I thought that came along with being part of the Nerd Herd...

still ring-0. quite a big deal...

you mean like the downward facing call-stack which has provided so many buffer overflows over the years? seems to me like they've been breeding fast inside Intel...
(pun intended)

Using USD puts you under US jurisdiction. So any bank with a branch in the US would then not be allowed to trade with you. Same thing...

Sorry, brainfart, I meant to write evading.

Democracy: an endless cycle of elect and regret.
(Eric X. Li on Ted.com, a very interesting video)

That law has taken a lot of hits recently. Basically, Uncle Sam has threatened Swiss banks to revoke their license in the US (which would mean that they are not allowed to make any transactions in USD) if they don't cooperate with the IRS. It's blackmail, but it's also for a cause that most of the little people would see as good (tackling tax evasion). Now EU countries are negotiating the same kind of deals.

Dear money launderers and tax evaders, please cross the border to Liechtenstein, or take your money to SE Asia or the Carribeans. Your Swiss representative has already set up your bank account there for you.

Actually, that raises a good point. It seems this only applies to communications to the outside of Australia, so there is probably a provision in the law for companies to hand over their encryption keys to the judicial authority if required, which means they wouldn't nail people in Australia communicating with their Australian bank. But tourists connecting to their bank abroad, well...

(This is hypothetical, but probably not too far off the truth)

Here in the UK, Cameron reportedly said that people shouldn't be able to communicate without some intelligence agency being able to snoop. So basically, he's just made math illegal...

Only if it's sitting on its charger... It only had a week's worth of battery. Which is massive by today's standards, but still.

ACs get less upmods than real accounts... but you're right, it made me laugh :-)

It depends. MP3s, probably not. But flac, why not? I know Amazon was looking at it.
Led Zep remasters coming out these days are available in 24-bit flac, which is good enough for me (and way better than CDs with a proper DAC!)

The problem is that you're usually offered another lot of idiots to choose from...

It's Whitehall. They'll pass a law through Parliament to make sure they have grounds for the suit ;-)

Here is a Godwin point. Just for you.
Have a nice day.

And France, the UK,... Spreading racial/religious hatred is forbidden in most places in Europe.