A better question, how much did they make selling this data?

Whether laws are heeded by corporations is dependent on a simple formula: what's to be gained by ignoring the law / (chance to get caught * fine). Unless that's below 1, the law becomes simply a cost factor to do business.

Security questions do not work for public figures.

Security questions do not work for ANYONE.

Most attackers know you, and have better than even odds of guessing your security questions. Your ex-girlfriend... She knows your birthday (duh), your mothers maiden name? (she was even at grandma's funeral), she knows all about your first gerbil Roscoe, and she knows your youngest siblings name, your favorite colour, what city you were born in, your first car, your likely answer to favorite food...

Most of your friends can probably do better than 50% on the list above.

And if you are on facebook, good odds a random stranger can get most of what they need to. Even if you don't announce it all or put fake info in your profile. Your mom send you "Happy Birthday" message anyway and you are sunk.

I never once thought about the "God of War" as a living thing as you describe it, but you are totally right.

And of course the rest of the gang are also still out there, from Venus to Dionysus, made all the more powerful by being hidden from view. Any fool could had seen that trying to legislate the "God of Wine" out of existence would be an epic fail, but we had somehow managed to convince ourselves that it didn't exist, thus Prohibition and War on Drugs. Or look at Catholic Church and what their attempts to banish "Goddess of Sex" led to.

I think there's a whole new branch of psychology we desperately need, and could conceivably develop by going through ancient myths, this time without assuming the people who came up with and believed them were blind idiots. Which was pretty weird to begin with, after all, we sum up observed reality by anthropomorphising various aspects of it all the time, from countries to capitalism to the abstract concepts of justice and freedom.

Then provoke them in to committing a felony against you. Most states, that gives you a wide range of responses, especially if you're making a citizen's arrest at the time.

Exactly.

You have to figure unlike the U.S., UK, etc... Putin pretty much only hears from "yes" men and extremists at this point and has for several years.

Even if he is as sharp as he is supposed to be, he's in an unreality bubble and has been for a long time.

He could very well have decided that he can get away with anything for at least the next two years.

The premise in the summary is wrong. Employers have not learned that actual skill outweighs the fact that someone survived college.

The fact is that such a degree in no way indicates that obtaining it involved actually learning what was presented for longer than it takes to pass the relevant examinations.

On the other hand, if the programmer presents a series of complex projects they have completed, this does positively indicate they have both the knowledge (what the degree should attest to, but really doesn't rise to the challenge) and the ability to employ that knowledge (which the degree does not assure anyone of, at all.) Those completed project should also serve to demonstrate that the required portions of theory have both been absorbed and implemented, presuming the project works well and as intended.

Employers and HR departments are rarely focused on actual performance, except in the very smallest of companies. Most use a combination of bean-counting, related age-discrimination, and the supposedly valuable rubber stamp of a degree to winnow out programming job applicants. After all, if said employee screws it up, that's the employee's fault. Not the HR person.

This, in fact, is why most corporate software goes out the door with so many problems, and it is also why those problems typically remain unfixed for very long periods of time.

It sure would be of great benefit to end users and companies if actual skill *did* outweigh a degree. But that's most definitely not happening. It's wishful thinking, that's all. And if you're an older programmer, even your sheepskin won't help you -- you cost too much, your health is significantly more uncertain, they don't like your familial obligations, they don't like your failure to integrate into "youth culture" as in no particular fascination with social media... or even your preference for a shirt and tie. Welcome to the machine. You put your hand in the gears right here. Unless you've enough of an entrepreneurial bent that you can go it on your own. In which case, I salute you and welcome you to the fairly low-population ranks of the escapees.

No. You're completely ignoring what the 4th says. It says "unreasonable" is prohibited, and then it goes on to explicitly define what reasonable means.

If all it takes is some functionary going "well, I think it's reasonable" then the 4th has absolutely no meaning at all, which is not a sustainable position one can take for the framer's intent.

Verizon can so choose if their contract with me so stipulates (just as a house helper can treat the information gleaned from searching my home as public if I agree they can.) They may not be coerced into this legally, or exempted by the government from keeping my privacy, either. That's just an end run, and it amounts to exactly the same thing: a search without the cover of a properly executed warrant.

As described, it wasn't assault, as no explicit threats were made. (Generally speaking, most states, assault is the threat, battery is the attack.) But if the guy blocked the exit, you tell him once that you're leaving, and either he gets out of the way, or it's unlawful imprisonment. Which is what I said. Unlikely any arrest will be made, or charges brought if it is, but it gets a police report filed on the guy, and that's a step towards convincing him that other crimes are less hazardous to his well being.

1. There are far more than 4 cellular companies in the Phoenix area

"far more"? I don't think that phrase means what you think it means.

2. There are hundreds of independent stores in the Phoenix area

I was testing to see if his hypothesis was within the realm of possibility. As such, I operated on the assumption that only the carrier stores would be covered. There are a number of ways this could be true; if you engage your thinking machine for a moment, I'm sure you can come up with one.

3. It would take at least 100 locations just within the Phoenix area to put the entire population within 20 minutes of a location

Phoenix is only a hair over an hour wide, so I used 15. I think your estimate of 100 is wildly excessive, unless you are counting different carriers having duplicate coverage (which I covered with the 4 multiplier).

