Same basic process, though different criteria for me:

• Junk sites (one-time login for news, quick downloads, register-to-see, tech mailing lists) get the same low-end password. If I can't foresee any information that I care about going to that site, then it gets a basic throwaway. (I also misspell registration details so i have an idea if advertisers are getting that info).
• Slashdot, forums, etc: Also low-grade. Sorry, but if someone gets their rocks off posting crap as me, I can live with it. I've got enough First Life points to keep me busy.
• Personal email: Since I don't trust the email systems that are in the hands of others, I don't put anything on there I care about. (If someone wants to know that I'm asking my prof how to fix some code, more power to them--it'll bore them to tears.) Hence, it gets a medium-grade password.
• Online stores: Medium grade for one-time purchases, high-grade for repeat business.
• Own email system, bank, etc: High grade password, randomized (at least to the rest of the world) that it passes the basic dictionary-attack. For example, I somehow remember old phone numbers and bank accounts from 20 years ago (none of which are in use); add a couple of 1337-speak letters and you're in business.

Like the parent, it's really a matter of compartmentalization and damage control. If you don't own the system, it's not completely trustworthy. If it's your system, it's only modestly trustworthy. If you're doing something criminal/embarassing/stupid, it's better to leave all notes at the bottom of the Marianas trench.

Membership would be a problem, since there are supposedly only "two at any time."

OTOH, those guys would probably be a lot more fun to party with.

On the other hand, as BadAnalogyGuy proposed, if Anonymous really are "college-age basement dwellers who type out their screeds in between trips to the minifridge to get more Cheetos", then this would be exactly the kind of ideal they could get behind! :-P

Good "think of the children" dilemma for Haiti:

Human trafficking, sex slavery, and other forms of abuse happen. When you start transporting large numbers of people over borders, it's pretty much inevitable that some are going to end up in a living hell.

OTOH, kids in Haiti have lost parents, government has pretty much collapsed, and there will probably be plenty of horror stories of infection, disease, and abuse for the kids stuck in Haiti...in other words, children denied the opportunity to get out of the country will end up in a living hell.

So here's the question for all those 'think of the children' moralizers out there:

• How many children are you going to condemn to die in Haiti to protect those who would end up abused by human traffickers and their customers?
• How many children are you going to condemn to suffering and abuse at the hands of the worst of humanity in order to save those who would die or suffer horribly otherwise?

There is no good answer--"think of the children" is usually an excuse to get what you want anyways--without considering the consequences.

It's early, maybe I'm just slow, but what would be the advantage of that for the person who would be doing the scanning?

For an individual...not much at all.

For a group, though, it would make life much easier.

• Building security (court houses, concerts, football games....)
• Bodyguards (Secret Service, rich folk, etc)
• Law enforcement serving warrants
• Lynch mobs serving complaints
• Jack-booted storm troopers "protecting" the citizenry
• Anyone who wants to make sure anyone else doesn't have a weapon

Because of this, I believe there will be a brief, frenzied effort to make these things mandatory...and it will fail miserably in the long run.

And on the opposite side--send out a signal that authorizes any weapon!

If the authentication takes place only within the watch, then the weapon's mechanism is just looking for an arming signal--probably something simple--and you could mass jam or arm weapons with a strong enough transmitter (I'm thinking of those shopping-cart brake systems that people have been pranking...). Heck, you can even get your own watch, put in your own pin, and steal any weapon and it will work!

OTOH, if the weapons' system is tied to a specific watch, then the failure rate will be through the roof! And, of course, you can disarm everyone easily because the systems are so strict.

As an aside, this would make locating weapons extremely easy--all you have to do is walk around with an RF scanner, searching for watch and/or weapons signals.

I see a big market for jammers, spoofers, RF scanners, and a multitude of other mini-electronic RF products. I better go take some spectrum-analysis classes soon.

