Because there would be no trust to that key. Sure, it means your message would be encrypted, but so would all the spam you receive, 'cause there would be next-to-no incentive. And where would you distribute that key from? Who is in charge of that key server? What happens with forwarding? How about mailing lists?

Because of laws making it a federal offense to tamper with postal mail, it's considered more secure than electronic communication. It's also required in some cases, as electronic communication is not considered a legally binding document, contract or receipt.

Yes. Store a salted password hash, not the password itself. When someone requests a password recovery, ask them some pre-defined security questions, and mail them a one-time-only password reset link. Which is generally speaking the "Usual" mechanism. Anyone that isn't doing this should not be trusted with your details.

Microsoft Outlook and Exchange have supported S/MIME (Publicly-usable technology) out-of-the-box since at least Outlook 2000. So please stop trying to Microsoft-bash here.

Oh, and I have heard of "Carnivore". I've also heard of ECHELON and the Illuminati. If the government wants my address, there are a LOT easier ways of getting hold of it. The IRS, for example (as you seem to be using the US government), or the census bureau. Please adjust your tin-foil hat, or better yet, remove it completely, as it only helps the mind-control rays work.

Why would anyone use RFC1149, when it's been essentially superseded by RFC2549? I mean, really!

Generally speaking, retail sites (Ones who have the really important information, like credit card numbers and the like) also only store hashed passwords. So asking for a password will get you a temporary link e-mailed (usually requiring further security questions) to set a new password. Other personal information, your name and e-mail address, are not considered worth securing, as you automatically send them out with every message you send, and all your mail is invariably addressed to you with your full name by your other contacts.

Postal addresses are generally something of a grey area. On the whole, they're not particularly secured (Anyone who was determined to find out could find your address from the phone book, electoral roll, or other public list). Credit card numbers are typically secured by removing/obscuring all but the last 4 digits, and items ordered are again typically treated as "Better to include with a receipt, as a double-check, than to exclude".

There is, as always, a fine balance in the "Privacy is required" to "more information is better" debate, but leaving that aside, while SMTP is a plain-text transfer medium, it generally requires quite a lot of work to actually get someone's details. For instance, you have to:

• Poison a DNS record for a particular host (To point mail traffic at your server), or somehow spoof an IP address/routing record on the open internet

  Note, this will have to be done for the SMTP server(s) of the particular provider's message you want to intercept

• Intercept the particular mail message you want (There's going to be a lot of mail coming through, most of it inconsequential)
• Forward all the mail you've received on to the correct host (Which will be tough if you've grabbed their IP address(es)).

  If you don't do this, the provider will quickly notice they're not getting mail anymore and try to find out why, which'll get you discovered quickly

• Find some way to actually use the mostly useless information you have gleaned.

  So Mr. John Smith lives at 1234 Anyroad, Someville, KY, and bought a can of compressed air and a USB mouse... So what? Start flooding him with ads for compressed air products? Offer him hot USB on PS2 action from waiting serial mice in his area? That'll get you some sales... NOT. Oh, and you can buy that kind of information already, from his credit card company or bank (who make a very nice profit selling those details anyway) for considerably more cheaply and easily than poisoning the entire internet.

This isn't easy, or practical. Sure, if you want to, you can do it, but what is the point? If you're stalking them, there's much easier methods (going through their trash, trawling public records, google searching their name). If you're selling to them, there's easier ways (Buying details lists from credit bureaus, mass mailing).

The problem of secure e-mail has been around for a long time, and many solutions have been proposed for the problem (S/MIME, PGP, Domainkeys), but it's largely a chicken-and-egg problem - Secure mail systems are not universally supported, so it's not used/Secure mail systems aren't used, so they're not supported. Solving this problem is left as an exercise for the reader. Obviously.

Burn him!

If you go back far enough, you'll find that you are related to Charlemagne, or Ghandi. The higher you go up your family tree, the more parents, and parents' parents appear, in an (almost) exponential spread. Well, unless you're part of the royal family, or in the deep south of the US, where family trees tend to be a lot... slimmer...

And you probably won't see it rebroadcast. Fortunately there are some archivally-minded individuals that have made all 4 series available at a certain Privateer's Cove.

