I have a good idea of how useless this "safer security" is. I am myself a senior in high school, and I've had to deal with the crap since seventh grade. Our school has metal detectors installed at every possible enterance, video cameras in every classroom, and security guards who would frisk you as soon as look at you.

The one piece of security that irks the most students is easily the school's network server. This server has every type of snoopware you've ever heard of, and then some; it's not unheard of for a computer to lock down because some freshman let their mouse hover on the Minesweeper shortcut for too long. The internet filtering is a joke; last year, they blocked Wikipedia.

After reading Little Brother, I had a very stronge urge to pay them back for all of the headaches I've experienced. I went into a hacking frenzy, kept anonymous by my new favorite program, TOR. Early last week, I set my creation loose through the network. In the next few days, the network was crashing left and right; I don't think the tech guys slept all week.

I couldn't help but smirk when the news was announced last Friday. My little program had damaged the network so severely that they had to scrap the whole thing. It'll take them at least a year to get anything new in its place.

Thank you, Cory, for inspiring me to spread a little more freedom in this world that needs so much more of it.

Ah...the Crazy Years, as Spider Robinson called them...D&D serving as a gateway activity that lead on to Satanic Ritual Abuse of children, and then who knows...maybe even the rise of The NeoCon! :-)

ttyl
Farrell

One clarification, though: My site (BroadbandStrategyWeek.com) and I are independent of the official national Broadband strategy group (= "Omnibus Broadband Initiative").