Your rock concert load-in is a great example. I worked as a stagehand for several years (still hold an active union membership) and I know precisely what you're talking about. Five hands who know what they're doing are so much better, and safer, than 15 who don't. I don't really have anything to add, just wanted to say that from experience I found your example interesting and apt.

$ cat /etc/slackware-version

Gastrointestinal.

Are these some examples of ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE? My favorite!

To me my laptop is a computer with wireless. It isn't to the vast majority of consumers, to them it's a chat/email device (occasionally a phone), PDA and content delivery platform (music and video).

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2680/4406738473_f7949d8a7f_o.jpg

I'm guessing you're a troll, but I do this. Well not exactly, you don't need to convert anything.

Open a youtube video, let it buffer, go into /tmp and there's the file. Just do "mplayer file" and watch it. I do this because the flash player crashed a lot (x86_64 Linux) and mplayer is smoother.

This is a dream Slashdot thread - your car analogies won't have to be analogies at all! They can be completely literal!

Listing more examples may be redundant, but it's worth mentioning that the U-2 spyplane has been in service for over 50 years because it's still the right tool for the job. If it ain't broke...

"Nothing to hide" is not an argument at all. Based on your response, you'd probably find this interesting reading:

'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy -- Daniel J. Solove

Cheers

People will use whatever's free, and probably say they have "nothing to hide!" The truly paranoid (which I say without intending any negative connotation) will run their own services. Unfortunately 90% of the email addresses you communicate with probably end in gmail.com, hotmail.com or yahoo.com anyway. That data is available on the other end, if in much more fragmented format.

I agree with your idea, but I honestly don't think the masses will go for it. If enough concerned people do, it could be worthwhile.

As a sidenote, your idea reminded me of rsync.net's privacy policies.

You should use /dev/urandom instead - /dev/random eventually runs out of entropy (it doesn't take too long, actually) and blocks. /dev/urandom doesn't block and is sufficient for this application.

The man representing himself has a fool for a client.

By this line of reasoning, would you agree with the following?

Despite low desktop usage numbers after more than a decade in existence Linux folks continue to spew out features. Good for them but I still won't touch their product.

Nuff said.

(http://wiki.debian.org/mmap_min_addr)

$ cat /proc/sys/vm/mmap_min_addr shows 4096 on my system, and MS Word 2003 works just swell under WINE.