If the users are Microsoft customers, and if Microsoft has deliberately set things up to obstruct these legal requests, Microsoft will be in the poo.

If the users are Deutsche Telekom customers, with DT operating Microsoft's software, then Microsoft are in the clear. Until they are compelled to install a back door for the NSA in their software, at which point users will be worse off since it will no longer even need a rubber stamped warrant to access the data.

Combine that with other studies which demonstrate that increased compensation lowers productivity, where the sweet spot seems to be 'enough so that pay ceases to be an issue'. This has been known for ages and reproduced in repeated studies and tests, but strangely always ignored in the corporate world where the people in power usually got there because of greed.

Talk on this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Go has eschewed error handling at the end of a scope using exceptions in favor of placing the error handling after nearly every statement. Do you accept the criticism that having all of the the error handling interleaved with the main program flow can negatively affect readability and comprehension? If the problem exists, are there techniques developers should be using to avoid it? Are there plans to replace the 'if err != nil { ... }' boiler plate after each statement with syntactic sugar?

We employ remote workers around the globe, and pay competitive local rates to get the skills we need. We don't need labor, we need people with skills and a clue. For our positions, you are not competing with somebody in Timbuktu. If you and Fred from Timbuktu are both capable enough, we will likely make you both offers because you are that rare. And while Fred from Timbuktu is fine, Tim from Delhi is at a disadvantage because Tim doesn't have as good time zone overlap with our existing teams.

And anyone who's been a landlord knows that you have enough margin to cover these costs (unless 'slum lord' is your business model).

There is no reason this shouldn't work. Just think of it as a rental company that leases their equipment from 3rd parties. This business model has been in place for decades in high value items (private planes, probably shipping and trucking) and no reason it can't translate construction. And to make it more profitable (and follow the existing business models further), the next obvious step is to share machinery with operators. A construction company can become an engineer and a handful of full time workers, bringing in owner operators when heavy machinery is needed. People do all this right now. Technology makes it easier to manage. The increase in efficiency becomes profit for the middleman.

This is happening right now in Thailand. The transmission infrastructure is bad to rural Thailand, and over the last decade regional solar sites have been popping up all over. Cheap power during the day when you need it, expensive and inefficient power from the grid at night when all the air conditioning is off and people are sleeping.

It would be pointless. The company gets no benefit from replying to you, only liability. The same reasons companies don't give out genuine references, or even have a policy that they don't give them out at all beyond confirming that you did work there and for how long for.

There might be three standards, but if the article is to be believed they aren't exactly competing.

One (Qi) is supported by several major handset manufactorers. Another is in bed with Starbucks (USA?). The third doesn't even get a mention beyond that it exists. Given that Starbuck's products don't need wireless charging it would seem any war has already been won by Qi.

We are way ahead of you: http://www.bbc.com/news/techno...

If the keys are encrypted, maybe. The bank is using this to store bills and bank statements. This storage doesn't need to be secure, it just needs to be more secure than your letter box. The bank doesn't need to keep the storage private from its employees, as its employees already have access to your bank statements and bills. About the worst thing you could upload there is your internet or phone banking password in cleartext, as it would be visible to exactly the people who know how to best exploit it.

I see it as a requirement rather than a flaw. If my data can be decripted after I have lost my key, then other people had copies of my key. It is a well known and documented fact that we can't trust everyone with access to the other copies of my key.

You never see my requirements or feature requests or responses on user serveys, or those from people who ask me for help, because your product doesn't meet my needs and gets discounted in the first round (along with almost all of your competitors).

Yes, the escrow solution has exactly the sames flaw as Backblaze's model. Security is fundamentally flawed as soon as users lose control of their key. All that effort ensuring keys are never writen to disk provides some protection against hackers, but can be completely bypassed by authority. The list of people and organizations that can gain or already have such authority is always surprisingly large. You are doing the very very best job you can for the model you have chosen to implement.

Fixing key loss problems requires guiding or ensuring that the user to keeps copies of their key. Maybe you can even offer to keep a copy for nieve users, or make some pocket money selling keyfobs, but if you start from the position of compromiable keys you can't support people with a healthy dose of paranoia. And that is becoming more and more of us. We are stuck with encrypting *before* we use your service, which makes your service less usable and less attractive.

I always find it sad when people advocate blacklists to protect their sensitive data. 'Encrypt your most sensitive data first'. It doesn't work, as it assumes you know what your most sensitive data actually is and don't make mistakes. You need to protect *all* your data by default, and open up data you determine to be not sensitive when necessary ('Share this photo with friends', 'Sync with Contacts').

"Search and stream torrents. Towards anonymous streaming."

Because of the focus on streaming? Streaming simply doesn't work across of this planet and for less popular content, unless you are YouTube and have invested in a global network of proxies. When I read streaming, I translate it to broken. I look at the front page, see what seems to be a tightly integrated app designed for first world consumers of popular content, and move on.

But since you prompted me to look deeper, yeah, it looks very interesting. It might even be useful for getting that obscure movie from the one seeder in Brazil into my media player in my backwater on the other side of the planet.

Publishers in all industries like preorders because it creates a spike of sales on release day. This is required to get on best seller lists, because they are usually about total sales over the last week or month.

The people who will be running the show in 20 years from now are not on Facebook. For a while now, the people running the show have been groomed for power. If you are a senator wanting to continue your dynasty, you send junior to private and exclusive schools and now days certainly don't let them near the Internet using their real name or real face. That embarrassing photo of your son would not only throw away everything you have invested, but also torpedo your own position of privilege. Not all trust fund kids are Paris Hilton.

Well done. I've not heard Python descripted as 'scriping language du jour' for a decade. I tend to date the time when Python started getting taken seriously at version 1.5.2, April 1999.

Of course, if real code is written in C/C++, then no true scotsman would ever consider scripting languages the right tool for the job :)