Checking out their link, their exterior coolant loop isn't anything hazardous. Interior is 'triol fluid' which is 70% water, 30% glycerin, which is also non-toxic.
a) No argument here. Gigafactory should help b) Cost of expanding charging station network - They're doing it now. Heck, every time somebody buys an EV they typically increase the network size by the charging station in their garage. c) Built into the cost of building the charging stations d) increased load during peak times - It's more likely to increase baseload, actually. They're highly computerized big drawers. It's relative child's play to mess with the charging timing and draw to ensure that you're NOT charging your EV during peak times. Well, 99% of the time.
Time of charge: Remember, 99% of the time people aren't fueling up in order to extend their driving range. They're filling up on the way home or to work, simply to 'top off' the vehicle, it's not a daily. With an EV they don't need to take a 5-10 minute timeout to drive to a gas station to fill up, they simply drive home and plug in. 30 seconds in the garage and they return to a full battery in the morning. Or plug in at work(hopefully work has solar panels or something), again, not going 1 meter outside their intended drive simply for fuel.
Not to mention that Musk still has that 4 month waiting period for every car Tesla can produce, so no, the AC's just being butthurt that richer people can get a Tesla before him. Musk is intending to release a $30k car just as soon as he can provide batteries for them(see gigafactory). Battery prices at 1/2 to 2/3rds of what they are now should really help there. I've seen some articles that suggest that Tesla is already producing batteries far cheaper per kWh than any other maker.
unlike Tesla, their vehicles aren't carefully aimed at sucking blood from the rich
Point of order - Elon Musk has quite clearly stated that he's following a strategy of working his way down to the middle class and such with his cars. It's just that sucking the blood from the rich is the most profitable(so his company can actually live long enough to do it!) way while production numbers are low.
Volkswagen is the only car company I can think of that didn't start it's life producing luxury vehicles, and it started up with massive state support.
Why not legalize Heroin? Or perhaps I should specify 'legalize in an extremely regulated fashion'. Studies have shown that simply giving addicts sustaining amounts* is cheaper and more effective than trying to dry them out cold turkey. Indeed, most are able to live productive lives while addicted so long as they have a secure source of the drug.
The UK managed to keep heroin dealers to a minimum for decades by simply defining heroin addiction as a medical concern and providing clean medical grade doses for free to addicts. The dealers couldn't survive economically in such a market(you'd get half a dozen who'd try a year, generating about half a dozen addicts each). It's when they ended that policy that the number of dealers and addicts skyrocketed, which costs the country far more than simply handing out doses to the addicts.
Legalize and regulate: Marijuana, Heroine, Cocaine, and LSD and I think that you'd find that your problems with Crack, meth, PCP, and such would mostly disappear. Consider that during prohibition the most popular alcohols transitioned from low potency wine & beer to easy to smuggle hard liquor. Crack and Meth are products of the war on drugs. Meth is a substitute for crack/cocaine because it can be made 'anywhere'. Crack was developed trying to extend cocaine(more hits per kilo), as well as make it easier to use.
Prohibition tends to lead to harder substances, because more concentrated doses are easier to smuggle and you tend to be punished by weight/volume, not the actual amount of drug. Put some MJ into brownies and the police will happily weigh up the brownies and charge you with having a kilo of MJ when it's actually only a few ounces.
*IE not really enough to get high, but enough to satisfy the addiction.
Take away drugs and you still have guns and human slaves(sex or otherwise).
True, without some major, radical reforms there will always be something illegal to profit from. But the next part is a fallacy. You seem to be assuming the guns and human slave markets are currently underfilled and able to absorb all the criminals currently employed in the drug trade. I'd argue that within market inefficiencies they're all exploited to about the same level of profit. IE if we can 'get rid of' the drug trade and the criminals wanted to stay criminals in black market type organized crime, the shift towards trafficking in humans, guns, and other illegal substances would leave the markets over-saturated with workers, leading to a severe drop in income. More logically, at least some would go more or less legit, because crime would no longer pay enough to justify it.
