Similarly, it may not be obvious, but they're an insulating layer. (Yes, a layer of ice or snow in your roof acts as added insulation, keeping heat in until it melts away or slides off)

Or, someone else changes the key, MITM's the site, injects a brief explanation of why the key was changed into a banner on the page (oh, but you have to accept the new key in order to see that, assuming the site uses SSL everywhere as it should) or spoofs an email with the explanation, or spoofs a social media campaign with the explanation, whatever.

Maybe they target an individual user, that user gets the spoofed email and sees the spoofed tweets, and accepts the new key. Company would never be the wiser, since no fake notices would go out publicly, and the user, well...

This would work for you, this would work for me, hell it'd work for a handful of people here, because we know to spend longer than the time it takes to click "OK" to investigate these things. The real problem with your solution is that 99.999% of users either don't know to do that, or simply don't think it's a big enough deal to warrant actually doing it. You think it'd be a better situation based on your experience with a few competent and security-minded people, but the reality is we're the minority and the situation would end up much worse as a result.

divide that 100Mhz channel into 1000 1ms time slots (or 10000 100 microsecond time slots and allow 1000 users 10 apiece, or keep dividing into smaller slices as the technology allows, to reduce latency) and provide 1gbps to 1000 users. Or 10000 1ms slots, to provide 100mbps to 10000 users.

At the 1gbps per user level, that's a little less capacity (without overselling) than current towers, considerable more if oversold at current rates. At the 100mbps level, that's insanely better coverage in high-population-density areas, as each channel can handle 10000 simultaneous users without overselling, closer to 20k if oversold. At which point, interference becomes an issue and you have 20k users on the channel, each getting 10-20mbps; which is a huge improvement over the current situation during a conference, where the most anyone is lucky to get is a few kbps, due to radio interference, while the hard line running to the tower sits there mostly unused. It's not even a matter of the tower not having a large enough pipe to the network, the radios can't keep up with demand, so the pipe largely goes unused in these instances.

And what happens when they do? Why actively encourage them to make themselves harder to catch?

Unless the other endpoint was compromised at some point and legitimately changed their key as a mitigation measure. Solve that problem and we'll be in agreement.

I'm not sure your credentials qualify you to make internet diagnoses of fictional diseases. I do enjoy a good troll, though, so keep at it; if it bothered me, I wouldn't reply. ;)

It's better for me than the hallucinogenic prescriptions I've been given for my migraines in the past. Every single migraine treatment is a hallucinogen, with the exception of marijuana and Excedrin Migraine (and I'm allergic to the combination of acetaminophen and aspirin; ironically, it gives me migraines). Can't be productive with a migraine, can't be productive tripping on migraine meds, but I can take a couple of draws from my vaporizer and be back to work within 15 minutes.

That's not to say I don't toke up recreationally on occasion, of course I do. Maybe once or twice a month I'll vape an entire bowl in one sitting; enough to pick up and maintain a buzz, but I hate being stoned. The once or twice a week I take one or two draws from the vape to quelch a migraine certainly trumps the recreational use, though, and I go through about an ounce over the course of a year. By volume, I use a lot less than any of the hallucinogens I've been prescribed since I was 5 years old, over the same span of time, and was financially ahead in the first year, even considering the $300 I dropped on a high-end portable vaporizer and a spare battery.

That's why I toke up. I suppose I'm lying to myself, though, and I was making up the migraines for 25 years just so I could start smoking weed 2 years ago, right?

... theonion ...

Really? You want to get in a pissing contest over UIDs? If I hadn't lurked for 9 years before signing up, I'd have a sub-1000 UID, but you and I know that size doesn't matter nearly as much as how you use it; and I'm somewhat unsatisfied with your performance. (Also, is it just me, or has this branch of our discussion devolved into us attempting to out-troll each other? If so, don't get me wrong, I'm down for that; just remember who took the first swing before you get all butthurt.)

Perhaps I disagree because my wife has worked in a call center and I have her experience to back up my position? Or, perhaps, because I'm not a complete dick to phone reps, so they actually take the time to help me, rather than saying whatever to get me off the phone. I'm sure both of those color my experience, which in turn, paints my opinion. When I have phone reps double and triple check that they provided satisfactory service and ask me, repeatedly (in an attempt to delay having to deal with someone like you on their next call), if there is anything else they can help me with, that gives a distinct impression that they're not just saying whatever to get me off the phone. I also tend not to get conflicting stories from subsequent reps, don't have to argue to get billing errors corrected, and don't tend to get jerked around as often as some people I know; likely all benefits of not treating the reps like shit.

As for your insistence that the reps were lying to this blogger, what do you have to say about this quote?

My take in it is that you're admitting that the information the rep has may be incorrect. That doesn't make the rep a liar when he recites that information, it makes the information incorrect. Or, maybe, the information available to the customer via the customer portal is incorrect; the poster you were replying to wanted to see the iPhone's data usage report, likely, to verify that. It's not entirely unreasonable, when you suspect an inaccuracy in one data source, to refer to one or more other sources to confirm.

I did no such thing. You're stating your opinion, that all call center reps lie, as fact, by trying to tell me that it's an industry-wide standard, that they're trained to lie, as though that's a fact. You can't have it both ways; it can't be both your opinion and a fact. You can either provide reference material for your claim, which would make it a fact, or let it rest as an opinion and quit trying to frame it as anything else. As it is, until right here, where you refer to it as opinion, you've been framing it as fact and have, thus far, been able to back it up; and I do refuse to consider "facts" without proof, especially when I have plenty of experience telling me there's no factual content contained within.

You're as entitled to your opinion as I am, I simply prefer to have my own.

Seriously? That's the best you've got? Your UID (the actual name for what re referred to as "the number") might be lower, but you're definitely on my lawn.

My bad, forgot to address this bit:

Actually, I did address it, I just didn't mention it at the time. I'll just copy and paste the approriate portion of my other reply:

Now, I color myself quite the cynic, and my friends tend to agree, but your level of cynicism makes even me blush. I'm not even going to touch the comparison to Comcast because, you're right, T-Mobile's not Comcast. You'd think after 30+ years you'd have learned how to form a reasonable argument.

ME TOO!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAY! I guess, then, the question is who should get off whose lawn, right? If that's the best qualification you've got, I think we're done here, but I'm bored at the moment, so I'll continue anyway.

...you see one user's claims and the user portal. What you don't see is what the user actually said to T-Mobile, or the customer service portal, both of which likely differ from what we (barely, thanks to the color scheme) see on that page.

...me that you're making assumptions. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt not because I'm a fan[1], but because my past experience with them indicates that the rep is, in fact, most likely seeing what he says he's seeing in the support portal; that information likely does disagree with the customer portal. One portal is probably displaying incorrect information. Maybe both are. And it'll get fixed just like each of the examples in my previous post. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly eat those words, but something tells me we'll never know how this story ends; I full do not expect this random blogger to update the story if T-Mobile fixes the issue, but I won't be surprised if they complain again next month if it's not fixed yet.

When did you graduate, friend?

[1]: I'm not, I could leave at any moment as I have no obligation to them, no ETF, phones paid for, etc... I don't because there's not a better option for me at the moment. I left AT&T at the drop of a hat, after 13 years of excellent service (a hint as to my age, I left AT&T 2 years ago, almost to the day; please check your assumptions at the door), when a better option came along and I'll do the same with T-Mobile if it happens again.

*woosh*

You just want more RAM?