They should have called it Complete Internet Access. They should also clarify that there will be No Surveillance Allowed.

As for the name,

I can understand the "At some point, I'm going to stop trying to stay alive for the sake of staying alive" attitude.

I can't understand projecting a fixed age. He doesn't know what his health will be like at 75. If his health starts to rapidly decline at 70 or 65, he may want to change his health-care attitude earlier. If he's still in great shape at 75 he may try to stay alive as long as he's healthy or only suffering acute ailments.

As for me, I'm going to treat my body like an old car: Barring a sudden fatal or mentally-incapacitating calamity, I'll try to keep it running well enough to be "fully functional" until it gets to the point that "it's just not worth it" then I'll cut back on how much effort I spend staying alive. Whether that's 65, 75, 85, or some other age, $DIETY only knows.

The technology listed is not raid-proof, only raid-resistant.

It is still vulnerable to legal attack IF the governments in the countries where the servers are located are willing to use subpeonas or other means to "quietly" (i.e. without TPB finding out) determine what the next "downstream" server is until they have a full list, then do a coordinated takedown.

All it takes to stop this is to make sure that at least some key servers are in countries in which such court orders could not be legally issued.

The summary didn't say it, but I would think that after all that they have been through, TPB also has recent-enough "disconnected" backups of all of their key servers that they could bring it all back up within a matter of days if their servers were all seized at the same time. I would also think that they have a "shadow staff" who can take over in the event that the people currently running the show are arrested or ordered by a court to not participate in the project.

Nobody* requires you to back your phone up to the iCloud.

*Nobody that I can confirm that is. I can neither confirm nor deny that the FBI/NSA can require Apple or your phone/internet provider to install hidden code on your phone that backs everything up to iCloud.

... but I wouldn't be surprised if you start seeing requests for courts to order phone/internet providers and/or Apple to install trojans and/or man-in-the-middle-enabling SSL certificates on suspects' phones.

Then again, I wouldn't be surprised to find out 5 years from now in a leak or declassified-in-2019 document that this is already routine practice in 2014.

Is it time for banks to start issuing "limited use" credit cards?

Personally, I would love to have:
* A general use credit card # good for transactions up to $SMALL_AMOUNT_I_SET per transaction and $SMALL_AMOUNT_PER_DAY limit unless I specify otherwise in advance. This would be of limited value to a data thief.
* A travel credit card # that is good only at $CERTAIN_TYPES_OF_BUSINESSES like airlines, hotels, gas stations, etc. and only for dollar amounts typical for the particular merchant unless I specify otherwise in advance. This would also be of limited value to a data thief.
* An internet credit card # that is only good for goods delivered to pre-designated addresses and with a pre-set daily and weekly limit unless I specify otherwise in advance. Likewise, this would be of limited value to a data thief.
* For merchants that have recurring charges, like my phone bill, a unique credit card # just for them, one that would be worthless to a data thief.
* A relatively easy but secure (yeah yeah, it's a trade-off) way to pre-authorize short-term exceptions like buying a refrigerator or a large Christmas-shopping trip. Preferably this authorization would require two independent communications channels, such as me calling the bank and talking to a live human and/or entering a code number printed on my monthly statement prior to going online and making the authorization.
* Alerts for any activity that is over any limit I set or otherwise meets any fraud-related parameter that I pre-set (some banks allow this today).

Dear bank:

Please send me a bootable CD or other read-only media (i.e not a USB memory stick) that I can boot my computer with when I want to bank and a "password of the month" needed to log in in addition to my account name and password. To authenticate the CD, please create a signed hash for the CD and publish it in every major print newspaper in markets that you operate and publish the algorithm used to create the hash and the public key needed to verify the hash.

If I need to access my account remotely from a device that is not booted with that CD or from a machine that is not in a secure location such as one of your branches or a cooperating bank's branch or an ATM operated by an ATM operator that you trust, I will either visit a branch or log in to a secure terminal and retrieve a set of temporary one-time-use passwords that are valid only for a short period of time, only for transactions which I pre-designate, only for devices of specific types that I pre-designate (or "any" if I don't know ahead of time), and only for devices believed to be in certain geographic areas (i.e. where I will be traveling over the next few weeks). Thank you.

It's getting to the point where I just want to do my banking in brick-and-mortar buildings.

I agree in general but I disagree in two key areas:

* Internet and telephone access to the poor should be subsidized for the same reason we subsidize food, housing, and medicine for the poor: Because in practical terms they are essential to function in American society. However, as a "necessity" the average person only need enough instantaneous bandwidth to talk, email, and browse the web. In most cases "slow DSL" speeds of 0.5Mbps is adequate, and in almost all cases 2-3Mbps is more than enough. If a poor person can pay $20 for subsidize 10Mbps service that would be more expensive without the subsidy, he can pay 100% of a $20 bill for unsubsidized "entry level" service from his local ISP or smartphone network provider.

* In lightly populated remote areas that are currently not serviced and where running new wires or fiber is impractical and radio or satellite is the only option that's remotely cost-effective, I'm fine using my tax dollars to provide 1Mbps service or even 0.5Mbps service if the alternative is either no service at all or spending significantly more for a legally-mandated 10Mbps service. However, this is contingent on either the recipient being a full-time resident (sorry, not for summer vacation homes) or some other public benefit, such as providing internet to a public park or roadside rest area.

You need math to aim your artillery.

For technical jobs a tech degree with a non-tech minor is generally better than a pure tech degree, but a tech degree is generally better than a non-tech degree.

For non-technical jobs a non-tech major with a technical minor usually beats a pure-non-tech degree. As to whether that's better than a tech degree with a non-technical minor, well, there's too many variables to make a general statement one way or the other.

A good hiring manager would consider "equivalent life experience" paid or not (yes, serious/huge-time-commitment hobbies count) as good enough to substitute for the lack of any particular class or program of study.

Personally, I wish I had had the time and money to take a couple of business classes, a couple more humanities classes, and maybe a fine art class but my degree program was 9 semesters of almost-all-tech with just the university-minimum-requirements for non-tech stuff as it was and I didn't want to extend graduation nor did I want to increase my tuition bill.

You are probably correct in cases where the cops aren't hiding things from the judge.

However, if one set of cops uses illegal means to find that a suspect did a crime then anonymously tips off another set of cops with enough information so that they could get a conviction if the tip had been given to them by someone outside the government then it's very unlikely that the shenanigans will ever be uncovered and it is very likely that the conviction will stand.

This "investigate once and ignore the rules, then do it again legally to cover our tracks" technique has a name but I can't remember it now.

Lower courts do it all the time.

Legally speaking, an unconditional pardon removes guilt. Moral guilt doesn't even depend on getting caught, it only depends on some absolute standard of behavior to which a person's actual behavior can be measured against.

Not always.

Take that NFL football player who was indicted last week for child abuse. He's not contesting the facts of the case. The media isn't rushing out to tar him as a child abuser, they seem to be waiting for this one to play out in front of a jury. I wonder how the press will react if a Texas jury looks at the undisputed facts and declares that his actions did violate Texas's child-abuse laws. My bet is that a few press outlets will be calling for change but most will not.

On the other hand, if the NFL doesn't hold him accountable in accordance with whatever policy was in effect at the time of the actual acts then the press will tar and feather top NFL officials - an act doesn't have to violate a criminal law to be so socially unacceptable that organizations like the NFL cannot be seen to tolerate it.

You mean that show on C-SPAN that shows Congressional committee hearings and votes in Congress?

Not to be confused with the Federal Trade Commission reality show, also on on C-SPAN.