Sign language.

From the article, "City officials said the first units in Boston will be funded by Cisco Systems, a leader in development of smart city solutions, at no cost to the city."

As for why Boston got them first, rather than other cities around the country, my guess would be because they're a local product. "The high-tech benches were invented by MIT Media Lab spinoff Changing Environments, a Verizon Innovation Program."

The IRS guidelines on how long businesses should keep tax records for at least 2 or 3 years, in some circumstances (not involving filing a fraudulent return) they recommend up to 6 or 7 years.

The Internal Revenue Service -- Do As We Say Not As We Do.

Yeah, it sucks for the actual Nigerian finance minister.

If I were Domino's, I would consider offering a reward (less than 30000 Euros but still significant) for information leading to the arrest and conviction of these hackers.

Before diplomats from one country meet with diplomats from another country on Earth, they study everything they can about the situation and their counterparts. What if aliens are monitoring our communications to learn more about us -- what we do, why we do it, what we believe, how we're likely to respond to different scenarios, etc.? No one says that even if aliens came to Earth the first thing they'd do is find some schlub and say "Take me to your leader." Nor is it unlikely that a race capable of crossing the void between stars could hide from us, say by looking like a comet or asteroid.

So John Smith files suit against MegaCorp Inc. (with a legitimate claim) but MegaCorp's army of lawyers buries Smith in motion after motion, draining his coffers dry. When he loses (because he doesn't have enough money left to continue) he's on the hook for the millions of dollars in expenses MegaCorp's army of accountants can somehow link to the case.

There needs to be some protection for this situation, but there also needs to be consequences for "spaghetti suing" -- filing lawsuits against anyone and everyone and seeing which ones get settled and which ones stick. Maybe a superlinear increase in the cost to file suits based on the number of suits you've filed? If you want to file suit in a given issue against two or three people, you're not going to pay much extra, but if you want to sue a hundred people separately you're going to pay through the nose. [And you're not allowed to "lump together" people without showing a good reason to lump them together.]

Why interdict the trucks? The requirements to be a UPS driver are likely much lower than the requirements to be an NSA agent. Have an agent get hired by UPS as a driver, then have that driver "specially handle" packages headed to certain locations. Unless the package is a rush delivery, is a recipient really going to notice that it took an extra couple hours or even an extra day to travel between Cisco's manufacturing or shipping location and their home or office?

Then just because one UPS employee knows that the NSA intercepted packages (because they did it themselves) wouldn't mean the UPS organization as a whole knows that the NSA intercepted packages. UPS could truthfully state that the organization had no knowledge of such an activity.

That wouldn't matter. If Cisco had modified the devices on premises, Congress would just give them a "get out of jail free" (or really a "STAY out of jail free") card like they did the telecoms.

If we need to execute criminals, how about using carbon monoxide? 12,800 parts per million is listed as causing unconsciousness in a couple breaths and death in a couple minutes. We know it can kill (plenty of accidents with blocked exhaust vents as well as suicides) and it's plentiful/easy to obtain.

Not only do we need to come up with new regulations, we need a way to hold the NSA to those limits, a system of checks and balances if you will.

No, I do not consider the FISA courts to be an adequate system of checks and balances on the NSA. Imagine a baseball game where one of the team's managers was allowed to pull the umpire into their dugout to dispute a call in secret, and when that happened the call invariably went their way, but the other team was not allowed to do the same or even listen in on the discussion. I think there's be quite a few managers from the other teams getting ejected from games for arguing with the umpires over the unfairness of this policy.

If the ISPs aren't going to upgrade the infrastructure even though there's been discussion about internet access being either a civil right or a human right, the government could (should?) take the infrastructure under eminent domain and upgrade it themselves, then provide access through that public infrastructure.

United States military spending is the highest in the world (higher than the countries in positions 2 through 9 COMBINED, and some of those countries are our staunch allies.) If you cut out our allies France, United Kingdom, and Germany we outspend the other 11 on the list on that Wikipedia page combined. Who are we afraid is going to invade us? Who are we planning to invade?

If we wanted to cut our spending to the point where we're outspending China and Russia combined by 50% (at which point our spending would exceed the combined military budgets of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and France) we could drop a little over 226 billion dollars. That's not a small chunk of money.

Traditional car keys are easier to copy, but it's a LOT harder for an external attacker to use those copies to take control of the vehicle during operation. If you're worried about someone using a copied key to take control while it's NOT in operation, that's what a supplemental security system like The Club is intended to handle.

As more and more cars move to using wireless transmitters, the cost of attacking the system may stay the same (or even increase!) but the benefit of doing so (the number of machines an attacker will be able to attack using that approach) increases. If the benefit to the attacker increases faster than the cost, eventually it'll be worth it for attackers to spend the effort (or buy an exploit that someone else has created) to attack the wireless system.

To be technical, the text of the 2nd Amendment is:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Many people focus on the last two phrases in that sentence. Not so much attention is focused on the first two phrases, but IMO they're just as important as the last two. Keeping and bearing Arms is a right ... but it's a right, a power that comes with a hefty dose of responsibility (to be "well regulated") as well. Most of you probably know the quote "With great power comes great responsibility." If you can't handle the great responsibility, well, responsibly then perhaps it's better you hold off wielding the great power until you can.

For instance, the person quoted in the summary as issuing a death threat directed at the employee? Yeah, IMO they're not handling the responsibility very well at all. I wouldn't have a problem with that person's gun or guns being placed out of their reach while they learn how to play well with others.

In addition to considering the risks, consider the limitations and the probabilities. If Boston Children's Hospital had an unlimited IT budget, they could buy the best hardware and security staff money could buy. Similarly, if they were a front for an organized crime operation, they'd want full control over their IT because it's likely they'd be attacked (by law enforcement.) Finally, if this was Kabul Children's Hospital in Afghanistan, they'd want to spend more on security (both physical and virtual) due to the higher likelihood of being attacked (both physically and probably virtually.)

But I suspect BCH doesn't have a security staff armed with machine guns because they estimated the probability of a group of armed individuals attacking the facility at "extremely small." Similarly, they opted for the hosting they did rather than something more secure and expensive because they estimated the probability of an electronic attack as extremely small because who would attack the network of a HOSPITAL for CHILDREN in Boston?

In my opinion, there's a right way to fight this fight -- as the family is doing, through the courts. I think Anonymous is fighting the wrong way and it's going to come around to bite Anonymous in the ass sooner or later. If anyone is caught and prosecuted for this, you bet the prosecution is going to paint them as someone who endangered the lives of sick children and that would resonate strongly in jurors' minds. The defense would have a tough time counteracting that characterization. That characterization is likely to leak into the media's depiction and characterization of Anonymous.