As the data recovery firm couldn't get Roddenberry's old computer to power on, it had to sleuth the physical layout of the tracks on the disk. That alone took three months to reverse engineer; Cobb credits his own "Scotty," Jim Wilhelmsen, with figuring it out.

Cobb said when the operating system files were excluded, about 2-3MB of data was recovered from the 200 floppies. That may seem like a minuscule amount by today's standards, but in the 1980s, document files were small. Roddenberry's lost words were substantial.

PCWorld reached out to the Roddenberry estate but was told it had no comment on the data or its plans for the newly discovered writing of Gene Roddenberry.

"Windows 10 continues to be on the fastest growth trajectory of any version of Windows -- ever -- outpacing Windows 7 by nearly 140 percent and Windows 8 by nearly 400 percent," Yusuf Mehdi, the head of Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group.

NetMarketShare noted that Windows 10 is within striking distance of Windows XP and Windows 8.1, which saw their Web traffic shares drop last month to 10.9 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively.

The software giant has aggressively been trying to coax people to shift to Windows 10, pushing the upgrade through frequent pop-up reminders for Windows 7 and 8.1 users. The company classified Windows 10 as an "optional update" last year. Microsoft expects to change that to "recommended update" early this year.

Tensions over the treatment of two cattle ranchers in Oregon escalated into an armed standoff over the weekend when members of a rightwing militia occupied a wildlife refuge and threatened a confrontation with federal authorities.

The militia occupying the refuge said they were in for the long haul. “We’re planning on staying here for years, absolutely,” Ammon Bundy said. “This is not a decision we’ve made at the last minute.”

He was among 47 people put to death on Saturday after being convicted of terrorism offences.

Iranian officials have been strident in their condemnation of the execution. The foreign ministry said the Sunni kingdom would pay a high price for its action, and it has summoned the Saudi charge d'affaires in Tehran in protest.

Saudi Arabia carried out more than 150 executions last year, the highest figure recorded by human rights groups for 20 years.

Luca Lo Castro said he had come across shortcomings in the encryption of communication after buying Texecom’s Premier Elite Control Panel and ComIP module and assembling it.

An independent expert in alarm security, quizzed by El Reg, acknowledged this as a security shortcoming while suggesting it would be beyond the capability of most would-be burglars with access to no more than basic electronic tools like wire strippers, a multi-meter, and crocodile clips.

Our independent alarm security expert tells us that much of the physical security market is a long way behind best practice found in information security. And the problem is exacerbated because alarms are designed to be installed and last 10 to 15 years. That means a lot of legacy products, compared to the two to three year product lifetime we are seeing on general IoT products.

All sorts of people who spent many years cheering for and defending the NSA and its programs of mass surveillance are suddenly indignant now that they know the eavesdropping included them and their American and Israeli friends rather than just ordinary people.

As Andrew Krietz, the journalist who covered that debate, reported, Hoekstra “laughs at foreign governments who are shocked they’ve been spied on because they, too, gather information” — referring to anger from German and Brazilian leaders.

But all that, of course, was before Hoekstra knew that he and his Israeli friends were swept up in the spying of which he was so fond. Now that he knows that it is his privacy and those of his comrades that has been invaded, he is no longer cavalier about it. In fact, he’s so furious that this long-time NSA cheerleader is actually calling for the criminal prosecution of the NSA and Obama officials for the crime of spying on him and his friends.

One of the excellent features of new Windows devices is that disk encryption is built-in and turned on by default, protecting your data in case your device is lost or stolen. But what is less well-known is that, if you are like most users and login to Windows 10 using your Microsoft account, your computer automatically uploaded a copy of your recovery key – which can be used to unlock your encrypted disk – to Microsoft’s servers, probably without your knowledge and without an option to opt-out.

A law enforcement or spy agency could send Microsoft a request for all data in your account, which would legally compel them to hand over your recovery key, which they could do even if the first thing you do after setting up your computer is delete it.

Under the new legislation, organizations in China will have to "offer technological assistance and cooperation with security departments to help prevent and investigate terrorist activities." In practical terms, that means cracking the encryption in an app or device when the police come knocking.

It would appear China, while drafting its antiterror law, got its inspiration from CALEA: America's Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which requires telecoms companies to help the FBI and other g-men spy on people, provided the agents have a court's approval.

Few places are tilting toward a cashless future as quickly as Sweden, which has become hooked on the convenience of paying by app and plastic.

Not everyone is cheering. Sweden’s embrace of electronic payments has alarmed consumer organizations and critics who warn of a rising threat to privacy and increased vulnerability to sophisticated Internet crimes.

“It might be trendy,” said Bjorn Eriksson, a former director of the Swedish police force and former president of Interpol. “But there are all sorts of risks when a society starts to go cashless.”

“[The late leader] Kim Jong-il said North Korea should develop a system of their own. This is what they’ve done,” Gunrow told the Chaos Communication congress in Hamburg on Sunday.

This latest version, written around 2013, is based on a version of Linux called Fedora and has eschewed the previous version’s Windows XP feel for Apple’s OSX – perhaps a nod to the country’s leader Kim Jong-un who, like his father, has been photographed near Macs.