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I am amused that you complain about people using blind belief rather than research, and then state your blind belief without any research. Well, it's not much, but 30 seconds of googling implies that this works fairly well in other places and is not regularly abused.

We have one. You just replace the explosives with cement. 500 pound block of cement dropped from thousands of feet crushes the anti-aircraft gun with minimal damage to the surroundings:

http://www.technewsdaily.com/1...

How to Beat Facial-Recognition Software

As you have pointed out, European 'Chip-and-PIN' Cash-Card Security have already been cracked by criminals.

And fair enough, generally cards with chips are still more secure than their magnetic counterparts.

What I am more disturbed about is, from the point of the consumer, it appears that in Europe at least the supposed security of the chip and pin system have been (ab)used by banks to deny refunds to their defrauded clients.

However, the chip and PIN system came under question in 2010, when researchers found that transactions could be executed without PINs.

In their paper, the Cambridge researchers asserted that, based on their conversations with bankers, "banks systematically suppress information about known vulnerabilities, with the result that fraud victims continue to be denied refunds."

Bond asserted that banks are aware of the problem but routinely “stonewall” customers-turned-victims because their transaction records show that the PIN was used.

From the POV of the consumer, I would not favor the use of this newer, more secure system if it shifts the burden of fraud on me with the excuse that "it's unhackable, you must have given them your PIN".

Right after they arrest Android developers for the huge malware problem on Android, and then Apple developers.

"91.3% of smartphone malware/viruses written for Android"
"Apple's iOS, Microsoft's Windows Phone and Blackberry are free of any malicious activity"

http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipad-iphone/news/?newsid=3448046

"Newly Discovered Android Malware Was Downloaded Millions Of Times"
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/20/newly-discovered-android-malware-was-downloaded-millions-of-times/

Last week, American security researcher Jacob Appelbaum found that malware on an Angolan human-rights activist's Apple laptop was "signed" with a legitimate Apple developer ID, allowing it to slip past Apple's baked-in Gatekeeper security software. A new and unusually sneaky piece of Mac malware, discovered last week, has been linked to a larger online espionage campaign being waged from India.

  The campaign, dubbed "HangOver" after a text string in the malware code, appears to be based in India and focuses on stealing industrial secrets from companies all over the world.

http://www.technewsdaily.com/18120-hangover-malware-india.html

How come the "Superior UNIX design" that have lead to tens of thousands of +5 Insightful Slashdot posts over the years doesn't protect Android and OS X? If the blame goes to the users, why are you trying to blame the Windows dev team?

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have both fixed security flaws that enabled a new hacking group to recently breach their servers. The hackers, calling themselves "The Unknowns," told SecurityNewsDaily the space agencies' quick action validates their ethical exploits. "We don't want revolutions, we don't want chaos, we just want to protect the people out there. Websites are not secured, people are not secured, computers are not secured, nothing is...We're here to help and we're asking nothing in exchange." http://www.technewsdaily.com/7754-nasa-confirms-hack-unknowns.html

Motorola just demo'd a new phone at CES that docks to become the brains of a laptop.

http://www.technewsdaily.com/ces-2011-motorola-dock-turns-your-android-phone-into-a-laptop-1944/

So I guess we can talk in a couple of months?

Like ham radio operators. You know we're secretly controlling the world.

You could.

"Thanks for perfectly illustrating why we are in this situation. "This is America!" is a meaningless phrase."

Acutally according to the article he might be on to something: "U.S. rare earth companies have begun looking to reopen old mines and search for new deposits, but industry experts say that relaunching an independent U.S. supply chain could take 15 years."

I know it says 15 years, but I have a feeling that if China really decided to withhold rare earth minerals for an extended time we'd find a supply a bit faster.

The only reason we use China's rare earth minerals is because they mine it and ship it to the US cheaper than we can mine it ourselves: "many U.S. companies have not jumped into the market because China's state-owned mines keep rare earth prices artificially low."

But we have plenty to mine: "the U.S. holds rare earth ore reserves of up to 13 million metric tons. By contrast, the entire world produced just 124,000 metric tons in 2009". That means we have roughly 104 years worth of rare earth ore reserves, I think we'll be just fine.

China's kind of like the neighbor kid that knocks on my door and offers to mow the lawn for $20. It's not that I can't mow myself, but when it's so cheap to pay someone else why do it myself? If he ever didn't show up for a couple weeks I'd just do it myself, but as long as he's offering I'll keep paying him.

"Thanks for perfectly illustrating why we are in this situation. "This is America!" is a meaningless phrase."

Acutally according to the article he might be on to something: "U.S. rare earth companies have begun looking to reopen old mines and search for new deposits, but industry experts say that relaunching an independent U.S. supply chain could take 15 years."

I know it says 15 years, but I have a feeling that if China really decided to withhold rare earth minerals for an extended time we'd find a supply a bit faster.

The only reason we use China's rare earth minerals is because they mine it and ship it to the US cheaper than we can mine it ourselves: "many U.S. companies have not jumped into the market because China's state-owned mines keep rare earth prices artificially low."

But we have plenty to mine: "the U.S. holds rare earth ore reserves of up to 13 million metric tons. By contrast, the entire world produced just 124,000 metric tons in 2009". That means we have roughly 104 years worth of rare earth ore reserves, I think we'll be just fine.

China's kind of like the neighbor kid that knocks on my door and offers to mow the lawn for $20. It's not that I can't mow myself, but when it's so cheap to pay someone else why do it myself? If he ever didn't show up for a couple weeks I'd just do it myself, but as long as he's offering I'll keep paying him.

Speaking of very expensive, don't we spend lots of money to build these complicated telescopic and other satellites? Don't we use quantities of rare materials to create the sensitive instrumentation onboard? Why, then, are we sending them off into a graveyard orbit whose FINAL DESTINATION (hahemm, scuse me, didn't mean to shout, too much hollywood) is destruction? Shouldn't we try to find some way to stash all the defunct satellites somewhere in space for future (as in when we have facilities set up to do so) recycling of the rare component materials? This just seems like more of the arrogant human "Gimme all the resources, me use once then throw away forever" attitude that gets us into trouble ON the planet. (singing): 'In the year 2525, if man is still alive, he'll be wondering, why did I have to go and fire all those grams of neodymium into the sun? Now we can't build any more sentient teddy bears.' Call me a hippy, and flame away for my lack of concrete knowledge about the subject, but it just seems like a waste.