Your name must be shared with quite a few other people in the world. You could say that there is information on the net about another person with the same name, or deny it in the same manner if it's pointed out to you. If my name were Michael Vick and someone mentioned what happened a few years ago, I would say that it wasn't the same Vick they read about. Unless there's a picture or something else relevant only to you in the information, you have a way out, unless the judgment is made without asking you first about it. There's no way around that last one unless you preemptively bring it up first, if you want to risk doing that. Or, you can tell the truth up front and see where it gets you.

"And ITRI has started testing STOBA on electric car batteries." Is there such a thing as a NON-electric car battery? :-)

We have these red light cameras in our city (in Ohio) and the whole thing was passed by City Hall very quickly without much room for public comment. There is a measure on the next voting ballot to make it necessary for a police officer to be present and personally issue the ticket if the red light cameras will be used to enforce traffic violations. The current arrangement makes it a civil issue, not a moving violation, so you are presumed guilty and have to pay the fine in advance even if you want a hearing. At first, the cameras were issuing right turn on red violations when there was no violation. Talk about the public getting incensed over all of this! And there was supposed to be a law enforcement officer checking the video clips before the violation was deemed to be valid. It looks like the city council and mayor are now lame ducks and will be voted out of office over this. One thing that bothers people is that the owner of the vehicle gets the ticket, and if the owner isn't driving, he or she has to rat out the driver or pay the fine as if they did the driving. That will be fixed if the law passes about requiring a police officer present to hand the ticket to the driver. There's also a court case over this because the contract the mayor signed may be invalid. And all of this was supposed to make our streets safer and had nothing to do with revenues for the city! (Right!)

A few words of advice from someone who is in a similar marriage and has been since 1974. The most difficult years in marriage are after the wedding. :-) I say that because so many people think that marriage will bring eternal bliss. It doesn't. But it doesn't have to be a living hell, either. Marriage isn't so much about how compatible you are but how well you deal with incompatibility. It helps to find common interests that you can share in together. Look at disagreements as a challenge to work out together, not a reason to terminate the marriage. When people divorce and remarry, they don't realize that often they are taking with them into the new marriage the same problems that led to the failure of the previous marriage. It's better to work out those problems and not divorce in the first place.

I've fixed several infected systems that have been running Symantec AV. I use the free Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to clean up the problem, then install Avast or PCTools free version. AVG is also OK, but I had some issues between it and Windows Vista. For a firewall, I use the free version of ZoneAlarm. As for bloat, that was the first reason I turned away from Symantec products, even though I could pick their products up for less than a third of their price. McAfee wasn't much better with the bloat issue, either, but was a bit faster in my opinion. As for Symantec's recommendation to not trust free products, there's a conflict of interest in them telling me to use their products instead of free ones, isn't there? So why should I trust their statement(s) when they stand to profit from my following their advice?

Some here suggested using Linux, which is a good idea if the college permits it. If they don't permit it, what about installing Wine or Crossover Office and set up a few Windows programs using that, including their snooper tool? Then you could surf from within Linux. I would think that their snooper tool would get caught in the synthetic Windows system created by the Wine installation and never see beyond there. Or, as others have suggested, you can run virtual machine software to run Windows in Linux, or vice-versa. Ubuntu even installs into Windows, but I never tried doing it that way. Or run XP in Vista with a virtual machine. That should allow you to hide at least part of your system from the spy software. Another thought crossed my mind also. Why not use your connected PC as a gateway to the Internet and connect to it from another PC that doesn't permit file sharing? You could use an older Windows system to do the connecting and set up a second Ethernet card in it and connect through the gateway PC to the college network. I don't know if their software would allow for that or not. Perhaps you can use a router as long as one PC has the software on it? You do have options, and you can probably beat the system with some of the suggestions here. If you ask too many questions, though, of the IT people there, you may cause some trouble for yourself.

I agree, but you should send them to both me and him, a 50-50 split. We'll put them to good use on eBay. Er, I mean, we'll give them a good home. :-)

Not only do we not get the local paper, but many here have given up on it. I would not be surprised if it goes belly up soon. I talked with a fellow who was getting it for FREE and he canceled it! I think that publishing thing in the local paper and NOT on the city web site is a way that the city hides what it wants to do. We had a red light camera ordinance that was tabled and everyone thought it was dead brought to life quickly without additional public notice even in the paper. Most of the local officials in the city are about to be voted out this year in elections because of this and a new ordinance is about to be put before voters to make it mandatory that any violations that the red light camera detect be given to the offender by a policeman on the scene. So it makes it necessary for a policeman to be present, making the use of the red light cameras inconvenient and impractical. But not that many residents even knew anything was going on with these cameras in the first place because the first notice was posted in the local paper that few even read. I'd like to see it made mandatory that governments publish news, laws, etc. that affect the average person on official web sites. Maybe also in local papers, but definitely on the web. Maybe even provide it in an optional RSS feed.

That would work for *most* people, but not every one has caller ID. I didn't until last month when I switched to telephone service provided by the cable company. The telephone company charged too much for phone service to begin with, and add a few dollars for touch-tone (yes, I used pulse dial until last month), caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, and other features. It was not uncommon for people to have a $50 telephone bill. I get all that for $25 per month ($20 for the first year). I also don't have a cell phone, but I would guess that caller ID is standard for them. So those who don't have caller ID would have to pay for that feature if they don't have it already in order for the caller ID screening idea to work. I received a call from some auto warranty place the night before the court injunction on those companies. The caller ID told me that. I waited a couple seconds then picked up the phone and said "hello." When I don't hear a response within about 1.5 seconds, I hang up, since that means that it's usually a telemarketer. I am on the federal DNC list but these people called anyway. I think that's what got them in trouble so quickly.

Maybe contact a nationally famous reporter who likes to cover things like this? Or 60 Minutes, Dateline, or even 20/20?

I liked the idea of Wikileaks the best, though, using an anonymous torrent file transfer to them. Then use a utility to wipe any drive that might have the file(s) on them. You can use one that does a DOD level deletion, or just use a wipe program. Some defragmenters will wipe the free space for you using your choice of wiping of the area for security purposes.

If you keep the files on a USB flash drive, you can either burn it, hide it somewhere safe away from home or work, or mail it to someone far away to hold it for you.

You can delete the torrent program (if you use one) and its folders before you do your file wiping or defragging with a wipe of the free space.

Maybe you can even mail a package with a DVD or CD to wherever it's going to end up, shipping it from another city or state even.

Posting here may flag you as a possible source for any release of information about this news, of course, so you may want to find a new home for your computer equipment so it's not taken and kept as possible evidence to mess with you.

If there is actual illegal activity going on, the feds will get wind of the information from Wikileaks or wherever it's posted or aired and take whatever action they care to do.

Best wishes on this, and I hope the results are posted here.