Well, The Model S has a 300-or-so mile range, which gets filled completely by one of their "Supercharger" stations in an hour. So let's do the math.

300mi / 55MPH = 5.45 hours.

So, if you leave at 8am, that has you travelling on the road until 1:30pm or so. Time for lunch, and an hour charge!

After lunch, you do another complete drain, taking you another 300mi. Now the time's 8pm, and time for supper. Oh, and another hour charge! Or you could call it a day there, and let the vehicle charge overnight, while you do the same. You've just driven 600 miles, after all! That's enough to get you from New York to Cincinatti, OH.

Even with only a 200mi range, you'd be on the road 3 and a half hours or so. So you leave a touch later, and have an early lunch.

Apparently, the logs also showed he took a lengthy detour through Manhattan, rather than a direct route.

Let's take these in order.

Given that the average person is 2 meters tall (give or take), and adding the bulk of hard-vacuum capable work gear, making maintenance access shafts smaller than 2 meters would cause a lot more problems. I'd recommend, instead, putting a locking/securable cover or grate over entrances and exits of access shafts.

I presume you're talking about the "Thermal exhaust port" here. Twists and turns in shafts like that can cause backpressure, causing problems and leading to overheating and thermal runaway (read: big explosion).

I'd say multi-person and multi-point authorization.

Actually, there were multiple cameras on the detention level - they were the second thing shot (after the stormtroopers) when Han and co. arrived there. Hence, also, the "Weapons malfunction" call.

Unfortunately, they were stormtrooper clones with only a genetic imprint for education and no actual field experience.

The speed of the garbage compactor wasn't the issue, it was the ease with which the system could be disabled from a single point. The main access door was locked while the compactor was cycling, but the locks were lifted (and the door opened) when the compactor was overridden. This is an entirely sensible system to have in place - if something goes wrong with the compactor, you will need to get access to it, and having the only access door permanently sealed mid-cycle (which is where 99% of problems will occur) makes a maintenance access door like the one in the movie pointless.

Given the rebels' ability to easily hack into and alter computer systems at will (with the cost of a only simple, easily replaceable astromech in the case of doing massive damage and causing an overload), would it really be a good idea to have computer-controlled autocannons around the power core? Then all the rebels would need to do is send in an rogue astromech, which would interface with the ship's computer and direct the "defense turrets" to open fire on the core. Oh, and given the history of accuracy of those turrets, would you really want them in a place where a miss would do the rebel's job for you?

Yay! Lots of targets to hit! In lots of places, which makes it exceedingly difficult to guard and protect them all, and even with the system decentralized, you would still have the issue of a massive power surge from one generator (from, say, it's destruction) feeding back into another generator and causing a chain-reaction. And if you don't have the generators linked you still have the issue of maintenance and lack of redundancy. Oh, and that huge weapon that destroys planets requires a HUGE amount of power - chances are it's difficult (if not impossible) to co-ordinate that much power production with a group of parallel power plants, hence the huge single core.

If you did, as you say, read the article, then you would have seen that this issue happened in both Windows 8 AND Windows 7. In fact, Windows 8 performance was typically better, with less micro-stuttering, than the Windows 7 performance plots. So, to put it mildly, you're speaking out of your ass.

Oh, we have learned this. Which is why decent review sites don't just publish a "single number" representation of speed. They post a complete FPS graph for similar runs through each game, so you can compare side-by-side

If you submit a design to print a 3D gun, or replacement parts, you'll get them. Of course, the tolerances won't be as close as a specifically machined part, nor would it really be strong enough to use to fire bullets (As it would be made of plastic. Sintered Stainless Steel would be strong enough, but again would have to be machined for an accurate fit).

Or if you wanted to do the same thing easily at home you could make a simple "Zip Gun" with a little plumbing pipe. Or a flamethrower with PVC pipe, a flashback arrestor (for safety) and a ball valve. Or a nuclear bomb with 2KG of plutonium (make sure you have it in 1KG lumps in separate pockets, mind!), a piece of drainpipe and a cherry bomb. Or you could just use a god-damned hammer to beat someone to death.

Yes, 3D printers open up all kinds of applications. Just like CNC routers. Or mills. Or a screwdriver and hammer. Tools can be used for anything, good or bad.