error: conflicting declaration or overloaded equality operator /usr/include/logic/irony.h

You are sort of personalizing the question to me, whereas I'm just using common sense. I don't have a particular care for security myself. For example, unlike most others around me (who are often completely untechnical) I don't even bother with a passcode on my smartphone. Well, that's not entirely true. I have enough of a care for security that I don't want to get a virus or malware, but I already use a minority operating system, so I don't get them. I also don't want people to gain easy access to my systems, so I use a decent password on them. Problem solved for me, but I'm just doing the equivalent of locking a door. The poster has a whole different level of security in mind.

So, again, I don't have any personal tricks, only ideas. If you want to encrypt data in the cloud used for computing one option would be homomorphic encryption, but it is more of an idea itself than a workable product. Slashdot ran an article on it previously:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/06/11/2056235/the-beginnings-of-encrypted-computing-in-the-cloud

A more practical idea would be messing with the encryption key in clever ways. For example, you could store a encrypted key on a 3rd party site and only allow access to it from a specified IP range. Therefore, even if your application was stolen and all its data, that application run on another machine still couldn't access the key.

Truly, there aren't any great solutions because someone getting access to your cloud data is like someone rooting your home computer if your data was on your home computer. It's like saying "How can I secure my home data while a hacker has remote root access to my computer." Really, you can't.

Most OS X hacks rely on the stuff built on top of BSD, not BSD itself. One of the big ones this year used Java vulnerabilities. That said, FreeBSD is a fairly security-conscious operating system and is a minority operating system. Hackers, both professional and script kiddies, tend to use known toolkits and so using a computing environment that is not mainstream is generally advantageous for security. It doesn't need to be FreeBSD.

That was a question about hardware, not software. Clearly if you are extremely security-minded you are going to do a reinstall of some other operating system for whatever computer you get.

How many viruses have you heard of? How many of those were hardware viruses? ;)

Okay, kidding, here's a link: http://books.google.com/books?id=w3Tdn_942t4C&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=%22hardware+vulnerabilities+are+less+common%22&source=bl&ots=ej4zaoygcA&sig=jYHdJ0hukca3k6lNn2Ho38x83Po&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bwHgULKAMdCt0AHH3oDwAw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22hardware%20vulnerabilities%20are%20less%20common%22&f=false

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Do Windows, OSX, and Linux have security holes?

Yes.

Does Windows supply a backdoor for the U.S. or other governments?

Yes.

Should you really trust your Linux multiverse repository?

No.

Do Google and Apple data mine your private mobile phone data for private information?

Yes.

Does Ubuntu's sharing of my data with Amazon compromise my privacy?

Yes.

Can the U.S. Government seize your cloud data without a warrant?

Yes. (The U.S. government can do anything. Your only recourse if they do something wrong is to sue them. Suing them typically takes years of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars for you. Thus, in a practical sense no one really has any firm rights any longer because the system in charge of correcting breaches to those rights is not accessible or swift for an average citizen using it.)

Can McAfee or Kaspersky really be trusted?

No.

Naturally, the question arises of how to establish and maintain an ironclad workstation or laptop for the purpose of handling sensitive information or doing security research. DARPA has approached the problem by awarding a $21.4M contract to Invincea to create a secure version of Android. What should we do if we don't have $21.4M USD?

Use FreeBSD or other extreme minority operating system.

Is it safe to buy a PC from any manufacturer?

Not any, but likely most.

Is it even safe to buy individual computer components and assemble one's own machine?

Again, usually it would be. It seems like software is typically the vector of attack. Hardware much less often comes with built-in vulnerabilities.

Or might the motherboard firmware be compromised?

Less likely than the OS, but remotely possible from some manufacturers.

What steps can one take to ensure a truly secure computing environment? Is this even possible?

Don't connect your computer to the Internet. Even if the OS is hacked, the motherboard firmware is hacked and the hardware itself is hacked, it doesn't matter if nobody can access it but you.

Can anyone recommend a through checklist or suggest best practices?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=secure+hardware+and+software+computing+checklist

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I agree with you entirely. The problem is, you are one of those nutjobs for spouting that old line. How many of those 22 stabbings would have survived because stabbings are not as lethal as shootings? I bet at least one. That's one more future for some kid. Isn't that worth it?

