Yeah! Americans won't stand for slave like labor conditions which is why the iPhone bombed in the US market after working conditions at Foxconn were revealed. Yup! The iPhone is completely dead in the US!!!

Or option B ... - You are a complete idiot.

There is nothing safer then being "made helpless by law".


Oh yeah ...
CHEMTRAILS ARE REAL. Because condensation because of low pressure vortices is much less believable then a secret program to spend money to spray chemicals that have never been detected and have never been reported by low paid airport ramp workers!

While we are talking to idiots... What other swamp land can I sell?

This gets to the heart of it. The type of person you put in an organization obviously fuels the traits of an organization but over time it will be trumped by the structure of an organization.

First off, If you haven't read "The Peter Principle" (1969) find a copy. It is funny but the humor is built on the fact that it is based on truth. Once you start getting a feel for how the normal actions of people are influenced by life inside a hierarchy then turn your head to the problem of how people get to the upper portions of the hierarchy. The leading motivations of people will be getting a raise or bonus, getting a better position or a promotion, and avoiding being terminated. The way you do this is by currying favor with people above you in the hierarchy, and creating alliances with people at the same level or below you. (And yes, "currying favor" can be as simple as simply doing a good job but it also includes making other people's work look bad...)
The number one way to accomplish this is to have a convincing, persuasive personality. The ability to actively manipulate someones impression of you is not tied to any level of morality and is commonly found in sociopaths. A famous quote, "Power corrupts ..." leads in to an observation in many financial news sources over the last 10 years that CEOs have a MUCH higher percentage of psychopaths then the general population. Just one example: Do psychopaths make good CEOs? The pretty obvious conclusion that the tendencies that lend well to the "climb to the top" also tend to lean away from moral functioning.

Existing in a framework of power is not a way to build toward actions that would be perceived as moral. A new organization can be a wonderful thing because it was created in situ. But as time passes the inexorable influences of a hierarchy will bend it in much less altruistic directions. Over time your only real influences to counter this are the need to counter outside negative perception ("Hey! They aren't moral!") and the need to fight stagnation which leads to reorganization.

You can ascribe the actions of a hierarchy as being what you think of as moral but a hierarchy is not sentient so it cannot be moral.
You are an individual sentient being so you are able to judge that the Salvation Army acts in a way that you perceive as moral. That is your perception not the thinking judgment of a hierarchy.

--------
BTW - Good example using the Salvation Army. They are the only charity that I support!!!

The cost of reviewing video with nothing going on IS free, as even the cheapest camera will only show video where there is motion detected. I would bet the average single family residence (with no kids) probably has less then 5 minutes of motion at the front door and driveway during a day. Fast forward and your time is now down to close to nil.

Add to this the rapid development and falling cost of machine intelligence with video processing and you are looking at the beginning of a totalitarian "video state". The technology exists to use video surveillance to use facial recognition and processing of objects to automatically issue citations for j-walking or littering. I bet we could think of hundreds of other profitable invasive uses that are possible. Of course people (sheep) say, "Oh they would never do that." And a few decades ago people would never have believed that the government would have the ability to look at every purchase transaction that people make, and they certainly wouldn't have believed that "The People" would ever stand for that level of intrusion. But you have a credit/debit card with you right now and using it doesn't make you flinch.

Governments nowadays ALL coin the phrase "sources of revenue". What this means is the people working in government see the citizens that they are supposed to serve as their source of $$$. The fact is that government cannot resist getting their hands on more money (numerical unit of power).
The law used to be a framework where if someone caused a problem they could find a way to deter them from being a problem. There was no intention of enforcing all laws 100% of the time. Now when something happens the agents of the government never ask, "Should we apply this law? but instead only ask, "Can we apply this law?". Add this to the endless search for more revenue and you have a future where the video camera sees you drop a $5 bill, detects dropped paper, and the facial recognition system mails you a $1000 littering fine.

The endless creep of intrusion is headed that way and unless something huge happens it will slowly become the norm. But thank god!!! It will make you safer!!!!
But safety is a FEELING, especially when it doesn't come with a real percentage of improvement in life expectancy. And LIBERTY (all in caps!) is a RISK and it always was a risk. A risk that a lot of people died for.

There is a major difference. The wholesale government surveillance of the Internet, the ramp up of government drones, and the government "video surveillance state" comes down to one thing:

It is now cost effective for governments to micromanage EVERYONE'S life.

If you you don't recognize that this is the most dangerous thing that has happened to liberty and civilization in general you aren't awake. If they felt that this person was dangerous enough that they were willing to pay for a manned 24/7 stakeout then that has already introduced a massive self limiting level of restraint on the process. Popping something on a pole for a cost that is less then one day's wages and then letting it mop up anything is not remotely like a stakeout.

Be very clear about this: A government is a hierarchy. A hierarchy is just an organizational construct. By definition a hierarchy CANNOT HAVE A MORAL CONSCIOUS!. Only an individual can be moral. The basic drives and influences of a person in a hierarchy is not remotely focused on exercising morality. It is focused on power dynamics of having someone above you and someone below you. (Not a great way to exercise "morality" ehh?!)

