Wave after wave doesn't happen. [...]

Are you really sure about that - I would agree maybe on the strictest terms: 'it DOES not happen' - the question is how long before it WILL happen?

It may not be 'wave after wave' - but with drones becoming 'cheaper', particularly if they were to be mass-produced - any idea how an advanced plane like the F22 will deal with a couple of dozen drones heading their way? Even if they managed to shoot down 8 or 10 - if those 8-10 drones still manage to get shots fired, they will likely cause enough problems for the advanced plane as well.

1:1 the drone might not have a chance - 5:1 the drones might still have problems.... 10-20:1, and there might be so many bullets and other ammo in the air around the more advanced plane that it will be shredded just as well - and likely with a good number of drones still left...

But, yes, right now, that might not be a big issue - YET...

From my point of view, the biggest problems we're getting with these drones, as that now that they're "proven" to work, it won't be long before some 3rd world dictators will get their hands on some... Can you imagine, how a citizens revolt like in Libya or now Syria would have ended with more and more autonomous weapons on the side of the dictator? I don't quite see drones 'switching sides' when seeing the misery they're bringing over their victims...

Why would would you ask a Catholic and a Muslim about their religion, but a Hindu about his language?

(Hint: Hindi is a language; Hinduism is the religion)...

If Romney says, that if aircraft windows could be opened it might make them safer in an emergency (i.e. AFTER the plane crash landed is on the ground), I would tend to agree that there MIGHT be situations where being able to open the windows might help.

The problem is that the assessment is incomplete - it does not look at the safety level of the plane in regular operation. Planes will be _MUCH_ unsafer, if anyone could open the windows on the plane while the plane is in flight.
At a guess, I would say, opening a window aboard a flight in mid air over the Atlantic will likely ensure the the plane will never reach its destination.
And once you start constructing windows in a way so that they CAN be opened if the plane is on the ground in an emergency, but windows will not open in regular flight, then you're looking at adding potentially error-prone extra circuitry to deal with that - particularly if you need to ensure that the circuitry preventing windows opening in mid-air cannot reasonably fail.

The most I'd give is that the authorities should let you know that they are aware of your search - as an additional deterrent (since you know in advance, that the cops would suspect you _were_ anything to happen).

On the other hand - IF you did that, you end up with a who watches the watchers scenario - say, you'd work for the authorities, and you know your neighbour has searched 'how to kill the bitch and make it look like an accident'. If you had a grudge against her, you would have a great opportunity to kill her and frame him for it...

So, again, anyone knowing before the potential misdeed, that you were looking for something related on the internet is also in a position to be a perpetrator; i.e. the watcher should also be locked up.

There is a good reason it needs a judge to allow the police to start poking around in someone's private life - and that isn't easily given. You have to show a lot of probable cause / evidence for a judge to allow a wiretap -- why should search terms be handled any differently?

Hmm - what reasons could there be to legitimately do these kinds of searches?

  - checking whether something seen on some crime drama actually makes sense
  - checking whether a stupid newspaper story makes sense
  - checking whether an outrageous story from a neighbour makes any sense
  - looking for ideas to write a crime novel
  - learning about the effects of certain things, say, for medical interests (medical students)

Either way - what people do should be what people do on their own; locking people up because
they MIGHT do something is a very bad precedent. And where will you stop?

Will you allow someone to a gas station and fill up their car after they had a bad fight with their
partner, whom they know will have to cross a road somewhere in the next hour? Or should you lock
them up after the fight? (independently of whether you or your partner started the fight)?

How about filling your car, and going for drinks later - having a car with a full tank of gas at
your disposal afterwards? Time to lock you up?

Sure, at a guess, looking up 'ways to kill people in their sleep' I would also think makes you
more likely a potential murderer than filling up your car. But, where do you draw the line on
what's legitimate and what isn't?

Also, maybe after you read how painful or possibly difficult your goal is - who's to say that
reading about it might not actually lead you to give up the thought? And then you still get
locked up because of something you looked up, where the result of the search itself already
deterred you (though, obviously, that can't be seen in any google search strings - you just
stop searching)...

Also, the only goal you'd reach is that now a potential murderer has to break in somewhere
only to look up how to murder someone - and then the wrong person would get arrested...
(...which might give the best possible version - look it up on the victim's computer - get them arrested!)

