They pushed the service on every call I made to FIOS tech support or Verizon billing, so they certainly communicated the availability of the service. However, they never really had a shot at making this service fly due to a number of challenges.

- There just aren't a lot of devices linked yet within a home, especially since Verizon was targeting a novice and not someone who's played with X10 or can configure their own router.

- Verizon support is terrible for most products, and this would likely have been even worse.

- Who really needs to control their lighting and thermostats more than they already do. By now anyone with a computer or Verizon Internet service likely has a programmable thermostat, motion sensor outdoor lights, and timers on lamps for when they go on vacation. Is it worth paying a bloated company like Verizon $120 a year to help you manage what you're already handling fine for free?

The nail in the coffin was probably Google purchasing Nest. And no, I did not RTFA.

Other than the headline.

Thank you.

I would expect there to be restrictions on the use of the gathered data but not necessarily the collection of the data. Taking it a step at a time:

1: I expect that police would monitor public spaces, for example Times Square in NYC

2: I expect that the video is recorded, both for short term review as well as later investigation if a crime takes place

The question is how do we limit the use of the recordings? If a hit-and-run occurs two blocks from Times Square then police would likely canvas the area for witnesses. Isn't the most reliable witness the actual surveillance video from the neighborhood? I'd rather the police rely on that video than on the recollections of random tourists gawking at the skyscrapers.

My original post was stating that NSA surveillance is quite different from video recording of license plates on public highways, so the conversation has branched out.

I never said it was OK. I do not support this recording, but I did say you should not privacy when driving a government registered vehicle on government maintained roads and bridges while in possession of your government issued license. I guess you also expect to fly in a plane anonymously, and cash your paycheck anonymously as well. LOL at you posting as anonymous and calling me a coward. Have fun in your fantasy world of anonymous driving.

Stalking is targeted. This is trolling.

A GPS is attached to a specific car. Recording every vehicle passing through a toll booth is not targeting your vehicle or any other vehicle. There is a difference.

The government does lots of things that are not in the Constitution. Check the 10th amendment. Not supporting the recording of all this vehicle data, but I still stand by my assertion that it's quite different from NSA recording and logging of private calls.

HUGE difference between observing a vehicle's location and searching the vehicle. BTW, police do not need a warrant to search your car if they observe an illegal item on the dashboard or passenger seat. If the item is in plain site they can stop you and then search the rest of your vehicle without any warrant.

They aren't recording YOUR movements, they are recording the movements of a licensed piece of equipment on roadways built and maintained using public funds. BTW, I don't condone this data warehousing, I am pointing out the huge different between NSA tracking of electronic communication and government observation of physical movement through open public spaces. They are VERY different situations and the headline implies they are alike. Debating the recording of vehicle movement should be done independently of debating the NSA surveillance program as linking them muddies the discussion.

Tracking the movements of vehicles is quite a bit different than tracking cell phone conversations. There is no expectation of privacy when driving a vehicle on public roads. Operating a vehicle (at least in the US) is heavily regulated, requiring registration of the vehicle, insurance, and licensed operators. In my area, in addition to the traffic cameras there are license plate scanners on most police vehicles. They scan and record the plates of vehicles as the police drive around town, popping up an alert if they get a "hit" on a vehicle with issues (suspended registration, insurance, or involvement in a crime). You're also tracked via tolls (EZ Pass in my area) and gasoline purchases (credit card data), but the police don't have easy access to that data without a subpoena.

That depends on the manufacturer. We used to sell water heaters in our hardware store and a manufacturer rep was the one who told us the units had little or no difference other than the warranty and label.

Yes, I should have pointed out that he/she was comparing apples to oranges. A water heater is not cast iron like the furnace, and is much thinner and lighter in construction. It also isn't always maintained by the homeowner who should be draining the bottom of the heater once a year to remove rust and sediment.

Because it was made 100 years ago. Those furnaces were built like tanks. Gas and electric water heaters leak all the time, ask anyone (including me) who has come home to a flooded basement.

"Enterprise" drives may have longer warranty coverage, so you are essentially just buying an extended warranty that is built into the selling price. This is how water heaters are priced...a 5 year warranty water heater is often identical to a 10 year warranty unit, but the manufacturer has crunched the failure rate numbers and will just wind up replacing a percentage of 10 year models when they start to leak in 8 years.

No offense taken, and I certainly suspected a possible virus. However, this was on my home PC, the only PC that is on 24/7. I ran Wireshark, netstat, and assorted other utilities to check the activity, the PC is clean. I was occasionally running uTorrent, but the torrents I was seeding were low demand (live shows shared via Dime A Dozen) and that program was throttled.

Now I don't know for a fact exactly how much bandwidth I was using. I am basing the 10 terrabytes on the published news stories. Perhaps I was using nowhere near that, and Verizon has not been forthcoming about the limits (at least not to me) so maybe it really was just about Tor.