Generally you're right to point to router security, but I don't think it's relevant here. Router software package installation -- where you might think you want tls to fetch the package safely -- should be using package signatures rather than relying on tls.

Article writer Dan Goodin missed this point in his first draft. He thought he had a story, and failed at the fact-checking stage.

Would you rely on X.509 for a vpn? The implementation is irrelevant.

ATMs, no. Web banking really does have a problem, and it's much bigger than bugs in tls.

I think David Jao and others are right, and this is not news.

Debian unstable and a self compiled, patched (for the cam and wireless network), vanilla kernel work fine here.

"Freenet is what the web was..." -- Freenet isn't anything yet. I've tried it. Have you?

"Well worth donating to." -- What would we be donating to? Another few years of revisions of a non-functioning implementation using a non-free language?

The web is simple and it works. It started with a simple protocol and a simple markup language. From where I stand, Freenet looks a bit like Ted Nelson's Xanadu -- lots of good ideas, lots of complexity, and no real result.