There are so many ways to screw this up - as bad as it is, until someone _actually_ tries
to go through with it, don't interfere...

The pre-cog route will just make things a LOT worse for civil liberties / personal freedom.

I'd wish they'd update the Rado Cerix with a self-winding mechanism. Unfortunately, Rado has stopped manufacturing them.

The only thing you need to watch out with some Rado watches is that some of their watches are using a ceramic wristband - which is great in that it still retains its shine after 10 odd years that I've had the watch by now - but the ceramic while scratch-proof is not 100% shockproof - I broke a couple of chain links when I fell off my bike onto the street (accident involving a car driver that didn't quite watch where he was going). But I could get them replaced, and I can't even distinguish the old and new links (again - the ceramics don't "age")...

Sorry, is this company _asking_ people to be "asleep at the job"?

While I would agree with that take on the US, I would also add - it's nothing specific to the US.

Much like politicians say 'bullying' is wrong in school yards, they just do it themselves as far as smaller or economically weaker countries are involved.

The US do it to Germany (like in this case), Germany do it to the Swiss (re tax law; despite there being tax havens INSIDE the EU, or outside of Europe - they target Switzerland; or noise pollution at airports - Germans should suffer noise from German airports, but not from a Swiss one), ...

I'm not saying wikipedia is the "source of my argument" - I'm saying, it's not just the media who get this wrong, if even wikipedia (a site nerds CAN help editing) uses that terminology.

I'm also absolutely getting the misuse of the word "hacked" here - prominently featured even in the article here on slashdot.
Again - the problem is not that you or I understand that the word 'hacked' is wrong. The problem is the point you're admitting yourself: "Again, I never said they were good at this", or "Anonymous don't exactly send out press releases (they should though)".

I think up until Anonymous and potentially similar groups get their act together in also managing how things appear OUTSIDE of their own activities, their plans will more likely than not backfire. If the field is left to political pundits, Anonymous is providing them with all the fodder they need to demand MORE surveillance.

And even if Anonymous would come up now and say "the 'disruption' here was meant as a protest", it will sound bad like their backpedalling / asscovering, like they got caught doing something bad (even if you feel they didn't do anything bad).

If you go on a stage completely unprepared - you will likely NOT get out what you want.
And as I pointed out earlier:

"
Right now, I don't know what the right course of action is to convince the governments that more and more surveillance is a bad thing. I wish I knew what the right course of action would be.

What I do know, though, is that attacking government websites is the WRONG way.
"

only just let me add - coming out a few days later trying to tell people "it wasn't an ATTACK, it was just a legitimate PROTEST" is not going to work. These are issues you need to plan for BEFORE you protest/attack/do...

The media may be partially to blame - but the problem is that even journalists aren't necessarily the most tech-savvy bunch.

And look at this - even wikipedia calls it "Denial-of-service attack" - maybe because in most cases, DDOS attacks were actual attacks on companies or websites, and most of them didn't find the kind of publicity then, that DDOSing the government finds now.

Besides, why would it be the medias fault for calling it attacks when you see the ones causing it using the exact same language?

Note how the purported chat didn't say "peaceful Internet demonstration", but rather "aim", "fire", and "keep firing" ?

If you stage a demonstration, people hold up banners to make clear what they are demonstrating for. Even if the DDOS packets that overwhelmed the government sites contained the words "we want our civil liberties back" - it still is nothing that could be seen by outsiders.

So, if you can't do the same thing with the banners in your 'Internet protest' - then you need to find a way to explain to people what you're trying to do - OR you leave that turf to politicians who will gladly fill in the blanks on how this is basically cyber-terrorism and how we need more surveillance to stop it. (And remember - if the press won't know where to find you to answer questions about what's going on; because you want to stay "anonymous" - they will HAVE to go and ask the other side, i.e. the government, what the whole thing is about.

And guess who will end up being the losers if you let the government explain those "attacks"? And rest assured - politicians will NOT call this a "peaceful demonstration", if it would harm their case -- they WILL call it "attacks" as it would bolster their positions!

Again - it's good that YOU see that this way. Many non-nerds will not see that difference. So, whenever the media covers these kinds of events, note how the say "denial of service ATTACKS", not "denial of service DEMONSTRATION".