Always remember: If you had a teenaged child with the same fiscal responsibility and penchant for dancing around the truth as ANY government you would ground them for life.
(And I have to listen to people who want to give up MY rights because they believe an organization chart called "government" will magically take care of things for them. Shheeeshh!!!)

All of this is missing a major point about the posted article:
- Is this news or a posted question to the readers?
Everyone knows that IT has become a huge house of cards and it isn't possible to give a real solid level of protection while using modern features and technology. The comments echo this fact.

So where is the news and/or where is the useful question?

---------------
SlashDot should be so much better then this.

Smart isn't what we get. It will be "Smart assed". As in: I wonder how long before we get some kid trying out different fireworks to see which one brings out the SWAT team?!
I suspect the system isn't looking for a "supersonic" signature as a pretty common setup is a pistol with subsonic rounds. (45 ACP)

So time to break out your crossbows or just go "full boat Hunger Games" on them!

What makes you think your "perfect fit" could get past the HR barricade?
There was a situation widely reported a couple years ago where a company was looking for a software engineer. They ran the 25,000+ resumes they recieved through their resume vetting service and found "they didn't have a single qualified applicant"! The internet and blind application of something they call "best practices" has made them stupid.
Anytime you automate a human ability the humans will lose that ability. Your cell phone has a contact list right? 20+ years ago the average competent adult had at least 20 phone numbers memorized (maybe more like 50). Now it is rare to find someone who knows more then 5 numbers. The exact same thing happened to HR. They saw easy resume vetting services and laziness and eagerness for the "next big thing" has now made them stupid and they don't even realize they are running an incompetent process.

A little secret for HR types: 95% of the people doing IT as a career are "members of the B team" and you can't tell the difference from the resume from an "A team" type. The difference isn't training or certifications. (Except that the A-Team guy likely doesn't have certifications. He was working.) The difference is the thought process inside their head. How does that person solve problems?

The list of certifications that they put on a job posting is ridiculous. Demanding certifications almost guarantees that you will get a lower level of experience and a less desirable employee. Why? The technologies that we are working with change year to year. An excellent IT tech will pick the new tech up on the fly, and he will pickup the one following that, and following that, ad infinitum. As mentioned before he won't get a certification for that new tech because he is on that endless treadmill WORKING! Almost every tech I've run across with any level of certification was absolute junk. They say the right words but they never see straight to the heart of an issue.
An extremely important fact will be impossible to explain to anyone but a good IT person". It is impossible for anyone but a really good IT person to determine if another IT person is truly qualified. And even that might take a bit as the results of their work are often the only arbiter.

Saying "cities" is a real push. The only real city in the US with a larger area is Anchorage Alaska. (I guess Juneau is considered a city as it is the capital but if you go there it is really just a town with politicians and extra land.)

Did you read what you cited?

That doesn't come close to addressing encryption, warrants, or search and seizure. What The Hell?

Excellent point. I did a search on the definition of terrorism and found this FBI page: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/in...

The first bullet point of the domestic section reads: - "Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law"

News flash! Base jumping is accurately described as domestic terrorism. Good to know!

I'm wondering if there is an official guideline that the administration has to spin anything into a child safety issue. "Just follow this simple flow chart before releasing to the press."

The whole "safety, safety, safety" bit has gotten so ridiculous and I am endlessly surprised by the fact that a majority of people haven't cried "bullshit" on it. We are in the safest time in history. The thing that has changed is that a single instance of some wack job doing something crazy is blasted out of every media channel and people believe that it is a credible threat. (That explains lottery ticket sales.)

Reality check: When you have 300,000,000+ people in a country every single day there are going to be a multi digit number of them that do something so horrendous as to drop your jaw. That doesn't make it a credible threat. Hell, if you were actually on a US domestic flight on Sept 11th 2001 you would have only have a 1 in 10,000 chance of being on a doomed flight. We aren't at a credible level of risk beyond your chance of slipping in the shower or down the stairs.

The government IS NOT a responsible agency to be given the master keys to your life (or even a valet key!). If you had a teenage child with the same level of fiscal responsibility and the same way of dancing around the truth, you would ground them for life.
Yeah, I will take a .00000001% increase in risk in exchange for .1% increase in safety from being screwed with by a government agency.

- First solution would be to use a Windows thin client. Set it up, write the configuration to flash and then lock it. If it goes BOOM just turn it off and turn it back on and it will be exactly the same as it was. Mail will have to be on the web because nothing will be saved locally.

- Second idea would be to use a terminal server / remote desktop. Give them just enough to log into a system that you maintain at your location. Make sure there are no visible links to a web browser (or anything else) on their local computer.

----------
One thing people should tell their parents/grandparents/non-techie friends, "Anything fun, cool, and/or free on the web is inherently dangerous. If you can't tell how they are making money then you should suspect everything you see."

Yup. That is it. He holds U.S. and international patents which they have blatantly ignored and his legal challenge was met with lawyers that basically made it into $ vs $$$$ and $$$$ wins.

(Told him he should find a high end patent attorney to take the case on contingency. He is so fed up with attorneys that he would rather shoot the next one he sees rather then talk to one more. He says he will never patent another thing.)