It'll be interesting to see how they choose to go. Perhaps they'll actually get something set up that is owned by the people, as their social system alleges a strong preference for.

It'd be fascinating to see how it works without big corporations in there making choices for them on a constant basis, if they can manage to avoid that.

Somehow, though, I keep coming back to the fact that no socialist or communist system has ever been seriously tried without some kind of de-facto dictatorship making the end goal impossible to reach. Equality is fine until the idiots who disagree want to be equal, too... All systems seem to have that particular fundamental problem. Equal unless different, otherwise ostracized.

My cynical side tells me palms will be greased, corporations will heavily engage, and your Cuban surfer will have a pretty typical bill to pay. Be delighted to be proven wrong, though.

Ohh it's suppose to look like that? I just thought he was still working on the calibration of the 3d printers.

Think of the dock works who lost their jobs due to this "marvelous" invention. It's this efficiency and automation we have to fight against or nobody will have a job again. /sarcasm

That is wonderful if everyone is a perfect driver such as yourself. Some people are not great drivers, some are distracted even for a second, that 4-5 is easily dropped to 1-2 just by checking your rear view mirror and dash gauges before looking up again.

If the world were full of perfect drivers, with endless patients and no emotion, then your theory would hold mostly true. Until then we have to adjust for the world we live in.

You mean, like, when you're driving in a rainy night with the oncoming traffic's lights reflecting off the wet ground?

This is some Scandinavian country, not the US.

And DVD drives? CD drives?

Getting your hand on a powerful laser diode ain't so hard. Thought it would admittedly be easier to just replace that lens...

Yes, Sheldon. Now go play with your trains.

So tell me, how fast should I drive? Please give me a number to work with.

I've audited enough crappy systems to say with some faith that there are VERY few systems out there that would stand their ground against an at least halfway organized assault.

And I'm not really disclosing anything that is under tight NDA or similar bull. Anyone who has an inkling of a clue about IT security will come to that conclusion by the hacks that get public alone. Take the Anonymous/LulzSec (or whatever that was called) hacks of some time ago. Now, I don't want to belittle their effort, but when you look at how high profile the targets were and what simple tricks were involved, you can't help but wonder.

I can't think of a single published attack vector they used that was not part of the OWASP Top 10, which is pretty much the baseline for IT security. That's essentially the very least of what you have to have "down" when you're at least remotely concerned about the security of your IT assets. We're talking about the equivalent of having your door locked at night or closing your windows. Very basic stuff that makes you wonder just why it was possible for them to overcome.

You stop wondering when you spend a bit of time in the corporate IT security business. The problem boils down to a single factor: money. And that's where security really has a problem: It costs a ton of money, but makes none. Every cent spent on security is gone with no chance to ever see it again. And you spend a lot of cents on it because not only the people who can do it sensibly are quite expensive, but because security is also usually anathema to productivity. Of all the companies I know, only in a single one security trumps productivity and availability in cases where they are mutually exclusive (and they are usually numerous). One. Out of hundreds.

IT security is much like an insurance. And just like with many "unnecessary" insurances, companies have it mostly due to either legal or contractual requirements. And just as with insurances, they will "waste" only the bare minimum of resources on it, just enough to abide to contract or law.

I think it goes without explanation just why such a Potemkin village of security straw huts won't stand a breeze, let alone some dedicated storm.

When did that happen? Why didn't I get the memo?

I prefer to "neutralize" them. It sounds way more legal.

Just 'cause your imaginary friend is ok with it doesn't mean that it's sensible.

Now suddenly the free market, with its rule of supply and demand, is bad?

Get real, my friend. Stuxnet was designed to prevent psychotic religious fanatics from developing nuclear bombs. There is no real question as to whether the Iranians would use any nuclear bomb under their control to murder 100,000s of Jews in Israel. They have said that they will do it in so many words over and over again in their internal religious sermons. To the foreigners they're a little more diplomatic.

    The American-Ashkanzim alliance is the most productive alliance between peoples in all of history. We, as Americans, will never just sit back and watch fascist demented assholes like the Iranian mullahs murder thousands of Jewish people as we did in the early 1940s.

    There is no comparison between using hacking to destroy nuclear proliferation and using hacking to suppress an embarrassing Hollywood comedy movie. Anyone who thinks that the two are equal is a fool.

    You're a smart person if you're on Slashdot. Don't be a fool.