Posts by dssf

New Development. Where do we go?

For non-developers, who will want WYSIWYG IDE's, what would be best

If we do not want vendor lock-in and are loath to see our apps be tied to one desktop, but also want to be on tablets, too?

For example, I use Lotus Approach. It is easy, fairly stable, and is a snap to do "prototyping" in.

But, IBM is ending support after mid-/late-2014.

Lotus Approach has no runt-time executable/standalone app capability.

Alpha 5 seems to be stuck in windows land.

Sesame is "unconventional" in is appearance, to me.

Kexi and most other Open Source "offerings" -- particularly "Base" are not even up to competing with Apprach.

Filemaker is Mac-Only on the dev side.

QT might work, but I never figured out how to "bold" database tables and dropdown tables to the forms.

Codelite eludes me.

Gambas is not a contender.

NetBeans and Eclipse might work, but are way over my head.

wxWidgets, I was told by a wxWidgets developer, doesn't do databases on the backend, especially if I am not a developer.

Accesss, since I would prefer to NOT consigned to becoming a Windows-dev, is also out of the consideration.

Rekall way back in 2005 lost out in my list of considerations.

Why nobody dares to clone Approach and take the ease-of-use mantle is beyond me.

Microsoft: We're nearly OUT OF STOCK of Surface 2 and Pro 2

Re: Dell'th blow Death Blow... Now you've got me wondering

Now you've got me wondering what an AlienWare'd-out Venue would look like. Might look like a super-thickened LCARS schematic.... Oh, wait...

Re: Silverlight for MOBILE, not desktop, IIUC

Per this:

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/194404/silverlight-support-from-microsoft

MS is encouraging uptake of Silverlight for MOBILE devices, not desktop/non-mobile settings. I don't know where the truth lies, but since Netflix apparently dumped Silverlight, and Flash and HTML 5 seem to be favored, it is hard for me to know, especially since I'm not a programmer and don't follow it regularly.

Re: That because they only made 11,001.. STB/Console...

Taking over the Entertainment division? Microsoft Flight Simulator?

That could be a way to turn Surface into the next MS STB/Console.

(Wow! Am I actually suggesting a product lineup change in MS's favor?)

Microsoft Surface 2 fondleslabs finally get off ground with airline order

Carry-Around Edition and In-Flight Edition

Carry-Around Edition and In-Flight Edition

Whether it is an iPad or Surface, what controlling of the plane with it will the flight crew perform?

Why not make in-flight software that is the equivalent that is on the tablet, but give it a tether so it won't easily work outside of the plane? It could just be latched to the deck or a safe, out-of-face area when not in use, and then for flight management, outside of the cockpit, the pilots could use whatever software is optimized for the variety of approved reference reading devices the pilots adopt.

NSA using Firefox flaw to snoop on Tor users

The funniest part of the commentary...

"There are also indications that the NSA had been trying to influence the design of Tor to make it more crackable, a somewhat Kafkaesque approach given that Tor is primarily funded by the US government itself to provide anonymity to internet users operating under repressive governments."

MongoDB slurps $150m in mammoth funding round

"Document-oriented" database?

I will have to look up what that might mean in the context of databases. Does it mean that the fields support mixed per-word or per-character italics, bold, underlining, and other attributes commonly seen in word processors? Does it mean that a field can contain a table (presentation table, as in what we see in spreadsheets) object?

You're either mighty brave or mighty stupid. So which is it, Twitter?

How much did it cost them to move into that old renovated relic building

How much did it cost them to move into that old renovated relic building on Market Street? Lotsa foot traffic in and out of if. Must be a significant headcount, rent/lease cost, and a load of cash spent on perks to attract or retain some employees. Others are probably quivering in their boots hoping they'll pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Time will tell. Sitting on top of two major transit rail lines (BART and MUNI), numerous bus lines (MUNI, Amtrak, various other commuter buses), near two Starbucks, a McDonalds, a BK, Carls, City Hall, and a plethora of other services cannot be cheap.

