When I try to log anything going through my system, I get all sorts of activity that I have no earthly idea what it is... but if I block it, there will be some app that suddenly stops working.

I am reticent to block all activity except for known ports, as a lot of today's software requires me to run the stuff open so they can communicate with their home base.

I would be in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if I were to reverse engineer the code to find out exactly what they wanted. So, in accordance of my understanding of the Terms of Compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was bought by the Copyright Holders, I run my wireless nodes that pass information subject to softwares governed by the DMCA wide open. I do not attempt to monitor, reverse engineer, or try to "break their codes". Like watching activity on the street, its not my issue with what other people are doing. Its been my experience that interfering in other people's doings is not very healthful.

The Copyright Industry has fought long and hard, spending countless resources to have law passed that makes ignorance of how one's stuff works as a condition of lawful compliance with their terms and conditions. We are now getting a lawfully compliant population who leaves every port on their system open because some copyright holder might want to use that port, closing it will cause the system to malfunction. Troubleshooting and repairing the malfunction is now defined by our Congress as being in violation of Copyright Law.

For my critical stuff, which I have not signed away any rights, I can still communicate securely, but for the commercial stuff, which I agreed to leave access wide open, I comply.

But as far as my wireless access points...

I HAVE NO EARTHLY IDEA WHAT IS GOING THROUGH IT.

Nor, do I feel I am lawfully allowed to know.

As far as I am concerned, I am running a public toilet.

Anyone is welcome as long as they don't come in and make a mess.

I think its the Hawthorne effect .

I see this a lot, and it seems like everyone and his brother rapidly makes claims and charts of their snake-oil to show to those who they think they can extract a dollar from.

I think of it as this way. We know our stuff is getting snooped and hacked into. Its high time EVERYBODY knows this stuff is NOT private.

This forum, along with all the other times this has been discussed here on Slashdot, as well as other technical forums, provides evidence that may be one day very useful in a court of law if some copyright holder tries to prove an illegal download took place. If it took place through a wireless network, can it be proven who the recipient of the illegal download was?

We can whine and complain all we want, but if business finds it cheaper to simply include hold harmless clauses in their terms than to provide a robust product, they will do so, but in doing so, they have also removed surety of proof of download for the high and mighty MAFIAA.

The Copyright industry has spent millions of dollars to pamper Congressmen to pass law to make sure no-one can listen to a song unless terms of endearment are complied with... now they are finding out they just put a multimillion dollar lock on a cardboard door.

We do not have the money it takes to pay for Congressmen. The copyright people seem to have unlimited money. Money to hire lots of lawyers and send lots of threat letters. Those letters will be ineffective as long as we have insecure systems and no-one can prove a thing. We may have a problem with insecure systems, and the MAFIAA has a hell of a problem.

This kind of stuff gives everyone and his brother plausible deniability, which now means a total lack of accountability for online activity.

This whole thing reminds me of Marie Antionette.

The French took it for only so long.

Another poster has already hinted at the inevitable outcome of this kind of behaviour.

Yup...

This is the arm for the little guy. ; This one is for wholesale business

Its amazing what you can get over there. You can buy anything from a completely assembled product down to every little piece that goes to make one. I am currently looking into having some of my stuff replicated and sold through them.

I never thought I would be taken as a shill for Bill Gates.

I have been so pissed off about some of his products I could just about climb the walls.

I do not know who to blame, as there are many special interests and factions with their hand in it.

However, I am in much agreement on how he sees fit as to how to distribute the proceeds of his business. He seems intent on leaving a legacy of making a difference. Much unlike most folk I know that seem to take finance like sharks at a feeding frenzy.

Agreed.

When some people accumulate enough wealth, they become empowered enough to make a difference in the history of man. Some ( like Gates ) are using their resources in a way which will benefit humanity, others will go out and buy all the rental property they can.

I am hoping so badly ( hoping, mind you, not really anticipating ) that our lawmakers in Congress will see and craft tax law to encourage the kind of stuff Gates is doing and closing all of these tax advantages of simply rent-seeking and financial churning.

If Gates gets favorable tax treatments for doing this kind of stuff, it only empowers him to do more similar things as well as lead others to use the power of their wealth in a similar manner.

If there is one thing Gates has demonstrated over and over, he does have the leadership, organizational, and business skills to do it.

I know I have left lots of anti-Microsoft rants here: I feel hypocritical in posting this. Those rants were my venting my frustration as an older guy about software becoming so un-necessarily complex with all these special interest groups trying to get their proprietary add-ons adopted into Windows that pranksters have started having a heyday leaving a mess in everyone's machine. I was rooting for a very simple but thoroughly understood OS that was pretty damned bulletproof. My feeling was if pranksters thought setting people's fancy little outhouses on fire, then what I wanted was a simple one made out of cinder block.

