Hate speech is very far reaching, and your request for non-violation of your personal rights is insufficient.
As an example, you are a store owner, member of a proper religious sect $FOO. Life is good. Then some people start hate speech against your sect. For example, they imply that your sect sacrifices newborn babies and makes hamburgers out of them. Your store sells hamburgers. Suddenly you see fewer customers, and later on your store is firebombed. But not a single word, not a single action was taken (until last night) against you personally; all the words were said against your group that you associate with. Minus firebombing, you may be driven out of business and still have nothing to accuse your attackers of. You can't summon the public opinion to the witness stand. When you start looking for a job you can't say why you are rejected everywhere. When your lease is up for renewal you can't tell why the owner decides to terminate it. When you need mortgage you can't tell why nobody wants to sell it to you. People emigrated to America in part because of hate speech and because of resulting social vacuum.
As things stand, it's easier to find 100 UAVs to look over the hill than to find one soldier to do the same. Not even mentioning that the ground between here and there may be mined.
if you can't see them, how do you know they're actually black?
- A helicopter painted black would be invisible [at night]
- It's night outside, and I don't see any helicopters
Conclusion: Those helicopters are indeed black.
Here are some numbers from a technical POV. It is possible to pack the voice to a 9600 bps stream with good quality and to 2400 bps with robot-like quality. Let's assume 9.6 kbps for one channel. To monitor 100,000 phone calls simultaneously (which would cover the needs of a city with population of 2-5 million) you need:
9600 * 100000 = 915 Mbps, or 114 MBps, or 410 GB per hour.
If the system works 24/7 it will be producing about 10 TB per day. To record all that you need just two Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drives (750 GB each) that are rotated; one records the streaming data in real time, another gets asynchronously dumped onto the tape in an automatic tape changer. Sun offers 15 TB in a 4U rackmount box, as an example, for mere $10K. So a daily visit to swap the tapes would suffice. This particular unit has bandwidth of 576 GB per hour, faster even than is needed; there are 38 tape cartridges inside, switched automatically.
There don't seem to be any technical challenges to building such a system. Tape media is very inexpensive - as if the cost is an issue... and you need about 100 of such boxes to cover the whole country, and the government can afford to have a whole team of technicians sitting around, not just one visiting tech.
In reality you need less because voice calls are not continuous, and the codec will not be coding the silence, so your data rate is lower than that. Modem and fax calls can be received and stored as demodulated, digital data, so they will take very little space.
Close - yes,/still/ close - on the other side. In modern Russia there are fifteen major parties in the State Duma (Parliament), and no oppressive laws. Russia does not even use death penalty, let alone torture.
I'm intelligent, church-going, a nice southern boy, and I don't make sexual advances towards interns/pages.
As a worthy opponent you will be painted as all of the above, plus as an avid barnyard pr0n performer, in all roles. With photographs even. You'll be amazed.
If you remove your rose-colored glasses you will notice that parent-child relationships always produce conflicts, and you can't peacefully walk away from them as you would be able to if your acquaintance's behavior becomes unpleasant. Mountains of books are written that depict conflicts in families, and any police officer, when facing a crime, will suspect the relatives first. And the reason for that is often exactly what I mentioned above - a relationship forced upon an unwilling participant.
Indeed, I went through the responses (of which there is a lot) and I definitely agree that emotional aspects of having children may be the only reason to have them these days. I'm only glad that such emotions are not applicable here. But for emotionally obsessed people... whatever floats your boat. The Universe doesn't care whether humans exist or not.
No wonder geeks do not get much of replies. The very fact that a geek is sitting in his fortress, behind the flickering terminal, surrounded by 16 different and very old Linux boxen, clearly indicates that his romantic needs are best addressed by a robot or by some pr0n that is plentiful out there.
And from the other side of the equation, no sensible female of the species will choose to date a geek that is clearly ill-adapted socially, is not likely to resemble a movie star from her wall poster, and probably will not fare well in the salary department if he ever manages to leave his basement (many choose not to.)