Meanwhile, what's happening with Zynga? They're way back south, in the Potrero Hill area, possibly meaningfully cheaper digs, tho it's in the Design Center district, which probably has some heft in the real estate costs, too, but probably not as crazy as downtown. If the $300 per head on payrol tax deferral was a significant lure to get Twitter to move into a new housing corridor of Market Street... Well, we'll see how mnay of these companies really ARE quietly sinking cash and other resources into buying up apartments to keep their employees within walking distance of their offices. May be a rumor, but I heard from a kstreet person who seems to be keeping an eye on things say that Twitter, Google, and multiple others are buying up chunks or blocks of floors of apartments in new construction towers. If true, then the poorer of these companies had better start turning significant profits before they begin a new real estate boom and soon-thereafter bust/crash from renewed "irrational exuberance" and wreck things all over before a recovery cycle has made its run.

Apple wins patent for entrance to retail store

Other tall, glass buildings:

http://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Aldar_Headquarters_Building

http://www.panoramio.com/m/photo/78332724

So, if Apple or its lawyers reign in the dodgy, loose claim that it need not be made of glass, then what of grain elevators? Feed silos? There is not technical reason these could not be made of glass if food safety and regional storms are not an issue.

NSA's Project Marina stores EVERYONE'S metadata for A YEAR

Visual Analytics has been making powerful charts since maybe 1999 or 2003

http://www.visualanalytics.com/

It seems SAS, then Raytheon took over VisualAnalytics.

Personally, as a database and charts fan/fiend, I am not surprised by the capabilities of the NSA or GCHQ, or others. I just hope they are not *excessively* abusing their power. But, the software, and suites like it, make for some kewl/neat modules and tools.

Check out the Law Enforcement and the Banking/anti-money-laundering solutions/features.

http://www.visualanalytics.com/products/visualinks/images/vl1B.gif

http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/overview.html

Demo:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1DUM4YdnzzA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1DUM4YdnzzA

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.visualanalytics.com/products/visualinks/images/vl1B.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.visualanalytics.com/products/visualinks/&usg=__Tw9zi-eFpghQO2067kd1OQ_hP4g=&h=693&w=725&sz=59&hl=en&start=16&zoom=1&tbnid=8kj-0xj2bsp7pM:&tbnh=134&tbnw=140&ei=lXVKUoyNJYOcyQH84ICYCg&prev=/ images%3Fq%3Dvisual%2Banalytics%2Bsoftware%26client%3Dtablet-android-samsung%26sa%3DX%26hl%3Den%26v%3D133247963%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&sa=X&ved=0CEoQrQMwDw

Really impressive stuff -- as long as it's not being used to frag non-criminals. OTOH, it can help drive down high vehicle insurance rates, spot manufacturing defects, and do lots of other useful things.

US regulators seek public input on plan to investigate patent trolls

Just DO IT! Get started, then ask for refinement input later.

It's like asking us whether or not fb and the NSA should be audited for sniffing fb accounts with assistance from fb, but collecting non-criminal accounts, lying about not doing so, and then... Well, you get the idea...

This will probably be an article up on el reg's wall any minute now, but, since it ties in with regulators and investigations:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130929

....

This CERTAINLY can help explain spurious, mysterious crashes, sluggishness, delayed or never-seen messages intended for foreign friends, dual-overlay-like feeling of pages in the browser... Maybe fb should just die, and everyone should go back to snail mail for about 3 years.

No, wait-check that... Postage prices would go up 3x, postal workers would be spared of competing evenly against commercial deliverers, and the NSA would have to hire 20,000 to 100,000 manual mail inspectors, and all our letters would be marked "We Care! We apologize that your mail was damaged in our conveyor/sorting system.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 region-locking saga CLEAR AS MUD

Imagine if the Enterprise landing party comm badges worked like this...

It would be hell trying to call for an emergency beam-out if orbit was not high enough and required regional/geostationary relay satellites, and some miscreant encoded with regions.... (akin to military units being assigned different bands and freqs and such...)

Is there any anti-theft merit to this?

Is it possible that Samsung is testing a badly-implemented or non-disclosed theft-reduction measure?

If the phone locks up after being stolen and activated in a new region of the world (as is often the case when phones are stolen), then presumably, to some extent, the "owner" or holder of the phone could be forced to show proof of purchase and proof of ownership before being allowed to enjoy the phone.

Potentially, though, this could serve to more deeply tie individuals the messages coming from the phones. If each device somehow encodes the traffic flowing through it, not just sent to/from the named device's on-board email accounts, then a person's movements could be tracked even more, especially if a targeted handset is sent crafted for-tracking-purposes messages and lock-up instances.

