Yes, but now you'd need someone on-site, at the machine in question or on another PC within the airgapped network, to do their evil deeds. Doesn't matter if I know the password of the machine with the "NOC list" (from "Mission Impossible 1"); if the airgapped PC is physically thousands of miles away and/or I can't get into the site with the airgapped network, then what's the point??? I'm willing to bet some of the passwords on PCs within an airgapped network are "password", "12345", blank, "00000", etc.

And if you're really paranoid or anal, keyboards are cheap to replace -- or randomly cycle different brands/models/styles of keyboards between a set of PCs at random intervals...

Wrong. Every 32 bit version of Windows, including the 16/32-bit hybrid Win9x versions, and including Windows 8.1 Update 1, can run 16-bit apps. XP 64-bit cannot run 16-bit applications. That being said, there's a LOT of old code out there, still being used by businesses, that's 16-bit, some weird 16/32-bit mix, or pure 32-bit originally intended for Win9x that has problems. These could be mission-critical applications from some company that went out of business 20 years ago, nobody has the source code to anymore, and nobody has come up with an alternative. For these people, Dosbox isn't an option as it would require 1) a license Windows 3.1x or Win9x; 2) Dosbox 0.74 officially doesn't support running any version of Windows on it--and there are serious limitations for applications that you would run on it (e.g. no SHARE.EXE or VSHARE.386 capabilities).

In addition, there are a LOT of 32-bit applications, mostly written in the Win9x era, that will not run on Win XP/2003/Vista/7/8.x 64-bit or may need cajoling. Specific examples include certain .NET applications (e.g. 32-bit applications that are compiled with the setting to run on the target hardware--which has problems if you use certain data types on 64-bit) and Visual FoxPro. So now we have to run them on their 32-bit equivalents. And even then, that's not a guarantee, even with Compatibility Modes.

Now, I'm all for Win9 being 64-bit only, but improve compatibility for business users with 16 & 32 bit applications--even if that means running a VM within a VM (e.g. NTVDM under WoW on a 64-bit OS). Yes, we can all argue that MS at some point has to let the past be in the past, but there are valid reasons why companies generally load 32-bit OSes on their PCs...

Not necessarily true. Just because you're the 23-year old "CEO" of a small firm employing 25 people making one product or service, doesn't mean you're capable of scaling up if things take off. Sure, it may be fun & games at 25 people, but if you suddenly balloon to 1000 employees, you'll need someone who knows how to navigate all of the following in the business world: shareholders, investors, salespeople, legal headaches, red tape, patent trolls, new products, multi-year plans, security breaches, logistics, accounting, etc. Those situations likely call for such a firm getting acquired--and they should be acquired.

Any firm that experiences exponential growth, especially related to the Internet or IoT, should be acquired...

Who do you "call" with most cloud vendors? After all, sounds like whoever was doing the DDOS to extort Code Spaces could have also "called" Amazon to do any number of things, as whoever it was had the passwords, other accounts, etc.

Unless you're one of Amazon EC3's largest customers (e.g. Netflix), you're one of thousands of low-paying customers with rudimentary authentication. Amazon should have an "oh shit" master key that relies on old-school technology, like a RSA number keyfob that the client's president keeps in a locked drawer. That would be the nuclear option. But if something like that were available, it might have cost the client an extra $10/month...

DirecTV has no VOD unless you have your box connected to the Internet (where it streams from that source).

Firmware & software updates are relatively small, can be sent anytime & queued for processing later--I have no objections to the box waking from sleep by itself in the middle of the night to apply an update that was received earlier in the day. (After all, the updates are sent constantly--e.g. for boxes that were off because of vacations, power failures, etc.)

I don't care if my guide is updated perfectly in the middle of the night during a window that I choose--I'd rather the box be using 1 watt in sleep mode during this time.

Currently, DirecTV has 6 models of STBs (set top boxes): three HD DVR, one HD non-DVR, one SD DVR, one SD non-DVR. Sending firmware upgrades to all of 6 device types adding a user-set deep-sleep mode would be amazing, the immediate effects of which would be massive nationwide! Generally, I don't have anything recording in the middle of the night--or it's a one-off repeat that I don't care about. Offer 4 simple options: 1) deep sleep & not record during user-specified times (e.g. 1am-7am and 11am-4pm); 2) not-so-deep-sleep and wake to record during specified times (e.g. wakes 10 minutes before a recording time); 3) sleep based on x-hours of inactivity; 4) no power management (e.g. for insomniacs).

