First option is out. Not only do the USB ports get disabled on such machines, but you can't take a USB stick anywhere near them, any more than you could a phone.

Second option suffers the same "can't get a phone within 10 meters of the machine" that the parent mentioned.

Third, if you can pay a person with security clearance to do this then it isn't a computer problem.

Fourth, people who do this work are not as rigorously checked as their workers/software people, but you will note that all the secure places I know of run custom bios firmware that have checksums to stop this.

Yes, I know people who work at these places, both with clearance (operators and such) and techies that support them, getting to their secure networks/air-gapped networks is not trivial and certainly cannot be done with a USB stick anywhere on your person.

*hears a loud popping*

Oh gods it is starting!

But yes, I came in to see if anyone had picked up on this. Having governments restrict the duration they hold potentially personal data for is a good thing.

But with great power comes great responsibility, aren't they standing up and taking that responsibility now?

And yet this exact 'verification' was a way to steal control of accounts a while back.

Basically, apple asked for the first four digits of your CC for secure verification, Amazon asked for the last four. Each were happy to give the four digits at the opposite end of your account and, worse, Amazon would let you add a new CC to your account, verify yourself with that credit card, then provide the other four digits of your other card. This was used, successfully, to attack a person's Icloud account. I am not sure about now, but I really hope both companies have changed their policies, particularly in regards to phone support and scripted replied to requests for control of accounts.

http://www.wired.com/2012/08/a...

Well, the thing is, the reporter is more than happy to pay the same fee as other companies (or the government) would pay to access it. The real kicker is, a similar request was made for a major public official and it was denied because it was 'personal information' which, if that is the case, then they MUST make this data available to the owner of it.

The trick is, of course, for them to have to make requests of every other telco in the country to check if numbers on the list are private. Although the thought that they give such data out to non-government businesses is a little disturbing.

Yeah, in Australia we have a new centralised medical records system that patients absolutely CAN access. Heck, all my doctors have my folder open as they chat with me most times. I have even asked to see things and have never been refused.

Hint, nvidia drivers are a good one to use. They use akami I believe, and you should be able to max out damn near any connection with a few files coming from there.

If they advertise it as unlimited, it should be unlimited. Download more please!

I must need to update ad-block, it missed this one!

It is more like a chain letter, but in reverse.

It should be: "Get 4 other people to sign up OR Microsoft will teach you how to code"

And you think the utilities will suffer because of this? Here in Australia power companies have just started bringing in (opt-in for now) billing at different rates for different times of the day for all a house's power. They will simply make day-time power prices stay the same and increase prices for night-time usage, passing the loss on to customers as they always have.

Quite naive to think a company would accept the losses themselves.

Bet you are great fun around kids.

So, in regards to the other stuff, Brain and Brawn series? Planet Pirates? Doona?

I thought we were talking sci-fi, I was referring to the sci-fi books in the Pern series, not the fantasy. If you want to discuss fantasy then I have Elizabeth Moon, Kate Forsyth and Katherine Kerr as my preferred authors.

For me? Because when the rest of my diet is reduced to basic carbs, a dietary supplement (hospital grade sustagen) and liquids, then sometimes a diet soft drink is preferred.

Can't speak for the rest of people out there, my opinions are my own.

And if you are wondering why the dietary lockdown, crohns + T2 Diabetes. Basically anything with fiber, acid or undigestible matter (seeds, etc) is off the menu.

Heh, I was raised on Anne McCaffrey. I had dreams of integrating brains with computers, meeting alien species in a non-hostile manner, flying around on bio-engineered dragons and, above all, things generally working out okay for the majority of people.

Well, the single thing limiting how big a skyscraper we can build right now has nothing to do with structural limits and materials.

Elevator traffic. At some point you reach an elevator event horizon where adding a new floor on top means losing one or more floors at the bottom due to needing more elevators to move people to those new floors.