Comment Re:Mission Accomplished (Score 1) 1855
I dislike ACTA just as much as the next Slashdotter, but I think it's going just a wee bit too far to say that it's going to be the cause of a new wave of anti-US terrorism.
It's psychologically easier for me to keep paperwork than throw it away, something about the logical difficulty of proving a negative ("no way will you ever need this"). My old stuff is either categorized or disorganized, but I have very little that's older than 5-10 years. At that age, the whole categorical folder can usually be tossed (e.g., I moved years ago and every bill from that utility company is old).
When I get the urge to throw stuff out, I can always go through the older stuff with a different standard and find stuff worth tossing. The older it gets, the more easily it can be tossed.
Err on the side of not categorizing and not shredding. Only categorize into folders the stuff that you're likely to need to access by category in the future (e.g. tax documents). Everything else goes back into the envelope it came in. For bills, write "paid" on the front.
Use an appropriately-sized box to hold old mail neatly. Stick the newly-archived mail in the front (or top) of the stack such that it naturally sorts in a coarse reverse-chronological order. It's not too hard to go back through this to find stuff if you need it later and you'd probably never need to look further back than a year anyway.
Above all, don't spend more energy on the problem than it merits or else it will become a burdensome chore.
Good point. I'm usually so security-conscious that my hands begin to tremble whenever I remove the network cable from its locked safety cabinet and connect my computer to the net.
But one day in a moment of folly I thought "gee maybe it wouldn't be too dangerous to allow a simple video game to be played over my local LAN".
Silly me. I'll never make that mistake again.
Nightmare scenario for sony is a million PS3's updated with a firmware that no longer accepts updates.
Except there are something like 50 million. Never mind the mass recall, imagine them all DDoSing some critical sector of the economy.
your name, address, phone, password, birthday, answers to security questions, and who knows what else
But all that stuff is more or less public these days. Except for 'password' and some security questions.
At my job, I do worry about internet-facing systems. I think it's really hard to overstate the type of infrastructure damage that could be caused by a 50-million unit high-performance botnet.
You've got two groups of trolls trying to figure out who's attempting to troll whom, and if said trolling is a threat to their own trolling efforts. Why exactly this is considered news is beyond me.
I think it's delightfully surreal. A postmodern civil war in cyberspace. Now being disclaimed by one side!
These groups were simply made for each other, for our entertainment. Certainly a better use of packets than streaming sitcom television anyway.
When Wow gets hacked and your virtual gold is stolen, they pay people to help you put it all back the way it was because they value your business as a customer.
Moxie has a way better track record than the Haystack folks.
Plus, he's in the "extra search club" at airports supposedly for having been in Jacob Appelbaum's address book. That means he either has something good, or the feds are incompetent idiots.
Oh wait.
Or maybe that's exactly what they want us to think. Or all of the above.
All your files have been destroyed (sorry). Paul.
