Heh. Typical amateur security protocol design... can't even make it to the end of the second sentence of the description without handwaving some security through obscurity.

More importantly, your proposal addresses the part of the problem that isn't a problem -- the ciphers -- and ignores all of the rest, which is where the cracks show up: key management, protocol design, implementation quality and personnel. Much better to pick a small number of well-respected ciphers and then focus on all of the rest. You're still likely to fail against an adversary like the NSA, assuming they really care to put the effort in to read your mail, but you can make them work for it, and you can limit the amount of data they can get.

And if they wanted to repeal the first amendment, it'd be different. But it's a pretty basic freedom to vote with your wallet and boycott stores that engage in whatever business practice you disagree with, whether it's installing rootkits (hey Sony) or animal testing or dealing in "smut" whatever your idea of that might be. The rest is just business, there's no law against having an sex shop in your mall or showing a porn movie in your cinema but if you're a profit-maximizing business you might go for the "family friendly" profile instead. The smart businessmen simply split the front-end while sharing the back-end, totally different name but same warehouses. I'm sure this will work out the same way, the charade seems to keep everybody happy.

Doubt it. It would be akin (because of the vast separation in time) to our finding forty thousand versions of "Damn, Og just missed small deer. ... No, wait, he return. ... Damn, Og just missed small deer." Not a lot of info and of no real use (we have the deer remains at the site as well).

PS: For the great majority of ancient, we *do not* have the equivalent of FaceBook posts to augment the vast reams of inventory, royal notices and laws. The peasant's lives are reconstructed from evidence, not learned from text.

No. It's pretty much all of them. Those without, like the Cretan hieroglyphics and Linear A are still untranslated.

The entire concept of storing data for a billion years is nothing but ego. It would be akin to our finding a cave with forty-five thousand little paintings of dots, squares and circles - all perfectly preserved. What the hell does it mean? Curious and interesting to speculate on perhaps, but data? Not so much.

As Cosby's "Dr Huxtable" was explaining all the goodies that hospitals have on hand for any pregnancy emergency, the young man who was listening said "Do you refund the fees if she doesn't need them?"

Follow the money.

Hardly. Same species. If you meant that as humor... needs work.

Ah... One of those Russian sock puppets we've been reading about.

Speak for yourself. I and many others pointed out his lack of anything during the first campaign here and elsewhere. If the best you can do is claim those who did not win would have been worse, you're conceding your argument is void.

Straw. No one is saying 'everyone' should know. "Can't do anything" is a fairly accurate description of them right now as pertains to their actually stopping their presumed targets: terrorists.

I agree that if the director feels he has to lie, then those are appropriate responses. If he actually does lie, meaning he intentionally and knowingly deceives Congress, then he should be prosecuted for perjury.

There are a number of solar-powered homes in my area, which isn't a particularly warm climate (Colorado). How much of that is due to the competition? Probably not a lot, but I'll bet it's had some effect, particularly on the homes that were designed from the outset to be solar-powered rather than just retrofitted with solar-heated water pipes and some PV arrays.

I don't have any hard numbers, but I'll bet there are a lot more solar-powered homes today than there were 11 years ago.

Why would I want to live in Minnesota? And if I did, I'd pick a house that's appropriate for the climate. The winner is designed for the climate of Austria, which isn't necessarily warm in winter, but a lot warmer than much of Minnesota. Which isn't to say you couldn't design a solar house that would be fine in Minnesota, this just isn't it.

Not really a good example as one can install pretty much *anything* over Vista and never look back.

Your snark means exactly nothing.

My guess is they make exactly the same amount. Step one: want to install app. Step two: find out you have to uncheck box.

I know slashdot tradition is to comment without reading TFA, but you should really give it a try in this case. Especially interesting are the teams' video presentations.

The winning design produces more power than it consumes. If that doesn't qualify, what does?