Maybe in 30 years an iPad will be useful for something more than Candy Crush Saga ... but I doubt it.

No, it's not the principle of the thing, everything is in the implementation. If you say Microsoft is looking at your URLS and reading "https://somesite.com/?user=joe&pass=123 then you're a fucking idiot for sending credentials in cleartext in a GET call. If you say Microsoft is looking at your URLS and reading "https://somesite.com" ONLY, and that the actual credentials are contained in an encrypted POST call that they're not even requesting (they're using HEAD), then that's an entirely different kettle of fish. NOTHING secure is being leaked, this is pure hyperbole on your part, using an example designed to scare an average user, but completely nonsensical to anyone who actually works on the web. Nothing more.

It's material because it means that you had a nontrivial chance of actually running into them.

Well that really depends if the affected sites are #1 to #50 or #99950 to #99999 now doesn't it ?

Isn't this just destined to go the same way as any popular movie torrent ? An initial flurry of peers and seeds, with the seeds pumping out tons of bits, 99% of peers leeching and giving nothing back, and after a couple of weeks the torrent is good as dead, because there's one seed left who's never online, and only has 99% of the movie anyway ?

With bitcoin, I can understand the incentive, however small, of winning the lottery and actually mining a coin. With a system with is a glorified DHT for DNS addresses, what exactly is the incentive for users to contribute ? Or is it going to be yet another onion / I2P thing, full of "hype" but no substance because there simply aren't enough users to support the thing ?

What good are traceable transactions, if you don't know WHO made them.

A hashed address doesn't identify anybody, that's kind of the point of Bitcoin. You know exactly which transactions were made, but not who owns them.

They depend only on the ability to trade them

Let me know when I can exchange a Bitcoin for a McDonalds.

Right now, the only thing it is being exchanged for is illegal drugs / services, virtual services such as server hosting etc, and exchanges into a REAL currency such as USD, which can be used for myriad legal purposes not tied to an online realm - such as buying a burger.

Careful, the 180 day rule applies to UNOPENED emails only, and requires a warrant.

OPENED mail can be viewed with just an Administrative Subpoena, and requires no warrant or court intervention / approval.

However, whether they use a court-issued warrant OR an Administrative Subpoena, it must be in connection with a currently ongoing investigation. They haven't written 330 million subpoenas for every man woman and child in the US (nor are renewing those documents every 180 days).

Hence, they are NOT "spying" on every email ever sent by anyone in the US. The title is hyperbole, and the tin-foil brigade lap this shit up, regardless of the actual facts.

And this is why you are replying to posts on Slashdot, rather than doing drugs, booze and hookers on your private island in the Bahamas.

Why do you assume the kind of malware that displays a scary popup message about viruses would be running as root ?

Unless you had 6 independent disk controllers for those 6 disks, what exactly would be the point ?

You remind me of the old adage about a PHB who discovers the *nix* priority command, and decides to make everything priority 1, so that "everything will run faster".

Especially someone who couldn't even spell his damn name correctly.

If a "god" exists outside the physical universe, then he can have no influence upon the physical universe, and is therefore irrelevant to us stuck here IN the physical universe.

It's absurd that you would attribute such sheer power to a being that can only exist outside the laws of space and time, and then spend half your life praying to him for good things to happen to you. Like he *cares* what one being on one planet wants, in a universe of billions or galaxies each with billions of suns and planets, and presumably billions of "intelligent" lifeforms.

If "a god" does not or cannot exist within our physical universe, then really, what if he good for anyway ?

And you know this how ? Because a handful of alarmists on Slashdot and Reddit told you so ? That's called confirmation bias, and bears no resemblance to reality.

Then don't fucking click "I Agree" if you don't agree ! How simple is that ? No one is forcing you to accept the ToS.

The sooner people start voting with their wallets rather than using their asses from brains, the sooner you'll get what you want.

Wow, American logic at it's finest !

So that's your grand solution to corporate bribery of politicians ? Make them cheaper to bribe, so everyone can do it ?