And with respect to children, many men dislike children and don't want them at all. They are expensive to maintain, and pointless to raise in the first place. The society changed so much in the last 100-200 years that a large family that was a great advantage to a peasant is now a death warrant in many professional areas, financially and time-wise. Parents nowadays are expected to sink up to a million dollars into a child, with no ROI whatsoever. The parents become slaves to their children, working most of their productive life to maintain the family.
Parabolic flight research has as much value as any other technique. However the GP asked for a narrow comparison between a surgery on ISS and a surgery on the airplane. In my opinion the ISS is far more suited for any experimental surgeries, on animals or on humans, because it offers stable and continuous microgravity for the duration of the surgery. If a patient's tissues are cut open the last thing he wants is a 2G gravity squirting the blood out every 10 minutes, and sucking air bubbles into the blood stream when the weightlessness returns (that usually kills.) This won't happen on ISS; we have it, and if the need exists we should use it, and not a cheaper and more dangerous imitation. Do crew training on VCs, no problem. But wielding scalpels in varying gravity sounds like a bad idea.
And since another poster wondered about emergency recovery, I would suggest performing a surgery on an animal, like a dog, if not a human, immediately before a crew is scheduled to return to Earth. In need they could be on the ground in 15 minutes, faster even than an airplane can descend from its 40,000 ft. and find a place to land.
They don't do it on ISS likely because it makes no sense. They do other medical experiments there, less risky and not so newsworthy - but probably more valuable. Like surgery on rats, for example (I remember something like that being announced some time ago.)
TFA mentions an accident during a low spaceflight. Well, read Baxter's "Titan" for example. But if you are not suicidal enough for that, it might be enough to note that all space crews are trained in medicine; often one crewmember is a doctor, and everyone else is good enough to help.
Another issue is that you can't compare 30-second drops and 9-minute climbs, with gravity swinging from 0 to 2G, and a quiet, stable zero gravity of a spacecraft. Who can do *anything* well in a Vomit Comet? This stunt has no value.
The efficiency of best lasers is about 60%, but there are losses caused by the divergence of the beam. As result you have to make your sail larger to catch a reasonable portion of the beam - or you can try to make your beam narrower to start with, which is not always trivial.
Capturing and reemitting some of the energy at the spacecraft would be useful to alter the path, or else you only could go away from the homeworld (not exactly the most appealing flight profile:-) But that would require lining the sail with photoelectric cells, and making them so lightweight and so numerous that it looks to be even more impossible than the sail itself. Besides, this method won't allow you to reverse the thrust whatever you do.
I am not aware of any microwave lasers that the USSR might have been developing. Generally masers have very low power. The demo of the laser-powered flight was set up by some US scientists and shown on TV in North America.
This is not new, this method is valid and works. Everything that you state is correct. There were demos shown on TV, where small models were made to fly upward by the light from a powerful laser. The problem with this is only efficiency; this technology holds no controversy.
The photon is massless, has no electric charge... (quoted from here)
The radiation pressure does exist, but it has nothing to do with Lorentz force. And you can, actually, propel yourself by shining a flashlight away from you. The matter annihilation engines work on this principle, for some decades by now.
The only problem with this propulsion method is that you need an awful number of photons, and you wouldn't like to be in a spot that they hit. Some writers theorized that the Solar system would need an energy shield before it can launch a photon-driven starship from anywhere close to it.
That's true, primarily because the new PC will be faster and shinier, and presumably better. Besides, old PCs are often failing - fans go out first, with all kinds of noises, and then power supplies, and then you don't know what. To dumpster it goes. Today a common Wal-Mart level PC costs less than the trouble of fixing or upgrading it; even Compaq and Dell laptops are below $500. There is absolutely no sense in refurbishing that old, dusty and slow box unless you have some very specific purpose in mind. And, as I said, even if you do refurbish it, keep in mind that it's MTBF almost ran out; you probably wouldn't want to build your entertainment center or home security webcam on it.
A modern solution would be to cryptographically sign and encrypt the vote so that the voter can carry it but only the owner of the key (such as some election authority) can ever decode and verify it. However, as other people noted, there is not much sense in doing this at all because what the voter takes home has no legal meaning.
I guess you don't own one. Please get a decent motorbike, and I will see you in a few months, stronger and fitter than ever. Do you know how much they weigh? Do you know that they don't have power steering?:-)
You will be very surprised how high a good cheater and liar can climb. And they don't need to know anything except how to cheat and lie, and that they already know very well.
