Scalability issues

It seems that someone may be running a blockchain download through the tor-proxy, which is causing slower download times. Encrypting the disk does not appear to be helpful either and seems odd for a public blockchain. However, another person claims to be able to download the full blockchain from scratch in 45 minutes on their laptop. Gregory Maxwell responded to a message about scalability improvements being needed, stating that there is no need for concern as regular hardware can keep up without a hardforking change to the protocol first. This response was given in the context of a discussion on the Bitcoin-development mailing list and included a link to a live security virtual conference covering endpoint security, mobile security, and malware threats.