For Apple to get into this I'd expect lawsuits against them--government entities might very well be able to get search warrants for this information but I doubt anyone involved can make a judge write up a warrant that allows Apple itself to have and reveal the data and not just the law enforcement entity involved.

There is no reasonable way to prove that there hasn't been tampering of evidence while the phone is in either nobody's or Apples control.

And if any party involved is shown to or can't prove they didn't hook this item up to an internet connected device to decrypt it there is no way to prove it hasn't been the target of malware that could plant erroneous data as well.

This is pretty creepy stuff.

So is this meant to be posted so close to the Adobe article about licensing software via a cloud, or...?

The cost of materials is the real barrier to entry for total cost of ownership for the best technologies like SLM/SLS (Selective Laser Melting or Selective Laser Sintering) Even though many of the raw materials base products are low cost like glass filled nylons, steels, etc, the powder mesh requirements are so small that production methods to make these raw materials into proper powder mesh dimensions is the real issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4odUhDjKHzo

Materials cost and specialty status is also the barrier to other technologies like polyjet and SLA where the polymer materials are UV cured and require high tech chemical production plants to make the raw materials. Polyjet also has a high amount of waste materials used in a catch can to keep it's print heads clear throughout it's build process and so far this resin is not reusable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlq4Nm254fM

Another factor is cost to operate. Some have calculated that to start up a large SLS machine filled with metallic powder including the energy to start up etc, it requires quite a large amount of capital to justify it. Upwards of $2500-$5000 depending on the material. Not to mention the machine itself that can cost upwards of $500,000 for a large SLM/SLA

Come on, really? Nerds don't date!

A trillion dollar coin at today's market value for platinum would weigh millions of pounds each.
This is many many orders of magnitude out of the realm of possibility.

Interesting how so many thing brand names are still individually synonymous with being a corporation.

Almost all of the oldest brand names we know and loved have been bought by larger corporate holding companies and other entities that now own them as intellectual property.

I'm quite sick of reading and otherwise hearing about journalists publishing hit pieces and other types of pointed articles on products and individuals and businesses that lack the proper levels of thought out scenarios or if-then's.

Nobody wishes harm to anyone of course but quite literally there are consequences to some speech and I would think a newspaper would be bright enough to know this.

The potential for setting up owners for thefts and break in's should have been thought provoking enough to make a writer and an editor think twice.

1. Where possible NEVER reveal experimental failures to anyone. Ever.
          Experimental failures are normal learning processes for developers that management nor marketing never understand.

It means we're now beholden to shareholders, a board of directors, the whims of Wall Street, and can be made or ruined with overreactions to any statements coming from any known associate.

Do these people really think when a trial goes to jury or even just judgement, that the jurors or judge is going to catch the "too cute by half" nature of their name and let them off?

Tech is now i phones, i pads, BlackBerry, touchscreens, etc. and it's getting easier to offload IT tasks to managers and individuals instead of having in house helpdesk employees in high numbers.

At least where I work, individuals are better at keeping their systems clean, avoiding the virii, worms, etc. than in the past. They can map their drives and printers themselves, and all in all are less of a pain than say five years ago.

Most of our corporate IT is actually cross functional, doing CAD and CNC programming as well as IT work in our engineering department, or data entry and database administration along with network administration and system installs.

IT has and always will be seen as overhead. Because it is.

I've had a few customers with trojans, from like 2009 and MS Sec. Essentials doesn't detect them with a quick scan. Only after a full scan did it see them.
These machines always had MSE running and up to date.

It's unfortunate that so many software companies write software such that it requires admin access or we could avoid so much of these infections.

That SOOO explains all my liberal democrat friends.

I'll have to tell them all to stop hiding their intelligence, the bullies are all gone.

Without the electoral system our current state of voting would require days or maybe weeks of tallying up all this garbage.

I can't for the life of me figure out why voting equipment and ballots etc. aren't a sanctioned standard equipment set.

If the labor statistics on unemployment are to be believed, and I'm rather sure we have worse unemployment than the labor statistics show, Cringley is correct in his assertions. I know so many slashdotters get all emotional about national borders being irrelevant in a perfect world, and fairness in employment across the world being a great thing in their logical minds, and I agree for the most part, logically at least, but as of now we are working in a system where we still have national borders. Central governments still DO take care of their populations currently, (some better than others) and there is no current world fixture in place to assure society functions properly across these borders. So within these known constraints we still must do right by our own nation's citizens currently first. Unfortunately we are not, and I would like to see foreign programs like this cut back and eliminated based upon employment statistics.