As a secondary issue, at least in the USA/Mexico, you also have to realize that for the most part the gun trade is predicated on the drug trade. They're buying the illegal guns to protect their illegal product. Take away the illegal product and they no longer have the resources to purchase the illegal guns, nor the justification of product to protect to do so. Of course, I'd also legalize the guns...
In the end, crime seems a little less attractive and fewer people get into it.
To continue on - with drugs I see primary drug use as a 'victimless crime'. 'Most' of the criminality and other downsides arise from the very fact that it's illegal. Slavery, kidnapping, extortion, theft, etc... All have victims. Those need to stay illegal.
But we could, quite reasonably legalize, tax, and regulate drugs. Treat addiction as a medical issue. Work to mitigate the harm drugs do to society in the most effective fashion possible, which is not prohibition as the war on drugs has shown.
I imagine that for nonviolent drug offenses, the victim is the taxpayers who pay into the health care fund of the social welfare system who now have to pay to treat the complications of use of these unsafe substances.
First, this justification could also be used to ban red meat and such. How far do you go? Especially when we don't have socialized medicine, meaning most of these types have to pay for their own treatment.
Second, as the calls to test those on welfare has shown, those on assistance are actually less likely to be using drugs.
Third, on the copyright issue - I've proposed in the past that if you take a work out of print long enough for it to not be generally available that you should lose your copyright, and that copyright in general should be for a far shorter time.
What they should do is get that damn fusion reactor working before 2020
I've read some articles that state we're only spending enough money on developing fusion to hold our place - less money and we'd actually be losing knowledge as we wouldn't train enough scientists and engineers on the information to keep the knowledge up. More money and we'd actually develop the technology, though it would still take years even under a 'crash' type funding program.
Still, under any reasonable fusion scenario it wouldn't displace oil. It'd displace coal first. I'm also afraid that any 'economic' fusion plant will be huge, since fusion should scale by the cube as plant size/cost scales by the square, and we're already building a gigawatt ranged fusion test plant that's not designed to produce usable electricity.
Must sell only Tesla/EVs: Probably could. However, the dealer could also simply set up a second LLC right next door and open another. IE: Blarmy's Tesla dealership is right next to Blarmy's Honda dealership. Retain the right to sell directly: Very unlikely - most state laws, even those that don't require an 'independent' dealer, forbid the manufacturer from directly competing with the dealerships for customers. Standard automakers: See the state non-compete laws, laws requiring dealers(Texas), and yes, a very big chunk of history with already signed agreements. Clean Slate: It's already shaken out in many states that except for already built sales points, they're not allowed to expand without going to dealers. In other states the only reason they're allowed to sell directly is indeed because they don't have any dealerships(in state, at least). Defense against NADA: Right now it's only real power is continuing to boycott them.
While it's cool that this guy took the job on himself, and ended up getting much better results, this story seems to be, at least in part, "How at least one radiologist fucked it up, and the guy who luckily second guessed him."
Yeah, I think it's a reinforcement of the idea that while you might not be a professional, you generally have a lot more invested in it(it's YOUR health) than the professionals, and you have a lot more time you can spend on your specific problem than any given specialist.
I'm not saying not to listen to your doctors or take their advice. I'm saying that double checking everything is probably in your best interest.
Yeah, I can see why Musk would like to see a few more EVs out there. Heck, I can see him wanting them to use his charging technology.
More manufacturers making and selling electric cars helps justify the creation of more infrastructure, which increases the value of the cars he sells without costing Tesla money.
If the extra cars means that businesses, restaurants, and stores 'all' install a charging point, that's a good value boost.
Also, 'current wait' is 4 months, yet if you ordered one today you wouldn't get it to 2016? That's a 12 month wait. I can understand why they don't want to consider franchising yet if that's the case. Still, I consider the idea that Musk is even willing to consider franchising/dealerships to be a massive change in stance. Previously he pointed towards being massively against the idea. Maybe he's starting to hit organizational issues?
I used my first word processor on a 286. I know the applications predate even that, but any device capable of streaming HD video and sending emails should be able to run a word processor application fully featured enough for all but the most demanding of users.
