Time based ones, especially for religious holidays are touchy. For some, they're friendly. For others, they're anything but.

Easter Eggs should generally be non-intrusive. They should take very intentional actions to make it happen.

Entering the Knomi code is a good example of that.

Just a randomizer that switches all your text to comic sans on presentations, with 8-bit game music in the background, not so much.

According to the article, they define incident as..

failure in electronic communications leads to a loss confidentiality, integrity, or availability.

So a operator or programmer error making privileged information available is an incident.

Someone trying to brute force their way into a FTP server and reaching the connection limit, is a denial of service, and therefor also an "incident".

I've used it both ways, depending on the context. I break it down to "tries" and "got in".

"Tries" justifies the budget for IT security. "There were 100 billion attempts to break into the network".

"Got in" is what they should mean. That should be zero. The zero number unfortunately means that the budget can be reduced, because no one can break in.

I generally ignore it when people talk about the attempts. Hell, any of us can fire up nmap, and make a whole bunch of attempts with virtually no effort. If you have public servers and they don't have at least some sort of attempt, you forgot to plug in the network cable. :)

That's not surprising. They want something guaranteed to be good. It's unrealistic for them to be able to know if every form of ID from any country in the world is legitimate. I'm sure they do at least a cursory check before allowing anyone in.

In theory, your passport is good. It should have been checked when you entered the US.

If you are a foreign national in the US, you're suppose to keep your passport with you at all times. Some states require anyone 18 and over to carry at least a state issued ID with them at all times. I carry 3 state/federal photo IDs, because they all serve a different purpose.

This is the ID requirement from their site.

ID Requirements
Please arrive at the designated boarding area at least 15 minutes before departure time. A U.S. government-issued Driver's License or U.S. State ID card is required for guests age 18 and over. International adult and child guests must present a valid passport to participate.

https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/tours/ksc-up-close-then-and-now-tour.aspx

Honestly, I have a lot of names that renew yearly. It's not really practical to buy everything at 10 years. Even at Namecheap's pricing, a .com is $102.90 for 10 years. That's a lot to drop on a fledgling project that may never become anything.

I just skimmed through their ToS, and I don't see anything resembling the "12 days prior" thing.

Buried in there, it says they'll let you reactive a domain for a fee. It's the first paragraph after "22. AFTER EXPIRATION OF THE TERM OF A DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION"

The paragraph after that talks about their option to auction it.

"After the reactivation period, you agree that we may either (i) discontinue the domain name registration services at any time thereafter, (ii) that we may pay the registry's registration fee or otherwise provide for the registration services to be continued, or, (iii) if we auctioned the domain name services to a third party, that we may transfer the domain name registration services to such third party."

In another part, it states that they process the renewal charge on the day of expiration.

I've never been a NameCheap domain customer, so I can't positively say anything. But I imagine if they were stealing domains before renewing them, domain overlords would not be pleased.

https://www.namecheap.com/legal/domains/registration-agreement.aspx

The only places I've seen full service gas stations in the last 20 years are Oregon, New Jersey, and somewhere in Ontario.

Hey AC. :)

It's all good, I know things don't always come across quite right. I didn't consider it too trollish.

More than likely if it did come down to a large faction versus another large faction, and the authorities (law enforcement and/or military) were divided on the cause, they'd be handing out weapons and gear anyways, and still run out of ammo too fast.

Either side would probably have to "borrow" from gun stores anyways. I don't think even most local law enforcement has enough real firepower to handle war like battles.

Look at cases like this. 23 officers fired at least 377 rounds in less than a minute. Even the professionals don't control themselves in less than critical situations. If that was a combat situation and they reloaded, they'd all be out of ammo before the fight started, and realize they took out an empty vehicle or apartment. Well, hopefully empty.

I happen to be one of the people who does have weapons, including an AR-15. I have quite a few magazines, and I buy ammo by the case. I really don't like paying range prices for ammo, and I don't like wasting range time reloading magazines.

As I recall, if you are a soldier and follow an unlawful order, you and your superior who gave the order, are responsible for that action. It is your responsibility to refuse the order and report it up your chain of command.

I did a lot of mental wargames with ex-military people over the years. They are interesting to think about. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near it if it happened.

This is just a frontal assault scenario, extremely simplified. It also assumes the rebel faction has sufficient numbers to make it past the first encounter.

Imagine the first wave is 100 rebels storming the White House. The Secret Service and local law enforcement will be calling for a cleanup of 100 bodies on the lawn. Possibly the arrest of a few injured survivors.

You can be sure reinforcements will be called in.

