I agree IBM will charge whatever they can get away with, but they are competing with other companies with bad employees as well, wastefulness effects everyone no matter if it is private or public. High labour costs will be used to justify high prices if they can, we are not functioning in a market with perfect competition. Your under the false assumption that the only way for IBM to remove a efficient competitor is though price, it isn't they can file patents to remove competition, advertise, buy it out, change legislation, ....

Anyway the patent office is probably/should be funded by filing fees, should that excuse them, no.

The problem with this scheme is that if your computer is compromised, then an attacker can access all your passwords once you enter the decryption key. I don't think biometrics can actually decrypt stuff though since each scan is slightly different.

I think the best way is to have a hardware key (e.g. usb stick) that does a challenge response, with public/private keys, that never actually gives out the key to anyone, not even the computer you are on. In order to activate it you need to do something physical on that stick, e.g. press a button, or scan a finger print if you want for added security.

You can easily change your password, get a new key. (you could just make the device have a write only private key but you would have to be careful that a virus can't write a known key to the device)
You can give out your public key to multiple servers and know that they are not doing something stupid/bad with it. How do you know that people are not storing your password in clear text on the database?
You can have multiple keys, for different security levels, or simply because you don't want to be tracked.
Some could still steal the key but that is a physical act, and you would most likely eventually notice.

Seriously do don't already subcontract your job off to someone in China?

I don't think serviscope_minor implied that either, he just said its hardly news that either a private sector or public sector employees slack off, they both do. You can argue that we all pay taxes so we should care more however if you buy the product you may also pay higher prices for products. Of course people should care that this is happening, and it should be addressed, all serviscope_minor implied is that it wasn't a problem specific to the public sector. I think its more big vs small, or little buget vs big buget. e.g. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/a..., you can't tell me there wasn't a bit of waste there.

I actually think the reason that this is important is not private/public sector but due to the consequences of bad work. If a patent office employ grants a bad patient it effectively blocks the rest of the world from using that knowledge, without a costly, and long legal battle. That is a massive cost to the world. Where the Xbox one controller, so what it really only effects microsoft.

well you still get to eat the cheese AKA the movie. It is ambiguous if you get to eat the crackers, the crackers may only be for display purpose, or you might be standing on them. It is just that you know crackers are edible so you are assuming you can eat them too, standing on them is not a normal thing to do. Eat cheese on plates you would assume that you are not actually eating the plate.

That maybe true, but the opposite maybe also be true, if you keep talking about it saying how bad it is, it may encourage people to do it as well.

What ever you do don't push that button, you may not have even thought about pushing that button, but the moment someone tells you not to, you want to.

I don't know how much each effect influences us, I would love to see some studies on adults of reverse physiology adults. I know it works very well in children.

sort of the US banning Chinese products from government http://techonomy.com/2013/04/h...

You are missing D, not a terrorist with a "tie" (whatever tie means) to a terrorist organization.
they could quite easily be in 60% of the list you are referring to. if C was the only option then they should be arrested immediately, since they clearly a terrorist.

"they have No Terrorist Ties", doesn't mean they shouldn't be monitored, If I say "I want to blow up the white house", as far as I know, I have never met a member of a terrorist organization, its not like they go around with a badge saying terrorist, I have no terrorist ties but I have acted in a way that may make me a suspect. On the other hand just because my ex-partners boyfriend's cousin, is a suspected terrorist doesn't me I am likely to be one, even though I have "ties" whatever that means.

They have no desire to throw you imprison, unless you are a threat to their job security/power or you disagree with the way they are running the country.

From their point of view they have a benevolent intent to throw you in prison.

My particular unsupported conspiracy theory is that they have weaponized Ebola, and as a result they have had a cure for a while, just now they are using it.

2 things:

seems like a flawed assumption do you have evidence of this being true, just because its hash and generates a number that appears random doesn't mean it is. If it wasn't random then that could massively impact the numbers.

silly example: hash(x) = 1, the 1 is 128 bits, I'm dumb, so I can't see the pattern there

The calculation is incorrect as well (I am not saying the chances are not minute, I haven't done the calculation).
1 if 2^33 people had 2^17 files that would be 2^50 not 2^40 (assume all are unique which of course they wouldn't be there would be loads of duplicates)

the calculation should go like this 1 - (1/2^128)^2^50*(2^128*(2^128-1)*...*2^78) (Birthday problem)

The postcard analogy is flawed, not everyone can access your email you need a password to log in, it gives the impression of security. There are ways of opening physical mail too. Of course Google can look through your email but shouldn't just like if I put my documents in a security deposit box I don't expect the bank to go through them.

Everything on windows machine could effectively be read by Microsoft if it wished, even with encrypted hard drive, because at some point it gets decrypted. It doesn't mean that now its a post card and Microsoft has the right to browse your data, even if it is really easy for them.

A postcard is different because the someone working for post office has to actually look it in order for them to deliver it, that is not true of email no one actually has to examine the email. If on the other hand the guy said to a tech person can you please fix my email and they found it that way then fair enough.

Medical bills need to be communicated up front, not after the fact.

I once went to a US hospital, I asked how much would it cost, they wouldn't tell me. I asked will it in the range of $100, or $1000, or $10,000 still wouldn't tell me.

How is any sane person meant to go into a contract without actually knowing even an approximate price. They should say would you like Xrays with that for $X.

how can there be a meeting of minds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... to form a valid contract

That is really a problem with trademarking, or plagiarism, this at heart is basically a lie, you are saying that you invented a product, or your product to something that is not.

This is the only intellectual property I agree with, people should have the right to protect their reputation. If you wish to make a cheap rip off go right ahead as long as you make it clear that it is a cheap rip off.

I believe Copyright, and Patents do more harm than good, their maybe a need for them but they should be very limited, and as technological improvements speed there lifetime should decrease not increase. I have not seen any actual study (that goes beyond, look loads of people are downloading, so we must be losing money, so we must be creating less) that shows patents or copyright actually promote creativity and innovation. for patents https://www.youtube.com/watch?... also doesn't. (I am not saying that this video shows having patents leads to more innovation just it shows there is no proof to the contrary.)

There are psychological studies that show paying people more actually reduces their creativity.

My opinion is that all works of art, and innovations are based on other works of art and innovations, limiting peoples ability to create based on the work of others, severely limits, the ability of society to create and innovate. With creation of the internet we have made a tool that we can now easily share ideas with anyone in the world, it has unlocked the potential for huge advances in both art and science. Instead of embracing it the people with power, want to limit is so that they can maintain their wealth and power, don't share that's bad.

For example, imagine if we all had access to the 3D models that all these animated movies have already created, how may people would go out and produce their own stories based on them? Would it not mean we have a much more movies produced?