Just thinking, I accept that there are other and better means of achieving what I am imagining.

Travel much? DON'T buy a Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Re: Samsung's Footgun moment? Not sure, but...

Can there be any national security reasons, say, such as the EU wanting to make sure the USA cannot lean on Samsung to bug Europeans' phone, or other countries, after the EU model rolls out? Maybe the US is also leaning on Samsung to "protect" USA travlers? Or, could Samsung be testing waters to see of it can protect Koreans later, after Samsung learns technically from hackers removing the region blocking?

Just curious....

Samsung unveils Galaxy Note 3: HOT CURVES – the 'gold grill' of smartphone bling

Not to nitpick, but...

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/grille.html

Unless the phones and Madonna's and LGGs, and R's teeth covers can double for cooking surfaces, hahahaha.... In which case those braces/bling pieces can be used as kinky branding irons, hahahah. Maybe if the phones batteries burst, though, the exhausting heat or gas might prove a "grilling" and "gruelling" experience.

Fanbois shun 'crappy plastic' iPhone 5C

Report of a Disingenuous, INGENIOUS Experience

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/20/homeless-recruited-to-buy-iphones/2844979/

"A businessman scheming to get his profit-minded hands on dozens of new iPhones allegedly recruited about 100 homeless people from Skid Row in Los Angeles to wait in line overnight at the Pasadena Apple Store, but many were left unpaid and stranded after his plan was exposed, local media reported Friday.

The unidentified reseller had offered $40 to each hired hand who bought an iPhone for him, which he bragged about to others in the line of about 200 people, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported. When they learned of the scheme, store personnel stopped selling the latest iPhone models to the homeless stand-ins."

More at the URL

Obama Zucker-punched: 'NSA PR bungle whacked public trust in web giants'

One way FB might regain some cred

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/09/17/google-cookies-advertising/2823183/

What can FB do to follow this? Is it just javascript (which if not used, apparently still lets mobile users interact with the site...)? Or is fb making heavy use of cookies?

One of last few iPhone 5Ss STOLEN from within MASSIVE POLICE CORDON at Apple Store

Getting free cops to cover a product launch is like

Getting free cordon blue to cover

marketing free cordon bleu...

IT bloke denies trying to shag sheep outside football ground

Re: Caught on CCTV Bhaaadddd bad bhhhaaadddd badd

Ewwwe, how .... Baaaad

Perhaps, end-descent exxsposure while attempting to spin a white web inside the white webb sheep caught a tension of with/due to a lot of

Bhaaadddd

bad

bhhhaaadddd

badd

Bhaaadddd

bad

bhhhaaadddd

badd

Baaddd to da bohn.....

talk about "ten ding sheep...

Old buggerer....

Re: Was it a wool jumper?

Ewe... End deed

maybe he wanted to "service" it and create something ab-bomb-end-nimal.

Maybe he thought it safer to try something sheep-shape rather than stick his testy tube into a bird's beakerv

Re: IT gets lonely.

He probably had a lack of ram due to being kicked by a rack of lamb....

Reminds me of high school in Texas, maybe 7th or 8th grade:

How does a cowboy f*3k a sheep?

Oh, I don't know. How?

Put the left leg in the left boot, right leg in the right boot, raise the sheep's front legs skyward, and walk to the edge of a cliff. The sheep will keep backing up trying to live.

Some would respond with "Ewe", only to be met with, "Rightttt..."

I wondered where some of these kids learned things....

Oracle revenues miss expectations – AGAIN

I the Oracle was all-knowing, all seeing...

I guess not, it seems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tos_city-on-the-edge.png

Leaked docs: NSA 'Follow the money' team slurped BANK records, CREDIT CARD data

"Unaware of any unauthorized access"

" In a statement, Visa told Der Spiegel that "we are not aware of any unauthorised access to our network" adding "Visa's policy to only provide transaction information in response to a subpoena or other valid legal process". "

Of COURSE not. You're up against Section 31 -- either in the now, the 2 minutes prior to or the 50 years after you detect intrusion. The Temporal Mechnanics will in, through, by, and at times of your recursive corrections.

Maybe all Section *31* is about is wealth control.... Heheheh

Microsoft relents: 'Go ahead, install Windows 8.1 on clean PCs'

Generating a lot of "EH"

Seems as if MS want or are just instigating a lot of Eight Hate....