Maybe in the next movie, Superman (or "LL") could put in an order for condoms made out of this material. After all, it would certainly solve a lot of problems.

I've been looking at LinuxMCE for my own home system. It looks like a really good fit for what you want: Media, touchscreen controls, multiple outputs. Plus, it's a thin-client system, so once you decide on a terminal setup, you can repeat ad nauseum.

I would also point out that this may be a good setup for the expansion you're alluding to. For example, you could set up different accounts for either different works or different artists. Log all the terminals in one room to the account under that artist, and you could have the media for all the different pieces queued up on the menu.

Hmmm..if you ever had a Salvador Dali exhibit, you could have some Dark Side of the Moon playing on the sound system...

Ouch! The dreaded "Offtopic" moderation...perhaps I should elaborate:

Others have already pointed out the "blackhats just got a new weapon" scenario, so I thought another possible (mis)use would be to patch software to which we do not have the source code.

• Commonly used software w/o source code? Windows and DRM systems. Check.
• Commonly used systems that inhibit user's systems? WGA and DRM. Check.
• Software that rewrites/patches binaries without source? Clearwater. Check.
• Obvious non-software response by corporations whose systems are getting hacked? DMCA letters...either to the Clearwater developers or anyone who distributes such a patch.

Just my inflation-adjusted 2 cents...

So how long before someone uses this to "patch" DRM and/or Windows Genuine Advantage? They interfere with my computer's functions, cause software/systems to fail out of nowhere, and are an unwanted inclusion in many programs. Yep--sounds like bugs to me!

Which means it won't be long before patches are available. Cue the angry horde of DMCA attorneys....

And they didn't even bring in "statistics"....guess that would have been too much of a giveaway...

I agree that an ideal backup solution would be something along the lines of Cheyenne Mountain's basement--with armies of mole-men transcribing the data onto titanium slabs. (Mole men are secure, because all you need to keep them in check is a couple of big sun lamps!)

But, I would say that the old Meatloaf song would make a good compromise to your 3 criteria: "Two out of Three Ain't Bad." In my particular case, I had a medical customer who needed reasonably up-to-date backups of everything...worst case scenario being the building burned down. So, with that in mind, I ended up using rdiff-backup over ssh to our own servers. Reasoning as follows:

• Periodic checks were done by me and my staff at varying hours...check.
• Off-site backup...check. Customer could reasonably get up and running with a big check, a trip to Walmart, and about 12-24 hours of coffee for me and my folks.
• Users were complete "Users", as in, did not know, care, or desire to learn how things worked--they just "should."

Because of that last item, relying on them to perform an off-line backup, take the data to an off-site facility, and remember to bring them back in in the morning for another cycle was out of the question. Also, I was being paid well, but not well enough to make the trip every single day to personally conduct the work myself...or pay a minion to do it.

(Funny how a doctor will by a brand new Escalade for show, then scrimp on paying for extra work and extra security...probably not the only industry that way...)

Overall, it worked great. Problems were identified quickly, never lost any data over 3-1/2 years of servicing the contract, and went through 3 various upgrades and major replacements without any data lost.

This isn't to promote online-offsite backups, just to say that there are times where we all compromise....and as for my backups, they were periodic, off-site, and offline...and included the customer's data...just less frequent snapshots.

Exactly what I did with an EMR that I built for a client: I used OpenOffice and another OSS API to produce custom documents on the fly: Medical records, records requests, discharge letters, etc.

Even better, they could be updated just like any other OO document. "Hey, we need the discharge letter to include this information." "No problem". Open-->Type changes-->Save. Done.

The actual cost was about 10 hours of my time finding the other OSS system and integrating it with our health records system. Even at $100/hour (way above what I charge), it would've been worth 2 full copies of MS Office...and it does exactly what I want it to do.

...sorry, I mentioned "pager" as a real world alarm, then panned the idea--I meant "pager" as in "Mr. Jones, please check the server logs..."