Chrome has a nice rendering engine, in such that it is fast and relatively safe. However, the big brother phone home all my actions behaviour is putting me off. The fact that they want me to log into my browser makes me want to dowse it in gasoline and light it, just to disinfect my computer from malware. Now they are actually trying to take over control over what application I use for things that are not web pages. FU google, you're just as evil as all the others.

I pretty much avoid apps with any kind of in-app purchasing. If you think your app is worth the price of all the extra bits, well then allow me to buy the whole thing. I'm not interested in being nickeled and dimed to death for extra levels, abilities or features.

I'm confused. Are you talking about apps or girlfriends?

That's why they'd prefer to kill the meet-me room. Bring down all the links without yanking cords out, or dropping power to the rest of the DC floor.

Most facilities I've been in pass all traffic through the meet-me room. Sometimes the "room" is just a few racks with all the outside providers networking gear. Usually it's a separate room that requires special access. Like, I've never had access to go wandering around a providers meet-me room by myself. I'd usually get supervised tours. When I've needed to help providers work through their problems, I've been escorted by authorized personnel. That's always been "point, don't touch" access. We all acknowledge that all it would take to kill all peering in that room is to flip the main breaker(s) for that room. There's usually at least two panels from two different sources (i.e, two DC rooms either physically or logically divided.)

Reminds me of a story. Many years ago (okay, about 20 years ago) I worked for a very small company that set up networks for point of sale systems; so small it was just my boss and me.

One evening we were heading back to town after being onsite since about 6am. Needless to say, we were both tired, so my boss was gunning it. Then comes the flashing lights. Cop stops us, and asks my boss "Do you know why I stopped you?" My boss replies "I suppose I was speeding." The cop nods. "Yes you were, sir. And did you happen to glance at your speedometer to see how much over the speed limit you were driving?" At that point, I caught a mischievous look in my boss's eye.

"God no!" my boss exclaimed. "Traveling that fast, I didn't dare look down at my dash!"

Fortunately the cop had a good sense of humor, we all had a laugh, and my boss got a ticket.

Yes, because someone is going to follow said driver to their destination, and then beat them to death with a crowbar.

Well fuck then! I'm going to start driving backwards, that way my insurance company gives me money!

No kidding. The whole article feels like it should come with the heading "This message brought to you by the Insurance Industry, looking out for our^H^H^Hyour interests!"

It's rather irrelevant what you think, Mr. Bigelow. There are currently international treaties banning any nation (and by extension any citizen of a nation) from claiming extraterrestrial territory. So bugger off and do something useful with your money.

No, Karmshock is spot on. It would likely be easier to just put a tariff on polluter countries like China and India, unless those good can be shown to be at least "average" in CO2 output. Same with the US. There are plenty of green companies here, or relatively, the main polluters are the employees, not the employers. Driving cars.

And before people scream "tariffs are bad for developing countries", I would remind them that every imported item created lots of CO2 to cross the ocean to get here. Maybe all countries should charge an extra 4-8% tariff to encourage domestic production. Not enough to choke imports off, just just enough to encourage local production.

What really scares me isn't that the Americans themselves don't seem to care a lot. Europe has been a prime target of all this and even there the reaction is "meh". How many USA ambassadors have been summoned to explain and apologize? The USA has treated their allies worse than most of Europe would treat their enemies and still nothing came of this. It turns out Europe isn't that different after all....

Funny, I had the same reaction when I read it. He seemed like a salesman for Google or something.

Dear Prince Bernard, If you're talking about my bank account, you're barking up the wrong tree :)

Some people only believe it if the ATF tells them it's true...

Why would you think it would take the national guard, or any sort of serious force, or messing with routing tables?

All it would take two agents and a national security letter.

Most datacenters don't have that many people working in them at any given time. Well, there might be people, but staff is usually a half dozen or less security, 2 or 3 NOC techs, and some sales people if they even bothered to work from the office that day. Two agents say "cut power to all the gear in the meet-me room", and confirm everything went dark. Done. People argue less when confronted by people with guns, and put up less resistance when handcuffed and locked in a room. If they're feeling particularly ambitious (and horribly annoying IMHO), they could hit the main breakers on the equipment side of the battery room. No power to the routers, no data going over them.

Do a few major peerings, and the Internet is dead. A perfectly capable kill switch.

Something like this wouldn't be used for a SCADA problem. It's more of to isolate Internet resources.

In a war scenario, one of the first things an attacker would do is neutralize infrastructure. Power, communications, water, etc. Power is done at power plants. Only isolated pieces remain, like places with their own generators.

Communications is the point we're talking about here. Internet, land lines, cell phones, and sat phones down with the "kill switch". You'll still have some working, like PBXs within an organization, and some (but not all) sat phones. At very best, you'll have some sat phones talking to each other, but they aren't calling land lines or now disconnected cell phones.

Water is mostly killed with the power, or can be addressed later.

The only communications you'll end up with are HAM radios, and those with illegal transmitters switching to commercial AM/FM frequencies. Of those, it will only be the ones who have their own generators. They'll be a lot easier to triangulate without all the normal RF noise present.

Then you isolate consumable transportation. Civilians will starve without food supplies being brought in. Major roads, railroads, and sea ports with be blocked or severed.

The sad thing is, everything I described is in all of the war plans. It can also be accomplished by a small group of civilians with a good plan. It's simply proof that there has been no real threat to the United States. .. and to whoever may be reading this that says "Oh shit, he's a bad guy", I'm not. But if your bosses insist you interview me, feel free to stop by and say "hi". Bring soda and smokes, and we'll have a nice long chat. Don't mess up the front door, we'll open it for you.