So what is the best way to secure this remaining Windows XP systems?

If you can't keep the box permanently offline, then the best way to secure Windows XP after the EOL date is to uninstall it. By believing otherwise you are only fooling yourself.

All the people who warned them that they will cause permanent micro- and macro- disasters all over the world have been ignored. Due to greed. Let them be proud of their achievement.

Are you sure it's really a honest acquisition and not a lame attempt to use a portion of your huge pile of money just to monopolize a market you're afraid of slowly losing?

I fail to see how Bitcoin is private and confidential. All the transactions are public (inherently by design). And if you buy bitcoins somewhere with your CC or paypal or bank, it is possible to link the bitcoins to your name.

If you buy them with cash, you could as well buy one of those cash coupons that porn sites might accept too. Then, you gain TRUE anonymity and, as a bonus, you and the seller avoid the massive volatility of the currency (100x decrease/increase in value over a day).

Maybe in the US where you can settle even criminal offenses out of court if you have the cash.

But in the EU, if you kill someone with a car, you HAVE TO be sued by the government because criminal offenses cannot be settled out of court here.

RTFA: The former US National Security Agency worker would testify by interactive video link from Russia, where he has been granted temporary asylum.

Heh. Would be funny if the packets were routed via the US and patriotically "deep-inspected" by the NSA.

Using facebook in any way + caring about your privacy
= mutually exclusive.

Just, please, this time, try to be more careful about who joins your working groups. And especially what their true intentions are.

Sometimes when someone tries to "simplify deployment" or "offers insight to prevent user confusion", etc., you may want to think twice. History repeats itself, you know.

Only an idiot would run a browser on an OS with unpatched vulnerabilities. Windows XP will not get any security issues fixed after April 2014. If you ignore those simple facts, you deserve becoming a part of a botnet, sending your passwords and credit card numbers to the botmaster.

Problem: Paranoia
Solution: None

A very interesting piece of info is at the bottom of TFA:

since readers were allowed to make comments without registering their names, the identity of the authors would have been extremely difficult to establish. Making Delfi legally responsible for the comments was therefore practical, said the court. It was also reasonable, because the news portal received commercial benefit from comments being made.

I don't see how that is immune to the chicken-and-egg problem. In other words, unless you write your own C compiler in raw CPU instructions (machine code), you cannot trust ANY compiler binaries.

The guy calls himself cryptographer, but he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Hashes, and also any ideal random oracles, have only (n/2) security due to so called birthday paradox limit.

That's why SHA-512 has only 256-bit security. This is not weakening of the hash in any form. It is a property of any hash or RNG.

What the slides show is that they want to reduce clutter in reducing dozen options into two options. One high-security (256-bit security) and another fast, medium-security.

Your personal *dream* favorites. You wouldn't survive there more than a few weeks, bud. Because, as you said, "you will not be of interest" there (for instance, when you break a bone and need help, or food, or protection from bandits...)

If you have anything above Top Secret to hide, good luck to you, you'll need it (either this, or maybe you're a little delusional).