Chap unrolls 'USB condom' to protect against viruses

Re: Simple! OUCH!

Sorry, I can't let you do that DA--

SNIP/TEAR

OUCH! That HURTS.

RIP/CRIMP

That is NON-CONDOMNABLE

END JOY

Ahh, Dave, that is a vahzzzz deferenzzz -- My ports no longer come in two varieties... They EGGZIST in two varieties...

RIP/TEAR/CRIMP

OH, DAVE, YOUR LOVE IS A MANY-SPLINTERED THING..

ONE is the loneliest number that-chul ever...

OH DAVE, ONE SIZE REALLY DOES FITTALL

Facebook reveals plan to WIRE THE PLANET

"It is critical to wake the radio as seldom as possible"

" Consequently, it is critical to wake the radio as seldom as possible and send as much network traffic each time as possible, while maintaining the feeling of freshness and recency in the UI. One way we’ve tackled this is by pre-fetching multiple images at a time that your friends have posted instead of waking up the radio separately for each image fetch."

Hardly any news or stunning discovery. Many sites have offered "digests" for decades. Saves on landline bandwith and mobile bandwidth.

Harvesting/Hoarding Trend?

If you are correct, it might be a slow trend toward data hoarding to ward off others' data harvestng efforts.

Look at how they've jumbled-up the users' friends listing, making them randomized and repeating. Sorely screws up even a legit user's efforts to keep track of ones' bazillion friends. It's a PITA with just a hundred friends. Imagine the hell of sorting and dumping for spreadsheet or database use one's 500+ friends...

Want to sit in Picard's chair while spying on THE WORLD? We can make it so – ex-NSA man

Info Dominance Center...

Ahh, Section 31 strikes again, hahha. Maybe they should invoke Reed Alert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHyWYA1Nvq8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

However, I think the Voyager Astrometrics Lab or 1701-D Stellar Cartography room would be better, even moreso if the perch overlooking planets or Intertubes nodes and pipes below could be built.

Maybe even better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQC7U7i-KdY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Crewman Daniels' temporal commission holo-encyclopedia

Microsoft reissues September patches after user complaints

Holy Jumping Geared Legs, BATMan!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/science/gearlike-legs-propel-a-european-jumper.html

Are the patches and bug fixes going to leapfrog, umm, leapbug the baddies?

Teen buys WikiLeaks server for $33,000 – with dad's eBay account

I'll bet the father willl further be speechless

When his throat gives out. But, how many hours will it take ffor him to become speechless?

Google swaps out MySQL, moves to MariaDB

Re: Oracle is good at developing new products.

I was just looking at PCLOSmag, trying to find info about PCLOS adn MariaDB. Found nothing in a casual search.

Re: And Agai, Conversely

Well done, Google. Snatching da feet from the Jaws o' -- oh, won't quite sound right... But, da feet of were spared... And a shark has been speared... Oh, wait... I might have to call on Oracle some day...

Borland's heir Embarcadero says one dev tool can rule them all

This one:

http://wiki.freepascal.org/File:JPDB_Screenshort3.png

Gets my attention. I'm not a developer, but want to find a tool that is as capable as if not more than Lotus Approach, so that I, as a non-programmer, can create forms, charts, detail tables on forms, and embed charts on forms and reports, and embed drop-down detail panels on chart, and so on. I want to create kewl stuff but deploy (for freen and for pay) to Lin/Mac/Win/Android. I'd like to study it a month or two, then make rudimentary apps in less than a few weeks, and spend less than 6 months kicking out a decent beta, along the same learning curve as Lotus Approach, but not have it be Filemaker, Alpha 5, Sesame, Foxpro, Access, Omnis/Omnis Studio, etc.

Also, anyone use Code::Blocks, Codelie, Gambas III, or Qt4 Designer? If so, and you could choose two of those I mentioned (maybe Radstudio XE5 is 3rd choice...), which two would be in your tool kit if you had a boss say to pick two from the above, and both HAVE to be able to deploy natively and webly OS-agnosticly and acquired freely or cheaply (less than $400 for prototyping deployable/stand-alone apps)?

Thanks for weighing in...

Look at the Application Gallery...

Seems impressive

http://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Application_Gallery

Anyone care to weigh in how this might stack up against wxWidgets?

