This may be labeled as funny, but I saw this article just a few minutes before it popped up on Slashdot, and I thought the exact same thing.

The truth is we really don't know how long this problem has existed for, nobody knows if this was an accident or an "accident", and there's no telling who may have used this and to what depth. The NSA could have used this to scrape the SMS messages of every Verizon customer for weeks, months, or years.

Considering all the stuff about the NSA going around, I really don't consider it that unlikely to have been used by the NSA. They're so busy undermining all of our liberties(even people ourside our borders) that I'm just not surprised by it anymore.

I really wonder if this whole NSA thing is going to cause a small revolution in IT leading to more secure systems not to keep out would-be hackers but to keep out our own governments. People seem to be far more concerned about government access to their data than anonymous hackers that gained access.

I guess we'll see in 5 years if the atmosphere around computer security has changed...

And even if you go with Brand-X VPN service that is all over the world, what's to say that because they might have servers in the USA their key isn't already compromised? Or that someone at Brand-X wasn't paid off by the NSA for the key? Or that they obtained the key directly from the key right when it was signed?

Let's go all out on this. I'm really curious to see what others think of these conspiracy theories. Because lately they could just as easily be believed because of some of the stuff that has come to light from Snowden.

Is there even a design where the VPN service could be compelled to give up the keys, but still be secure? I'm thinking no, but hoping someone can validate that.

No, but he does make an interesting comparison. It is worth at least mentioning. Is it not? Last I read the contract was a no-bid(aka no competition) contract. Usually those are given to companies that are getting "special privledges" from those high in the political ranks.

It's bricking when it cannot be fixed. This can, hence the article summary is wrong. Wake up editors!

I agree that no company bats 100%. But Intel has consistently had very reliable, reasonably performing, and reasonably priced SSD. Of all of the brands, if I had to pick a random brand and model, I'd take any Intel model over anything else. That's not to say Samsung doesn't make good products(they clearly do). But you never know what you're getting into when you buy something new, so there's always that risk you get a crappy model for any one of 100 reasons.

Intel seems to be pretty darn good at having a good quality product. I'd also wager Samsung can't be that bad considering the comments from friends on them and their failure rates from various websites.

But clearly OCZ has a very bad history, and I'd go with just about ANY brand before OCZ unless it was free.

I do remember a few years back OCZ was in the process of trying to get a contract with some manufacturer such as Apple, HP, Dell, etc. but the company decided not to sign the agreement after they saw the negative feedback being left for OCZ products. Someone had said that when OCZ had left all of their other products and went to SSD-only they were heavily relying on that contract.

If you could provide a source(even if your numbers aren't completely accurate) you would make me very happy. I have been unable to find anything that discusses reliability of different manufacturers like you just described.

I have always sworn by Intel while friends have bought OCZ(because they were cheaper per GB) and several have had nothing but problems but others have sworn their OCZ was rock solid. On the other hand, I bought only Intels since the day the G2 series hit the market. Every single one is still in use and none of them have had any problems. In fact, I haven't had to reinstall windows as often as I've had to in the past. Not sure if its because Win7 is better than WinXP, the SSDs are more reliable than platter based disks, or both.

But even then, I still swear by Intel every time a friend makes a recommendation, regardless of the benchmarks and the (often) slightly higher price per GB.

I always think the same thing. It's just so perfect. But that's the reality between taking a picture in a pollution filled atmosphere like ours versus the near perfect vacuum of space.

ZOMG There's no stars. This must be a NASA staged event and didn't really happen... on the moon.

But its not like we didn't know where the lines were drawn. All of these problems are created by humans, managed by humans, and controlled by humans. If we don't like the situation we've put ourselves in, then we should change them. If we didn't we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Actually, the cost of bringing them all home would be VERY expensive. It cost money to get them there, and it costs money to bring them home. But, if you bring them home for long enough then you might save money in the long term. But since the military is paid salary and not hourly, I'm betting the cost savings would take years to reap.

And if you think you'll bring them home "during the shutdown" I can guarantee that you'll definitely be spending more money in the long run. But I don't think this was your intention based on your comment.

