"hackers believe they can somehow get to it through state computer systems. "

The article makes it sound like the folks doing this are idiots. However, if you really wanted to be a significant thorn in the side of the NSA, would you really attack them directly knowing those systems would be some of the hardest targets on the planet ?

Or perhaps go after some of the potentially easier targets such as the power grid or water control systems that feed a particular site ?

That mammoth data center and all the super-computers within it won't be doing a damn thing if you shut off the water supply required to cool it. Ditto for the electricity, though they likely have back-up power, I doubt it's sufficient to run the entire site non-stop for extended periods of time.

Sort of the whole " Why try to kick down the armored door if a glass window is available to you ? " sort of thing.

The test run was the former SNET region. ( Last year )

Trust me when I say other regions are soon to follow. Especially in the regions where they have not ( and have no desire to ) deploy their U-Verse systems.

"How are you going to stop people from reproducing? Enforce abortions? Neuter everybody?"

Eventually the natural anti-population algorithms kick in and do it for you. Same things happen to any critter who over-populate where they live:

Resource Depletion.
Famine.
Disease.

Those three alone will wipe out most of your problem in a hurry.

Factor in conflict ( fighting over finite resources ) and that should pretty much handle the rest.

So, if the human species is too stupid to see far enough ahead and plan for it, Mother Nature is certainly more than capable of doing it for us :D

Even more simple.

Take a fraction of what we spend on defense, and put it into infrastructure. At some point it is hoped that the idiots in charge will figure out our defense budget is a wee bit overkill and a lot of that money can be better spent elsewhere.

Hell, if we brought our defense spending down to a reasonable level, we might be able to afford upgrades to infrastructure AND healthcare :|

" I am not going to uproot my family, sell my house, have my kids change schools, and spend thousands of dollars to move every time I change jobs just so I can live within a car-free commuting distance of my work place."

Some companies realize this and will move work around within the company in order to bleed off employees without officially calling it a " layoff ".

Every few years they'll move a group from one State to another. You have the choice of following the work, or finding a different job. :|

I'm right there with you. I'm not about to up and move everything anytime my company cracks the whip.

A vehicle is not just a status symbol, it's a means of dictating your own schedule and maintaining your sanity.

As a vehicle owner I don't have to wait to go somewhere based on the frequency of bus or train travel to and from any given destination.
I don't have to stand outside in the ( insert bad weather here ) with the rest of the herd that is waiting for the bus / train.
As a vehicle owner I don't have to sit next to the guy / gal who hasn't bathed in the past three months nor breathe in the cloud of perfume / cologne or the lovely smell of cigarette smoke residue.
I don't have to put up with the screaming child or the schizophrenic arguing with their imaginary friends that are onboard the bus / train.
Getting stuck late at the office doesn't have dire consequences if you miss the last bus / train.

This list can really go on and on, but I decided long ago that I would never partake in public transportation again unless I had absolutely no other choice. ( And I will stay home before I go anywhere via bus )

Or Houston that is not only sitting on clay, but is also only about ~50 feet above sea level. Those underground systems do not work well when completely flooded with water. Yup, we have pumps for that and they don't work well without fuel. Hurricanes tend to knock out power to everything for extended periods of time, including the pumps ( and the fuel pumps for that matter ).

If I recall correctly, during one of our recent Tropical Storms ( not a hurricane mind you ) one of our major thoroughfares ( Hwy 59 near downtown ) was under 20+ feet of water. Entire semi-trucks were completely submerged.

A couple of miles *might quality as " walking distance ". My thirty mile one way commute, would not.

Note my thirty mile commute is a vast improvement over the fifty mile commute I did for fifteen years :|

Could I move closer to work ? Not really considering the cost of housing / taxes within a few miles of where I work vastly exceeds my level of pay. ( I can't afford million dollar condos, nor Texas property taxes + mortgage payments on half million + dollar homes )

*Emphasis on might here depending on what neighborhoods and / or unpleasant areas you might have to traverse on foot in order to get to work.

The Federal Government needs to get involved because it has been shown the Major ISP's are not interested in providing a quality network unless they make insane profits from doing so. Were it not for regulation, the POTS system would have been the same way. Telco's would have expanded the networks only to those areas where high profits were guaranteed and left the rest of the nation in the dark.

Considering the Internet and Voip are pretty much replacing the old telephone network as standard means of communication between folks, we need SOME regulation in place to make sure the Telcos / ISP's aren't just acting in their own be$t intere$t$.

If you prefer no regulation, then you must be ok with the whole " Paid Prioritization " thing. The throttling of specific types of data ( Bit-torrent ), and the degradation of other traffic because it's a competitive service to what the ISP offers. ( Netflix, Voip, Hulu, etc )

The major players have had more than ample opportunity to get their acts together. This is pretty much the end result when you let large Monopolies / Duopolies run things. They get away with it for a while but, in the end, they get to face the music.

"People are getting confused because it appears to be a win for net neutrality on the surface. Really now, do you think a former telecoms lobbyist would put that on the table if service providers didn't have something to gain from it?"

I'm pretty sure, unless this is some ultra-elaborate ruse, that the major Telecoms are not going to waste money trying to fight this in the courts if they ultimately ended up benefiting from it. One of the things the telecoms hated about Title II regulations when it came to the telephone system is that they were REQUIRED to provide telephone service equally without cherry-picking the high profit areas of the nation.

I promise you they do not want to be forced to deliver high speed broadband to these same rural areas because it will absolutely kill their profits.

True statement, however the FCC also has some big money and gorilla-sized heavyweights behind it in the form of Google.

This should be an entertaining event at the very least.

Many places that handle this type of data will encrypt it and direct you to a https link to download it. When you hit the site, you'll be asked for a password that was given to you by the folks on the phone. It will then decrypt the contents and allow you to download it right to your machine.

They know most folks are incapable of implementing or even understanding encryption, thus the simplified method above.

Banks ( and any institution that handles SPI data ) will get their ass handed to them for exposing that data. ( and they know it ) SPI data is the primary reason all laptops for my company are full disk encryption. Losing a laptop isn't news. Losing one with 100k Social Security numbers, bank accounts, or Customer names, passwords, addresses DOES make the news.

They're paranoid about it ( and rightfully so ) and will fire you on the spot if your actions expose SPI data of any kind.

*SPI = Sensitive Personal Information

Say something the government doesn't like: Watch List
Participate in a protest the government doesn't like: Watch List
Buy too many guns or ammo in X period of time: Watch List
Visit some country our government doesn't like: Watch List
Donate to a charity or organization our government doesn't like: Watch List
Use VPN's or TOR or tech to try to keep some privacy: Probably on a Watch List

I'm sure I could expand this list quite a bit were I to put some effort into it. But you get the point.

If your company exists and relies solely on advertising to fund operational costs, you're doing it wrong.

Ads are annoying at best, and downright dangerous at their worst. It's the latter reason folks block them. Too many times advertisements have been used as an attack vector to deliver some trojan / virus / malware. For that reason alone I block all ads. Adblock, Ghostery and I'm working on a proxy solution to remove them from the data stream all-together before they even clear my router.

If you don't take a stand against unlimited advertising now, the internet will look a lot like Cable TV does eventually.

If the district has clear policies in place concerning imaginative magical items, I would certainly love to read through them.

Can you imagine the sheer TERROR that would happen if the kid brought in some crazy artifact ? Dragon Orb or Phoenix Egg ?
They would probably end up calling in a SWAT Team. ( Or at least some high level mage to deal with it :D )