Look Ma, No-Hands Fasteners!

theodp writes "Inspired by a daughter who suffered a serious infection from an IV feeding apparatus, the Trib reports an Australian architect has developed high-tech bolts and latches, which can be operated remotely without being touched. The first commercial applications are intended for aircraft, allowing crews to quickly reshape interiors to maximize payload space. BTW, smart fasteners hit Slashdot's radar almost two years ago."

Comments

Hacker's Delight

[Captain Chad]

I can't wait until some enterprising hacker duplicates the signal to release the fasteners, and does it in mid-flight. Talk about chaos...

Secured against unauthorized parties?

[cbiffle]

Call me paranoid, but they mention the fasteners being secured against access by unauthorized parties.

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion this will include the user, and/or third-party techs?

I can hear the coins rolling in now.

Re:Secured against unauthorized parties?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

This is the future, where you will need the manufacturer's permission to do anything to an item that you supposedly own.

Capitalism is an equal opportunity for wealth.

You seem not to realise that the quote above is the direct outcome of the one below. The ultimate purpose of Capitalism, from a perspective of a powerful participant, such as a multi-national corporation, is to enslave everybody who can be enslaved by making them dependant on your products and destroy or marginalize the rest, by any means one can get away with. An ability to deprive the consumers of control of the things they supposedly own, or ensuring that such things have built-in obsolesence and are as disposable as possible, to be replaced with even less controllable and more disposable "goods", are perfectly valid strategies from a purely capitalist perspective, where greed and bottom line are the only overriding concerns and where definitions of the nature of "private property" are simply naive holdovers from earlier, simpler times and easily circumvented by technological chickanery.

Re:Secured against unauthorized parties?

[dajak]

As soon as government regulation becomes involved, you no longer have true capitalism.

On the contrary. Without government the development of capitalism is impossible. You need money, property, markets, investment, etc. It only works in a society where people dare to give money to someone else in some other town in the expectation that they will make more money. It only happens in countries with a wealthy and efficient bureacracy. It is of course possible to organize capitalism around a some kind of commercial banking and property titling operation employing its own police officers, but a company like this is not really distinguishable from government.

Re:Secured against unauthorized parties?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Communist apologists are so funny. Especially when they play naive. Have a good day.

No, it is those, like yourself, who apparently think that anyone to the "right" of Benito Mussolini is a "communist" who are really funny. In a pathetic sort of way. What amuses me personally, is their propensity for firing broadside, ad hominem, wholly off target and unsubstantiated attacks, in response to just about any questioning which would demand a most modest amount of logic and reason on their part to respond, and then hiding behind asine one-liners when called on their non-sequiturs.

Re:Secured against unauthorized parties?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

do you realize that an "unsubstantiated attack" is the exact description of your post?

My original post is anything but "unsubstantiated", it describes the general mechanisms in play in a Capitalist marketplace, which I am willing to discuss at length. Yours, on the other hand, speaks of my "commuting with nature", a hypothetical activity about which you have no way of knowing and accuses me of being a "communist", which by any sane definition, I am far, far away from being.

You are certainly no teacher in the art of applying "modest amounts of logic and reason" but that does not surprise me, seeing as the only way to believe in the religion known as communism is to suppress reason.

Again, it is a recurring thing with you to accuse your opponents of being "communists", based merely on the fact that they dare to observe some flaws in the capitalist marketplace, which of course makes you appear as a rather unhinged personality.

Well at least you'll find yourself at home with all the fundamentalists out there.

I await eagerly your enlightenment as to my "fundamentalist" positions.

Finally, hate to break the truth to you but everyone who's not an anarchocapitalist can only be a communist.

Err, wait, it was me who was supposed to be a "fundamentalist". I think you've got your definitions mixed up. Claiming that one is in possession of the only, true, unassailable truth and everyone else is a "communist" or "heathen" or some such, is the very definition of fundamentalism.

Call it a socialist if that makes you feel better (I know truth hurts), but that will not change reality.

Although the hole you have dug for yourself with this "argument" is rather deep already, you keep on digging.

You were too stupid to realize that my first post was meant to highlight that condemning the system that gave you almost everything you enjoy in your life...

These days that would be our Canadian Social Democracy, as we are calling it here, complete with our strong social safety nets and Universal Healthcare. And thank you for recognizing its great contributions, although we still have some ways to go to match places like Iceland or Sweden, yet having luckily left USA long behind.

is even more stupid than adopting the one that brought everyone of its adopters to their knees..

You mean those 40 or so million people with no medical care in the US? Really sad, I agree. Truly unconscionable to have so many people so poor and on their knees over there, I concur.

Have a good day.

Likewise.

And please keep deluding yourself... It'll make my life even easier.