I keep seeing the argument of what we get for a dollar funded to NASA. I ask what we get for a dollar funded to professional sports. I get to see some grown man chase all over some field trying to snare a ball.

I admit a lot of kids see this and dream of becoming a sports star or rock star. Is this a productive use of a human lifetime? Some say it is, some say it isn't, and I am not qualified to state. All I know is advancement of science is a dream to me. As far as I am concerned, Space Exploration is to science like programming games is to computer science. Its the stepping stone, the common basis of knowledge, from which we spring off whatever comes up.

NASA has always been an icon for me - an entity who is actually doing something that has never been done before. Will I benefit from a romp on the moon? Probably not. Would I benefit from stronger alloys, higher energy density batteries, more sophisticated CAD systems, and legions of kids which were motivated by the Scientists at NASA. I believe I will.

Our society seems to be quickly succumbing to what the economists refer to as "tragedy of the commons", where everybody is in it for themselves regardless of the cost to others. Our government is passing all sorts of laws encouraging "rent seeking" ( ownership benefits ) at the expense of production ( job creation ), leading us into a welfare state. I see big social problems ahead with this leadership model, as the ownership faction will run amok, leading to enormous wealth disparities between those who labor and those who own. We are setting ourselves up for a civil war between the worker and the politician/banker classes.

We seem to have no problem funding enormous salaries for someone to hit a ball with a stick. Here we have fostered an intelligence great enough to have placed a part of ourselves on another planet, and we bicker over whether we can even fund manning the operation? I am quite sad over this whole affair. It seems the only idols we are given is all this bread and circus crap. No more Spock, Scotty, or Steve Squyres.

My take on this as well.

Many of today's "stars" seem to be analogous to the "pump-n-dump" offerings of investment advisor.

They go about "stoking the star making machinery" to pump up some unknown artist they get for cheap, get him into debt up to his eyebrows, own all his works, then dump him.

Then have Congress write law for them honoring this business model.

Sorry... I replied in haste.

I have a real tender spot in me that gets quite worked up when I see the cold hard realities of economics butt up against what I consider pure human compassion.

people ( ObamaCare and the TaxPayer ) will pay for drugs every month for the rest of their lives!!

And keep that poor guy condemned to live out the rest of his life with a syringe in his arm...

I have way too many friends who are diabetic and their insulin production is down.

I do not mean to take away from anything, but I would sure love to see research like this directed to problems that affect the lifestyles of a large number of people.

I know they are working on it, but personally, I would like to see them throw all they've got at these pesky insulin and maintenance drug problems where just a little chemical injection by a tailored cell assembly would do the trick. Forcing patients to be tethered to the pharmacist with little bottles of pills has got to go.

NoScript.

Somehow I keep thinking of a pneumatic silicone rubber seal, kinda like a molded innertube fitted to a typical face contour.

Variances in the surface would deform and displace its fill fluid, whose internal pressure would maintain the seal as the face contours change.

I have a sound-cancellation headset with some technology like this on the earpieces. They seal pretty well, yet are so comfortable I wear the headset on cold days to keep my ears warm.

In this modern land of anything goes I offer what we all need is a good, solid, minimal, and highly secure PUBLIC foundation system, of which we are all made very aware of exactly how it works, much like I had to "suffer" through years of English classes. Such a system would include a knowledge of HTML, TCP/IP, and a basic windowing system. Have this core system thoroughly understood and bug-free.

If webmasters conform to this, we should be able to limit the amount of hostile code released as there is no receptor for it in our machines, however any webmaster putting stuff on the internet requiring extensions and whatever will take the same risk as those distributing halloween candy to kids.... make those "hold harmless" clauses about as effective as someone distributing razor blades in apples and handing that to kids.

That little business phrase of "<insert applet here> required to view this page" would mean that business accepts FULL and UNLIMITED LIABILITY for mischief carried an any applet he required, just as anyone passing candy to kids also accepts full liability for what is in it.. Even requiring pop-ups would mean the business requiring the pop-ups agrees to full liability for anyone misled by an errant popup - even if that popup did not come from his site. I believe by now all of us see how pop-ups can be used for all sorts of phishing work, as once some hapless user is on some business site, he has to answer whatever the popup asks to make it go away. The popup may look real, but it could be just a planted bug to use the trust a customer had for a business.

I get the very strong idea that such a move would have a very chilling effect on the proliferation of hostile code when the ones who are encouraging its vectors to be installed are also compelled to accept liability for its actions.

If there is computing to be done, that oughta be done on the server side. In my mind, the client should be considered as dumb as a bag of rocks, only capable of sending and receiving data. It seems terribly risky to me to be running any sort of arbitrary code provided from "someone on the internet".

I know there will be cries of "assigning responsibility will be bad for business", however I assert that that is the kind of business I would be better off not having.