"What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law."

Yeah, how dear people use the fourth and fifth amendments, what do they think it's there for?

Seriously, though, how can he stand there and say there's something wrong with companies responding to a market demand for technology that enables people to protect their rights. Encryption is not a crime, you are innocent until proven guilty, you have the right to remain silent, the government has no right to force you to unlock your door (or decrypt your phone) or to know what's inside unless they're able to show probable cause.

It's probably incredibly naive of me to believe in such quaint ideas though... All hail our benevolent overlords, all hail!

Well it happened to Passepartout in Around the World in Eighty Days... :p

Promises that, I would point out, were made by people without the authority to make them. The only body with the authority to make those bodies was parliament and the only body that can honour them is parliament - and it could equally refuse. Tory backbenchers have already indicated they don't approve of the status quo (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11098825/David-Cameron-faces-Tory-bloodbath-over-unfair-cash-for-Scotland.html). Those promises were never more than (and never could be more than) "this will now be lib/lab/con official policy".

$6,000 to join $3,000 pa and they only have a .info domain? Nothing says "exclusive" and "accomplished" like a .info domain...

The UK does not have a ground based deterrent. Our nuclear deterrent consists entirely of submarine launched ICBMs with one submarine in an unknown aquatic location at all times (which could be just about anywhere where the water is deep enough to hide a submarine). In terms of what it "covers" - the range is irrelevant in the sense that we're not going to nuke ourselves or our allies - it only matters in that the missiles can reach Moscow. In terms of whether we'd use them in the rest of Europe's defence (either through NATO, altruistically or through fear for ourselves) is the question of political guesswork, bluffing, double bluffing, prisoners dilemmas and so forth that is the basis of mutually assured destruction. The short answer is: who knows, the only way to find out is by "experiment"...

"'snydeq' isn't a member of the community, he's a paid writer. Go look at his submissions v. comments." - Go and check what site he links to in every single one of his submissions... he fails at subtlety, that's for sure.

That's a different blocklist. The IWF's blocklist (as used by BT's cleanfeed) blocks child porn and, perhaps, other "illegal" content (although there's no way of finding out what it actually blocks in practice unless you hit a blocked page while using an ISP honest enough to not serve a fake 404) and is used by all large ISPs with no way to turn it off. The blocklists in question here are mandatory default-on in the "we'll regulate if you don't do it voluntarily" fashion and block a whole variety of legal content from the genuinely objectionable through it's a question of taste to the innocuous. They're not set directly by the government, rather they're purchased by the ISPs from third parties and you can opt to have them turned off (if you don't mind the embarrassment of asking...). That's not to say the government interference here is a good thing for a whole range of reasons though.

I'm a research student in London and I did my undergrad here too, what's amazed me is the number of people I know/knew who did their undergrad elsewhere that are now popping up all over the city. Turns out a graduate level job market attracts graduates who in turn attract graduate level jobs... What the summary fails to point out, of course, is that the growth of all the extra facilities - bars, restaurants, dry cleaners etc. - also ensure the job market grows in non-graduate jobs too, so it's win-win for everyone that lives in the lucky city. That city then grows at the expense of its neighbours that lose jobs in all sectors of the market (again, as we see in the UK where London and the south east is a giant black whole sucking up money and talent from the rest of the country). Whether or not you think this is a bad thing varies, of course...

Not true. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25745989 guy wasn't convicted until he decided to reveal it as part of separate proceedings proving he hadn't forgotten it; I'm surprised they didn't have him for perjury or something too.) Think about it - if that was the law every time you visit an SSL secured website you'd be breaking the law since your computer doesn't record the session keys. And perfect forward secrecy would be illegal too. Not that I'd put any of that past the government here, mind you, but it hasn't happened yet.

Perhaps they were pushing the button AND thinking... shocking, I know. Typically the deeper in thought I am the more likely I am to absently mindedly do things like repeatedly prod a button that produces some kind of effect. I guess it ties up the bits of my brain that control my body so they don't distract the thinking bits?

Scientists: http://xkcd.com/242/

Because, in London at least, that's exactly what Uber will give you. See news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A721144

Well the court judgement was not a good judgement; it set a precedent without any guidance about how to apply it to other cases. It also wasn't a good judgement because it creates a right to alter history, but that's another thing... Also Google have received tens of thousands of requests, can they really be expected to give each one a thorough legal analysis? Of course not, they'll just play it safe. So it may be an error of judgement by Google, but that's only because the court made an error of judgement.

What's wrong with that comment? Scarecrows should love this - a huge straw man deliberately elevated to the level of (attempted) serious discussion. Everything is better with logical fallacies. Next step should be ad hominem and argument from emotion to eliminate true discussion.

aha, so the pastbin upload does seem to be from the real Matthew Green. That's a start. https://twitter.com/matthew_d_...