Maybe I just have extremely low demands. But when I want to know what a particular error message means, or if some unknown program that seems to be running is malware, or if the latest "OMG This Unlikely Thing Happened" post is true, or how to knock the password off of a protected pdf file, or how to spell "indefatigable", or where the hell "Bozy's Bar" (where the meetup is) is, or where I can get a cheap replacement bumper for my car, I use a commercial search engine. Maybe your problem is searching for "anything", I find it works much better if you have a particular subject in mind.

That is true. I think you've got to use how the government is reacting as an indicator. If this was just some loon who'd made up a few bogus powerpoint slides, would Joe Biden be calling Ecuador to suggest that they shouldn't let him in? I guess maybe if it was a major disinformation campaign on the part of the government, but it's hard to think of why they'd do that. And now they've got the EU pissed off, too.

Oh, that's so harsh. It's just that you need to get them to precisely define the words "collect", "any", "information", "millions", and "Americans". I'm sure that if you did, you'd reach a point where you thought "oh, 'no' doesn't mean what I thought it meant". (The words "on" and "of" are probably safe, though you never know). It's like how the word "sex" can mean different things depending on who's talking.

Who, exactly, would prosecute them if it is found that they have looked at the school papers of some kid in another country? Or made use of them in any way they wished? Hell, the TOS probably let them do that no matter where the kid is.

Not to speak of which, the secret police have a very long view. No, they're unlikely to be interested in a 12-year-old, but maybe they're interested in the kids parents or relatives. Anything in there that might be useful for blackmail? To target someone for kidnapping? And down the road, if that 12-year-old becomes the country's leader, you don't think that it would be valuable for the secret police to have all his school work since he was a child? I'd think that would be very useful, especially if that country has something the US wants, or perhaps is not on good terms with the US (either now, or 30 years from now).

The reasonable explanation is that the writer is not in the US. And we have made it clear that such people have no rights in the eyes of the US.

For a US citizen, having it offshore might be better. There's a lot of potential failure points, either way.

Where in the world did you get the idea that the Democratic Party (note spelling) was "leftist"? Only by comparison to the Republican Party, which has become extreme right. The Democrats are as a group moderately rightwing, and just as big on kissing the butts of their corporate masters as the Republicans.

Maybe the same place that tells credulous souls like you that they founded Planned Parenthood? The roots of Planned Parenthood are with a birth control clinic founded by Margaret Sanger in 1916. Now, it's true that these days some wingnut Republicans still believe that birth control should be banned and hate the idea of educating people about sex. But back then, a lot of Democrats did, too. At least the Democrats have moved on, a little.

Call us back when the US has any political party more successful than the Greens or the Socialist Workers that the rest of the world would recognize as "left". Otherwise you're just parroting the words of Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers.

If you don't trust Chrome, use one of the other Chromium derivatives. Comodo Dragon, maybe (that one claims to be hardened against privacy leaks).

Maybe useful if you're sending your sekrit plans by fax, postcard, or carrier pigeon. Or, would have been useful until NSA had a copy of the font.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Yeah, there was some of that too. But I remember a school janitor who was a Communist who'd get onto call-in radio shows (this in the early '60s), and (at least in my parents' circles) that got reactions of "oh, that's just so-and-so, he's ok outside of that".

I dunno. In some ways people then (or maybe it's rural people, of which I was then but no longer am) were less accepting of differences, but more willing to make exceptions. Nowadays, in the city, I just don't associate with the evildoers.

I'm not sure "food poisoning" is the best term, there are lots of ways food can make you sick, and sometimes it's not obvious that it was related to food. The way you describe is often what happens in food service (that, and poor sanitation). But there are lots of ways people get food poisoning. Sometimes it's because they (or their utensils or counter) touch raw chicken and spread bacteria to other foods (US poultry processing facilities are cesspools). Sometimes it's because the melons or lettuce or other food that doesn't get cooked comes from a farm where there is fecal contamination. With many foods (meat, prepared salad, etc.) food from many different sources is mixed together, so if a single one of those sources is contaminated, you've now widely spread the contamination. It can be because the plant's cooling tower has bacteria growing in the water. It can be in spices imported from who knows where (though irradiation is in fact used with a lot of spices).

And it can be very difficult to even figure out you've got a problem. One person here gets sick, another a few states over. Some get sick enough to seek medical help (or die), some just get a stomachache or diarrhea and shrug it off. Often the only way to know it's a widespread problem is by DNA fingerprinting the samples and comparing them. (Remarkably enough, states that do this DNA fingerprinting see a lot more food-borne disease than states that don't. Because the latter states don't know it's happening.) But that costs money, and can really only be done by the government (because there's no profit in it). And agribusiness doesn't want to tag foods with lot numbers that can be traced back to the original source, both because it costs money, and because if you start doing that, it's easier to find out that you've got a problem. And the USDA is in the business of promoting agriculture, so they're more of an industry mouthpiece than an independent government agency.

And... you think THEY don't know who "Rachael from Card Services" really is? Render HER, for a change.

Yeah, but the Congressman is afraid to open the letter. Could be anthrax, or ricin, dontchaknow.

Best to collar him at a fundraiser. He'll have time for you if you're writing a check. Of course, the NSA will find out about the check, but not until later.

Why would you think that "right" has anything to do with it?

The world is a very big place, but I suspect there are very few jurisdictions in North America where "assault on police officer" charges don't go anywhere. It's a standard add-on charge the cops use if they get physical. And when it comes down to your word against the cop's, the cop's version is going to win, whether the cop made it up or not.

But I do predict that there will be many mysterious camera failures. The fact that they happen just before the cop beats the crap out of somebody will be entirely coincidental.

No doubt. And they've got a few with more than one ISA slot (I had 2 full-length ISA cards to insert). The software ran under MS-DOS, and the computer would never be used for anything other than the dedicated purpose, so PCI, DDR3, etc. was totally irrelevant.

So... we're going to take a random motherboard and find out how compatible it is with software provided by the manufacturer of those ISA boards in 1985? Does the software make use of direct access to the hardware of the computer that the vendor originally provided? Can it handle anything other than Hercules graphics? Who knows, the vendor wouldn't (or couldn't) tell me. No thank you.

The client wanted me to provide a new replacement computer. I declined, and fixed the old one. There's no way in hell that I want to provide something that might be considered a piece of medical equipment. I don't have a clue what the formal requirements for that are (beyond common sense), and don't have insurance that would cover my ass for that. Aside from not knowing if it would even work.

No, but there are specialized boards that still have ISA slots. Sometimes it's considerably cheaper to replace the computer and keep the board, rather than vice versa. A new board will probably require new software, perhaps only available from a single vendor, and it may require retraining doctors, I mean users, who hate change. And, to be honest, if the old system did what they wanted, there's no reason to inflict something different upon them.