That is fine, of course. But as you say rights and responsibilities come together. So you are on a bicycle, on a road with two lanes in each direction. You are in the right lane. There are only few options:
You stay in the center of the right lane and thus reduce the road from two lanes to one. If the road is in any way busy this creates a problem - drivers who are behind you are forced to merge into the left lane whenever they can, and if you take hundreds of such merges this is not safe primarily for other people who do their best to avoid you. I think most states do not allow such riding.
You stay closer to the shoulder (1 meter or so, as many places prescribe.) Then you are at the mercy of drivers who, staying in the right lane, have to move as far as possible to the left to give you more space. This is not very safe either because lanes are as wide as they are because car drivers need space for safety too. They give up this safety, briefly, for you. If the car in the left lane needs to move toward the lane separator (to avoid an obstacle, for example - 100% legal and expected) then the two cars may be too close for comfort.
But that's not all. If you are riding properly within 1 meter from the shoulder, what about the parked cars? They are everywhere, and unless you can ride through them you have to leave the relative safety of the right side of the rightmost lane and venture into the middle of that lane. This is worse than being there all along, since you have to check over the shoulder, wait (how?) until the traffic passes, and only then pass the parked car and return to the right. This weaving creates problems for you - because you have to change positions - and to other drivers because they have to always correctly predict your future actions.
The (3) above is particularly dangerous. On the roads here if I, in a car, stay in the right lane then I have about 2 to 3 feet clearance to parked cars, even if I tend to stay closer to the far edge of the lane. This space is not wide enough to safely hold a bicycle rider. So if the rider weaves in and out of the gaps between parked cars he is a menace, and car drivers have to detect him and yield to him if he is out, passing the parked vehicles.
I used to ride bicycles, and then a motorcycle. I will take a motorcycle any time over a bicycle. On a motorbike you are truly in control, and you move as fast as cars (if not faster - but that's another issue, totally voluntary on your part.) You are legal in any lane, and for a good reason - you are not a problem there. Your speed range is from 5 mph to 100, for example, and this gives you plenty of variance to merge (and plenty of acceleration for that too.) And when you do accelerate you don't have to focus most of your efforts on spinning the wheels - instead you just turn the handle toward you and continue to observe the traffic around you; the engine does the rest. You still can get in trouble on a motorbike, but that requires either the same bad luck as with cars, or some particular stupidity on part of the rider (such as riding too fast for the surface, fishtailing during poorly coordinated braking, underestimating railroad crossings, stone or wood surfaces, etc.)
A bicycle is nothing like that. I would compare it to a toddler on a race track, among the sprinters. Possibly legal, but hardly safe there.
Customs officials are not that interested in private diaries, and in 99.9999% of cases they won't look at them - but give them a reason (such as have an appearance or a name of a known evildoer) and they will give you a Class A+ examination. If they give you a cavity search be sure they will inspect everything else you have. You may have a list of conspirators there, or plans to do ${Something Bad}, for example, now that you gave the officials the probable cause for the search.
This WoW guy, though not on a list of evildoers [until now] certainly raised enough stink, literally, to attract plenty of attention from authorities. This is a standard procedure, by the book, and it may even benefit the WoW guy - now he can honestly say, with proof, that he had nothing bad in his posession. Otherwise he could be accused of having @Bad_Things in his bags or on his laptop, and he'd have no proof that he is not an evildoer. But now he has that proof, and he should be happy that he is completely exonerated.
I guess the agents can ask whatever they want. I am still unclear as to my obligations to answer, and the consequences of giving the 'wrong' answers.
I don't think you can be required to answer anything at all; you can always say "Here I am, in front of you, take it or leave it" - but then you should not be surprised if the immigration agent tells that you are not admissible to his country. No country is required to admit any foreigner, and very few high level refusals are challenged on level of ministries of heads of state. In case of this WoW player, he'd be ignored by everyone.
To what extent do I have to continue giving speculative answers to questions such as "if you were both drunk, would you --- her?". What happens to me if I choose not to answer the question?
