Attacks only machines running specific Ubuntu kernels and using specific boot methods. Plus no actual payload. This doesn’t yet represent a real risk.

Where we’ll be in ten years’ time is unknowable, however. I think the Ars commentors who suggested going back to forcing jumper cap swaps or other hardware-mediated access requirements before overwriting the mobo’s boot firmware might be on the right track, even if it’s inconvenient for large corporate deployments. It’s normal for security and convenience to pull in opposite directions, and sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.

Depends on how low your standards are. I mean, there were [a small number of] people who convinced themselves that the 1960s chatbot ELIZA was a person with feelings, and the bots have only become more convincing since then. I can certainly see the modern ones fulfilling the emotional needs of someone who really, really wants to believe they’re speaking to a sapient being who cares about them, and as for the other, well, some people have pretty low sex drives or find phone sex fulfilling enough (at least for a time).

I’d rather have nice sharp jaggies. Antialiasing tends to give me the impression that someone’s smeared my screen with Vaseline.

I acknowledge that this is a minority preference, and the algorithms involved in antialiasing are interesting even if I don’t like the product.

And whoever buys it won’t also have some kind of ulterior motive? Chrome isn’t likely to be a money-maker on its own. If it were, Firefox would have less trouble staying afloat. Anyone who buys Chrome most likely will have plans for it that are no more in the end-user’s best interest than Google’s.