There may be a few but I doubt enough to pay for and support 13,000km of track through some very harsh terrain which gets worse in winter and a 200km tunnel under water.
My thought was cargo. Though it's a tough, tough sell up against cargo ships.
The desktop (as in role... this physical machine can be a laptop, a desktop, a server, or a tablet with a dock like the Surface Pro) machine isn't going anywhere, and has plenty of room to grow.
Yeah, but nearly everybody who's going to have one already has one, and their abilities have leveled off substantially. My machine is pushing 6 years old and I still don't worry about not being able to play the newest games. Yes, it was a beast when I bought it, but the only substantial upgrades I've made is it's now(as of this month) on it's 3rd SSD. #2 is now the drive for my games. I'm considering supplementing the HD with another, but for now migrating data back onto SSD storage(applications, games, and such) is sufficient.
DoD are not the only people who require FIPS 140-2.
Point. It's a federal regulation, after all, and thus all departments with security concerns(such as the DoE) use it. Plus, lots of states follow federal rules due to the ease, and for private concerns it can also be a shortcut.
That being said, I once investigated the reason because even to me it seemed like a license to print money if you came out with one. I guess 'illegal' installations were easier and cheaper, too much competition with the expense and risk of trying to create one.
I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up costing around a grand for a keyboard/mouse combo.
I work in IT servicing a lot of small businesses, and from what I've seen over the years, it seems like most businesses had gotten into the habit of buying new computers every few years. Both the hardware and software were improving quickly and drastically, and it made sense to buy a new computer every 3 years or so.
I've seen this as well. If businesses start going from a 3 year cycle to a 5 year cycle to a 7, or even a 10 year cycle, that's going to really depress the number of computers(or any other item) sold. Even if they end up replacing half the computers before 10 years due to physical failure.
You'll get bumps like XP machines being dumped en-mass, but for business purposes the machines still worked. Perhaps bad for microsoft, the concentration on 'tablet PCs' means that the newest versions of windows can actually consume fewer resources, also driving fewer hardware sales - most aren't going to bother upgrading, but I've seen quite a few actually do it, usually via ghost disks. Even a few percent makes a different.
Not having the huge break where kids not only forget things but forget how to learn in some ways is a huge decrement. Students who spend less time in class each day and/or have longer breaks between semesters but no huge summer vacation period perform substantially better than the traditional system.
Rote memorization, standardized testing, and one-size schooling is a problem no matter HOW you schedule your school.
Wireless keyboards generally require a wireless dongle. Put a usb port on the kb, used for emergency power obviously.... but... easy pairing.
For such a keyboard I'd go with 'charging' and have it act like a normal keyboard while plugged into the computer. Something like 'up to 2 days of fairly heavy usage per 2 hours charging'. Easy pairing, perhaps, but I think you'd need to write some software to do that, not that you aren't anyways.
Course if someone is coming into your house and plugging shit into the wall, maybe they can just replace your whole keyboard too....
Already a concern, would actually be less of a one with the secure keyboard - because the computer won't talk to a replacement.
My estimate on the reasons: 1. People have limited amounts of money for computer gadgets. IE tablet OR new laptop/PC 2. Tablets were the 'new thing', but people who would buy them now already have one(lowering sales of them) and/or have gotten over the 'shiny' and are perhaps now looking for more functionality again. I know I hate typing on mine. What's one of the hotter accessories? Bluetooth keyboard, often built into the case itself.
So people put off buying a new laptop and such in favor of the tablet. Especially with the fun of Windows 8. Now that tablet purchasing is more or less down to routine replacement, people are picking up PCs again.
The thing is, the cipher doesn't do the job alone, once you have a good cipher, you then need good key generation/negotiation, which pretty much requires some sort of authenticated pairing step which requires user interaction to complete.
Which means you end up with, at least, a tiny LCD screen to show the pairing code. Which means you need enough logic to run the LCD screen and the pairing stuff.
I exaggerated a bit, with a cellphone battery the keyboard could probably last weeks. But a dumb keyboard is also in incredibly simple device, thus my statement 'closer to'. I also remember reading that for truly secure operation the keyboard would have to communicate with the computer a lot more, and more transmissions equates to shorter battery life.
