Every tech I know has an always-on desktop connected to the internet with a rarely changing IP. And the forum has instructions on setting it up on Linux.

I think you're trying (and failing) to make a pun. "Open Sores" = vulnerable proprietary systems. Lame.

I recall a recent article saying they purchase a very large portion of all hard drives. That means they are partially responsible for lowering storage prices.

If the software is properly written, it will take care of the permissions. It's trivial to make a PHP script that checks the permissions on each folder and file in the program, and change them if they aren't right. You can even have the script fall back to FTP if PHP doesn't have permission to change permissions.

We don't need to trust them. We just need to trust the company that does the actual audit.

Because I live in the real world? You know, the one where most everyone uses Windows, and the major Linux distros have fucked up their UI?

That's a load of crap.

Using Kinect? Good god, how expensive.

With that much money (which is just for the checkout lanes), I bet they could:
-Put RFID tags in all their value cards
-Put RFID readers on all the shelves and aisles

When they require their suppliers to put RFID stickers on all their products, they can now monitor all their inventory in real time. They can track merchandise for shrink purposes. They can track where their shoppers go, where they stop, what merchandise they handle. Combine that information with their purchasing information from the value card and I'm sure you could do all kinds of targeted advertising.

Want to actually display targeted advertising in the store? Put it in the shopping carts. Not the baskets, not the shelves. Carts to encourage more purchases. Any ads displayed on the cart automatically apply at checkout. Heck, now that you have screens built into the carts, and the cart knows the content of the cart, you can show the shopper a running estimated subtotal with tax and coupons.

Plus it opens you up scan-free checkout. Basket reports to the register what's in it, cashier verifies, done.

if someone made a virus that automatically flashes vulnerable router firmware with DD-WRT with tor turned on.

Mandatory retest, every 5 years.

Maybe instead of braking (which is dangerous) and turning the engine off (which doesn't make any sense), temporarily lowering the voltage to the fuel pump (to reduce flow) would be better. There aren't any strange forces being applied to your car, your engine stays running, and your speed is forced down.

I'm banking on nanites. I bet they could make the road itself a solar collector; maybe even melt snow and ice, funnel water off the road, provide illuminated stripes, and carry data and power to beef up our internet/power grids.

Not quite. I had a chance to see the internal Comcast documentation on this once. You won't have a choice, if you have one of their wireless gateways, it will eventually be turned on for you and you can't turn it off. However, the XFinity wifi network is completely separate from your network, so unless someone finds a flaw in the firmware it should be secure. And, your network gets higher priority, and any data usage by a wifi customer doesn't count against the download speed you pay for (if you pay for 30mb down you can get the full 30mb down while another customer uses the wifi).

I'm fine with that.

How about specifying it must have enough gravity to make it round to be called a moon and not just a satellite?