It is difficult to compromise open source crypto. True Crypt works. PGP works. Snowdens leaks show us exactly that. Being angry is one thing. Freaking out or not using crypto is not the way to deal with the leaks. Even iMessage is safe. Or red phone. Or Signal. There are many options. If people simply use crypto mass surveillance would at least be more difficult.

For example you could sign up to an voip-provider with nomadic use like easybell and use linphone with zrtp for everyday calls with friends. And for more secret conversations, use redphone / signals.

Getting more paranoid than the Snowden leaks suggest does not help. One time pads are not usable on a daily basis. Not using encryption even though Snowdens leaks suggest that it works makes it easier and cheaper to spy on us.

Are you the same Anonymous Coward as above? Being paranoid does not mean that they're not after you. They might. But it makes ongoing discussions very annoying. 9-11 was an inside job in your opinion, yes?

You Sir are insane. Stop posting as "Anonymous Coward" and come forward with your real ID. I risked some Karma to tell " Karmashock" that he is an uninformed idiot and why.

You are proposing that Germany should "rise up" again and spread fear on the american and russian people. This opinion is a neclectable minority in Germany, and rightfully so.

You learned nothing from our history. EOT.

There are no "occupants" any more since the 2+4 treaty. The NATO covered our ass for the last 60 years and the allies brought us the little freedom we had since WW 2.

Beyond doubt they are taking away this freedom and try to implement an orwellian surveillance state of unbelievable proportions, just like they did in the US und GB. And yes, the problems in Irak, Iran und Syria are direct results of american interventions.

But "getting rid of them" is no realistic option. The German reunion was granted only if Germany stays in the NATO. Whether we like that or not.

But being allies does not mean that we could not demand the end of this surveillance or threaten them to leave the NATO. But neither Merkel nor Steinmeier will do that. You might not have noticed, but they are collaborators. And concerning our freedom and privacy, they are collaborating with enemies of our constitutional rights. But in order to stop that, there needs to be a change in government first.

It will take time for an election that does not result in "Social Demokrats" (neither social nor democrats) or "Christian Demokrats" (not being democrats) in the government.

First things first. As long as the traitors that collaborate with the five eyes against our constitutional rights are in the government, there won't be a chance to convince the members of the five eyes that we are serious about the demands to stop spying on each and every German citizen.

Spying on the Government is one thing. But this is mass surveillance. Every system in our countries might be compromised. Every router might be sending the information to the NSA. How to flash a fritzbox so that everyting is deleted? How could this be done with a mandatory router from the ISP?

The Chilling Effect is the problem here. Every second of every day is recorded and our Government conspires with the NSA to get the job (mass surveillance) done.

Spying on our Government is bad enough, but it does not effect NGOs, citizens and the the freedom of the press or the privcacy of 80 million people.

But these leak prove that there is no limit to our "allies" - and to our lapdog government. Mister Steinmeier is a Collaborator. And the US seem to be the enemy he is collaborating with.

Mass surveillance on every German citizen? Very nice.

Repeating that lie does not make it true. The German Government declared the US off limits. They accidently taped Ms. Clinton while she flew across fucking Afghanistan. They did not delete her conversations immediately and YOUR government used that as an example that Germany spied on the US too. Look it up for fuck's sake.

You think that Mass Surveillance on this level is OK?

F..k you! F..k you! F..k you!

Our human rights include privacy too. And we are no second class humans just because we happen to be Germans. I am so angry about your uninformed stupidity and I have some karma to spend on you, you uninformed, stupid, a...ole.

So what the US citizens here are saying is this:

Everyday 7000 Firearms are shown or used in self defence. This means that every citizen will use its firearm every 122 years. In this one case the fingerprintreader with an accuracy of 99.99 per cent will fail. Such a device should never exist!

If I were an responsible US gun owner, I would have used that weapon quite regulary to maximise my ability to hit the right person in any situation. By doing so I would look after the battery life at least once a year, which is sufficient I guess for a device that usually does not neeed any power. If the finger print reader would have reliability problems, I would know from my training and from other customers and sue the hell out of the manufacturer, AFTER I bought a stupid gun.

I understand that tigger happy people do not like such a gun in their house. But the arguments here against a smart gun as an option are astroturfed. You know if a device is reliable from your own experience and from others. The only thing to decide is if one prefers the danger of children or other persons misusing the weapon to the danger of the device stopped working just the one time it is needed in statistically 122 years.

yup. Not shure about the SP, but in general, the list is sidentical to my experiences.

+1

Wrong. The 32bit-part did not prevent any Software to take down the whole OS. The NT line however did that, because they were completely 32 bit. Win9x had only parts that were in 32 bit. And those were no parts that improved stability. Win9x was more unstable than Windows 3.x. And NT 4 or w2k beat the shit out of win9x or me every time of the day. Pirating these versions over paid 9x versions was self defense.

yes. Because windows nt4 or w2k would only crash the app, not the whole f...ing OS, like Windows 9x or Windows Me did. To me, the list goes like:

win 3.1 - OK
win9x - crap. Bad crap that would crash the system judt because of a random game. The NT line did not do that. Normally it would only crash the game, the rest was working fine. Even the game, when you started it again.a
win NT 4 - major improvement
win me - shittiest crap ever, the mother of all shitty Windows OS. Boy, was that bad. Even worse than 9.x and this one was so bad it did not make it through the presentation before bluescreening.
win2k - loved it
win xp - unusable until SP 3, but OK, as it was possible to turn off that ugly GUI back to 2k
vista - quite nice on a decent setup except for the UAC, on dated or cheap hardware pretty annoying
windows 7 - loved it, still do
Windows 8.0 is as bad as Windows 9x was. A major step down from what was accomplished. Simply annoying for desktop users. Windows 8.1 is just getting there, but it is still crap without a touchscreen.

You nailed it. I was saying something similar to collegues, but you made the point far clearer than I had. That is the thing that annoyed me the most.

The lack of discoverability. The rest - includig the extra clicks neccessary just to do a real shutdown - were annoying, but the lack of a place were everything could be done SOMEHOW made me scream. I had to use skills just to get basic jobs done. Things that I found out years ago in a few minutes not took a very damn long time.

Thanks again for clearing my thoughts about the major issue.

Don't give up! Google! I can only point you to German guides, but I am shure that there are guides in english as well. In order to install Windows 8.1 over 8.0 on my gf laptop, I had to download the iso from the windows app store, burn it and do a complete install.

It is possible, it is legal, it is just annoyingly diificult and awkward to get it done. German version here, you may succeed if you use google translate or you may find the description in english elsewhere: http://www.pcwelt.de/tipps/Set...

And if you do succeed - please feel obliged to share it here. Windows 8.0 is an ungly mess, Windows 8.1 is slightly better, so people should know how to do it, if oss is no solution.