I'm almost sick at myself, for spouting another old line "think of the children," but for once I think this is a time we should think of them.

Ultra Wide Monitor? That seems a strange title for this guy. This is a 30" panel with the top chopped off. It says it is 699.7 mm wide in the stats. That's 27.5 inches wide, the same with as a standard 30" monitor (they measure diagonally). It is also has the same horizontal resolution value as many 30 inch monitors, 2560.

So, it is a 30 inch monitor with about 500 pixels chopped off the top.

And not just old news, old news already covered by slashdot.
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Sig: A short personalized message at the end of an internet post.

But John Pike, a longtime expert on space policy who heads GlobalSecurity.org, said he was "deeply skeptical" about Golden Spike's business plan. "If you could do it this cheap, somebody would have already done it," he told me.

Talk about a bad argument. Nothing that was expensive can ever be done more cheaply, because if it could it would already be done. It's like saying in the late 90's "I am deeply skeptical about Intel's business plan. If you could make 386-level processors cheap, someone would have already done it."

Some companies are the first to do things.

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I don't disagree. What I said is not at all incompatible with what you said.

First, it is not a complaint. People who said that technically the sun doesn't have to go around the earth, weren't complaining about astrophysical principles. They were suggesting that perhaps the universe doesn't work in the way we are assuming.

Second, your watermelon analogy doesn't apply because we aren't watermelons. The problem with our habitable zone is it is anthropocentric. If you want to make an analogy it is more like a species of fish, who do a survey of life on their planet and never bother to look on the land for it because the land isn't part of the "habitable zone" (for fish).

Finally, I'm not disagreeing with any of the stuff about the habitable zone as being a good place to look. I'm just saying that with as little as we know about xenobiology the concept of the habitable zone should be taken with a grain of salt.

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The habitable zone is not a fine line; it's a nonexistent line. It is a misnomer that is far too anthropocentric.

First, we don't know enough about life to know that life based on chemistry unlike our chemistry is not possible or prevalent. The habitable zone only applies to carbon-based life-as-we-know it. Life could easily be possible using alternative chemistries that can exist on radically different planetary situations.

Then, even taking that into account even life-as-we-know it can exist beyond the habitable zone. For example, one could dream up or even view examples in our own solar system where earthly life could exist that are not in the habitable zone, namely on the moons of gas giants, which are warmed primarily through forces other than our sun. Even parts of planets could have persistent habitable areas for microbial life outside the habitable zone.

Really, all the habitable zone tells us is an area where we are likely to find planets that are close twins to our own. It tells us about potential human habitability. It truly tells us little about actual alien habitability.

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I think you are onto something here. Clearly, we have to introduce gripping story-lines into EULAs to make them into a new art form worthy of taking the time to read:

"Adobe products are not sold; rather, copies of Adobe products, including Macromedia branded products, are licensed all the way through the distribution channel to the end user," Samantha said, stripping off her blouse. A voice echoed back to her through the open window on the street below, "UNLESS YOU HAVE ANOTHER AGREEMENT DIRECTLY WITH ADOBE THAT CONTROLS AND ALTERS YOUR USE OR DISTRIBUTION OF THE ADOBE PRODUCTS, THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE APPLICABLE LICENSE AGREEMENTS BELOW APPLY TO YOU." She gasped and lunged for the pistol.

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You can use someone else's code in two perfectly legal ways in this scenario. First, you could copy it and alter it to the point it no longer bears enough resemblance to the original to cause any trouble, even though it still works great. Second, you could simply study it and learn how it works and then start from scratch yourself.

By analogy, this would be like like Green Day copying Chicago copying Led Zeppelin.

As you can see here the aliens logically concluded "You're looking at planet earth. There's no sign of life." How this music video can be explained without recourse to alien communication is beyond me.

Plenty of aliens found us in the 80's. However, they did so using microscopic-sized nano-probes, extremely powerful telescoping cameras and the second and third track titles of Duran Duran's self-titled album, so we never noticed.

I imagine a long dead civilization rotating around a familiar looking star. Thousands of years later when their radio messages get to us, we will be puzzled by their repeated SOS messages sent into the void. What killed them? It wasn't an ecological disaster, a virulent plague or a nuclear war -- it was diabetes.