Don't forget that while AES is a standard within FIPS 140-2, it's also far from the only requirement. Certifying your wireless keyboard would probably cost more than designing it in the first place, and the DoD won't let you use it unless it's certified(and maybe even not then). So you're looking at a LOT of expense for what would work out to a limited audience. Not that you wouldn't sell a few even if they were $10k apiece, but it's still a limited market.
Unless you have control over every single thing which is plugged in, you absolutely can still be spied on like this.
You'd also have to flip the breakers as well, not to mention wait until any integrated batteries have time to die.
I've seen this sort of stuff connected within the wall box the socket is in. They're already illegal, so you don't have to use 18 gauge wire or whatever while worrying about fire code - just tack on some whisker-thin wires (28 gauge?) for power. Heck, see if you can shove it OUT of the box.
So unless there is some esoteric trick they are using to exploit the system and get their hands on a key that should otherwise be secure.... then its a disservice to the public to even call it encryption, because unless that is the case and they were genuinely compromised from a use case that should have otherwise been secure.... then all they did was use a fancy obfuscator.
When I was in the USAF I had great fun telling users that they could have a wireless keyboard & mouse just as soon as they found FIPS 140-2 compliant ones. I then told them that not only do none exist to our knowledge, but none are planned. The main problem being once you put serious encryption in there(as 140-2 requires), you're looking at a keyboard/mouse that are closer to smartphones than keyboards. IE a AA won't last a few months, you'll need to charge it like you do your smartphone. AES encryption also isn't intended for 8-16 bits at a time, so it's not really efficient there.
Otherwise the problem with wireless keyboards isn't 'just' that they're unencrypted, because some boast that they are encrypted, and they technically are. It's just that an 8 bit key is worth about as much as ROT-13.
Slashdot Mirror
That said, the Russians don't use it [space.com].
Checking out their link, their exterior coolant loop isn't anything hazardous. Interior is 'triol fluid' which is 70% water, 30% glycerin, which is also non-toxic.
They're using Javascript because it's a fancy 3d rollable image.
a) No argument here. Gigafactory should help
b) Cost of expanding charging station network - They're doing it now. Heck, every time somebody buys an EV they typically increase the network size by the charging station in their garage.
c) Built into the cost of building the charging stations
d) increased load during peak times - It's more likely to increase baseload, actually. They're highly computerized big drawers. It's relative child's play to mess with the charging timing and draw to ensure that you're NOT charging your EV during peak times. Well, 99% of the time.
Time of charge: Remember, 99% of the time people aren't fueling up in order to extend their driving range. They're filling up on the way home or to work, simply to 'top off' the vehicle, it's not a daily. With an EV they don't need to take a 5-10 minute timeout to drive to a gas station to fill up, they simply drive home and plug in. 30 seconds in the garage and they return to a full battery in the morning. Or plug in at work(hopefully work has solar panels or something), again, not going 1 meter outside their intended drive simply for fuel.
Not to mention that Musk still has that 4 month waiting period for every car Tesla can produce, so no, the AC's just being butthurt that richer people can get a Tesla before him. Musk is intending to release a $30k car just as soon as he can provide batteries for them(see gigafactory). Battery prices at 1/2 to 2/3rds of what they are now should really help there. I've seen some articles that suggest that Tesla is already producing batteries far cheaper per kWh than any other maker.
unlike Tesla, their vehicles aren't carefully aimed at sucking blood from the rich
Point of order - Elon Musk has quite clearly stated that he's following a strategy of working his way down to the middle class and such with his cars. It's just that sucking the blood from the rich is the most profitable(so his company can actually live long enough to do it!) way while production numbers are low.
Volkswagen is the only car company I can think of that didn't start it's life producing luxury vehicles, and it started up with massive state support.
Yeah, I saw that when I hit refresh. When I typed this up there were no responses.
Why not legalize Heroin? Or perhaps I should specify 'legalize in an extremely regulated fashion'. Studies have shown that simply giving addicts sustaining amounts* is cheaper and more effective than trying to dry them out cold turkey. Indeed, most are able to live productive lives while addicted so long as they have a secure source of the drug.