Are you a loan shark, arms dealer, human organs trader or a Halliburton stock holder, or some such other lovely person who would seek to benefit from other's misery? How nice of you.

I'll take it

[TubeSteak]

Cost doesn't seem to be an issue here, especially if it'll save man-hours. Labor is usually the most expensive part of a business, especially when Unions are involved (like the airline industry) or when you take your car into the dealer.

So, if this mechanism means that bolts won't back out due to vibration, I'll take it. As long as it means I don't have to dick around with loctite threadlocker anymore. I mean, what genius decided to put the red loctite in a blue tube and the blue in a red tube?

Hmf.

[BJH]

I think the part that'll strike most people here is this:

"I wondered what's to prevent some nut using a garage door opener from pushing the right buttons to make your airplane fall apart," said Harrison. "But everything is locked down with codes, and the radio signals are scrambled, so this is fully secured against hackers."

Uh... I don't think so. If past examples are anything to go by, almost certainly he's using some bush-league obfuscation of the signal that could be cracked fairly easily by someone with the applicable knowledge.

I mean, those electronic keys used by BMW, Mercedes and the other big carmakers aren't any too secure, but this guy somehow managed to get it right first time? Uh-huh.

its the hacker equivalent of

[kickedfortrolling]

that game where you try to unfasten girls bras without them noticing.. only instead of bras, its cars.

Its a cool idea, but i'm a bit sceptical about these 'codes'

it Would be cool if, say, in a car accident, firemen could spontaneously deconstruct a car involved, to get at the victim inside, but i doubt that screws have a lot to do with that. Its probably just going to make it easier for people to steal your radio

Ob. Slashdot Paranoia

[tangledweb]

While there are no doubt many interesting uses that this can be put to, the one that should chill slashdotters is the example of preventing "unauthorised" removal of vehicle airbags.

Because the DMCA makes hacking the encrypted communication to the fasteners a crime in its own right, only people who the vehicle manufacturer authorises can undo them. They presumably are their franchised dealer service centres and will not include the owner of the vehicle or their chosen unaffiliated repairer.

But why stop at the airbag? Why not bolt the hood down with the same things so that only the dealer can service the vehicle?

Heck, why not bolt the fuel filler cap shut with the same things. I imagine you could afford to give cars away if for their lifetime, they could only be refuelled at a Ford owned gas station.

If the devices become cheap enough, you might never be able to take the cover off anything you own again.

Re:Ob. Slashdot Paranoia

[ps236]

They could already lock the filler cap and bonnet if they wanted to. They already have RF controlled door locks & filler cap covers, all they would need to do is require a different coded transmitter to unlock them. They wouldn't do it (ATM) because no one would buy the cars if they did.

Re:Umm, batteries?

[Spy Hunter]

I don't think you could send enough juice to drive a reliable release mechanism over a distance of multiple inches. Anyway, the system they're talking about in the article is activated from tens of meters away, which means that the release energy is definitely stored in the fastener somehow. I just don't see how these could possibly be reliable to release on command, reliable to *not* spontaneously release, reuseable, long-lasting, and also cheap enough to replace screws. Any one of those would be hard; all five is unlikely.

Electronic "Bolts"?

[EMIce]

From the article:

"What Rudduck developed are fasteners analogous to locks in doors, only in this case messages are sent electronically to engage the parts to lock or unlock. A quick electrical charge triggered remotely by a device or computer may move the part to lock, while another jolt disengages the unit.

Instead of nuts and bolts to hold two things together, these fasteners use hooks, latches and so-called smart materials that can change shape on command."

This sounds like nothing more than radio controlled solenoids, similar to what we see in remotely controlled apartment building entrance doors and in automobile power locks. A solenoid is just a coil that is electro-magnetized on demand to push or pull a metal bar through it's center. This bar usually moves something attached to it or touches a contact to close a high current circuit loop, like in a car starter motor. My guess is that the solenoid in a "smart fastener" would push open a latch or release some hooks.

So why all the talk about "smart materials", "intelligent bolts", and materials that "change shape on demand"? It sounds like a bunch of pie in the sky market speak to me, not unlike what is heard in articles written by corporate PR agencys. Such articles are often given to lazy, disinterested journalists as neat & easy pre-packaged stories.

This story has no substance - buzzwords are rampant and technical detail is non-existant. Yet the slashdot editors are proudly proclaiming they broke the story 2 years ago. Even worst, the story is being pitched as using exotic technology that allows self-threading bolts of some kind. The same false pitch was used last time as well. I bet this sort of "mistake" generates lots of $$$^H^H^H click thoughs though.

A question

[jsse]

"It gives designers a free hand," he said. "With intelligent fasteners, they no longer have to worry about providing a tool path when they design a product."

But we might need to design a new path to replace the batteries. :)

(well, I haven't read the spec., may be they doesn't require battery replacement or self-charging something....)