IANACO, but as I said there is no binary answer to that. The customs agent tries to understand you and your motives in order to decide if you are worthy of admission. If he says yes he is liable if you end up blowing someone up. If he says no, he will not be in any trouble. So he risks a small part of his own well-being by admitting you to the country, and he is not going to do that favor to you if you are nasty to him.
However, does the authority of airport officials extend to the inspection of data stored on electronic media, or only to physical items? To what extent am I required to aid such searches?
Both, known to me as a fact (some countries that I traveled to used to require inspection of electronic media at the Customs.)
My laptop is password protected and contains encrypted files - am I required to reveal my password and encryption keys? What if I don't?
Simple. Your laptop won't be allowed into the country.
Am I required to point out the location of my pr0n folder, give a tour of it, and discuss my tastes?
You are required to declare everything that may be not admissible or require special handling by customs. If you have inadmissible articles and you declare them, they will be not allowed but you will not be penalized; you may even be able to collect them on your way back.
Customs officials understand that travelers are not experts in laws of tens of foreign countries they may visit, and they simply suggest that if you are unsure you should declare everything questionable. If you have 10 bottles of alcohol, say so and the customs people will be very glad to advise you if only 6 are admitted for free. Or if you carry a collectible flint handgun in your luggage some countries may allow it and other may not, and other may require some special paperwork filed. The customs people are not exactly your enemies if you are honest with them.
If you have inadmissible stuff and fail to declare it, the customs people will find it and you will be fined, and you may be not allowed into the country. You may be arrested on the spot if the inadmissible articles are dangerous enough; you can't be deported because you haven't entered the country, but you will be left in the international space of the airport until you get tickets to fly back. If you can't you will be sent out forcefully. If you tried to smuggle some really dangerous stuff in, you may be put on trial and imprisoned if the court finds that you committed a crime. I think that's what happened when a few years back someone tried to bring some explosives into the USA and got caught by the INS.
Legalities aside, surely you can see the futility behind the idea of customs searching laptop contents?
Oh yes, I definitely see that, no questions here. But the Customs and the police and courts deal in physical objects, at least until recently. If you carry a material instance of a child pr0n photo you are eeevil. If you carry the image of the same photo in your memory you are a model citizen worthy of every praise.
What are the implications of you assuming I have adult material on my laptop? Will you arrest me, or am I free to go?
A message on HDD can be considered ready for publication. Of course, these days you don't have to reside in any specific country to publish, but customs people and courts are a little old-fashioned. For example, they still ask if you carry $10K or more in cash on your person, though it's much easier to wire money anywhere you want, or just carry a book of your blank cheques - that once filled and signed will be an equivalent of as much cash as you have in the bank.
I have acted in good will and explained the situation to yourself. I am happy to clarify anything relevant to the iPod - my personal relationships are of no relevance.
You are a suspect until we find what exactly was the device that you dropped. Your good will is appreciated. I, however, have the power given to me by my government to decide what questions have relevance; I am a trained detective, you are not, how come you presume to know my job better than I do? So don't be difficult and answer my questions, all of them. If you are not guilty there would be no consequences anyhow.
I assure you that your best bomb squad guys should be more than capable at removing my iPod from the toilet without incurring any injury. You have no reason to be concerned for their life.
Says the suspect. Bomb squad people learned get to live longer by presuming nothing, and trusting no one. I am surprised that this is not obvious enough.
Sir, I have commited no wrongdoing and do not consent to any searches. Without probable cause such searches are unlawful, and I assure you that I will file a formal complaint should you decide to ignore my request.
Sir, you are in customs area, entering a foreign country. I am a customs agent, empowered to search anything and anyone who enters the country, and I have the right given to me by my government to make decisions what and who to search. I have decided to search your belongings; this is lawful and your complaints will have no effect. The very fact that you and I are in the Search Room that is equipped by the government specifically for searches - as it is quite apparent - should be a sufficient clue for you.
I have no desire nor obligation to answer such a question.
Assuming "yes" then...
I have no problem with you deciding what goes on in your country by means of voting. Surely you aren't implying that you feel empowered to violate your countrys laws at will?
Sir, I am unsure if you are competent enough to judge us or our laws.
