(For "node-sized," think "size of a breakfast cereal prize.")

Don't know about yours, my node is way bigger than this.

This new "node-sized" device consumes 1mW when transmitting and the home wiring is used as a receiving antenna. If HomePlug radiated this much, ham guys would be really happy.

This particular submission may be crap, but the situation around UVB-76 demonstrates that it is becoming hard to keep any secrets on the shortwave band. There are thousands of listeners at any given time. And what is much more important, they now have the ability to record big chunks of spectrum and analyze it in a way that was only available to government agencies not long ago. $500 receiver (there are even sub-$100 DIY alternatives) and free software is all you need.
The next big step is exchange of such information. It may be outright illegal (UK) or borderline legal (US) to tell other what you've heard, but people do this more and more on various forums. Now including /.

Now imagine what may happen when schools turn them on.

I wonder how many of the "concerned parents" switched back to wired networking at home.

Any profitable business is based on some barrier for entry for competitors. When the barrier gets lower, the profitability inevitably goes down to zero as a result of unhindered competition. This is called free market.
Being angry about this is like being angry at gravity or evolution.

Censorship is never about effectively suppressing the thought or speech. It is always about politicians pretending to care about "order", "moral health of the nation" and other such big words. It earns them some reelection points (in democratic societies) or support of some part of the population (in dictatorships).

We are talking about St.Petersburg, Russia, not Florida. The average temperature is well below freezing and there is a snow on the ground (at least in the forest).

Doing math is fine, but picking mushrooms in St.Petersburg in March is kinda borderline.

You don't need impedance transformers in this case. 75 Ohm terminators (in place of standard Ethernet 50 Ohm) will do the trick. These are much cheaper and can be hacked together at home if not found in stores.
10BaseT cards have high impedance transmitters and receivers that can drive/receive wide range of cable impedances, as long as the cable is matched at the ends (to avoid reflections).

Let the USSR demise be a warning to the US. It had nothing to do with Reagan's shaking his fists, but everything with him engaging Soviets in the unsustainable arms race.
There is no real existential military threat to the US now, so having this tremendous military spending is just self-destruction for nothing.

You can get a decent P3 or Celeron laptop for under $100 (for free if you are lucky). Depending on the CPU, it can draw 15-40W under load. The upside is that usually no hardware tweaking is required at all.

I know a guy who's father was on very good terms with Bin Laden, and even supplied him with weapons and money.
Oh, wait, that was _before_ he "became a terrorist"...

Progress in personal communication (I would call it "personal broadcast") is a great counterexample.
Discussing your ideas with strangers all over the world in real time is a very recent concept, and it IS revolutionary.

Maybe the Streisand effect was the desired outcome in this case. For many celebs, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Any publicity is good.