How to protect yourself from Sony-style attacks:

Step 1. Don't be Sony.

It should be a felony for a police officer to do this, because they wield so much more power in this equation.

It is a felony.

It's legal in your own country to spy on foreign powers.

This case has nothing to do with spying on foreign powers. It's about federal agents searching through the private effects of an individual, which is explicitly, specifically, Constitutionally illegal without a warrant.

Well said. You saved me the trouble of writing a comment not half so clear and complete.

Ask professional drivers. These "ethical" questions are ridiculous. Avoid obstacles if possible; if not, slow down. It's better to crash into something you can't avoid as slowly as possible. It's also best to maintain control just in case the situation changes.

So, what are you going to use for ID?

So, in that atmosphere, how any single website would ever be able to "authenticate" your ID, I have no idea.

How about tamper-resistant cryptographic biometric devices? Use your government-issued fingerprint reader to log into Big Brother's system, then each server is required to make sure you have a valid current login certificate from BB before providing any services. Complete records must be kept indefinitely and will be audited against upstream connection logs.

Nobody is required to have government ID, but network service providers are prohibited from communicating over the Internet with anybody who isn't logged in with Big Brother.

Obviously this only works within one jurisdiction. Foreign Internet users would have to be handled separately, if at all.

I guess it would be easiest to manage this at the ISP level -- ISPs would be required to require proof of identity (via secure biometric reader) at regular intervals from all users. Then you don't necessarily have to bother auditing web, email, etc, servers.

It probably means that the maximum possible lifetime energy production of a photovoltaic panel is less than the energy required to manufacture and deploy it.

I have no idea whether that is true, but I believe it is GP's meaning.

IMO, if ads stopped across all internet sites, or the online advertising industry completely collapsed. The internet as we know it, would be gone.

Correction: The Internet as you know it would be gone. The actual Internet would be just fine. Universities, stores, hobby sites, government, and people generally interested in communicating with each other would pay their ISP bills and continue without interruption.

Turing's imitation game was a thought experiment. To explain it simply to an audience unfamiliar with the idea, he started with man against woman, then proceded to man against machine. The specific genders were not important or significant in the thought experiment, just the existence of some difference between the contestants that could potentially be spoofed over a teletype. There was nothing gender-specific or weird about it.

That is always true. The longer you wait, the cheaper it gets. If you wait forever, it costs nothing.

If you need a job done now then get the cheapest equipment that can do the job. If you don't need it now then wait; the price of computer equipment only goes down.

Conversely, the people who *do* have access to the bigger picture stuff, have no vested interest in giving us the unfiltered truth (or any truth at all),

Of course not. If we knew everything they know, then they wouldn't be special any more.