tempuser24

Only Google Pixels if anyone is wondering.

There are a few local Bitcoin apps and sites. I don't think it would scale well for the FBI to have a sting on every Bitcoin to cash transaction, but would be good to have one on suspected Bitcoin wallets. Although most savvy cybercriminals at this point should be able to mix their dirty coins enough to avoid such a trap.

My guess would be that Microsoft tipped them off. I couldn't find in the compliant where the IRS or Secret Service got involved, but it does say that Microsoft Fraud Investigators discovered the fraud and fired him.

There's an interesting org you can become a member of with unlimited 4G data. https://www.calyxinstitute.org/member/map

There are a few projects for generating onion URLs, probably relatively easy for the CIA.

https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/29772/how-do-yo...

I haven't seen this work around before. Brilliant in it's simplicity.

I'm not sure I follow, but Cloudflare has a history of being a strong defender of free speech. They even defended Neo-Nazis.

https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-cloudflare/

When you say the CIA do you mean the Central Intelligence Agency ?

http://attrition.org/ does this, though it doesn't look like they've kept up with companies.

Here's a list of recommended ones from OpenWRT https://openwrt.org/toh/recommended_routers.

I would assume that they are easy to flash and high compatible.

I think that in a competitive market you and Pai are right, there would be competition that drives prices down(see cities where Google Fiber entered). Unfortunately wired ISPs is a natural monopolistic market, the cost of entry is extraordinarily high, and with incumbents making it even harder for competition to enter[1] only really wealthy companies can enter (like Google).

I think with the advancement of Wireless last mile reducing deployment costs we will see more competition in the space (if incumbent ISPs do not keep them out with lawsuits). But at the current time most Wireless ISPs can't match the speeds of wired ISPs and the average consumer does not care enough to check every so often if a new competitor enters the ISP market, and probably won't change unless they have a serious problem with their current provider.

So in summary I think that soon we may not need government oversight with enough competition, but in our current market saturated by incumbents we do.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-and-comcast-...

I agree with freddie_mecury I am not sure I see the argument or what you mean by "financially secure". But if I can guess at your point I would say that if "financially secure" means having cash then it would make sense that higher percentage renter countries would be that.

Another point I'd like to add is the US isn't far from Switzerland on that list. Also Singapore being in the #2 spot with 90% home ownership, but in my opinion Singapore is considered a wealthy country[1] with a GDP close to the US.

And lastly I will say that the sample size on is limited to about 25% of countries in the world, though there are most of the developed ones.

[1]https://tradingeconomics.com/singapore/gdp-per-capita

I think the article did touch on that, and honestly it was a whole big deal just to say "it depends on your situation" and in the associated costs section included break even costs, which I don't think is a good measure.

Seems like a strategy that the US used for many years, as outlined in the books "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit.... I wonder what resources China will want in exchange?