Concerns about the new technology were raised immediately, including from within the government. A 1984 report for the Greater London Council Police Committee warned that the system made every car a potential suspect and handed policy on mass surveillance to the police. “This possibility in a democracy is unacceptable,” it concluded.

... and this is exactly where the headline implies it wrong. If you actually read beyond the headline (merely the slashdot summary is already enough), you'd notice that this is indeed about non-roundness that does affect charge distribution. Non-uniform charge distribution would result in a dipole moment, whose absent has been noticed.

These cameras are well hidden. When the news of the arrest were announced, it was quite a surprise (... and some outrage...) that these existed at all. Probably the kids didn't bother with dressing up because they never suspected they could get caught that way. And if they had known, a well-placed blob of chewing gum would have achieved the same goal much more easily...

You seem to do this quite often. If somebody is defending a given behaviour (or outraged at disproportionate punishment of such behaviour), you immediately leap to the conclusion that this person would indulge in such behaviour himself (or worse...). So now, who's the asshole here?

Ok, so I was flippant when I said that "everybody" (and by implication, me) does it. Let me assure you that I never did such a thing, nor anybody that I know personally. However, it does happen often enough to be well known that some students do this (and in my town we did indeed have a case where a group of students did it, and they were caught by a phone camera hidden in the payphone booth).

That you are a humourless prick (that can't spot a flippant remark) doesn't mean that everybody else is, either. And now shut up.

In Luxembourg, a couple of students at the European School did exactly that a few years ago. They were caught pretty quickly, because, you know, payphones have cameras... ("officially" to catch vandalism, but these cams sure did come in handy in this case as well). So, cops just walked with the pix from classroom to classroom until they found the perps.

He didn't want to take an exam that day (probably because he had started studying way too late). He wouldn't probably object taking it 1 week later (or whatever date it would have been postponed too).

Even that is no guarantee. Maybe the cops will "allow" him to take the exam from prison?

Hey, that's what students do. Don't tell us that you never called in a bomb threat to avoid school or exams?

The difference was, in the old days, school personnel knew that this is a standard student prank, and acted accordingly (namely, not at all). Only today, in this post-911 world have people become so paranoid that they take obvious prank calls at face value...

Unfortunately, tor is so damn slow that it is virtually unusable for anything that doesn't absolutely have to be hidden.

Result: only people who have a very good reason to do so will use tor...

Or has it become faster in the recent years?

... and don't forget "searching very very hard" is an euphemism for "fabricating"...

But then, won't the anti-trust commission object, because then Microsoft will effectively have a monopoly on viruses!

Equipped specifically to cater to thieves? I'd think such an outfit would not stay long in business. All police have to ask is "what is this piece of equipment for"? All this business lives by plausible deniability. The recycler doesn't want to know where those copper scraps are coming from, much less specifically buy equipment to handle them...

Except that even compared to just their own damage/"investment" they don't come out ahead. Read grand-parent post:

So you really have to wonder, what exactly is driving those idiots...

Which you do anyways...