The UK managed to keep heroin dealers to a minimum for decades by simply defining heroin addiction as a medical concern and providing clean medical grade doses for free to addicts. The dealers couldn't survive economically in such a market(you'd get half a dozen who'd try a year, generating about half a dozen addicts each). It's when they ended that policy that the number of dealers and addicts skyrocketed, which costs the country far more than simply handing out doses to the addicts.
Legalize and regulate: Marijuana, Heroine, Cocaine, and LSD and I think that you'd find that your problems with Crack, meth, PCP, and such would mostly disappear.
Consider that during prohibition the most popular alcohols transitioned from low potency wine & beer to easy to smuggle hard liquor.
Crack and Meth are products of the war on drugs. Meth is a substitute for crack/cocaine because it can be made 'anywhere'. Crack was developed trying to extend cocaine(more hits per kilo), as well as make it easier to use.
Prohibition tends to lead to harder substances, because more concentrated doses are easier to smuggle and you tend to be punished by weight/volume, not the actual amount of drug. Put some MJ into brownies and the police will happily weigh up the brownies and charge you with having a kilo of MJ when it's actually only a few ounces.
*IE not really enough to get high, but enough to satisfy the addiction.
Take away drugs and you still have guns and human slaves(sex or otherwise).
True, without some major, radical reforms there will always be something illegal to profit from. But the next part is a fallacy. You seem to be assuming the guns and human slave markets are currently underfilled and able to absorb all the criminals currently employed in the drug trade. I'd argue that within market inefficiencies they're all exploited to about the same level of profit. IE if we can 'get rid of' the drug trade and the criminals wanted to stay criminals in black market type organized crime, the shift towards trafficking in humans, guns, and other illegal substances would leave the markets over-saturated with workers, leading to a severe drop in income. More logically, at least some would go more or less legit, because crime would no longer pay enough to justify it.
As a secondary issue, at least in the USA/Mexico, you also have to realize that for the most part the gun trade is predicated on the drug trade. They're buying the illegal guns to protect their illegal product. Take away the illegal product and they no longer have the resources to purchase the illegal guns, nor the justification of product to protect to do so. Of course, I'd also legalize the guns...
In the end, crime seems a little less attractive and fewer people get into it.
To continue on - with drugs I see primary drug use as a 'victimless crime'. 'Most' of the criminality and other downsides arise from the very fact that it's illegal. Slavery, kidnapping, extortion, theft, etc... All have victims. Those need to stay illegal.
But we could, quite reasonably legalize, tax, and regulate drugs. Treat addiction as a medical issue. Work to mitigate the harm drugs do to society in the most effective fashion possible, which is not prohibition as the war on drugs has shown.
I imagine that for nonviolent drug offenses, the victim is the taxpayers who pay into the health care fund of the social welfare system who now have to pay to treat the complications of use of these unsafe substances.
First, this justification could also be used to ban red meat and such. How far do you go? Especially when we don't have socialized medicine, meaning most of these types have to pay for their own treatment.
Second, as the calls to test those on welfare has shown, those on assistance are actually less likely to be using drugs.
Third, on the copyright issue - I've proposed in the past that if you take a work out of print long enough for it to not be generally available that you should lose your copyright, and that copyright in general should be for a far shorter time.
What they should do is get that damn fusion reactor working before 2020
I've read some articles that state we're only spending enough money on developing fusion to hold our place - less money and we'd actually be losing knowledge as we wouldn't train enough scientists and engineers on the information to keep the knowledge up. More money and we'd actually develop the technology, though it would still take years even under a 'crash' type funding program.
Still, under any reasonable fusion scenario it wouldn't displace oil. It'd displace coal first. I'm also afraid that any 'economic' fusion plant will be huge, since fusion should scale by the cube as plant size/cost scales by the square, and we're already building a gigawatt ranged fusion test plant that's not designed to produce usable electricity.
