After struggling with VirtualBox for a while, I broke down and bought VMWare. I use it for running Linux and running other versions of MacOS X on my Mac. I have found it to be well worth the money. In general, I like free software and I don't mind something that is a little harder to use if the non-free alternative is expensive, but at $79 VM Ware has saved me so much time its well worth it.

How, if we stumbled across intelligent life, would we be able to recognise it?

Apple tries to control as much as they can on their platforms. Other platforms like Android and Windows take an approach of sharing responsibility for the overall quality between several different companies who can each point at each other and say "not it!" when a problem arrises.

Blade Runner is a Frankensteinian tale about creation revolting against its creator, questioning the meaning of death, whereas Do Androids ... is about empathy as an essential human quality in a world where everything is artificial. Much of the novel is about Deckard's desire to buy a pet, required for spiritual fulfilment according to the religion of Mercerism. Death is as unimportant to the book as Mercerism is to the film.

That's only true if you're surrounded by arseholes.

Eh, it's not like Blade Runner was a faithful adaptation either. For one, its theme is completely different from the book. Still, it's one of the best SF movies and one of the best adaptations ever.

One small point, it you really do all of this you will stick out like a sore thumb because you will be relatively easy to find in a sea of unencrypted data. Police have actually caught offnders like that. Better yet, the NSA, unlike the cops has compromised most VPN and SHTTP service providers so you will be one of a rather small number of people whose signals traffic they can't decrypt which narrows things down even more. You can usen couriers but you had better be damn smart about how and whewe from they do their transmitting because pattern analysis can still narrow down your location. If one of them uses the same internet cafe too often the next thing you know a van is permanantly parked outside your house to be followed by Virginia farmboys in ninja commando outfits smashing through your doors and windows.

Yeah, it'll be excellent for independent 'writers' who get picked up only by random chance, when it's 'free' anyway, and detrimental to the likes who know how to spell Stephen King's name.

I'm willing to bet the NSA has prior art on this.

What are you talking about? Nothing is "exactly" as bad as "we" always said they would. There is nothing "right".. (rightness?? seriously?)

Surely you gest..

The MS antitrust case was nearly 14 years ago and people here still pretend it was yesterday.

Yes. All those faults, and still the best science fiction serials ever. Doesn't that say a lot for the potential of the genre?

I've always considered SMB to be a steaming pile of crap for reasons that have nothing to do with security and this incident just adds another steaming shovel full of manure to that pile. The best protection agains SMB worms is not to use crap like SMB but pick something more secure instead, that is to say if such an animal even exists. In that case you can either try to find a vendor who offers a similar product and does a better job of testing and patching it than Microsoft does or go with an Open Source alternative which gives you the option of hiring a third party to test and patch it to your satisfaction. Mind you even if SMB is a pain to use the problem does not necessarily have to be with Microsoft. The problem could actually be with your systems department being lazy and negligent about patching their SMB software and the problem could also be with lax, amateurish or even non existent security policies or if you do have a proper security policy the problem could be a complete failure to enforce it. In that case you really only have one alternative and that is to light a fire under your people, fire them if they put up a fight and hire some proper sysadmins and a security chief with the same attitude toward instilling professionalism and security awareness in your employees and a marine drill sergeant has toward making proper soldiers out of every batch of teenage drama queens he is handed by the recruitment office.

Out of interest: how old are you?