In some of the world's lousier neighborhoods, it'd probably buy you the AKs and a supply of conscripted children to operate them, the serious metal printers are Not Cheap.

(Also, company PR emphasizes that 'no machining' had to be done to the printed parts; which is impressive; but also allows room for assorted heat treatment, surface coating, and other things you do to metal without machine tools)

Faking gold is tough: It's about twice as dense as lead; but is almost comically unlike tungsten or uranium (more or less your only options on density) in every other respect.

Let me let you in on a little secret about "Fuzzyfuzzyfungus" and "FuzzyFungus" and the fact that Boingboing has a 16-character username limit...

You can't (easily) MiTM clients that you don't manage; but many, perhaps most, update mechanisms don't use SSL or authentication. It's assumed that ineligible users either have absolutely no interest, or (as in the case of pirates) are probably sophisticated enough that trying to keep them from scoring a copy somehow isn't worth the effort.

As for SSL, that's extra overhead, and the server is shovelling out the same set of patches to everyone and (on all remotely recent and non-insane update systems) the update client is verifying the package signature before installation, so protecting the package on-the-fly isn't a high priority.

There are likely to be exceptions, which you'll have to block or suck up; but SSL is not a priority in basic patching scenarios (though the fact that some of the big guys, like Windows update, use BITS rather than HTTP will be modestly inconvenient, since HTTP proxies are incredibly common compared to other flavors).

Why did the NYT let a report called 'Walt Mossberg' write newb-level electronics reviews, rather than pushing him in the direction of being a hard hitting, hard drinking, crime-beat reporter with a tolerance for risk and a taste for vigilante justice?

It seems like such a waste...

If you want to spin 'pressure' flavored conspiracy theories, whose CEO was in the position of being a really shitty organ donor candidate; but needed a new liver, fast, if he felt like not dying?

The Cypress parts are actually pretty neat for suitable applications. USB2 interface hardware all done for you, fast-enough-for-bit-shovelling 8051, and you only need a tiny slice of nonvolatile storage to store your VID/PID of choice, to tell the host system what firmware to load on launch.

Quite a few neat little devices, like the Saleae Logic are based on them: relatively cheap, pretty much impossible to 'brick' (since they just reload their firmware when unplugged and plugged back in, makes updates easy); but they seem like a hell of a thing to bake permanently into a non-user-accessible location with permanent access to the USB bus.

Hence the interest in robots.

Cameras with physical lens covers are thicker than cameras without. That's all it took to convince Apple.

Now, why they have an 8051 hardwired to the USB bus that accepts arbitrary firmware uploads without even having to elevate beyond user permissions, I can only blame stupidity.

Compliance is Exciting and Mandatory! Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

True enough. Never let it be said that amphetamines are a perfect substitute for sleep.

I wouldn't bet on it, short of some sort of psych plea alarming enough that he'll end up in a secure ward.

This is Boston (well, Cambridge, 'Greater Boston'.) The local security forces have a... less than glorious... history with bomb-related issues. The 9/11 planes took off from Logan, the Mooninite panic made fools of the PD, a couple of losers with essentially zero resources just hand-carried bombs right into the Boston Marathon crowds and walked away, with the cops bringing the entire area to a screeching halt as they bumbled their way toward capturing the less interesting suspect, after substantial delay, and are still embroiled in an unimpressive looking case (complete with an allegedly valuable person of interest who mysteriously had to be shot to death during interrogation...)

I would be shocked if the PD, FBI, and local DAs aren't licking their lips and smelling blood. They have their man, and bagged him quickly and efficiently, and his 'I made a bomb threat because exams!' position is sympathetic to absolutely no one. I Would. Not. Want. to be him right now.

Outside of pessimists, paranoiacs, and people whose job description involves the word 'uptime', it's normal for someone engaged in 'problem solving' to stop thinking as soon as they find a solution.

In his case, he started thinking, came up with a multi-layer anonymity plan, and then apparently stopped. When it failed, he suddenly had FBI agents and no additional plan. (Also, basic script-kiddie attempts at hiding online and lying to experienced interrogators in person are two very, very, different skills.)

All the campus networks I've seen remotely recently do some sort of access control, if only to avoid being a free wifi provider for every porn-torrent enthusiast in the neighborhood. Sometimes 802.11x, sometimes that bloody awful Cisco VPN monstrosity.

What's more notable is that they apparently keep traffic logs for some amount of time, at least long enough to catch this guy, who knows how much longer?

If you have a network of any nontrivial size, and want to keep it from falling in a screaming heap (especially with the lousiness of wireless links in the mix), taking steps to ensure that most of the users are the ones you are supposed to be providing service to, and doing some QoS to keep them from stepping on each others' toes is basically necessary. Keeping traffic logs, though, is an additional chunk of effort and expense, and all so that people will be motivated to come bug you for access to them. I wonder when they started keeping logs, and why.

The best Harvard students learn that you have no need to conceal your crimes if you can commit them from a position of enough influence to simply make them legal. That's where kiddo slipped up.