I am not sure it's wise to admit that in public these days. Someone might assume you've had a hidden agenda for obtaining launch codes.

I just loved this part of the original article:

"But Jen says she was not always so defiant. After receiving the threat she says she was terrified. She contacted Ripoffreport.com to ask that the post be removed but Ripoffreport.com won't let her without paying $2000 she says."

Someone hurry up and write a ripoff report at rippoffreport.com!

I'd be happy to plug my netbook / phone / multimedia device into this unknown thumb drive. Why not? I've got Linux.

Back in 2005 some car thieves in Malaysia tried to steal a Merc S Class with some kind of biometric immobilizer. When they realized they couldn't get the darn thing running without a finger print, they merely chopped the owner's finger off with a machete (I swear it's true: BBC Article).

I wonder who will be the first to lose an iPhone along with a finger.

Android (Jellybean) is at least partly running on the N9. Last time I checked, they hadn't managed to get calls going - but 3G data was working.

And this is a surprise or news worthy why? This application:

Wifi Key Recovery

Has been in Google's Play store forever. That strongly indicates that the key's are not stored encrypted (or with a very simple encryption) and that Android "secure" them by not giving normal applications access (the app require root to function).

Well, perhaps the problem is that the Windows security model is too advanced? I have yet to meet a Windows administrator that really understood those models, while I am fairly certain that any UNIX/Linux admin understand the OS security models in-depth.

I don't live in China so I haven't had a chance to test this, but I would guess Tor/Onion is more or less the ideal way of keeping a stable connection out of China. Just run a private exit node outside China. Tor change the tunnel connections regularly to obscure it's existence.

My Nokia N73 from back in 2006 could do that and that was not the first Symbian S60 based device.

In the case of Thailand - sucking might very well be part of the reason.

Even standard Android can do this. Some of the pre-installed applications will be quite useless really, but most of core functionality will work quite fine without a Google account.

While I admit I haven't tried, it should be possible to run an Android phone without ever signing into Google - indeed without a Google account whatsoever. The email application support POP, IMAP or Exchange, the contacts can be synced with SyncML or Exchange (and a few other options I am sure), applications can be sideloaded, IM+ does a pretty good job with Jabber etc. Surely it would make it somewhat more complicated but I am quite sure it is possible.

In other words - Google offer a way for people to run the smart phone without any knowledge about servers and with an extremely simple setup (enter your google account once), but it is in no way forced upon you - so I think it's actually quite acceptable.

In reality I think that Google+ biggest problem is that it is only cool in an extremely nerdy sort of way. Sure, I am not surprised that just about everybody here would prefer Google+ to Facebook, but then again - everybody here also would prefer Linux over Windows, Java over PHP, Computer over Girlfriend etc. A simple fact is, while it can be annoying as hell, Facebook is kinda cool and until Google+ become cooler than Facebook it will not take off.

C'mon - Google+ - read it out loud - it sounds like some laundry detergent.

Lesbian porn is the only exception I can think of :)

Similar specs - except the screen resolution - the Archos 70 is 800 × 480 whereas the Nook Color is 1024 x 600.