just fine without any special work. For the price, you can just ignore the 9" screen.

Don't bother buying the latest and greatest. Get machines that are near the end of their sales life. It's cheaper and they'll probably last just as long.

Don't bother trying to censor the internet. It's not going to happen. Your better bet is to just get a higher profile for yourself in the present. Just be more judicious about what you release about yourself this time. Be prolific and useful, and bury the one bad reference.

All that does is make the problem as difficult for the astronauts, now, as it was when they were in high school,