While a distributed DNS setup would be a point of failure, would it be one that is legally vulnerable? A distributed DNS setup would just be pointing to websites pointing to torrents pointing to servers offering maybe copyright-infringing.

How deep does that rabbit hole have to go before it can't be cited for violating copyright? If there are multiple DNS servers and a website has a bunch of links to them, is that site culpable? What if there are multiple such DNS aggregators, and Google points to those pages? Where is the line drawn?

Because the further down you drill, the more likely it becomes that merely talking about the issue can be ruled illegal, and that should never be permitted.

More to the point, you can't just hack /any/ data. Stealing customer's personal information, credit card numbers, or similar doesn't phase the corporations either; sure it causes them a bit of bad PR, but ultimately the cost of the hack is paid by their customers, not by the corporation itself. In fact, seeing as how common the "we stole your entire customer database" sort of hacks are becoming, even the negative PR is becoming minimized; after all, as /everybody/ is seemingly getting hacked in that way, so why get upset with any one particular company?

No, if the hacker groups really want to make companies improve their security, then they need to grab proprietary information, like the GOP did to Sony. Emails and accounting information are particularly damning, since they often reveal poor practices and corporate malfeasance that might get the companies into legal hot-water. If you start showing corporation how easy those doors are to open, you can be sure they'll hire a proper locksmith PDQ.

So these Christmas DDOS's aren't going to provoke the affected companies into doing a damn thing (except maybe sic the legal system on the ones behind it). All it did was piss off a bunch of kids on Christmas morning. Way to go, grinches!

Maybe if our police forces hasn't been so overbearing in their surveillance methods they wouldn't have had this problem.

It isn't so much that people are upset that police have the ability to listen in to phone calls or track us. Rather, they are upset that increasingly these powers are being used on everyone all the time, usually without needing a warrant or having any oversight. These powers have been, are and will continued to be abused by the authorities. The citizens - including whistle-blowers like Snowden - are making a fuss because they don't want everyone to be treated like a crook. Had the police and security apparat contented themselves with appropriate measures, there would have been much less impetus for Snowden and Assange to make the great revelations they did.

But no, we have cameras on every corner, our communications are bugged, our every movement and behavior tracked and analyzed. Don't try to shift the blame onto the people who helped make us aware of your overreach. Stop labeling everyone a criminal, stop depending on gadgets to do your work for you, and stop misusing the tools and powers we-the-people already gave you (and then demanding even more). Only then can you talk about how the bad whistle-blowers are making your job more difficult.

Considering your comments, would you too side with the cops who run people over in their cars while texting on their personal cell phones and then blame the victim for throwing themselves in front of their cars, all the while perjuring themselves as has also happened recently?

It's getting a bit off topic but examples of the above have actually happened.

Well, okay, not the blaming the victim bit, but "immediately before the incident, the Albemarle officer, Gregory C. Davis, was involved in "excessive texting." Furthermore, according to the document, Officer Davis may, under oath, have intentionally downplayed his texting."

Then there is this story. The officer in question was criminally charged this time, but still got away with a mere 30 months probation (and two years suspended from the job, with pay). The two girls he slammed into, on the other hand, got to remain dead. Anyone else who had committed the same crime would have lost their job (with no pay) and ended up in jail for a long time.

And this

Compared to the above, the fact that police illegally delete video from a phone without any repercussions is in no way surprising.

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Especially since day-one reviews are notoriously untrustworthy. The reviewers either play the game in haste to make the release date (sometimes not even finishing the game) or in some cases the games are played under ideal conditions (sometimes actually in the developer's studios) not is not representative of the customer's experience. In either case, the accuracy - if not honesty - of the review is in doubt.

I'm far more trusting of a review that comes out a week or two after the game's release than any review released simultaneously with the game; at least it gives the reviewer time to properly play the game. Day-one reviews have no real advantage to the consumer; they are all about increasing sales for the game's developer (by increasing market awareness of their product) and the website/magazine's publisher (by attaching themselves to a popular product). Any consumer who is that eager for a day-one review of a game is probably going to buy the game regardless of what the review says anyway.