Currently, my DirecTV HD-DVR (non-Genie) box offers a "lower power" mode that I can't adjust, that it goes into after 4 hours of inactivity. But I have no control over how the time is defined, etc. And it pointlessly reminds me that it went into low-power mode & I have to click out of it--something users may choose to disable just to not get that pointless annoyance...

Let's not forget that these devices are "computers" with power savings in the processors, motherboards, OSes (Linux?), hard drives, etc., that DirecTV, Comcast, and others chose not to enable. Let's face it, DirecTV, you're ~20% of the problem (based on US market share), now become part of the solution...

Oh, and one last thing... How the fuck do some of your boxes have the "Energy Star" logo??? Is it because the boxes themselves are efficient & you choose not to implement those efficiencies?

I firmly believe that E10 is a total scam. Anecdotally, doing pure highway driving, I get 8-10% less fuel economy with E10 than E0 (pure gasoline), so what's the point? This has been consistently the case with the last 3 cars I've owned (V8 RWD, turbo I4 AWD, regular I4 FWD). Losing 10% fuel economy for the privilege (more accurately, the forced subsidy of corn growers in many states) of driving E10 makes no sense to me. Just water down my gasoline by 10%--same effect but water is cheaper than ethanol...

And with the IoT, companies will have to accept a 20+ year lifespan on their products, including security updates. Sadly, it will take some very nasty malware infections (e.g. your Nest thermostat is sending out phishing requests) and chaos before governments around the world come up with such an agreement & international laws on the matter...

True, that's likely coming down the road. But there are a LOT of people who's access to broadband is still at work or the local library--assuming they even bother. The reason M$ decided against this, at this time, is because there are a LOT of places in the US (let alone the world) that still don't have broadband, or have crazy restrictions like 2GB/month that you'd associate with cellular networks (e.g. Alaska, Canadian Territories).

Well, to start off, the smart TV manufacturer would consider buying a bulk contract with AT&T, Verizon, or other nationwide cellular company--your viewing habits are worth that much to them! Of course, in due time, the newest "Smart TV Enhanced" firmware will require you to pay a monthly fee for said "new services & features", especially on your "old smart TV"...

What, you mean the "Goldstar" part of LG? If you remember any Goldstar computer products from the late-80s to mid-90s, they were absolute crap. How they ever surpassed Samsung & Sony is beyond me, especially given the "Lucky" part of "LG" is a chemical company that even makes toothpaste & laundry detergents! ("Lucky Goldstar" became "LG" in 1995...)

Nothing says that even after "dumb TVs" are no longer available, that you can't turn a "smart TV" into a dumb one. It's called not giving access to your WiFi (or Ethernet) network. Done, problem solved... Even then, there are plenty of households without their own WiFi and plenty of others who don't even have broadband Internet (whether due to local unavailability or eschewing technology), so having such a disconnected TV refuse to even show video over HDMI would be untenable.

Of course, it's only a matter of time before a TV manufacturer puts in a SIM card into a TV and broadcasts over cellular... On the other hand, such additional traffic (pings, heartbeats, phoning home with customer spying info), from millions more devices on mobile networks may not be practical for quite a while.

So, let's say society changes and a future court rules that "life" sentences are "cruel & unusual punishment" (as described by the US Constitution). You'd have chaos as all the lifers who only got life suddenly are released. A defined time, including "effectively life" (e.g. a 150 year sentence for a 71-y/o Bernie Madoff) now would need to be considered on a case-by-case basis--or at least the Supremes would have to come up with some sort of mathematical formula for "effectively life", which they generally don't like to do...

Those are the downgrade rights offered by Win 7/8 Pro to XP Pro (and even 2000 Pro). My post was about new PCs of the time, where the only OS available was XP as it was the only reasonable choice on that hardware. Remember that since Vista was such a dog on Atom hardware (only consumers of Atom at the time were netbooks) & given Microsoft's uncertain future for Windows 7 at the time (Microsoft was hoping it would pay off), XP Home was the only sane choice on 2009-2010 era netbooks. In fact, Windows 7 Starter was a stripped-down Windows 7 requiring lower hardware...