In other words, its the very nature of this financial instrument which is insecure.

Why would the banks care? Any cost will be borne by the cardholder who might be stuck in a bad situation until the issue can be resolved. As others have astutely stated, the cost of this is likely less than doing it 'right'.

Good ole' capitalism, always in a race to the bottom of the barrel.

Uh...the defense department has been the #1 consumer of tax money since - well, since the beginning of the federales.

Really, this is just more of that special brand of US 'libertarian' paranoia.

Citation needed.

Many other countries espouse a meritocracy, though fall short. Americans just look on the achievements of their forebears and assume they are top dogs.

Its pretty sad when over half of your populace can't name their President.

Show me some evidence governments - in general, other than the Danes - actually want to get serious and do anything about global warming.

You conspiracy nuts are all over this, alleging collusion between government and academia that simply isn't there.

In other words, there is no discernible motive for lying on this scale - to protect fraudulent research? You actually believe the entirety of the body of evidence for man-influenced global warming is a hoax?

I don't think it is a stretch to call you anti-intellectual. Misdirection and muddy the water some more. I'm sure your grand kids will be proud there champ.

Ahh..the true colours show.

Of course only Americans would suffer by switching off their addiction to oil. No other country in the world runs its economy, quite literally, on oil.

Give your head a shake.

All nations have a significant amount of their economy tied up ion petrochemicals or they byproducts. It's a sign of how paranoid your nation state is that they actually believe that sceintists are conspiring with, I don't know - Al Gore - to take your *ahem* 'hard earned' money away.

Its more like, we are creating a big problem here, perhaps we should correct it..perhaps we should stop with the FUD over nuclear energy and switch in a big way from two century old coal plants to sustainable nuclear energy in the absence of another alternative. Does that make too much sense?

More than just Americans live on this planet, whether you can find their country on a map or not.

Wow..just...wow.

If this is our upcoming generation of deep thinkers, god help us all.

Exactly. Don't expect people wearing Apple's particular brand of reality suspending goggles to understand this.

My god - why is it no surprise that someone who denies humans influence the warming of the climate is also a HUGE Apple fanboy?

My head just exploded.

I would expect a device designed to be carried in the pocket would have some elemnetary protection.

Apparently, its ok in the pocket anyone - you just can't hold it. It being a phone. Interesting.

Apple fans are some of the most illogical cheerleaders on the planet.

Never will any shop I run have Apple products - large scale newspaper publishing is dying anyway. Oh, here's a 100% markup for this Kingston RAM we just conveniently slapped our 'Apple' sticker on.

I think I'll stick to trained physicians, thanks.

Why don't you try a doctor from a diploma mill and see how much malpractice you can pile on?

That is, if you live.

Thanks for your quaint comments but its really just more FUD about global warming from someone who intuitively believes they 'know' that climate science is all just a pile of BS, leveraged by sneaky scientists to get us to accept their Dr. Evil-esque plans for the world economy.

Its quite patently ludicrous, and that your countrymen swallow it with such gusto speaks volumes about the quality iof educational models in the United States.

If only there was a -1 stupidity..it suits the entire clique of shrill voices in here adding they laypersons's half a cent to the voluminous material that was peer-reviewed and published.

Why? It conflicts with their worldview. Apparently, the atmosphere is "really big" meaning human activities clearly could have no impact. Similarly the Gulf of Mexico is 'really deep' so, you know, the blow-out preventer collpasing and creating an uncontrolled gusher is really unimportant - a 'drop in the oceans'.

Insanity. Collective, managed, suggsted insanity. These people have the nerve to then claim they are free thinkers. Instead, they have swallowed the BS train from the profressional PR firms empoyed by companies in the energy industry to muddy the waters as much as possible. These tactics should be familiar by now.

Anyway, don't let logic get in the way of a little irrational paranoia and hysteria. Those evil scientists!

On a 'science' website - this gets modded 'Insightful'? Scientists are a little clique of conspiracists set on imposing their politics and energy ethics on the poor old USA.

Wow. Good luck with the future, you've clearly lost your minds.

Apparently some low-ranking district court judge now makes law.

Congratulations on one of the most backwards decisions in recent history.

"ip number gives it away" its misunderstandings like this that are causing all this hoopla. The IP address you are using at a given time will be used by someone else in the near future (in most cases). While the ISP can track you - assuming you do not use a proxy, or series of proxies, which everyone with a brain who posts hateful comments now will - they can only track it to your house. MAC addresses are easily spoofable.

Now, imagine you share your wireless network with three or four people - family, or friends. How do we establish who was posting?

Or, better yet - your wireless network is unsecured! Ooops! Anyone can now post using your IP. Checking the neighborhood, I see all kinds of default password and WEP-less open access networks. Good luck tracking down who is who.

I'm sorry, I have not read the comments and so cannot speak to their nature, however, no matter how bad they are, I don't think that this kind of disclosure is necessary - it will have a huge chilling effect. And the clever ones will still be able to say whatever they want, and innocents will get caught up in bizarre legal dramas because of both the courts and the defendants incomprehension of the underlying technology.

_____

I know everyone here knows this, I am cross posting from the Globe and Mail. Rarely have I been so outraged at a ridiculous and backwards court judgement.

They already rolled over - apparently 'do no evil' only runs so far.

Some of the comments were allegedly made under an account registered to a gmail address. How this helps them, I have no idea.

Statistics is a sham of a 'science' that can prove anything.

Large scale, long-term stuides often have valuable proofs - but these tiny, pop-science studies are more to do about the political agenda of the lead authors or their financial backers. I can essentially prove anything I want with these methodologies.

And you know it.