Regardless of the users IP, Hulu can track those users and sell their information, VPN or not. They've got those subscribers billing credentials, after all. A VPN is useful if you don't want someone else looking into your connection, but for the site you're visiting, especially one that needs your credit card, a VPN isn't meant to be a protection from them getting your info. Your ISP won't (or at least shouldn't) have a clue that you're visiting Hulu, should you be using a VPN, though.

So no, there is no attack on anonymity here.

Why would the nsa need to steal FTP logins this way? Aren't FTP logins already done in plain text, meaning they could scarf them up as the traffics going through routers they control?

We only learned how to do what we do from our parents (the British). And every other empire or attempted empire in history would have used the tools available just like we do. Besides, doesnt Britain (or maybe just London) have more cameras than people at this point?

Say what you want, I'd rather be here in the us than so many other places... China, Russia, any of the "istan" countries, any Arab country, Israel, any where in Africa, and so forth.

Not to minimize our wrongs (and if you're bored enough to look at my old xomments you'll see I'm consistent at calling them out) but there are plenty of other countries that are far worse than us. Yeah, some do it with our support but plenty do it without.

I just get perturbed, here and other places (ahem... Reddit!), where people act like the US is the singular most evil and oppressive country in the world, when the fact of the matter is that that we can even say such things without worry of reprisal means that we have it far, far better than huge swaths of humanity.

Could we be better? Of course. Could we be worse? Frighteningly more so.

Whenever I pla someone for the first time, I always try the 4 move opening. If they catch me, I apologize and just say " sorry, had to try"

I stand corrected.

I did replace the battery in my last generation Macbook Air a few months ago, and in that case, there was nothing removable from the motherboard that I recall. Just sold it used and purchased the 15" pro and knowing that the SSD can eventually be replaced and hopefully upgraded makes me a lot happier.

I'm having trouble coming up with too much sympathy here, except being detained for 5 hours is overkill.

Agree or not, we all know that it's illegal to record movies in the theater. We can all bring out cell phones and digital cameras with us because they make so much light when they're in use that it's apparent if someone is using one to record a film, not so with google glass. And since it's such a new technology, there are going to be a ton of people who don't understand it.

There are many other places where filming is forbidden, and some places where even bringing a camera capable device is forbidden too, so the guy should have some common sense and bring a pair of prescription glasses for yhose eventualities.

Anyone with enough money to get a glass surely has enough funds for a pair of ordinary prescription glasses.

Dude, you need to use a sarcasm tag or something... I wasted thre of my lifetime quota of clicks following your links, thinking "he's got it completely opposite"

I have to wonder what the result will be if all new macs having their ssd chips soldered to the motherboard? I mean, you cant just buy one used and swap the harddrive anymire. when those chios die, theyre dead for good. woukd putting the ssd on a daughter card be that difficult? even if apple diesnt want it user serviced, it woukd save theur techs a ton of time when needing to repaur them, and would probabky speed up the buikd to order process

I digress im just a lowly end user and tim cook is master of the supply chain

You just know the nsa is gonna love this. Sure, the nro already has satellites, but think of how many more eyeballs there'll be available to co-opt.

I don't know if you're serious as someone else rated you funny, but as the lack of terrorist attacks since 9/11 is cited often enough as reason to justify all of our countermeasures, I'll assume you're serious.

While 9/11 was a tragedy, let's also not forget that it was a singular event. Would a huge expansion in the intelligence community have stopped it? Who knows. Personally, I think the thing that would have had the greatest chance of stopping it would have been a commander in chief who would have taken memos from his intel guys that said things like "al Qaeda training to use planes in the us", "bin laden determined to strike at the us" and "all the alarm lights are flashing red" seriously might have done the trick. Instead, he sleeps on the job and our massively expanded intelligence apparatus is turned against us instead.

Whenever I go to my hometown, I'm struck by the dearth of kids hanging out like we used to. They just are nowhere to be found. But the, there sure are a lot of no loitering signs, no skateboarding signs. I assumed that they're staying home on their own accord, playing tony hawk instead of trying to actually skate on their own. But then, when friends drop their kids off places, they leave but expect them to answer their phone at a moments notice. Worse, I think, is using gps to track them. And then, even when they're home, parents now have an array of trully scary monitoring software. Kids today really do lack the freedoms that kids of yesteryear had. I just assumed that they liked it, for the most part, rather than herding into all the chat apps simply because they can't see their friends face to face anymore.

It's not like he did a sham transfer to a strawman. He transferred them to his foundation, irrevocably. Just because the foundation has his name doesn't mean he gets anything from it. Aside from getting to vote the shares the way he and the rest of the board agree, the shares are gone to him - any appreciation, all dividends, they all are for the bill and Melinda gates foundations benefit, and that organization publicly discloses their tax return so you can verify that.

Creating and funding that foundation did nothing with regards to microsofts antitrust case, except make bill a lot less rich (but still in the top 3)

Yes, ASIC's can hash SHA256. But suppose a flaw is found in SHA256 - not a crushing flaw that renders it useless, but something theoretical enough that researchers are worried. My bet is that Bitcoin would stay put on SHA256 because of the huge investment in custom hardware to do the work.

I've been following Bitcoin for a long time now (comparatively to many, at least). And i think the move to ASIC is the worst thing that could have ever happened to it. Each day that goes by, bitcoin becomes even less "peer to peer" than it was before. As a fan of the peer to peer currency idea, I think that's a net negative.

Youre right, it is a 1.0 attempt at a peer to peer currency. But it'll be next to inpossible to go back to the drawing board on it. Too much vested interest. Think all those people who have spent tens of millions (most likely) on mining equipment will endorse even a slight change to the algorithm that renders their equipment useless? Not likely. And that's just at the simest level. Then there's more fundamental things like block generation rate ( which is the time for a transaction to get into the block chain), even if 90% of people thought it should be changed, it's not a democratic process - so long as the important people thought otherwise, nothing would happen.

Point out enough of this on the bitcoin boards and you're told "if you don't like it make your own" but then if you make your own, at best it's called a cheap knockoff with a couple parameters changed, at worst it get attacked by bitcoin miners in the name of "defending bitcoin"

Luddites are on slashdot?!?