Verizon currently shows 34 different smartphones available for sale, most of those come in multiple colors and memory sizes. They also have 8 basic phones. Total variations, not including color, is over 50 I would wager that across providers and phones sold in the past 3 years you could come up with at least 400 phone models.

I used 160 as my figure, you're claiming 400. That's well inside an order of magnitude on the most wild-assed-guess figure in the estimate, and again, I'm trying to test whether it is within the bounds of reality, not writing pro forma financials.

You would also need to stock more than 1 of each model.

No you wouldn't. You might need to stock more than 1 of some models, but you could probably get away with not carrying others (some of the out of production ones, most likely) based on covered customers in each area, and the regulation could, in theory, only require one handset of each model per store. It could also not require carrying all colors, and they might choose to not carry the smallest memory sizes, opting instead to upgrade. They might also not carry superseded models.

Or, said differently, (obviously the math is more complicated, but there are additional factors in both directions) -- like I said in my OP.

Sounds like a major mess when a simple solution already exists: 1) Don't buy insurance 2) Replace your phone if you break or lose your current phone

Well, of course. I completely agree. That's why I don't have insurance on my phone. Like you, I am neither a sucker nor a person who can't live without Angry Birds for 24 hours. But we're not considering whether the solution makes sense for more Spartan users, we're considering whether self-indulgent twits who can't go twelve minutes without checking their Facebook status would consider such a policy to be cost effective.

I can't believe I just wasted five minutes of my life on this. You're not supposed to see if there is any conceivable way to poke little holes in my post so you can continue in your comfortable preconception. You're supposed to consider whether it is in the realm of possibility, so you can let go of your hate-on.

I guess you missed the part about the guy blocking his exit.

And his wife's, and whatever was recorded by the 911 operator.

But a police report will be filed, and the guy identified, and about the third or fourth time that happens, a case will be prosecuted. And perhaps this was the third or fourth time.

Unless, of course, you choose to confront criminals when they commit crimes against you. When it's borderline like that, it takes multiple complaints to get the prosecutors to act, but they will, eventually. The personal benefit is that after a couple of these companies get prosecuted (and it will be the entire company, when it finally happens), it will get the rest to lay low for a while. And that assumes you just don't give a damn about other people they might victimize in the meantime, which, obviously, you don't.

I just finished watching the entire proceeding, with a few short rewinds.

I'm appalled even at the suggestion that because the government thinks it "needs" to do something, it can. This theory permeates several of the points made; it is invalid from the ground up. If the government believes it needs something that is constitutionally prohibited, its remedy is found in the pursuit of the processes laid out in article five of the constitution -- not in outright ignoring the hard limits set upon it by the bill of rights or other sections of the constitution.

Likewise, the "is it reasonable" sophistry was very upsetting to encounter again. It's an outright stupid tack to take. The 4th does indeed include the word unreasonable, but it then proceeds to describe what is reasonable: probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, may cause a warrant to be issued though that warrant must be specific as to place(s) and item(s) to be searched for. Those conditions all being met, the search is then both reasonable and authorized. The fact is, if all it takes is someone saying "well, I think it's reasonable that we search fyngyrz premises (or whatever)" and this over-rides the very specific instruction that a warrant is required, then the entire 4th amendment is without any meaning at all other than perhaps, optionally, advisory.

On the subject of who can search what...

If I hire a house-helper to whom I assign the roles of answering the phone, keeping the larder up to date, cleaning and laundering, this person clearly has my permission to search. They will search under furniture, appliances and cushions for debris; they will search cabinets and the refrigerated devices for out of date or missing foodstuffs, they will open my drawers and organize and store my clothing. They will, in large part, know who has called me on my home phone, and who I may have called out to.

Fine. I can give such permission. But this, in and of itself, in no way serves to authorize the government to search my premises -- for anything. The 4th limits the government with regard to my person, houses, papers and effects. It does not (obviously) limit me, or someone I hire a service from and extend such permission to, from searching. The 4th is clearly not limiting action in the public sphere. It is limiting action in the government sphere.

Relating this to Verizon and its peers: By contracting to make phone calls through their capabilities, in no way have I extended the government access to my communications, in any part or parcel. What I have done is arrange for a service by Verizon/peers without extending the government any permissions at all, and the government, absent my explicit permission pretty much identical to that as given to my house-helper, is restrained, intentionally so by the 4th amendment from searching for anything, anywhere, in regard to my communications. Which, in case anyone is wondering, is also the rationale that underlies title communications law with regard to the content of my calls, and also forms the basis for the prohibition of any person monitoring cellular radio links.

Every time the government succeeds in arguments from need instead of authorization, we become subject to the whim of individuals, rather than to a constitutionally limited government. It should frighten the living daylights out of anyone who understands the issues when the rationale is "but we NEED to", as was seen multiple times in the government side of this proceeding; and the more so when the judges don't laugh in the face of the person presenting that argument.

Remember: If the idea is that the constitution is merely advisory, then there is no functional difference between the US government and that of any tin pot dictatorship. Someone says "I wanna", and it happens. That's most definitely not how our country was intended to operate; otherwise the framers were completely wasting their time.

Sigh.

*unreasonable. Fatfinger moment..

For non-relativistic calculations, Newtonian mechanics remain a useful set of formulas. Relativity didn't replace Newtonian mechanics so much as subsume it.