So in addition to waiting a week or so before buying the game, wait a week before seeing what other people think as well. You'll get more honest opinions less manipulated by pre-release hype, and will be better able to judge whether or not to spend your money on the product.

XKCD did it first
(Seriously, is there a geek-topic that guy hasn't written a cartoon about?)

I like Palemoon too, but new users should be aware that the switch will probably cause problems because - despite some claims to the contrary - it isn't 100% compatible with Firefox add-ons. Admittedly, this is more often the fault of the add-on developers, but since the add-ons are usually the primary thing keeping people on Firefox, some extra consideration should be given before switching to its competitor. Especially since it has problems with so many big-name add-ons

Some examples: AdBlock Plus & AdBlock Edged (no menu or toolbar icon, so can't easily change options or disable), HTTPS Everywhere (does not function), Self-Destructing Cookies (does not function), Greasemonkey & Scriptish (do not function), Google Privacy (does not function), DOM Inspector (does not work), Privacy Badger (nope, not this one either), TabMixPlus (partly functional), AutoPager (nope) and dozens more.

(see Known Incompatible Add-Ons for the complete list).

I use Palemoon myself, but this lack of complete compatibility is actually making me reconsider going back to Firefox (at least with Firefox I can correct more egregious mistakes made by Mozilla through more add-ons). I hope that Palemoon figures out a way to improve compatibility but unfortunately the above list just seems to be getting longer and never shorter. New users should definitely look over the incompatibility list before they make the switch.

An access port? Perhaps an exhaust vent might be more believable. Stick it at the end of some sort of culvert or ravine, possibly with a few watch towers along side to make it appear a more likely target. You could even "lose" some blueprints showing this vulnerability that these rebellious terrorists could smuggle out to their hidden base. The only way to destroy the reactor would be to fly the drones down the gully and loose their payloads against the vent, setting up a chain-reaction that (they believe) would cause a cataclysmic explosion. But of course, it will all be a trap, the attempt would fail and the government would be able to successfully capture all the plotters without any real harm being done. It's a foolproof plan.

Unless, of course, the son of the guy who manages the reactor is involved in the attack. Then things might turn out differently. Gotta watch out for those familial relations.

Because most house cats are actually unable to live that well in the wild. Though they have the hunting instincts natural to their species, it actually requires some experience (usually learned during kittenhood and young adulthood) to put those instincts to best use; most cats cannot hunt well enough to sustain them long enough to gain the necessary skills.

Obviously cats which have lived outdoors - farmcats or free-roaming pets - have a better chance at survival than indoor-only house-cats, but even free-roaming pets fare poorly compared to feral animals that have lived their lives entirely on their own wits.

Cats also aren't safe from predation; owls and hawks won't pass them by when they are young and even after they achieve full size, coyotes and foxes are known to go after them. Housecats also have a poorer chance at finding good shelter in bad weather, and usually have to fight feral cats for territory, which further hampers their chances.

Putting a pampered house cat into the wild and expecting it to survive because "it's a cat" is thoughtless; it will likely live a very short life before dying miserably in a ditch somewhere.

Whether that option is better than euthanizing the animal is debatable and probably dependent on the beliefs of the owner. The proper option is to spend the time and money to get the animal properly placed, but dumping the feline is cruel and shouldn't even be a consideration.

Sad caveat: the ferals and strays in my town are very well cared for by well-meaning locals; many are fed daily, and have had their shots and been neutered. Unfortunately, this care just encourages more people to dump the animals in our neighborhood.

Here are the dead and dying languages

1) Perl - because it's a "piecemeal" language with features pile atop one another
2) Ruby - because its difficult to learn if you know C
3) Visual Basic.Net - because C#
4) Adobe Flash & AIR - because iPhone
5) Delphi Object Pascal - because it isn't well-supported

Now you don't need to read the article

If the goal were to simulate and test the feasibility of a long-term Martian outpost, that shouldn't be too hard to replicate. Mars has the necessary elements, just not as easily accessible as on Earth.