The second wave of 1,000 rebels attempt to storm the White House. They might make it to the newly extended buffer zone, blocks away.

As someone else said, these civilians with weapons and passenger vehicles are facing the military at this point. They aren't just going to hang out waiting at the perimeter. They're going to aggressively hunt and stop the threat. So word will spread when that hunting goes a bit wrong. Like a AH-64 lights up a suspected rebel faction stronghold with the M230. That may turn out to just be an apartment building with women and children in it. That could have even been

Around the 4th or 5th attack, assuming the rebel propaganda machine was working, soldiers are going to start questioning what they're doing. They might sympathize with the rebels. They might recognize the fact that they're fighting other Americans. Who is right, a bunch of people willing to die over their belief, or the people who sign the paychecks. This is when the power may shift. The military would still have superior communications. Rebel factions would have poorer communications and intelligence, but would have numbers and motivation.

BTW, I intentionally wrote that with no motives behind it. It really doesn't matter what the reasons are. It will be messy.

There are other tactics that would change things dramatically. Say it were done quieter and a single shift at a single air base was infiltrated. They could put a few squadrons of fighter/attack aircraft in the air and on target in less than an hour. It could be booked as an "exercise". There is one I found with just a few quick searches that has enough aircraft and weapons to take a small country. I'm sure there are others.

pnutjam said in another comment, that won't happen and to use Syria as an example.
ISIS did that in Syria. Al-Tabqa air base, Aug 2014. That was less than 1,000 ISIS fighters in 3(?) waves.

I read mixed reports on how many aircraft they captured, how many were functional, and if they were used. Some said none were functional. Another report said two ISIS MiG-21Bs were shot down there. Other reports say that they are still using some MiG-21Bs on ground strikes.

So, yes, civilians with any sort of weapon can be dangerous. It doesn't even have to be homemade AR-15s.

Luckily, American civilians are disorganized and poorly motivated. Hell, look at OWS (New York). They had up to about 50,000 marchers. That's not a little protest. That's an army. They had no goal and no coordination, since they were intentionally lacking leadership. It could have flipped from being unarmed, to capturing everything the police brought. But even if they did that, they wouldn't have a clue where to go after that.

Places I've been in the US, there was no requirement that my weapons had to be at my residence. Not unless you have NFA restricted weapons.

From what I was reading elsewhere (mostly ATF stuff), they can be sold.

Firearms without serial numbers can be passed through a FFL dealer. There are antique firearms and custom firearms which simply don't have a serial number.

If so desired, a gunsmith (I believe with a FFL) can give a weapon a serial number, and file a form with the ATF.

I haven't looked into it any farther than reading. I have no legitimate purpose to ask, as I don't happen to have one, nor do I see it happening any time soon.

Also, in my state, there is no requirement of any paperwork when privately selling to another individual. I've bought a few weapons that way. I hand them cash, they had me the weapon, and we're done. I usually deal with FFL dealers though, just because they have stores I can shop in.

There are always a lot more variables than "untrained guys with guns vs the military". Especially where the ex-military population in the US is *huge*.

A guy with just enough chemistry knowledge can make an IED, and doesn't even have to be there for it to work.

A single sniper can hold down a squad of well armed and trained soldiers. He can be a half mile or more away to do it, and only needs to fire off a shot if they move.

Gaining access to non-civilian gear is inevitable if the war runs long enough. That can be gear captured in the field, overrun bases, or even supply drops from other nations friendly to the cause.

ISIS/ISIL have been using a lot of captured equipment.

If several thousand armed civilians showed up in Washington DC, air strikes are out of the picture. Heavy armor is questionable at best. Even heavy weapons fire isn't a good thing. "1,000 terrorists dead, 10,000 unarmed civilians killed" is never going to go over well.

That's not to say it would work. If someone did start a civil war with good cause, but poor planning, they may as well consider themselves dead before it starts. But enough people with light weapons (pistols, AR-15, hunting rifles) and an awesome plan can (possibly) go a long way.

A million angry people carrying torches and pitchforks could take over DC if they wanted. There wouldn't be a million surviving attackers though.

The Branch Davidians were a special bunch. Nothing about what they did really made sense. Fortifying yourself in a building with no escape route is suicide. They had no real motive or plan. Or if they had a plan it was a horrible one.

There's no good reason we can't set up a Mars colony. Ideas on how to do it have been floated since the late 1940s. Feasible plans have been around since the 1960s. The only thing holding us back is the fact that governments prefer to fund killing people more efficiently, than to extend the reach of the human race.

The way we're going, the human race will die with this planet. We're trying hard to make sure that happens.