Ah, no. TrueCrypt overwrites the whole primary encrypted partition with cryptographically generated randomness, i.e. every sector in there already has high entropy and that remains true for never used (!) sectors after decryption. For a hidden container, it places a header-less secondary container within the primary one at an offset. That container is only identifiable if you have its passphrase. So no, entropy analysis does not help.

There is another problem though: Writing to the primary encrypted container can damage the secondary one. For this, TrueCrypt protects an opened secondary container by intercepting writes to the primary one and blocking them if they would go into the secondary one. That leaves traces. Also, you will always see that there is a (more-or-less) large part of the primary encrypted partition that does not have files in it. If a FAT/NTFS filesystem is new, it is normal that no data is stored towards the end of the partition, as they both cluster data at the start. When it gets older, the used area wanders towards the end though. (These filesystems try to overwrite deleted data as late as possible to allow recovery, in contrary to typical UNIX/Linux filesystems that just use the whole disk. One reason UNIX/Linux filesystems have significantly better performance.) Now if the used area wanders, at some point it will either damage the secondary (hidden) encrypted partition, or the write restrictions become obvious. If you just do not write to the primary encrypted partition, that also is obvious.

Hence, a TrueCrypt hidden partition can be glaringly obvious unless you are careful and use it right. Basically, you have to create the whole set-up a short time before crossing that border.

Indeed. However, I am not aware of encrypting filesystems that do a better job. Hiding data is just not something that encryption can do well. What it can do is provide access control. But as soon as they can force you to hand over the privileges (keys in this case), access control is meaningless.

Meaningless, if amusing, posturing...

You really do not get it, do you. And no, you are wrong, what you propose is particularly evil, as it leads to disintegration of the community you are port of.

And so a nation disintegrates, everybody just thinking for their own welfare...

Seriously, you do not get it. But this is a typical American Misconception (C): If everybody just thinks of themselves everybody is thought of. Not so.

"therefore I will seek expert advice and/or assistance"

Oh, my, no, not in the Puritan ethos. Matters of the mind are to be solved individually, and any admission of an inability to do so is a sign of weakness, and perhaps moral turpitude.

How come there is no treatment for TV addiction? ... Or feeding yourself 8 hours of programme a day is considered normal?

From people I talk to, watching 3-4 hours a day is considered very normal. They eat dinner, load the dishwasher, then sit down and tune in until it's bed time. I don't understand where they get they get this time. It's not a matter, even, of if they are going to watch TV - they'll even watch it while complaining "there's not much on tonight that's very good".

There are very good reasons for some people to enjoy the status quo of a "fat & happy" populous, but the medical community ought to recognize this kind of behavior as harmful.

and having an agent show up with papers in order

Now, if only that were a 4th Amendment warrant that was enforcing an enumerated power, it might even be legal.

From the article:

It is queried for phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called “administrative subpoenas,” those issued not by a grand jury or a judge but by a federal agency, in this case the D.E.A.

In other words, no, there's no oversight. The DEA issues its own legal requests. The AT&T "contractors" who issue the queries sit next to the agents and are paid for by the DEA (in other words, they're employees of the government). Elsewhere the presentation makes a reference to routing requests via Washington state which somehow converts them into court orders, not sure what that's about.

Also, the presentation tells agents to cover up the fact that it exists and how to do so, so we're back into "parallel reconstruction" terroritory.

That said, I actually care less about this sort of thing than what the NSA is doing, as it's (a) not classified and apparently can be learned about via the regular channels despite their requests for secrecy and (b) it's being used to catch more ordinary, every day criminals like people who rob jewellery shops or make bomb threats. The almost total blurring between corporation and state is very concerning because it implies there's nothing stopping it from stepping over the line and becoming used for petty political activism or worse, but at least they try to actually justify the programs existence with examples (unlike nearly all NSA training material, it seems).

Not only that, but actually current cell-site data for any phone is publicly available for a small fee (1 cent). The GSM Home Location Register is a worldwide database which all carriers need access to for roaming to work, the fact that somehow some companies are able to sell access to it perhaps should not really surprise anyone. What you get back are cell tower IDs, not co-ordinates, but I guess it may be possible to build a map of tower IDs to physical locations (or obtain one) if you're determined enough. For many uses it's not even that hard, as you don't need all of them but just the small set of locations where you expect your target is likely to be.

I guess the next step for drug dealers and other people who don't want to carry a portable tracking device would be to use VoIP via VPNs or other proxy services. I anticipate that over time proxying traffic will become illegal ("packet laundering" anyone?). No way are governments going to give up this wonderful gift society gave them in the form of knowing everyones location, all the time.

I don't think a majority of college grads these days could pass the above-linked test.

Okay, I'll bite.

The arithmetic one is pretty terrible by modern standards. I have no idea what the "fundemental rules" are in their mind (+,-,*,/, perhaps?). Most of the rest require obscure knowledge of lolunits^Wsilly imperial units and quite possibly defunct details of a banking system.

As for the history, not being American, I couldn't answer many of them. The first one in particular ("epochs") seems to require one to recite a "fact" about something inherently subjective.

Orthography. 9 is important. People should be shot if they fail. 10 is quite funny though. And requires a rather odd piece of knowledge.

Georgaphy is not too bad. Quite a lot of denialists here would fail 1. 3 is funny. Rivers are useful for stopping invaders. Oceans are even more useful in the same regard.

Physiology is useful.

I don't know how many grads could pass the test. Some bits are good, some bits are bad, other bits are pointless.