No, it's not. The admin will - at gunpoint - log out my existing sessions and ignore my login cookie/session cookies the next time I try to log in and then intercept my plaintext password as I enter it and submit the login form. And of course he will already have given the bad guys access to all my data that is protected with the password. In this worst case / nearly worst case scenario, the strength of the hash is largely irrelevant when the data is stored in unencrypted form or when I have to enter plaintext passwords to log in (both the most common case).

The worst case is someone holding a gun to your head and asking you to log in, IMO...

Why do both XKCD and TFA assume having access to the hashed password? The normal "guessing" case is a password prompt and that'd better not allow 1000 guesses/second (try 10/day or so). The remedy for a compromised database of hashed passwords is: do not use the same credentials in several places. Afraid of someone stealing your hashed password by sniffing it? Use transport level encryption. Apart from that, using a password that you can type quickly and do not need to write down is a good idea.

It's intelligent design ...

The 64 bit ARM architecture for server CPUs is much more interesting ...

Wuala works a bit like that, with a somewhat clumsy UI though. Your files are also accessible from Wuala's web servers and you can start "groups" with members who can comment on the group, members, files (through Wuala's file system integration on Windows)... It's not really being used actively though, which is a shame - and the UI needs to be fixed.

There have been a few issues in the past that would fit the bill for me:

• dodgy deals in Kenya
• search neutrality issues on several occasions (i.e. favouring own products)
• WiFi sniffing was first an unintentional mistake, then a single individual action, then the supervisors knew about it ...
• circumventing Safari privacy protection ...

So, while I do not like simple comparisons like "is Google the new Microsoft?", they have their share of morality issues like most large corporations...

The "suspect" will never know ... As the "authorities" have undoubtedly discovered already.

So someone who disagrees with you must be a young college student and they make you feel so inferior that you try to give them a hard time as an employer? I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but my uni time was 17 years ago and I've been an employer (who buys desktops but doesn't think it's relevant here since the users usually don't have a choice regarding OS) for 12 years. I find employers who think they have to keep up a "slave system" pretty desperate...

People are not buying desktop PCs anymore, they buy laptops, netbooks, tablets or use their smartphone most of the time. Linux on laptops could be big nowdays if distributions and productivity apps didn't suck that much (give an Outlook user Thundebird and they'll complain about its lack of a proper calendar despite Lightning; give an MS Office user LibreOffice and they'll find some feature that doesn't work as well or similar enough to MS Office ...). And then there's games, why isn't WINE there yet after all these years? .

When we started our professional careers, we picked up whatever was in demand / the current fad and often stuck with it (because we earned a living with it all these years and had no time nor pressure to pick up new fads). Young programmers who start now will pick up the current fad and specialize in it. That's all there is to it. The "50-60 hours vs. wife and kids" issue is overrated, not everyone has wife and kids or issues with 50-60 hours (try entrepreneurship). Those who have been unemployed for a while and not been able to learn current technologies during that time, are simply slacking (you'll find enough of those in any field I believe).

If airlines that do not fly to/from the US are exempt, someone should compile a list and post it ...

My PCIe bus isn't accessible (physically) from outside the case, especially not on laptops etc.. Also, I'm not so sure that my OS supports PCIe hotplugging.

Thunderbolt will become famous for its potential for unauthorized access (DMA attack) and nothing else. Let's hope the media outcry will be heard far enough for everyone to disable these ports completely and for vendors to stop using them. These are difficult times for privacy and we do not need such ill-designed interfaces forced down our throats.

That depends on the situation. I'd say you learn from trying (from each attempt), whether you fail or not. If you fail, you might have another go more quickly but if you succeed, you might learn other things along that path.