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As an example, you are a store owner, member of a proper religious sect $FOO. Life is good. Then some people start hate speech against your sect. For example, they imply that your sect sacrifices newborn babies and makes hamburgers out of them. Your store sells hamburgers. Suddenly you see fewer customers, and later on your store is firebombed. But not a single word, not a single action was taken (until last night) against you personally; all the words were said against your group that you associate with. Minus firebombing, you may be driven out of business and still have nothing to accuse your attackers of. You can't summon the public opinion to the witness stand. When you start looking for a job you can't say why you are rejected everywhere. When your lease is up for renewal you can't tell why the owner decides to terminate it. When you need mortgage you can't tell why nobody wants to sell it to you. People emigrated to America in part because of hate speech and because of resulting social vacuum.
As things stand, it's easier to find 100 UAVs to look over the hill than to find one soldier to do the same. Not even mentioning that the ground between here and there may be mined.
- A helicopter painted black would be invisible [at night]
- It's night outside, and I don't see any helicopters
Conclusion: Those helicopters are indeed black.
(Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise)
At this time, yes. Besides, your information is quite exaggerated.
9600 * 100000 = 915 Mbps, or 114 MBps, or 410 GB per hour.
If the system works 24/7 it will be producing about 10 TB per day. To record all that you need just two Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drives (750 GB each) that are rotated; one records the streaming data in real time, another gets asynchronously dumped onto the tape in an automatic tape changer. Sun offers 15 TB in a 4U rackmount box, as an example, for mere $10K. So a daily visit to swap the tapes would suffice. This particular unit has bandwidth of 576 GB per hour, faster even than is needed; there are 38 tape cartridges inside, switched automatically.
There don't seem to be any technical challenges to building such a system. Tape media is very inexpensive - as if the cost is an issue... and you need about 100 of such boxes to cover the whole country, and the government can afford to have a whole team of technicians sitting around, not just one visiting tech.
In reality you need less because voice calls are not continuous, and the codec will not be coding the silence, so your data rate is lower than that. Modem and fax calls can be received and stored as demodulated, digital data, so they will take very little space.
Close - yes, /still/ close - on the other side. In modern Russia there are fifteen major parties in the State Duma (Parliament), and no oppressive laws. Russia does not even use death penalty, let alone torture.
As a worthy opponent you will be painted as all of the above, plus as an avid barnyard pr0n performer, in all roles. With photographs even. You'll be amazed.
If you remove your rose-colored glasses you will notice that parent-child relationships always produce conflicts, and you can't peacefully walk away from them as you would be able to if your acquaintance's behavior becomes unpleasant. Mountains of books are written that depict conflicts in families, and any police officer, when facing a crime, will suspect the relatives first. And the reason for that is often exactly what I mentioned above - a relationship forced upon an unwilling participant.
Indeed, I went through the responses (of which there is a lot) and I definitely agree that emotional aspects of having children may be the only reason to have them these days. I'm only glad that such emotions are not applicable here. But for emotionally obsessed people ... whatever floats your boat. The Universe doesn't care whether humans exist or not.
And from the other side of the equation, no sensible female of the species will choose to date a geek that is clearly ill-adapted socially, is not likely to resemble a movie star from her wall poster, and probably will not fare well in the salary department if he ever manages to leave his basement (many choose not to.)
And with respect to children, many men dislike children and don't want them at all. They are expensive to maintain, and pointless to raise in the first place. The society changed so much in the last 100-200 years that a large family that was a great advantage to a peasant is now a death warrant in many professional areas, financially and time-wise. Parents nowadays are expected to sink up to a million dollars into a child, with no ROI whatsoever. The parents become slaves to their children, working most of their productive life to maintain the family.
Actually, it was a joke referring to MS's incorrect usage of the word "genuine". All copies are genuine, even the pirated ones.
And since another poster wondered about emergency recovery, I would suggest performing a surgery on an animal, like a dog, if not a human, immediately before a crew is scheduled to return to Earth. In need they could be on the ground in 15 minutes, faster even than an airplane can descend from its 40,000 ft. and find a place to land.
TFA mentions an accident during a low spaceflight. Well, read Baxter's "Titan" for example. But if you are not suicidal enough for that, it might be enough to note that all space crews are trained in medicine; often one crewmember is a doctor, and everyone else is good enough to help.
