Technology is just papering over the basic truism that the humans are the weakness in any security system.

It is in their very nature to be inquisitive about the unknown, hiding secrets is intrinsically difficult for humans, given their social behavior. The human mind is not a secure vault, it can be tricked or forced or otherwise convinced to reveal its secrets in a wide variety of ways.

All of the technology for secrecy is moot when people simply open up and communicate directly with each other.

For example the government spends unknown gazillions protecting secret information and a single person can unravel large portions of it by simply standing in front of a microphone and speaking some words.

Only if you buy your keyloggers at radio shack!

With a screwdriver perhaps?

That's pretty much the procedure for installing cyanogenmod on an android tablet

Well, there you go.

Yes indeed I choose automobiles based on how hard it is to change the oil filter, which is way more practical than you, because changing oil filters is something that is done way more often than installing an OS.

No they don't HAVE to adapt.

No, it's the best idea for YOU. Your idea SUCKS from a low-cost perspective. Connectors cost MORE than chips, not less. They are the #1 failure mode on computers, each connector adds more risk of failure and warranty expense.

Have you noticed the trend toward FEWER and FEWER connectors on computers? This is why!

If you eat twinkies every day, does this make you an expert on how to make a better twinkie?

You CLAIM to speak for all slashdot users, but really you speak of the raw newbies who think computers come in a small metal box with an Intel sticker on it.

WOW you define words based on what you LIKE? And apparently you've ignorant of the fact that many devices can be unlocked and you can install whatever you want on them.

your anti-social response tells me everything I need to know

Why do people insist on taking their own personal anecdotes and projecting them onto the rest of the industry?

I feel like going for a swim today, does this mean the computer industry should make a waterproof model?

"Acquaintance of a slashdot user" is probably the WORST way to pick a statistical sample, your anecdote is WORSE than USELESS.

> Since poor people get most of the benefits the government hands out, it's only fair that they should pay for them.

Yes indeed it makes lots of sense to give people money and then take it back from them!

Would it not be much less hassle and paperwork to simply not give them the money that they would have paid in taxes?

Or perhaps you like the idea of big government churn?

> If you don't exploit all the loopholes you can then you're a fool and your shareholders will crucify you.

And yet somehow it's okay to pay lobbyists

It's not about creature comforts, it's about error rates

Humans are imperfect, they pull the wrong drive out of the wrong server, they forget to power down before pulling, they forget to power back up afterward, they forget to set the BIOS correctly, etc.

The room for improvement is in fewer errors.

If they judge him insane, then he can claim that he was incapable of making the decision to allow the truth serum

If they judge him sane, then he can claim that any information gathered under truth serum is tainted; since he was already sane, the truth serum can only make him less sane.

why not just pay the fee and watch some movies?

netflix, their hands are tied. the content holders want the DRM. No DRM, no neftlix. I am willing to accept that.

save your battles for things that deserve them.

netflix is not the devil. they make it possible for people to watch movies at home

if you want to change the system you are not going to do it by hacking netflix, you are just going to make trouble for everyone. they will not give up, they cannot. you will just force them to spend more engineering time and raise their costs, you will not "save the world" or even a small piece of it.

sure you can spend arbitrary resources decoding their stream and breaking their DRM but you could also just pay the fee, watch some movies, and have a life.

SURE they can tell you what you can do with the hardware you bought, if you want to use their service.

It's no different from the oil company refusing to service you if you mess with your furnace.

You sign the contract, you get something, you give something. You don't HAVE to sign.