Did you even read the article? The authorship in this particular case is irrelevant - unless... can you point out what lies were presented in that article?

OMNI magazine recently set its archives loose online. Check the January 1989 issue, "The Rules of the Game" (http://archive.org/stream/omni-magazine-1989-01/OMNI_1989_01#page/n17/mode/2up, flip to page 42) for the low tech nightmare. If you think the nation without a power grid would make for a seriously bad month, you lack imagination. Try a seriously bad year, or longer. Pretty much every piece of infrastructure is built with the assumption that electicity is somewhere close at hand.

The physical infrastructure of the power grid is an infinitely easier target, with gigantic ROI for terrorists or actual enemy agents. The $100,000 you could spend for a good 0-day would be better spent on a few RPGs and some half-decent watches. Network attacks are a fool's errand. If you want to prevent awful things, your money is better spent on guards.

That OMNI article may be the first "How can I unknow this?" moment of my literate life.

ask Brits and Canadians the same question. Would they rather replace their healthcare system with the US version?

Oh $LC_DEITY no. It's bad enought that there's this giant push to privatize everything, because pretty much every function that has been privatized has degenerated into crap. Thankfully, cleaning operating rooms hasn't yet been put on the outsourcing block so companies can charge the government twice for paying staff minimum wage, but I won't be surprised when some asshole suggests it.

There's a difference between being observed and being recorded. Given:

• Constable Alice is earnest, honest, and clever, but a little bit lazy.
• Captain Bob is not so lazy, believes in delegating where ever possible, and will listen to a good argument for something - but only if it's short.
• Carol met some nice ladies at the country club last month, two of whom have sons of suitable age for her daughter to date. They're all kinds of fun to hang with!
• Detective Dave sees Carol (previously unknown) hanging out a lot recently with some probable high-end fences he's been investigating, and asks Captain Bob to get someone to put Carol under surveillance.

What is the minimum amount of work and paperwork required by Alice before Dave can say (without perjury) on the stand, "We put Carol under surveillance", and Bob can say, "I can't fire her, she did her job exactly as I put to her"?

You'll note that I didn't specify the kind or depth of surveillance. This is deliberate and not an attempt to be vague. I believe you'll figure out for yourself that the bar for Constable Alice can be very very low, and folk more imaginative than you or I could make it lower. Alice, having an actual incentive, might make it much lower than that. This might be the most important legal question society can discuss at the moment; being in a public place and able to be seen by the police doesn't mean you should be recorded by the police. Oddly, applying the same question and reasoning to "Automatic Number Plate Recognition" devices makes them look exceptionally intrusive. Oh, wait...

If the latest version and the version available in debian differ by either one full version or at least three .points, we're good to go.

Whoosh. In any given interaction, you're dealing with one who's actively malfeasant, or one who's actively covering for their co-worker's malfeasance. Just maybe you could be dealing with someone partway through their first week on the job.

Uh, wait. +5? Here's a hint, mods: buy a dictionary if your OS doesn't come with one installed. Read it more than one minute per week, and not just for words you have not seen before. buchner.johannes, nice troll. It is factually incorrect, but looks plausible, so you get double points.

The man has a Ph.D. in kinesiology. According to the Chart of Woo, that's at the corner of Quackery Bol. and Pseudoscientific Bol.

You're reading this poorly.

Encryption is only useful if he wants to be able to cover his tracks, and selectively release video.

...or have an officer believe "This is not evidence that can be used against me." Count yourself lucky that you don't have enough experience with corrupt police officers to understand how they operate.

"I was recorded committing a crime, but I can use as much force as I want without any consequences in order to change how much evidence becomes available to prosecutors, who are mostly my buddies. Plus, my partner has been inculcated to back me up on anything and everything with a straight face. If I fire my gun, though, there's going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork."

I'd rather use my handle than my real name, because then people will not confuse me with any of the other guys. My handle is practically unique

I face the exact opposite problem. It's kinda tough locating things I've written on the net.

In this particular case, negative comments are not lies.

If you do find out who he is, change your SSID to *his* name and address. That should freak him a bit.

I love you. I would give up my first cup of coffee for you. I already did, and you owe me a new keyboard.

You wrote,

The end result of all this is, at some point, you're going to hit a bump where tons of ex-students default on their student loans because they don't have decent jobs and can't repay the loans, and it's 2008 all over again, with banks crying to the government and getting bail-out checks, with the students still not able to get a job or allieviate this debt, so they can never get a decent job (what's the point? Their wages will be garnished so they won't make any more than flipping burgers, so they won't even try).

If the banks get a bailout from the government for student loans and then still come after the students for money, a whole bunch of lawyers will get rich off the resulting class actions. Rich, I tell you. I would throw my morals out the window, emigrate there, and take the bar exam.

The issues have not been addressed.

Only old people use ifconfig, it's been deprecated by ip.