I suspect you could also use an unregulated trebuchet to launch something over a fence

LOL ... somehow the idea of a medieval siege engine bypassing some of the most sophisticated security sounds utterly hilarious.

One would hope you couldn't set such a thing up and not have anybody notice.

Otherwise, that could seriously change "modern" warfare. "Umm, general, they seem to be using things made of rope, wood, and stone ... none of our technology seems to have any effect."

Hehe ... I'm going to laugh about that the rest of the day.

No but you could be pretty sure that someone with an RC aircraft in the zone should not have one.

Better Radar?
Let me guess, you have a degree in liberal arts.

Thanks ... sometimes these numbers cease to be anything you can relate to in any meaningful sense. :-P

But "GUNS!!!!!"

The amount of PANIC in people is ridiculous. I work for a school district, and three schools went on full "LOCKDOWN!!!" because someone called a report of someone walking down the street with a "GUN!!!!". Turns out it was a man with a cane.

So, lets panic! It seems to be all the rage!

The difference is every few years in democratic nations you have the chance to over through the government legally.
It is called a free election.

It's just going to be a point of light at its most visible. At an altitude of 22,200 miles you're not going to see much of it even with a telescope.

Well, I was more thinking a point of dark -- as in, can it, from the perspective of an Earth-bound observer, block out stars behind it?

At that diameter, I assume it's got a larger apparent diameter than most stars would.

So would a half mile opaque disk actually be visible from Earth in terms of blotting out stars behind it?

Maybe not naked eye visible, but it seems like anything that big might have an observable effect.

If we did it, it's cyberterrorism. If they do it, it's law enforcement.

Assholes.

These clowns are entirely willing to undermine the security of every computer on the planet to get their grubby fingers into everything.

We need products which keep these guys out, and these guys need a serious beat down in the courts to limit what they can do. A few of them probably should be hung for treason.

Morally, every black hat should be targeting these agencies to cause as much damage to them as possible -- because the damage they're doing to our freedoms is immeasurable.

Thanks, America, for leading the charge in fucking up the planet.

What makes you think they give a damn about the Constitution?

It's now a quaint notion, and every law enforcement agency is making the case that they shouldn't have follow that ... and until a court says otherwise and starts throwing these clowns in jail, do you really think you get a say in the matter?

The law doesn't apply to law enforcement -- which means it's only a matter of time before the outright corruption and shakedowns becomes like every other banana republic where the police can do whatever they choose.

As soon as the feds started teaching law enforcement to use parallel construction, and effectively commit perjury and bypass your Constitutional rights ... everyone was pretty much fucked, because "law enforcement" is now about what they can make stick, not what they can prove through legal means.

You now have a nascent stasi, only some people still cling to the belief that's not actually happening, or that at the very least it's for your own good and therefore OK.

Papers please, comrade -- if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

Let me simplify that alphabet soup for you ... USA.

XP was still for sale 24 months ago. People should not count support from launch but from end of sales IMHO.
It is the phone vendors and carriers that are not updating devices. It like blaming Linux for not updating a router that you rent from a cable company.
Google can not update those devices

And any pretense of the 4th amendment no longer being completely shat upon is pretty much gone.

They're pretty much just doing general warrants/blanket surveillance, without probable cause, just in case they find something.

You are not a free society. You think you are.

Someone will say how China actually censors, and the usual sputterings about how you're still free -- but the reality is, every damned thing you do it monitored, tracked, collated, cross-referenced, shared, and cataloged .. and then is dutifully shared across agencies so that if one of them wants to trump up charges on you they can.

With parallel construction, and massive government sharing ... they can incriminate you any number of ways, none of which involve the truth, probably cause, or proper court oversight. If you become troublesome, they'll just sift through the vast catalog of your life and try you for something they find.

Papers, please, comrade.

Western society is pretty much fucked ... the only difference is if those in power will force us to pray, or keep us quiet with American Idol. But "security" is every bit the threat to us as religious extremists.

But make no mistake about it, our freedoms and rights ended on 9/11, and the US is steadily making themselves, and everyone else on the planet, far less free.

America has now become the enemy of freedom and liberty of everybody on the fucking planet.

All too true. I should have said "traditionally, if Americans wanted video entertainment..." I can already see this with my kids. When they want entertainment, they turn to (generally in this order):

1) Video games (this includes WiiU and games on their tablets).

2) Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, or other online sources.

3) Cable TV shows that have been DVRed.

4) Live cable TV.

Live cable TV is a last resort and is often used as background noise while they do something else. My generation (born in the late 70's/early 80's) is the tipping point. We still turn to cable TV but are finding we're just as comfortable without it and using online sources. The generation before us mostly turns to cable TV but the cable companies can't bet on that group supporting them indefinitely. Unfortunately, a combination of short-term thinking (plan for next quarter, not ten years from now) and attempting to keep their status quo power will ensure that the cable companies will do everything they can to slow down Internet Videos takeover.