.... and on another note Microsoft stock skyrocketed on news of Balmers's retirement but quickly plummeted on news that John Sculley was going to take over and start a new line of soft drinks called Micro-Cola

Because they want to get the stuff that's bound for your Good Friend [sic] France, and because they're not 'setting up shop', they've been there since the early 19th Century. This is just a continuation of their strategic look-in on the canal and the global traffic that passes through it. Oh, and Gibraltar's not in the Middle East. :-)

... But none of this is to say they don't have similar facilities in Gibraltar.

No, it's Egypt.

They're not spying on the Middle East; they're spying in the Middle East... on all the data traffic running through the Suez canal. And that's basically everything between Asia and Europe.

Britain have had a watch on all traffic going through the canal pretty much from day one of its existence. And they've probably had communications taps in since the very first telegraph cables were installed.

Er, the UK is home to one of the most important financial centres on the planet. It's got a huge (commercial and strategic) incentive to know what other countries are doing. And it's not just spying on the Middle East - it's spying in the Middle East on all the Europe-Asia traffic that passes through the Suez Canal. Which is pretty much all of the Europe-Asia traffic there is (Russia excepted).

And you can rest assured that at least some of the US$100 million that the NSA gives GCHQ is being used to maintain these facilities. Draw what conclusions you like.

For the more visually inclined, a graphical map.

And based on that, I'll give dollars to doughnuts that it's Egypt. Virtually all traffic between Europe and Asia transits through the Suez canal.

Well, it's a bit harsh to say they brought this on themselves by having the infestation, because it's basically impossible to prevent an occasional infestation. Bedbugs don't spontaneously generate in filth, like people used to think rats did. They are brought in by guests, and even a clean, vigilant hotel is going to have them from time to time.

It seems to me like the hotel did the right things, up to the point where they went ape-shit over the trip advisor review. Yeah, the review was probably not fair, and it's going to hurt business in the short term, but them's the breaks. Into every business a little misfortune must fall. You suck it up and move on, you don't turn it into an ongoing PR disaster.

Bedbugs are disgusting, but they're harmless. They carry no diseases. Yeah, it's no fun finding them and they're a pain to get rid of, but they're not the Mark of Cain on a particular hotel. They're just something unfortunate that happens. Finding them is not proof that a hotel is dirty or lax, but people *will* over-react to bugs of all kinds.

I understand that you can't expect perfection from human beings. However, that doesn't mean you can't expect *anything*. TEPCO management displayed a pattern of proceeding on best-case assumptions, which isn't something you can chalk up to generic human fallibility. It is a *choice*, for which one can hold someone responsible, especially someone who is a professional.

Good point about TEPCO's financing, but you're missing my main point, which isn't just that we keep hearing bad news about Fukushima, but that we keep hearing news about things that weren't supposed to be happening that actually were. This implies a certain disconnect with reality.

Well, if you put it that way, we don't want to demand perfection in defiance of reality. But let's start by figuring out what "reality" is.

Remember, we're talking about a situation that TEPCO claims doesn't exist -- leaking of contaminated waters. But one of the constant features of this story has been unpleasant surprises. That's bound to happen in most disasters, after all a disaster pretty much by definition is a situation you hadn't planned adequately for. But the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe stands in a class by itself for unpleasant surprises; from day one we have heard one optimistic assessment after another brought low by horrible news. It smacks of management by wishful thinking, starting with the failure of TEPCO to adjust its preparations in response to a revised tsunami risk. During the crisis TEPCO's management was still thinking in terms of salvaging the plant. Fortunately for them they were defined by their own chief engineer onsite, Masao Yoshida, who on his own authority took drastic and irreversible action to cool the reactors.

So if it turns out this problem *does* exist, as researchers from Woods Hole seem to think it does, that shows us that TEPCO's management has still failed to grow enough spine to face unpleasant news. I'm open in this scenario to the possibility that discharging the contaminated water might be the best course of action, but not on TEPCO management's word, because if the problem exists that means their word is no good.

If I were PM, on confirmation this problem exists I'd take the solution out of TEPCO's hands. I'd charter a non-profit authority to direct the securing and cleanup of the plant, funded with TEPCO money.

Because he did something which many people believe was a great service to the nation -- and other see as a betrayal. The consequences of that act are of interest to both sides.

I happen to think we as a people are better off for Manning's actions, but I also see a certain recklessness in them. It raises interesting questions about how such a person could have got access to so much sensitive information. Clearly Manning was a deeply alienated young person -- didn't that show up in his (then ... "her" now) background check?

I wonder whether the military ought not be looking to fill these kinds of positions with older workers, people who've lived through the most volatile phases of their lives. It's not like twenty years ago when people over thirty had no knowledge of computers. These days someone who his fifty might well know more about how technology actually works than a twenty year-old.

I don't think being transgendered is a security risk per se, but being wracked with secret fear, uncertainty and shame certainly is. If Manning had been, say, forty years-old; had she already gone through the hormone therapy and surgery, and had come out as a transwoman to her family and associates; then she certainly would have acted differently. Maybe not with different intent, but certainly with more care and deliberation. Older people are less inclined to dramatic gestures, which has its good and bad points, but surely is a good thing in someone entrusted with access to huge volumes of sensitive data.

Why did you have to bring gay people into this, you insensitive clod?!?

The same app submitted under thousands of names - in the hope that some will "buy to try"...

Yeah, that can hardly be called development. How much effort does one have to put into developing an app in order to produce something new? I don't think you can do much in one day.

Putting this number in some perspective, the oldest person ever lived for 44724 days. So nobody would reach 47k applications at one per day.

LOL indeed. Fructose is a monosaccharide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose "Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple monosaccharide" just like glucose. They're isomers of each other. Sucrose is a disaccharide, consisting of a glucose and a fructose, 50% of each. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose "The molecule is a disaccharide composed of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose"
Sheesh.

I think it's the 'lol' that particularly annoys me when people say things that are just flat-out wrong.

Longer SSIDs are less likely to appear in rainbow tables.

If the SSID is long enough to be unique, it would be a waste of time to include it in a rainbow table in the first place. Once the SSID is that long, it is faster to simply brute force the password once you actually know the SSID. If we assume there are about 10^9 APs in the world, then SSIDs would need to be picked uniformly from a set of about 10^18 different values to avoid collisions. That means if there is 60 bits of entropy in the SSID, you don't benefit from adding more.

For the password OTOH a password with only 60 bits of entropy would be considered too weak to be secure. Aiming for 128 bits of entropy in the password is reasonable.

If you already have 60 bits of entropy in the SSID and want to add more entropy, then add the extra entropy to the password where it can make a difference.

I have 5-letter SSID and I've never seen a collision. It's even pronounceable.

That sounds entirely plausible, considering how many stick with the default. I didn't mention the length of mine, but it is a bit longer than 5 letters. I sticked with letters only and also ensured there was a combo of vowels and consonants, so the result in my case is also pronounceable.