protip: if you're just talking about the kernel.. you just call it Linux.

and policing a patch for a buffer overflow is a little easier then hunting through a whole app.

Ah, but parent was referring to warrantless monitoring of hourly electricity usage.

more on topic however is the fact that the power company is the one watching, not the police.

they're not exactly like a phone company though, since in most areas in the US there is only a single, quasi-chartered, heavily regulated utility entity.

I like the solution of a linux machine with GPS and a GSM modem, mostly because of the added ~telephone~ functionality. but that's hardly cool at all, so then i thought - ham radio maybe? any mobile packet radio gear that weighs less then 10kg?

but that requires a license to broadcast on.

What your kid really needs is a little board to speak your custom, encrypted, location protocol over the 900Mhz ISM band! i hear you can get 40mi range for 400usd ;P

For ~3 years now ive been using a swapfile on a 2GB Kingston micro-mmc card with my nokia tablet (only 64meg ram)

after running an 8Meg file as swap i got a scare maybe 6mo back when i was unable to write a new file to the card - I thought, I'd finally done it: id burned through my writability -

after some close inspection though, i'd just hit the FAT file-per-directory limit. oh -ho :P

Recently ive actually increased the file to 64Meg to swap out more stuff for gaming with large Roms.
Honestly Im amazed the card has lasted as long as it has - considering i thrash the system near-constantly - with my new usage patterns, i'd still estimate the card has another 2 healthy years of service.

By firing up random connections, this only protects you from an ISP that is profiling your use. The MPAA can still go fire up a bitorrent client, join a swarm downloading content they claim copyright on and start writing down the IP of everyone who is participating. And then they call up your ISP. this 'masking' technique doesnt actually 'mask' anything very well.