Why is Mother's Maiden Name still a "valid" identity check? What about single mothers? What about people with spanish names (mother does not change name and kids get both tacked on)? Etc etc...

Check again, I know the block option has been there since at least 2 years ago when I used it.

Don't even need to sell open source, just either statically compile or ship the libraries with your proprietary binary and use those! It's not rocket science.

Oh right, a cultural construct. Bonus points if you force the question on Spanish-speaking users, in which cultures there is no name changing and the person's last name includes what would be considered the mother's "maiden name". Very secure.

Ah but this is a cellphone. It's different, innovative.

In theory what was once 1 IP you get is now a /64 block. IPv6 privacy extensions (enabled by default on Windows at least, available everywhere) make your computer generate a new IP every time you use it (still within the block), so it's sort of the same. They can prove it was in your house but not which equipment (unless it's still using the same address...)

At least Windows 7 (not sure if Vista) has IPv6 privacy extensions on by default. Sadly, my Galaxy S II not only does NOT have them on by default, but they didn't even compile it into their kernel. On my Linux box I turned it on with a config file. But still, brute force is still unfeasable, it's good for avoiding tracking between networks I suppose.

Yes, OTR works correctly over it. Facebook Chat (desktop, not mobile) sees ?OTR and shows [encrypted message] if you view your message logs.

Ah but it's already been done! http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/

Collecting SSIDs and correlating to locations is completely legal. What happened was that the cars were also (accidentally?) collecting unencrypted wifi data at the same time (and in my opinion, while this was a mistake, what expectation of privacy should you have when you don't spend the 5 seconds it takes to tick 'WPA'?)

And they have no excuse considering stuff like http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/3/history/ exists!

There's no way to update the DS, as the wi-fi stack is built into each game cartridge. Chances are you wouldn't be using a DS online enough to want to lower your security though...