Can you see how this might make an important (and negative) difference in the minds of your parent's/grandparent's generation?

And importantly, noone calls these things 'demonstrations' - look at the linked zdnet article headline "hacks UK government sites". It's the same kind of language you also get with articles that then continue something along the lines of 'millions of credit card/social security records stolen'. And the 'demonstrators' own language?

" #OpTrialAtHome — Target: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ | ETA: 7 MINS! Charge your laz0rs and aim! #Anonymous #UK
        #OpTrialAtHome — Target: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ | Fire! Fire!! Fire!!! Fire!!!! Soundtrack- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKTpWi5itOM #Anonymous #UK Pew Pew Pew
        #OpTrialAtHome : Tango Down: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ | Keep Firing!!!! Keep it down! Make them hear you! #Anonymous #UK
"

Really - is "Charge your laz0rs and aim!", "Fire! Fire!! Fire!!!" the kind of language that will make non-technical folk see that this is 'just the same as a demonstration'?

It's all well and good for you that YOU "know" this to be a demonstration, not an attack. But to a large majority of people outside of the net, words like "attack" and "fire" sound more like the kind of things politicians SHOULD protect us all from.

And there go even more of your civil liberties.

I'm not sure whether either the Anonymous attacks or the funny quips will help the case of civil liberties.

Sure, you and I know that the way civil liberties have been eroded in the past decade is a bad thing. Unfortunately, most voters really haven't. And if people attack government websites, it will only strengthen THEIR case, not the case of those who want civil liberties restored.

You taking the liberty of bringing down websites to ask for more liberties is roughly the same as if someone started to randomly shoot people proclaiming that he will continue killing people until murder will finally become legal.

It's entirely irrelevant whether your point is a valid one (as, in my opinion, it is in the case of civil liberties -- for most bystanders that really don't have a clue on why this is even important. To them, the government is doing the right thing, seeing that that kind of surveillance would actually be needed to prevent further attacks on government websites.

Right now, I don't know what the right course of action is to convince the governments that more and more surveillance is a bad thing. I wish I knew what the right course of action would be.

What I do know, though, is that attacking government websites is the WRONG way.

From TFA:
In a statement sent to legislators, eight members of the National Academy of Science said that, in practice, the bill will likely [...] harm the state's national reputation[...]

The scientists got it wrong as well - thanks to blogging, like the publication here on Slashdot, the bill harms the state's INTERnational reputation... ;-)

"This is the 14th meteorite that's been found in Norway, and only the second that crashed through a roof. "

Who wrote this?

Have you got any idea how "densely" populated Norway is?

Sure, people won't be monitoring all of the countryside for meteorite impacts; but even then, I'm sure they get to see easily more than 7* the roof space area in non-roofed area during their day-to-day activities.

So, among 14 meteorites, 1/7th has hit a house...?

How many meteorites does the country get???

As a software developer, I can see where the call for that comes from - but it's just about as misplaced as it could be. Software developers aren't the 'standard' the rest of the world should orient themselves by.

Developing software is a great skill to have if you're a software engineer -- not sure whether it's a waste of time if you plan to become, say, a doctor, a plumber, etc...

There are very few skills that _everybody_ needs to have for their normal day to day lives - developing software isn't one of them. Giving kids an idea of what is part of it may be a good idea, i.e. a basic understanding of how computers work. Coding skills on the other hand - not so sure; particularly - who knows what language and what paradigm will be 'state of the art' by the time the kid finally gets to use his/her development skills on. Picture it from this side - when I went to school, programming courses looked at BASIC and Pascal. Nice languages - for teaching - but I'm not sure whether it will really prepare you for coding C/C++, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, ...

Do you really think that it makes sense giving someone much of a development course in something that may be outdated a few years later? I didn't really like history lessons, biology lessons, ... But I'm sure most of the history being taught is still the same; most of the principles of biology are still intact, ... On the other hand - one of the things we learned about in school was some of the hardware: anyone still remember what a ULA is? Or the practical knowledge of how to hook up a tape deck to a computer? ... punch cards?

Development classes and paradigms are too specific a skill for a mandatory course to be forced on everyone.