How soon will I read about criminals framing targets to get them hacked hard by the UK Gov.

BTC is only useful for large value transactions, which is why companies are major investors. BigCompany can move $80k in a day, and BTC is fine for that. When I'm buying a McCheezy, I'm paying Mr. Visa a small fee and the McCompany pays a small fee and BigCompany collects all that and doesn't have to move much money in the end so BigCompany wins.

YourCryptoChoice is a lot better for human sized transactions, but BigCompany defines the value of BTC, and YourCryptoChoice tends to be valued according to BTC, so in the end BigCompany still wins. In the end, BigCompany holds the cards as usual, but how we play our cards, with cash, credit, or with YourCryptoCoice seems to matter enough that crypto currency isn't going away.

Okay, I know the "encryption" isn't exactly great, but it is better than SMS and keeps most people out of my messages. For 99.9% of what I want to communicate that is good enough. For the things I need actual security for, I wouldn't trust any app. If you need real security, using a phone is a bad idea. If I need faux security, like probably not giving my stuff to any script kiddie who is curious, then it has a slightly less insecure mode. (Maybe.)

Why use Telegram? It is easy and fast and not completely terrible like SMS. Actually that is about it. I like knowing when a message has been seen which is missing from some of the others. I like how handy the graphics are. I like how friends who joined pop up in my contacts. I like how generally frictionless it manages to be. I like how seamless it is from the computer to the phone to the next computer. I've tried several others and if I wanted to try to be more secure, I could deal with it, but I have little confidence in the device security let alone the app. There are times when I actually care and for those I drag out real encryption tools.

If you're expecting security on a phone that doesn't allow you or experts to examine the code, you shouldn't be using any of the suggestions, but if you must, Signal is probably the least horrible. On the other hand, if you want convenience with slightly less than horrible security, then maybe Telegram isn't the worst.

Where are all the comments pointing out that the vigilante is breaking the law? Where are the questions about whether courts should allow some law breakers and not others?

If the vigilante is discovered to be a part of the original malicious botnet crew who had a change of heart, do they still get our approval?

AC, it's your time to shine! Are you a vigilante? THE vigilante? When someone takes credit for this, how do we respond?

Bing could afford to do so, and they've been desperate for a way to claw some of the market share away from Google since inception. What I will be watching is if Bing is willing to pay trivial amounts just to see if they can put Google in a squeeze.

Of course the more likely outcome is that even with Bing paying the ransom, nobody will hear about it and nobody will care.

Ditto. I've loved it, paid for it, recommended it to friends. It's amazing how much a decade has reversed my feelings about Microsoft and Apple. I tried several of the recommended other apps here and gotta say, there is a reason I liked Dark Sky better. Now I'm using something I found in the play store named "Weather Forecast - Weather Live & Radar & Widget" which I immediately dislike as a name, but at least it has a reasonable interface.

Yup. The problems are real. Yet the right to buy something myself and then sell it to someone else is a fiercely guarded right. We already have laws aimed at preventing misrepresentation in the marketplace. We don't have that many against people being stupid when complaining. The right to run your mouth is often offensive, but pretty central to our democracy.

Laws preventing people from buying and selling what they buy are dangerous.

Laws against people complaining are dangerous.

If you're absolutely set on preventing apps from contributing to secondary sales of restaurant food, the only way I can see it is to require a badge "Not affiliated with this establishment" be prominently displayed with any menu where there is no agreement between the food buyer and the food seller.

You work on that. Meanwhile, I'm going to be working on starting a food delivery company comprised of people who buy the food who are also members of a protected class.

If people could post things on the internet anonymously then this whole thing would be pointless. Fortunately that's impossible. Thank goodness I have my internet ID card that allows me to post government approved messages.

I've seen this debate so many times. Too many.

Apple can sign software the phone will accept as boot code. The ability to try infinite combinations is only prevented by code Apple could replace. The FBI already made that argument in court. They could just demand that key rather than enlist Apple writing code. Whether they could get a court to force Apple to provide the signing key, allowing the FBI to write the code, is a question that has not yet been answered.

Not only that, a university has succeeded in decryption without a signing key. They pulled a chip with encrypted data, set up a cloning tool, ran the brute force decryption, cloning happening at each lock point, and proved it is possible to decrypt phones like this with sufficient tech and care.

The problem with this argument happening in public space (over and over) is that you have five sides.