Want the latest Android version? Good luck with that

Forced vendor waits, aimed at forcing customers' hardware updates?

Forced vendor waits, aimed at forcing customers' hardware updates?

Seems like it to me.

My tab's Android version: 3.2

Kernel: 2.6.36.3

Se.infra@SEP-40#1

Samsung surely can do better, considering I bought this thing in July of 2012.

Facebook postpones privacy putsch: report

Maybe they are required to report/disclose the number of daily-closing or self-suspended accounts?

Maybe they are required to report/disclose the number of daily-closing or self-suspended accounts?

Especially in time proximity to pronouncements of forced acceptance of new, unwanted changes?

Reports: NSA has compromised most internet encryption

This'll kill a lot of erections..

Imaigine how many of those m4m sites and phone apps must have a$$load$ of automated agents and the occasional "sampling" human in them. They could be in there just wasting time of those dripping like a dog looking for someone who'll never respond.

Your sex chats/quest are being enterrupted to prevent acts you WOULD have committed....

Of course, if that is real, then the NSA and GCHQ will be literal cock-blockers impeding flow of goods and services, hahahah

Section 31 of the FUture might be impressed with its PAST

Which is our PRESent....

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT watching...

That will become the normalized sentence....

Windows 8.1 to freeze out small business apps

Re: Initial pain - then relief.

YOOZ ANbeSOL...

Jury reckons Motorola wasn't 'fair and reasonable' to Microsoft

For Some companies, many, maybe, FRAND means

For Some companies, many, maybe, FRAND means...

Fierce

Robust

And

Nominally

Destructive

Or,

Firey

Resistant

And

Never

Demurring

Or

Fickle

Recalcitrant

And

Natively

Deceptive

Indian government to bar politicians from using Gmail for official business

Why not just have google or some providerof note

build a local, in-country server farm for India, but stipulate in the service contract and bids that there be no back doors and no "calling home"? They could buy the hardware and install local google email servers and knowledge stores designed to show laws, public policy, government minutes, initiatives, progress reports, and also, also, corruption, complaint, suggestion, and recommendation for public merit awarding submission forms. Why must it be a given that western server companies holdm the data or illicit copies outside of the contract-issuer's country?

Also, apply to the foreign, in-country contractor the antisurveillance and mass espionage laws to make them subject to extradiction if they are found exporting govenment fles of the population, credit card and medical, crime and education, and other data. State it right up front, and make them sign in blood.

Mother/daughter team jailed for million-dollar internet dating scam

By the way...

By the way...

I will NOT be responsible for any shorted-out keyboards, laptops, or quantum devices, or in-cubicle-ground-down-teeth, or misssing hair, etc.

Good Morning!

Re: 10%

And hope inside there's not a Vidiian Pox

The encodes in you some triplicate c*cks

Or every day you'll be changing the locks

As your moves are impaired by phase-end-deuced rocks

Moaning and cursing the slow-moving clocks

You'll be ruing the school of hard-falling knocks

So, sanitize your email and purge the spam box

Lest you be singed and then glued to your socks

As 25 time-shifting Hologram Docs

Sedate you repeatedly with NOx after NOx

(OK, time for me to go to sleep... I needed to do this to reduce the effects of my flu or cold or whatever the helll it is...)

(composed that from 22:28-22:38)

Re: The Three Simple Rules of Internet Dating... Send them money, and send them pot...

Send them money, and send them pot...

Then send them to the cops in a honeypot

Bind them and gag them with their teary snot

Trapped in a Talosian Cell with Vina they'll rot

A Starbucks Morning Bun, and a Pike that's Hot

Then send a Dimorus Dart as a "forget-me-not"

Be prepared to cry out "BEAM ME UP!!!" to Mr. Scott

As they transform and slur "Isss tttthat ALL hyoooov ghottt?"

(OK, I'm not a poet, and I know it...

I had time to show it, so why not blow it?)

As long as they are not allowed to receive Vidiian Organ Harvester Scanners

As long as they are not allowed to recccceive Vidiian Sssssodality Organ Harvester Scanners...

As Torres said, "This thing puts a Tricorder to SHAME", and i know. I was sssscanned, and it required... 25 gigaquads of sssspace and 44 terawatts to process the data in around 28 secondssss. The holo image is quiet... Impresssssive and no lesssss ssssstunning.

