From TFS:

They use such systems in Japan to, for instance, protect shinkansen trains in the event of an earthquake. The system is entirely automated so human response times are irrelevant and the consequences of a bullet train running into a destroyed tunnel or bridge at full tilt don't bear thinking about. And it works: there has never been a fatal accident on the shinkansen network (excluding suicides).

...contrails are for more effective, and cheaper too!

...it's been done before and didn't work.

The big problem is creating a system where votes are both verifiable (alone, easy: PGP sign them) and where the secret ballot is maintained (alone, easy: use TOR). Nobody's yet come up with a viable way to combine these two required features.

It's our new feature "DBS" or "double bluff security" to protect against brute force attacks. You see, no one would think we'd be stupid enough to secure a voting machine's admin account with the password "password" so they'd never try it. Ergo it's unhackable. (Also "WinVote" - that's an appropriate name: the machines let you "win" extra votes...)

How could it mean that?

Interesting

This is an excellent example of the problem with broad sanctions; I have a philosophical objection to these, whether they come from the UN, US, EU or my own government. The only people they end up hurting are the innocent populations of another country. There may be arguments for targeted sanctions against specific individuals, limiting their to travel or invest in the west, but that's not the case here.

I suspect China's current nukes are more than effective enough that a little extra won't hurt. Also I think any one power (even the "good guys") having overwhelming force is a bad thing where nukes are concerned, so I'd rather China's nukes are on a par with the west's.

I'm not aware of a single person who thought this gTLD roll out was a good idea. This was exactly one of the reasons why. ICANN deserve to be sued into obliteration.

Yeah but I can buy Xeons on ebay and sell them to the Chinese. What are you going to do? I'm not in America, I don't have American citizenship. In short your federal laws have exactly 0 jurisdiction over me. Heck, the Chinese could just buy Xeons on ebay. But I suppose they'll use the account beijinggovt1234 so it'll be easy to identify them and ban them?

I take it you don't actually know what the ruling was. There was no interstate commerce. A farmer was growing a regulated crop, for his own private consumption, but the ability of the federal government to interfere was upheld regardless. Precedent from drugs cases seems to suggest that the courts will uphold this even when the market in question is a black market.

So, although the (federal) government has very limited power to interfere in commerce constitutionally the precedent for interpretation of the constitution has given them carte blanche to do what they like.

That would depend solely on the buyer's contract with the seller.

I can't really think of a good analogy for this. The key analogy isn't perfect as Amazon are distributing the product, not simply selling access to it as a third party. However your licensing the product, rather than buying it, so a market stall selling fake handbags wouldn't be a great analogy either (also, generally with copyright cases, you get the real deal product even when it's not appropriately licensed; so it's not like traditional counterfeiting in that way either).

But unlicensed digital goods aren't stolen goods.

1) The final buyer commits no crime, or civil offence, (even if they know it's improperly licensed) in most jurisdictions

2) The original owner does not lose the goods, and the goods cannot be returned to the original owner. They lose potential revenues.

Also any such action would have to be allowed under the contract between the provider and the customer (in most cases I expect such contractual provisions exist, but they will carry a massive PR hit).

Presumably Wickard v. Filburn. It's unconstitutional as hell but it's currently the legal precedent.

OK, step away from Wickard v. Filburn.

It is, probably, the stupidist SCOTUS ruling in history. (Closely followed by Schenck v. US and Jim Crow, in that order.)