Must sell only Tesla/EVs: Probably could. However, the dealer could also simply set up a second LLC right next door and open another. IE: Blarmy's Tesla dealership is right next to Blarmy's Honda dealership.
Retain the right to sell directly: Very unlikely - most state laws, even those that don't require an 'independent' dealer, forbid the manufacturer from directly competing with the dealerships for customers.
Standard automakers: See the state non-compete laws, laws requiring dealers(Texas), and yes, a very big chunk of history with already signed agreements.
Clean Slate: It's already shaken out in many states that except for already built sales points, they're not allowed to expand without going to dealers. In other states the only reason they're allowed to sell directly is indeed because they don't have any dealerships(in state, at least).
Defense against NADA: Right now it's only real power is continuing to boycott them.
While it's cool that this guy took the job on himself, and ended up getting much better results, this story seems to be, at least in part, "How at least one radiologist fucked it up, and the guy who luckily second guessed him."
Yeah, I think it's a reinforcement of the idea that while you might not be a professional, you generally have a lot more invested in it(it's YOUR health) than the professionals, and you have a lot more time you can spend on your specific problem than any given specialist.
I'm not saying not to listen to your doctors or take their advice. I'm saying that double checking everything is probably in your best interest.
Yeah, I can see why Musk would like to see a few more EVs out there. Heck, I can see him wanting them to use his charging technology.
More manufacturers making and selling electric cars helps justify the creation of more infrastructure, which increases the value of the cars he sells without costing Tesla money.
If the extra cars means that businesses, restaurants, and stores 'all' install a charging point, that's a good value boost.
Also, 'current wait' is 4 months, yet if you ordered one today you wouldn't get it to 2016? That's a 12 month wait. I can understand why they don't want to consider franchising yet if that's the case. Still, I consider the idea that Musk is even willing to consider franchising/dealerships to be a massive change in stance. Previously he pointed towards being massively against the idea. Maybe he's starting to hit organizational issues?
and got a bluetooth keyboard?
Yeah, which is why I mentioned them.
I used my first word processor on a 286. I know the applications predate even that, but any device capable of streaming HD video and sending emails should be able to run a word processor application fully featured enough for all but the most demanding of users.
There may be a few but I doubt enough to pay for and support 13,000km of track through some very harsh terrain which gets worse in winter and a 200km tunnel under water.
My thought was cargo. Though it's a tough, tough sell up against cargo ships.
The desktop (as in role... this physical machine can be a laptop, a desktop, a server, or a tablet with a dock like the Surface Pro) machine isn't going anywhere, and has plenty of room to grow.
Yeah, but nearly everybody who's going to have one already has one, and their abilities have leveled off substantially. My machine is pushing 6 years old and I still don't worry about not being able to play the newest games. Yes, it was a beast when I bought it, but the only substantial upgrades I've made is it's now(as of this month) on it's 3rd SSD. #2 is now the drive for my games. I'm considering supplementing the HD with another, but for now migrating data back onto SSD storage(applications, games, and such) is sufficient.
DoD are not the only people who require FIPS 140-2.
Point. It's a federal regulation, after all, and thus all departments with security concerns(such as the DoE) use it. Plus, lots of states follow federal rules due to the ease, and for private concerns it can also be a shortcut.
That being said, I once investigated the reason because even to me it seemed like a license to print money if you came out with one. I guess 'illegal' installations were easier and cheaper, too much competition with the expense and risk of trying to create one.
I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up costing around a grand for a keyboard/mouse combo.
I work in IT servicing a lot of small businesses, and from what I've seen over the years, it seems like most businesses had gotten into the habit of buying new computers every few years. Both the hardware and software were improving quickly and drastically, and it made sense to buy a new computer every 3 years or so.
I've seen this as well. If businesses start going from a 3 year cycle to a 5 year cycle to a 7, or even a 10 year cycle, that's going to really depress the number of computers(or any other item) sold. Even if they end up replacing half the computers before 10 years due to physical failure.
