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My white board at work has a permanent sketch of a generic internet/cloud services topology that my wife can refer to. All of the communications arrows between services have been centralized in the diagram and I've drawn a big red circle that encloses these connectors. The label on the circle is TRUST... if you can't TRUST the people that connect the services together you can't TRUST anything.

If it's been identified one time, it's likely been happening on a larger scale but as yet undetected. It's becoming very easy to be either paranoid or self censoring. I don't have anything to hide, but being sliced/diced/dissected/analyzed by the big data cloud does get a little bit old. It's easy to see the results of this overreaching data collection, just research a medical condition (especially one that has a name brand pharmaceutical treatment), research a popular consumer appliance, research a new vehicle, etc... then pay attention to the advertisements that appear on websites over the next couple days... do you notice anything... like ads for what you researched?

I occasionally poison my search results by just doing random searches. I pick a person/place/thing that I have no real interest in, and watch the ad world turn. It must really throw off the "kevin by the beach" bucket when I search for Vespa parts, the latest gay romance novel, women named ISIS, and the 10 day weather for geopolitical sites of interest. http://www.weather.com/weather...

There are some college degrees that you don't make money at... The people that graduate in those fields don't do it for the money, but for the good they do for others. This is well intentioned, but it may hurt some of the neediest. Can you imagine if our social safety net was staffed exclusively with life coaches?

I like applying some relativistic physics to the creation story.... Let's say you are along for the ride during the big bang...(play along please). From our spot, getting blown out into the cosmos at speeds that ignore our current universal constants... it could have felt like it took seven days to get here, and yes I would have sat back, took a look around, and said it was good.

If your possibly looking for the vendor name... there is one listed in the stroy tags. (or was that a generalization)

Great comments and observations. CA's are the weak link in the current HTTPS model. (unfortunately trust has been broken, and millions of computers are delivered with CA configurations that most users are not aware of)

I drew a diagram on my office wall to help explain the difficulties of "Trust" in the internet/cloud world to my wife. Her problem is unique to a small subset of Americans.. her profession (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) is granted "Privileged" communication status similar to Attorney/Client rights... This limits her choices as to who and what can be trusted as a computer system. In bold RED marker I circled all of the entities that would need to be "trusted" to one extent or another to keep her data secure when placed onto the internet/cloud. It makes it really difficult to communicate with clients when the ubiquitous solution is the least secure. Her simple answer when faced with current choices was NO, it's my license at risk why should I trust anybody. At the end of the conversation, she asked me to build her something that could be trusted... (good-bye free time, sex life, hobbies, etc...)

The analytics that went into this research have wide ranging application potential. This could be the tipping point for full exploitation of genetic markers in a wide range of medical/genetic diagnostics. It may not be as easy to build as say a single test like BRAC, but I could envision a series of grouped diagnostics markers that could be funneled into a matrix that would show the probability disease. Also, this is an excellent example of government (TAX) money well spent on research. Thank you NIH.

I believe that the climate will change (getting warmer & sea level rise). So, my question is... If I want the best property for possible self sufficiency where would that be? My first thoughts would be a minimum of 50' above sea level, and on the windward side of a large geographic feature (plateau / mountain) . The problem I haven't worked out is the variability of Ocean currents and prevailing winds? Will a currently Dry region increase in Precipitation, or should I stick with regions that get 20+ inches of rain on annual average? (and hope it doesn't change). I grew up on the "Tug Hill" plateau in New York, and their micro climate is influenced by their latitude, altitude, prevailing winds, and proximity to the Great Lakes. It may be a good place to track their micro climate going forward.

...or Native Advertising

If you don't already know, the real value of facebook is the content that people post and the data mining that takes place behind the scenes. These social networks are a huge "SELL TO ME" sign that glows brighter with every like, repost, and share. I'm not surprised that the $$$ machine want's to control the content, they don't need us urinating in the same well we drink from.

Amen, and Amen. I wasted so much of my life meeting meaningless deadlines. When my children were growing up, the wisest advice I gave them was to NOT choose a computer career. (both are Social Workers like their Mom) Sure, It's less money but they will live longer and be much happier with a life worth living. Programmers come in two shades... Green and Jaded

"Take it away Ern" , "Yea, It's going to be a bumpy ride"

One of my favorites

Several companies already do what is mentioned in this article. http://www.sentryds.com/ would be an example of how this is already being done. http://www.businessweek.com/ad... (and the marketing swag).