"I would assume any reasonable host would be willing to get you a similar sort of hookup."

In this case, it appears the PSU failed, and they moved my drive to a different chassis, with completely different hardware, and are asking for the root password so they can reconfigure everything to coincide with that hardware change.

They want to charge me $35.00/24-hour acccess to a KVM, so I can go in and fix the networking they broke by changing the hardware around the leased server in the dc. I flatly refused to take ownership of that, since they did not tell me beforehand that they'd be swapping out the entire physical chassis, and I don't think I should have to pay $35.00 for 24-hours of KVM use when it'll take me less than 2 minutes to fix it.

They caused the problem, they "downgraded" the hardware to a different chassis, and they're holding my data hostage until I either give them root to go poking around (which I flatly refuse to do, as it violates my company policy), or pay them to fix what they broke.

...except setting the important data partitions to be dm-crypt, which means they can root the machine all they want, but without the passphrase to the dm-crypt partitions, they won't get to any client, customer or confidential data (i.e. transactions in the SQL db)

"As the above poster said, either create a limited account for them with only log file access, or else man up and just give them a full login."

I can't give them a limited account, because they've locked me out of accessing my own machine, demanding I give them the root password before they hand access back to me.

I find these to be unacceptable terms.

Bzzt... NTFS can't handle filenames that ext3, XFS and other Linux-based filesystems can handle. I went through this dance with my Drobo (incidentally, do not EVER buy a Drobo, not if you care about your data; it's dangerous to store data on that device)

ext3 and the Windows-side e2fs-explorer style packages are fine, or use Samba/CIFS and serve it up that way. I use rsnapshot on Linux to back up my Linux and Windows machines to my NAS, which is ext3-formatted.

NTFS is fine, if you're only ever backing up or storing data that can be created on Windows machines, but not if you want to store data from other machines (i.e. back up a Linux machine for example).

There's plenty of people working on this at the DIY Book Scanning site, but what they all lack... is page turning. I found this great project some students came up with that is simplistic and doesn't require you to preload pages at all.

Incorporate that, with the glass/plexi platen of the stock DIY book scanning projects, and you have a 100% complete, automatic, turn-it-on-and-walk-away book scanner from beginning to end.

"For example, a password to log in to a website does not need to be able to handle 4 million guesses a second.... it will be rate limited by the website way before that happens."

You're making a HUGE mistake, if you believe that assumption. With a warrant (or enough pressure without a warrant), the federal government will have direct access to the backend storage that the website uses, and just brute-force the password offline.

That assume of course, that the website itself is using sufficiently strong encryption and not just using ROT13 on the server-side.

Your website logins should be more secure than those you use on your local system, because more people could potentially have access to it. It also validates the need to never reuse a password anywhere you use on the web, ever. Anywhere.

That's the asinine thing about the ID fetish that all the apparatchiki are pushing. The 9/11 perps weren't using fake IDs, even. They had genuine passports and credit cards.

Including the fact that after the entire plane, fuselage, wings and passengers completely vaporized in the 9/11 event, the undamaged, unburned passports of those terrorists were found cleanly on the ground below, in the rubble of the aftermath.

Yes, they may have used legitimate passports, but... were they actually dropped by those people?

"How about if by installing a GPS device they catch a serial killer the month before he was going to rape and murder your wife/girlfriend? Isn't that enough repay? Or it's never enough?"

There is absolutely no justification for invading my freedom or revoking my right to privacy, including any faux crimes that may be leveled as reasons. I will not, ever, reduce my own guard to freedom or privacy, just to protect my family. That is a slippery slope, and exactly why we are where we are today, with 80% or so less rights and privacy than we had when our founding fathers created the documents that founded this country.

Take a read at one of my older blog posts that should explain my feelings on the matter a bit more concretely.

"The Goverment is running the largest deficit in history. Now a technological innovation allows to do the same as before with less money... and that's the problem. Right..."

Yes, that's exactly right. There is no way the government can possibly repay the cost of the loss of our freedom and privacy, ever.

Weigh our laptops? Exactly how much does a 1 weigh? a 0 weigh? If I create some new data and delete old data, will my laptop weigh less? Or more? How much more does a 200k keylogger weigh?

Seriously, this is silly, because TFA is talking about re-imaging laptops before/after. That would imply malware/spyware being surreptitiously installed, but that won't change the weight directly.

Re-imaging the laptop if a hardware keylogger has been installed wouldn't have any effect either (but could possibly be detected by weighing).

There's ABSOLUTELY NO WAY AROUND IT

1. Myth: "They'd need physical access to install anything to log keystrokes anyway!" Wrong. They can do this all remotely, using your own patched operating system's default capabilities.
2. Myth: "You could just borrow a machine there and boot to a KNOPPIX CD and work from that!" Wrong. If a hardware keylogger is installed, it captures everything.
3. Myth: "You could just use your own laptop and re-image it!" Wrong. If someone owns the network above you, they're certainly sniffing that.
4. Myth: "You could just use SSL and secure your communications!" Wrong. See 1.) and 2.) above

...and so on. If someone wants access, they'll get it. Either on your local machine in software, on your local machine in hardware, or on the network outside of your machine.

"One link is for, what at the moment, is the latest version of the modified hosts file and the other link is to the installation instructions and general information."

Why not just use "Hosts Man"?

"I've talked to a few people who use AT&T and still have tethering on their iPhones after upgrading. They got the new configuration bundle and have no problems."

AT&T removed tethering from every single BlackBerry device out there... at least in the heavily-dense northeast corridor here. They did this without warning, about a week after the last Apple announcement about the new iPhone 3GS and how it supports tethering, but not on AT&T.

Why? Because people who had no idea what tethering was, Googled it, found it useful, and flooded AT&T's network (and over-sold capacity), causing them to shut it down.

I've talked to no less than 100 separate people who were previously using tethering on their BB devices on the lengthy train ride to and from NYC from Boston, and they've all been locked out, including myself. It doesn't work on Windows. It doesn't work on Linux. It did the day before, and hasn't since... without any changes on our ends.

So if iPhone users can still tether, they're ahead of us now. BlackBerry users have been permanently locked out.

Fuckers.

"How is injuring the perp while subduing him with your hands any better than injuring him while subduing him with a Taser?"

I'll give you one: Controlling the situation.

How many people who have been tased standing up (and lived), suffered arm and leg fractures, dislocations from an uncontrolled descent to the hard pavement, or cracked their head during a freefall from standing to pavement? Plenty.

Now do the same thing while you tackle/subdue/etc. someone physically. How many times are you going to see anything more than pulled muscles, abrasions and possibly bite marks (in the case of mental health patients) or minor dislocations (wrists, fingers)?