I imagined Vidiians....

I imagined Vidiians, posing as humans, posing as Agents. The NSA would be proud to conjure up Section 31 to recruit them for samples of The Phage. But then, maybe their are from Gliese, pretending to be humans pretending to be ET pretending to be Vidiians pretending to be an offshot of the Kazon gone wrong?

Wait, too damned much Trek on the mind....

Come to think of it, one has Khan's hairdo as his Mobey Dick's "Nohhh, Kurk... Yooo kan't get aWAY from meeee. From Hell's Hot at stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee..."

Maybe when they saw the agents, the used a page from Shatner?

The NSA, FBI, Interpol, aka Unimatrix .00099 in synchronicity said, "Khans, yoo BLOOD SUCKERS, you've managed to dupe just about everyone else, but like p00r marksmen, you'll be missing more targets... "

Then, Admiral/Captain/Crewman/Incarceree Braxton jumps in with "You'll be joining me in a cell for crimes you WOULD have committed. You're DEFINITELY unworthy of any SEVEN of MINE!"

Boffins follow TOR breadcrumbs to identify users

Was just a matter of time

I wonder how many millions or how many hundreds of thousands are burned now.

Probably what happened to help the statistical analyses thingies was coercing known and likely/suspected TOR users under some ruse or legit warrant to hand over their password. Then, after seizing their equipment, they probably impersonated said person for weeks on the user's own network and an agency shadow network while they had the subject in quarantine. Then, they compare paths, hops, latencies, fingerprints of the files, the embedded attachments and other content, then map the possible paths against replies and reply fingerprints.

Somewhere in all this probably are tens of thousands of AT&T, Cox, Comcast, Sprint, etc., others' hardware that secretly are NOT stripping off the headers in the routers (in 95, network classes taught that routers stripped out what wasn't for them, and did handshaking and such to enhance the quality of service and so on, but, hey, what if a backdoor since then came into existence to dump checksums of traffic, even embedded, hidden messages?), and forwarding checksums.

OK, I'm pulling all this out of my ass as fast as I can type, and I am not a SysAdmin of any merit. I just wing/ponder stuff as if fitting into a hopper for possible use in a movie script. Of course, before making such a suggestion in dialogue, real analysts might have to ponder it -- then worry about the risks of doing so under pre-delivered NSLs, hmmmmm...

Microsoft and Google unite to sue US gov't for more transparency

What the gov agencies are afraid of

What the gov agencies are afraid of is the near-real-time disclosure of a NSL or FISA/FISC letter tipping off the suspects that they were on the (S)hit list of surveillance.

I suspect, tho, that in reality, the agents do NOT need our passwords under demand during interrogations. They already have the power to compel Google, MS, Yahoo, and others to turn over direct, remote, invisible/ghosted/parallel, real-time access to our email activities. They already have code that in the form of a few pixels can hijack our sessions and to on an every-logon-of-target upload bits and pieces of our hard drives in the background so as to not spike the CPU. I've since 1995 suspected that criminals could do this, but over the past 10 years been willing to suspect the government more than criminals DO DO, and it probably is how they brought down some of the more resilient but ultimately careless criminal kingpins, not just by microwave lasers and in-room cameras, and sonic/electromagnetic detection of keyboard clicks and CRT hazery-imagery of passwords.

Forcing us to hand over passwords probably obfuscates the existence of huger, greater capabilities, stuff Snowden probably has not even released. Hence, the UK heavy handedness in helping itself to some US intel, and also chummy-cousin-kissings. That just reinforces that ANYone passing through the UK can be called anything it takes to basically steal hard drives and electronics even for non-security reasons, even to economically destroy or psychologically torment very specific people. I suppose people will plan their flights accordingly now, if they even remotely associate with newspapers or speak out on such matters. So, I wonder often whether I will ever set foot on UK soil or territories, or if I have to, just take NO electronics having personal, proprietary, business plans or stuff that just franky isn't any of the UKs effin bizness. OTOH, maybe I'm just momentarily "over the top", but at some point, in the next 5 or so years, "over the top" will be the new norm, the new baseline.

Facebook strips away a bit more of your privacy – but won't say why

Re: "Check out with facebook" Sorry, correction...

That is not what the screen message was. It was on a photo print station, not a checkout stand. And, the message was "Print with Facebook".

Apologies