Another issue is that you can't compare 30-second drops and 9-minute climbs, with gravity swinging from 0 to 2G, and a quiet, stable zero gravity of a spacecraft. Who can do *anything* well in a Vomit Comet? This stunt has no value.
Capturing and reemitting some of the energy at the spacecraft would be useful to alter the path, or else you only could go away from the homeworld (not exactly the most appealing flight profile :-) But that would require lining the sail with photoelectric cells, and making them so lightweight and so numerous that it looks to be even more impossible than the sail itself. Besides, this method won't allow you to reverse the thrust whatever you do.
I am not aware of any microwave lasers that the USSR might have been developing. Generally masers have very low power. The demo of the laser-powered flight was set up by some US scientists and shown on TV in North America.
This is not new, this method is valid and works. Everything that you state is correct. There were demos shown on TV, where small models were made to fly upward by the light from a powerful laser. The problem with this is only efficiency; this technology holds no controversy.
It's not very likely in my Universe - not enough octarine.
The radiation pressure does exist, but it has nothing to do with Lorentz force. And you can, actually, propel yourself by shining a flashlight away from you. The matter annihilation engines work on this principle, for some decades by now.
The only problem with this propulsion method is that you need an awful number of photons, and you wouldn't like to be in a spot that they hit. Some writers theorized that the Solar system would need an energy shield before it can launch a photon-driven starship from anywhere close to it.
That's true, primarily because the new PC will be faster and shinier, and presumably better. Besides, old PCs are often failing - fans go out first, with all kinds of noises, and then power supplies, and then you don't know what. To dumpster it goes. Today a common Wal-Mart level PC costs less than the trouble of fixing or upgrading it; even Compaq and Dell laptops are below $500. There is absolutely no sense in refurbishing that old, dusty and slow box unless you have some very specific purpose in mind. And, as I said, even if you do refurbish it, keep in mind that it's MTBF almost ran out; you probably wouldn't want to build your entertainment center or home security webcam on it.
A modern solution would be to cryptographically sign and encrypt the vote so that the voter can carry it but only the owner of the key (such as some election authority) can ever decode and verify it. However, as other people noted, there is not much sense in doing this at all because what the voter takes home has no legal meaning.
I guess you don't own one. Please get a decent motorbike, and I will see you in a few months, stronger and fitter than ever. Do you know how much they weigh? Do you know that they don't have power steering? :-)
You will be very surprised how high a good cheater and liar can climb. And they don't need to know anything except how to cheat and lie, and that they already know very well.
The (3) above is particularly dangerous. On the roads here if I, in a car, stay in the right lane then I have about 2 to 3 feet clearance to parked cars, even if I tend to stay closer to the far edge of the lane. This space is not wide enough to safely hold a bicycle rider. So if the rider weaves in and out of the gaps between parked cars he is a menace, and car drivers have to detect him and yield to him if he is out, passing the parked vehicles.
I used to ride bicycles, and then a motorcycle. I will take a motorcycle any time over a bicycle. On a motorbike you are truly in control, and you move as fast as cars (if not faster - but that's another issue, totally voluntary on your part.) You are legal in any lane, and for a good reason - you are not a problem there. Your speed range is from 5 mph to 100, for example, and this gives you plenty of variance to merge (and plenty of acceleration for that too.) And when you do accelerate you don't have to focus most of your efforts on spinning the wheels - instead you just turn the handle toward you and continue to observe the traffic around you; the engine does the rest. You still can get in trouble on a motorbike, but that requires either the same bad luck as with cars, or some particular stupidity on part of the rider (such as riding too fast for the surface, fishtailing during poorly coordinated braking, underestimating railroad crossings, stone or wood surfaces, etc.)
A bicycle is nothing like that. I would compare it to a toddler on a race track, among the sprinters. Possibly legal, but hardly safe there.
This WoW guy, though not on a list of evildoers [until now] certainly raised enough stink, literally, to attract plenty of attention from authorities. This is a standard procedure, by the book, and it may even benefit the WoW guy - now he can honestly say, with proof, that he had nothing bad in his posession. Otherwise he could be accused of having @Bad_Things in his bags or on his laptop, and he'd have no proof that he is not an evildoer. But now he has that proof, and he should be happy that he is completely exonerated.