You'll get bumps like XP machines being dumped en-mass, but for business purposes the machines still worked. Perhaps bad for microsoft, the concentration on 'tablet PCs' means that the newest versions of windows can actually consume fewer resources, also driving fewer hardware sales - most aren't going to bother upgrading, but I've seen quite a few actually do it, usually via ghost disks. Even a few percent makes a different.
Not having the huge break where kids not only forget things but forget how to learn in some ways is a huge decrement. Students who spend less time in class each day and/or have longer breaks between semesters but no huge summer vacation period perform substantially better than the traditional system.
Rote memorization, standardized testing, and one-size schooling is a problem no matter HOW you schedule your school.
Wireless keyboards generally require a wireless dongle. Put a usb port on the kb, used for emergency power obviously.... but... easy pairing.
For such a keyboard I'd go with 'charging' and have it act like a normal keyboard while plugged into the computer. Something like 'up to 2 days of fairly heavy usage per 2 hours charging'. Easy pairing, perhaps, but I think you'd need to write some software to do that, not that you aren't anyways.
Course if someone is coming into your house and plugging shit into the wall, maybe they can just replace your whole keyboard too....
Already a concern, would actually be less of a one with the secure keyboard - because the computer won't talk to a replacement.
My estimate on the reasons:
1. People have limited amounts of money for computer gadgets. IE tablet OR new laptop/PC
2. Tablets were the 'new thing', but people who would buy them now already have one(lowering sales of them) and/or have gotten over the 'shiny' and are perhaps now looking for more functionality again. I know I hate typing on mine. What's one of the hotter accessories? Bluetooth keyboard, often built into the case itself.
So people put off buying a new laptop and such in favor of the tablet. Especially with the fun of Windows 8. Now that tablet purchasing is more or less down to routine replacement, people are picking up PCs again.
The thing is, the cipher doesn't do the job alone, once you have a good cipher, you then need good key generation/negotiation, which pretty much requires some sort of authenticated pairing step which requires user interaction to complete.
Which means you end up with, at least, a tiny LCD screen to show the pairing code. Which means you need enough logic to run the LCD screen and the pairing stuff.
I exaggerated a bit, with a cellphone battery the keyboard could probably last weeks. But a dumb keyboard is also in incredibly simple device, thus my statement 'closer to'. I also remember reading that for truly secure operation the keyboard would have to communicate with the computer a lot more, and more transmissions equates to shorter battery life.
Don't forget that while AES is a standard within FIPS 140-2, it's also far from the only requirement. Certifying your wireless keyboard would probably cost more than designing it in the first place, and the DoD won't let you use it unless it's certified(and maybe even not then). So you're looking at a LOT of expense for what would work out to a limited audience. Not that you wouldn't sell a few even if they were $10k apiece, but it's still a limited market.
Unless you have control over every single thing which is plugged in, you absolutely can still be spied on like this.
You'd also have to flip the breakers as well, not to mention wait until any integrated batteries have time to die.
I've seen this sort of stuff connected within the wall box the socket is in. They're already illegal, so you don't have to use 18 gauge wire or whatever while worrying about fire code - just tack on some whisker-thin wires (28 gauge?) for power. Heck, see if you can shove it OUT of the box.
So unless there is some esoteric trick they are using to exploit the system and get their hands on a key that should otherwise be secure.... then its a disservice to the public to even call it encryption, because unless that is the case and they were genuinely compromised from a use case that should have otherwise been secure.... then all they did was use a fancy obfuscator.
When I was in the USAF I had great fun telling users that they could have a wireless keyboard & mouse just as soon as they found FIPS 140-2 compliant ones. I then told them that not only do none exist to our knowledge, but none are planned. The main problem being once you put serious encryption in there(as 140-2 requires), you're looking at a keyboard/mouse that are closer to smartphones than keyboards. IE a AA won't last a few months, you'll need to charge it like you do your smartphone. AES encryption also isn't intended for 8-16 bits at a time, so it's not really efficient there.
Why broadcast any data unencrypted ever?
Because broadcast to everyone is the purpose.
Otherwise the problem with wireless keyboards isn't 'just' that they're unencrypted, because some boast that they are encrypted, and they technically are. It's just that an 8 bit key is worth about as much as ROT-13.