China is requiring Microsoft and Nokia to make promises on fair patent use
I think a few brain cells just exploded. What can possibly be fair about an extortion permit?
Webmail loads slower?
Not that I am aware of. From the summary:
the Start menu will return to Windows sometime in the coming months
It appears that they tested it on a really slow computer. On my computer, the start menu appears just after I have clicked the button...
Note that the cable might be ethernet,
So there's your attack vector. Note that you may heavily encrypt the output of all the input devices, but with your own device drivers or added hardware there is little you can do about replaying the input signals themselves. Or from "swallowing" the cards and transmitting all the PIN codes.
Years ago (10 years or more)? There was a study about the arms race in agricultural pest control. The subject of this study was a genetically engineered crop that made its own poison, but that was not really relevant to the outcome of the study. Traditional spraying would have the same effect.
It was discovered that poison did not only fight pests, it also helps pests. The non-resistant pest bugs were killed, but the resistant pest bugs were given a predator-free environment. This was important, because the poison resistance often comes with lower chances of survival in non-poisoned environments. For example, one poison had an impact on the nerve system, paralysing non-resistant bugs. Resistant bugs had a nerve system that worked much slower, so they would be a "sitting duck" in a natural environment.
the study showed that if a certain portion of the land (recommended was 15% to 20%, which sound like a lot, but is peanuts compared to the 60% loss often found due to resistant pests) was planted with non-poisoned crops, the whole arms race could actually be stopped. The bugs would move between plants, and if they came on a poisoned plant they would be attacked by the poison, and if they came on a natural plant, they would be attacked by their natural predators.
Is it possible to make something illegal if you don't know what it is?
Sure, you don't have to become a murderer to catch murderers.
You can test almost any software with mock data. In fact, such data may be a by far better test as it is composed of things that are on the edge of being problematic..
With your bare hands?!?