I don't think you can be required to answer anything at all; you can always say "Here I am, in front of you, take it or leave it" - but then you should not be surprised if the immigration agent tells that you are not admissible to his country. No country is required to admit any foreigner, and very few high level refusals are challenged on level of ministries of heads of state. In case of this WoW player, he'd be ignored by everyone.
To what extent do I have to continue giving speculative answers to questions such as "if you were both drunk, would you --- her?". What happens to me if I choose not to answer the question?
IANACO, but as I said there is no binary answer to that. The customs agent tries to understand you and your motives in order to decide if you are worthy of admission. If he says yes he is liable if you end up blowing someone up. If he says no, he will not be in any trouble. So he risks a small part of his own well-being by admitting you to the country, and he is not going to do that favor to you if you are nasty to him.
However, does the authority of airport officials extend to the inspection of data stored on electronic media, or only to physical items? To what extent am I required to aid such searches?
Both, known to me as a fact (some countries that I traveled to used to require inspection of electronic media at the Customs.)
My laptop is password protected and contains encrypted files - am I required to reveal my password and encryption keys? What if I don't?
Simple. Your laptop won't be allowed into the country.
Am I required to point out the location of my pr0n folder, give a tour of it, and discuss my tastes?
You are required to declare everything that may be not admissible or require special handling by customs. If you have inadmissible articles and you declare them, they will be not allowed but you will not be penalized; you may even be able to collect them on your way back.
Customs officials understand that travelers are not experts in laws of tens of foreign countries they may visit, and they simply suggest that if you are unsure you should declare everything questionable. If you have 10 bottles of alcohol, say so and the customs people will be very glad to advise you if only 6 are admitted for free. Or if you carry a collectible flint handgun in your luggage some countries may allow it and other may not, and other may require some special paperwork filed. The customs people are not exactly your enemies if you are honest with them.
If you have inadmissible stuff and fail to declare it, the customs people will find it and you will be fined, and you may be not allowed into the country. You may be arrested on the spot if the inadmissible articles are dangerous enough; you can't be deported because you haven't entered the country, but you will be left in the international space of the airport until you get tickets to fly back. If you can't you will be sent out forcefully. If you tried to smuggle some really dangerous stuff in, you may be put on trial and imprisoned if the court finds that you committed a crime. I think that's what happened when a few years back someone tried to bring some explosives into the USA and got caught by the INS.
Legalities aside, surely you can see the futility behind the idea of customs searching laptop contents?
Oh yes, I definitely see that, no questions here. But the Customs and the police and courts deal in physical objects, at least until recently. If you carry a material instance of a child pr0n photo you are eeevil. If you carry the image of the same photo in your memory you are a model citizen worthy of every praise.
What are the implications of you assuming I have adult material on my laptop? Will you arrest me, or am I free to go?
Depends on
A message on HDD can be considered ready for publication. Of course, these days you don't have to reside in any specific country to publish, but customs people and courts are a little old-fashioned. For example, they still ask if you carry $10K or more in cash on your person, though it's much easier to wire money anywhere you want, or just carry a book of your blank cheques - that once filled and signed will be an equivalent of as much cash as you have in the bank.
You are a suspect until we find what exactly was the device that you dropped. Your good will is appreciated. I, however, have the power given to me by my government to decide what questions have relevance; I am a trained detective, you are not, how come you presume to know my job better than I do? So don't be difficult and answer my questions, all of them. If you are not guilty there would be no consequences anyhow.
Says the suspect. Bomb squad people learned get to live longer by presuming nothing, and trusting no one. I am surprised that this is not obvious enough.
Sir, you are in customs area, entering a foreign country. I am a customs agent, empowered to search anything and anyone who enters the country, and I have the right given to me by my government to make decisions what and who to search. I have decided to search your belongings; this is lawful and your complaints will have no effect. The very fact that you and I are in the Search Room that is equipped by the government specifically for searches - as it is quite apparent - should be a sufficient clue for you.
Assuming "yes" then...
Sir, I am unsure if you are competent enough to judge us or our laws.