But ignoring these fact, if you chose to stop paying the military you'd have serious problems on your hands. Do you know what happens when the people holding the guns defending you do when you stop paying them? Well, let's just say "you don't want to find out". And the reality of it is that my military brothers and sisters would have serious problems because they can't expect to go get a temporary job while the wait out the shutdown nor do they have large sums of money to sit at home and still pay their bills.

I remember when Sept 11th happened and all sorts of government buildings were closed there was a lot of rumors that the military members might not get paid on time. Lucky for us many banks like Navy Federal Credit Union agreed they'd deposit our normal paycheck size into our accounts even if we didn't get paid. Many apartment complex came out and said that if we didn't get paid they wouldn't charge late fees if we didn't have our rent checks on time. Fortunately we did get paid on time and didn't have to worry about such things.

The last thing us military people needed to worry about when we were suddenly forced to go to sea unexpected(I was in the Navy) was to worry about if our family was home starving with no money and I was in the middle of the ocean unable to contact them to find out if they were even alive. Remember, the safest place for a ship is at sea. So guess where all the ships went when Sept 11th happened? That's right, to sea. Unfortunately many of us had families that were in panic over the Sept 11th attacks, and all that any of us knew was that we were going to sea for an indeterminate period of time, might or might not get paid on time, and no clue if we were going to war immediately or not.

So please think about the people defending your right to comment on this website before you start talking about not paying them. Because it stinks of shit when people like you talk out of your mouth with such rubbish. They didn't want the shutdown. And the very people that should be telling our Congress and President to go to hell when they do stupid things like this and voting them out are the same people that should be responsible for whatever consequences(good or bad) that come from not acting. So I don't feel too bad when the Grand Canyon, the WWII memorial, and the Statue of LIberty close. We wanted this. We asked for it by voting in these idiots. And by "We" that just means the majority. For the rest of us that didn't vote in these clowns, we should have worked harder to keep the clowns out of office.

So everyone enjoy the spoils from voting in these incompetent losers. You wanted it and you got it. And the worse you want it, the worse you'll get it. I know next election I'll be trying to get some fresh air in there.

Regarding the need for specialized equipment on one end, I've always had the exact same thoughts. And since people had been beamed from places like the Borg cube directly to the bridge, why even have a "transporter room"? Why not just beam everyone to wherever they wanted to go next and compact the room down to nothing more than an equipment closet? I know.. Hollywood needs special effects.

There's a Star Trek documentary somewhere where the whole concept of the Transporter was explained. Basically when the first episode of Star Trek The Original Series was being filed the plan was to have a shuttle for going to/from ship and shore. The designers of the shuttle weren't going to complete the shuttle before the shuttle would be needed for filming though. So the "transporter room" was invented as an emergency backup if the shuttlecraft didn't work out. Sure enough, the shuttlecraft wasn't finished in time, so the transporter was used. But then the directors and writers like the transporter. It saved the directors/writers time by not having to include commentary while traveling to/from and it turned out to be cheaper than the shuttle to boot!

So does this also give an indication of how much energy an transporter(Star Trek like) would consume(assuming 100% efficiency of course)?

I've always wondered how much energy would be needed for transportation like that. Always wanted to see if its more/less efficient than driving your SUV to work.

Yeah. I meant potassium iodide. Didn't realize I missed a word when I typed it up. Thanks for the correction. :)

WoW. MOTO article.

Ever person that works at a nuclear power plant knows and understands the risk of thyroid cancer due to exposure to radioactive Iodine. If anything, the workers know that this is true, understand the technicals for why it is mitigated with potassium tablets, and are okay with the increased risk of a very treatable condition. I've worked in the industry for more than 10 years and I KNOW this is true.

Many emergency responders that work in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant know this too. I KNOW this is true as I dated someone that was an emergency responder.

So maybe we should publish other articles on Slashdot.

-Higher risk of being shot in Chicago than on a farm in Montana.
-Higher risk of dying in a car accident when traveling faster.
-You are more likely to suffocate if you inhale your pool versus inhaling at your neighborhood park.

Not to discredit how much having cancer sucks. But thyroid cancer is very treatable today. Especially when you have a known group of people that are more susceptible to it and therefore can be tested more thoroughly for early warning signs.

Oh slashdot.. I miss the old you...