• Side 1) People who know decryption with warrants can be done but know it is a terrible idea and will be abused
• Side 2) People who want to prevent and punish crime, particularly terrorism and child abuse, but know it is unconstitutional.
• Side 3) People who don't care either way
• Side 4) People who too clueless to know there are arguments
• Side 5) People who have swallowed the lies told by the first two groups

For the longest time, I've believed ignorance was the prevailing state, but now I'm coming to believe this argument being repeated so many times is something else. I'm starting to believe that the drivers of this debate are fully aware of the lies they are telling and don't care.

I'm watching Stand Up Guys as I post. When I started, Al Pacino was dancing. Now they just stole a car. It's a good movie, I'm enjoying it. If you're tracking the time, you'll note that I've spent a lot of time between sentences. I've spent a lot more reading. Minutes pass, I rad a sentence here, I read a sentence there. I click a thing and more minutes have passed. I'm giving 90% of my focus to the movie. In bits and pieces, I read and write. My wife says something, and we pause the movie and talk.

Screen 1 is the movie on my computer. Screen 2 is slashdot. Screen three is the occasional attention to my phone. My computer. My monitors. My phone. They are my things and they display what I want, when I want, in the way I want. I control the media. I am not controlled by the media.

Priorities. Wife: 100%. Movie: 80%. Slashdot: 10%. Phone 1%. That's not a mathmatical equation, it's a priority breakdown. The grand thing about our modern age is that I can consume information on my terms, the way I decide to, rather than how it is fed to me. It's time to pause, feed the dog, and talk a little. The amazing thing is that it is all in my control, and it's not a bad thing, rather it is glorious.

And to all the people who think you should consume as you're fed: sorry, that world where you must do as you're told has passed. I read, I write, I watch, I converse... all on my own schedule, all in my own hands as I determine, as I prefer. I love books and often read for hours without distraction. Sometimes I play music as I read. Sometimes I read as I wait for important interruptions.

The great revolution of my generation is to change the focus from one where you watch TV as you are fed TV back to one where you read the book when you feel like reading the book. Only now it applies to so much more than books.

Kudos points? I have none, but if I did, I'd have given you all of them. Your post is the most accurate answer I could have, should have, but failed to imagine. To you, I would have given every single kudos point, every internet point, every accolade I've ever given. Stunningly, I saw one better.

What could be better? Calling CowboyNeal personally.

I came here to say the same thing, or if nobody had said it, to say it myself. You said it better. I grant you one internet bonus point because your link to 'Jacked Up' was pretty funny.

I use DDG on my mobile (work issued) and Google most of the time on my personal PC. My reasons are personal, not secret, but boring. However, recently, I had a task of finding the origin of an image I felt compelled to complete in order to impress my wife. Normally I would have given up nearly immediately but she appreciates nerd cred, so I was more persistent than normal people would consider reasonable. When google and tineye failed me after many, many varying attempts, I finally found success with Bing. Yes my fellow /. denizen, I sank that low to ensure my wife would consider me sufficiently nerdy to deserve her appreciation.

I think any person who can name a single search engine as the one they use is not a true geek, certainly not a nerd. That said, two other comments I found here convinced me that I had failed to elevate myself to alpha-nerd status. One suggested the best answer was grep. That person deserves an alpha-nerd award of some type. All the internet points (-1) to you sir. The other suggested calling Cowboy Neil directly. You sir are a god among men. My hats are all off to you, may you reign in peace and war, in all matters of nerd or geekdom, forever.

Killing off their phone business. Making Windows 10 a free upgrade. Making it a rolling update system. Requiring people to update it. Moving their business model to focus on business rather than consumer income.

That's off the top of my head, and of course I said things to win me over, not things to win over the ACs on Slashdot.

Microsoft could really change some minds and win some hearts. They've done a lot of good things, and Satya Nadella has done a lot to win me over. I wanted to love Edge, and I've tried over and over, but never succeeded. If Microsoft is really willing to change their course, this could be a huge step in winning me, and people like me back.

Unfortunately I can't forget the past. Twenty years of pain and suffering from their decisions has made me reluctant to trust them. I can't help but remember all the things they've done to abuse their customers. I was a Linux at home guy for decades thanks to Microsoft failing to provide a system I could really make do what I wanted or needed. I've been on Windows 10 at home for nearly a year now and thanks to WSL and Chrome, I almost don't miss it. Give me bash and Chrome and they're getting close. An abused dog takes a long time to learn to trust. We've all been the abused dog by Microsoft, we want to love and hope, we want to believe. This time, we hope it will be different, but we don't trust easily.