Create an isolated, pressurized base where the only source of oxygen comes from internal systems, not outside. Place a "factory" by the outpost that pulls in water from the environment at the same rate as it would on Mars (obviously it would discard most of it); crack some of the water to get the necessary oxygen. You are now limited to surviving from canned air, just like Martian explorers.

The bonus is that if there is a catastrophic failure of the systems during the test, everyone doesn't immediately die; they can just open the windows.

Harder to test would be the problems caused by low gravity, lower atmospheric pressure and increased radiation. Well, for the latter I guess we could just open the ozone hole for them again ;-)

The humans are dumb nonsense comes from the fact that animals are smart enough to achieve equilibrium with their environment while humans pave a path of destruction anymore they go.

Says anyone who doesn't have beavers on their property.

Animals do not have any innate instinct towards living in equilibrium with their environment. If they did, imported species wouldn't overrun their new homes (ask Australians how well cane toads and rabbits are finding a "natural balance"). All animals will do what is necessary to breed to the maximum their environment will allow, even if it is catastrophic to that environment. Humanity is unusual only in the sense of our extreme adaptability to differing climatic regions and the fact that - with the use of tools - were have no natural predators to keep our numbers in check.

If anything, humanity is the most environmentally-friendly of creatures, because we alone consider (albeit not often enough) the consequences of our actions upon the rest of the world and sometimes work against our own immediate interests for the betterment of the world at large.

Which is not to excuse our rapine habits, of course; we as a species are a danger to the current natural balance. But let's not kid ourselves; no other animal would be any better.

I came to say exactly this.

A core precept of US law is that "all people" have certain unalienable rights, be they citizen or not, at home or abroad. The government does not bestow these rights upon us; the US Constitution merely lists the situation in which those rights may be abrogated for the good of a better society. This fundamental belief is also part of the reasoning for US interventionism abroad. While we cannot in all situations ensure those rights to all people, the reasoning (if not actual cause) is that the US should do what it can to prevent those unalienable rights from trampling regardless of whether or not they are US citizens.

However, this reasoning has an important caveat that is increasingly being ignored (though it's not new): the US must act as if those non-citizens have the same rights and protections as US citizens. While it may be impossible to ensure that every foreign national has free-speech, speedy trial or any of the other rights Americans take for granted, still the US government should not and cannot act against those rights. So the idea that foreigners should not be protected by the need for a warrant is blatantly opposed to the core concepts behind the founding of this country.

One of the reasons for this shift in policy is not some malign conspiracy of foreigner-hating tyrants but a critical misunderstanding of the relationship between people and the government by its own citizens (including those who work for the government). Too often that relationship is seen as patriarchal: the government dispenses the rights, and therefore it has the right to suspend them, either in whole or in part, affecting some or all of those under its influence, as per its own whim. This is incorrect; not only is it that "We-the-People" voluntarily allow ourselves to be restricted, but as a "people" those restrictions must apply fairly to everyone, not just citizens. Doing otherwise merely creates divisions that can be too easily exploited against ourselves later on.

It's worth reminding people of the difference.

The end goal is simple; they want to make things easier and safer for themselves.

Government is made up of people, and those people have the same wants and desires as ourselves. In particular, they want their jobs to be less difficult and they want security of employment. These laws help enable these desires. Catching criminals is tough work, but it is easier if you have the ability to watch everyone all the time. Certainly it would be better for them to have these powers written into law so they are all above-board; that way there is no risk to their jobs when they are caught spying.

But like any other person, they are too focused on the immediate goal, unaware of how the accumulating powers of government might be misused in the future (or downplaying the risk because the immediate advantages are so obvious). It is only when the power is misused that they may regret the decision. Unfortunately, history has shown that accumulated power will inevitably be used, which is why these mistakes are all the more tragic.

It's not a conspiracy of the powerful working against us; it's an accumulation of human short-sightedness that puts the wrong tools into the hands of the corrupt.