It would be like Grey Goo, only produced without nanotechnology.

Yes! Thank you. It's a nuisance when you can so clearly see something in your mind's eye and know it should be easy to find, but not be able to find it because of not remembering its name. Good work.

It's just yet another proof (as though more were needed) that security isn't something you can bolt-on after the fact. It would probably have required of them less effort to have done a rewrite from scratch, designed from the beginning with security in mind, than to have issued so very many patches and updates throughout the years.

Do they never consider that? Or I suppose it doesn't matter until something really embarassing like this happens?

We live in a society that, as Bill Hicks noted, is at about an eighth-grade emotional level collectively (he was being generous). Few people acknowledge the logical consequence, and seem to believe it magically goes away if they really, badly, truly wish hard enough or get upset enough.

I suspect the government understands the situation, however. Malicious attackers and other criminals exploiting mandatory backdoors only provides an excuse for more laws regulating the Internet and expanding executive powers. To protect you from those evil hackers, of course. If nothing else, the NSA gets their little back-door so they can more easily betray their own countrymen in the name of safety; if that goes wrong in the worst possible way, then: bonus! For the evil men who love power and know no loyalty, it's a win-win. Sadly.

Do you mean that literally, or do you merely observe that few social conventions actually make any sense? Some of them even seem deliberately designed to inhibit personal growth.

Because in a way, that's a great big joke all by itself. It's just not nearly so funny as it could be.

The way that you say this reminds me of a photograph I saw in a history textbook back in high school. I have searched and (not remembering its name) cannot locate the image or else I'd provide a link, but I believe it comes from the time of the Industrial Revolution.

It's an old black-and-white photograph. It shows a man using a large wrench or spanner on a machine. The man's back is bent into an arc and his body contorted so that he may use the wrench on something not designed with ergonomics in mind. The purpose of the photograph is to show a man bending and yielding to a machine that was nominally supposed to serve men. It's similar to the notion that what you own also owns you.

I realize you were possibly being facetious, yet nonetheless you reminded me of something I haven't seen or heard about in years. I'd be interested if anyone here knows the photo to which I refer.

The people who want modern-day prophets to be wrong so they can ridicule them, call them names, and feel better for a moment about their pitifully desperate and meaningless lives, well, these are not the kind of people who like to admit when they are wrong and try to avoid repeating the same mistake.

Validity was never to be expected from the likes of them. Such people aren't interested in truth. They're interested in feeling superior to someone else. This is fundamentally incompatible with a search for truth.

To me it was also predictable, because I've read history books and noticed again and again that the most ruthless, sociopathic, often bloodthirsty control freaks are the ones who want power so badly that they'll do anything to achieve it. That's the nature of government. Public awareness and understanding is the only real thing holding it back. We have public apathy and ignorance because most people have been softened and made complacent by convenience and pointless indulgences (hundreds of channels of brain-dead horse-shit, news media controlled by 5 corporations all of which are cozy with government, public education for obedient workers and not for self-directed thinkers).

But that the government would want to spy on its people and would use technology in that manner, no that's not remotely surprising to anyone who understands the nature of governments and the people who most want to run them. What we need is a majority of people who comprehend this basic fact that has been repeatedly observed throughout history. The stakes are higher now, and become higher the more our tech advances. Our leaders have noted that bread and circuses works, that's because they actually do learn from history.

When you date people who a) are not childish, and b) have a sense of honor, it protects you from pretty much all of these problems.

The sick part is that so many people think the government could ever be a substitute for cultivating a little wisdom.

That, and no one in authority has the balls anymore to tell these women: this is why you should learn to recognize and value men who have honor and understand why this is important. A man with a sense of honor recognizes your right to exit the relationship anytime you wish and respects that this is your decision. A man with honor does not view the exercising of your rights as something he must avenge in a cowardly manner.

Because politicians love the meme of the innocent maiden victimized by nasty brutish men, so long as the politicians get to be the knights in shining armor.

Or the hard-working black man kept down by mean ol' racist Whitey. Or whatever -- any division will work. So long as it divides people into group identities and requires a savior, it will become a political issue.

It's not a very funny joke, but the joke is that so many people really think the legislators voting for this give a flying fuck about women who demonstrate poor judgment and can't differentiate a man who has honor and a man who does not (and don't think that matters, until something like this happens). Or anyone else. Or anything other than money and power, for that matter.

So was the naive decision (of the photographed person) to trust someone who should not have been trusted. If we agree that private things should remain private, there is no reason why this should be an exception.

Yes but that would eliminate the emotional angle of an implied "poor females victimized by those nasty brutish men". Absent that, the speaker would be left with nothing to fall back on except to make a reasonable argument. Clearly you see the problem.

Good catch.