How armor/ warheads work
on
Electric Armor
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There seem to be a few misconceptions about how tanks fare on the battlefield and how HEAT warheads work.
First off, a HEAT round detonates several feet away from the surface of a tank. The detonation shoots a stream of molten metal, which impacts the tank and attempts to cut through. Reactive armor helps to defeat this by disrupting the stream of molten metal so that it more or less splatters harmlessly against the tank. The idea is not to MELT or BURN through armor, but to cut it. The jet is moving at immense speeds (Driven by explosives). The bigger the warhead, ie, a TOW vs a LAW, the longer and more powerful the jet is.
Anyway, reactive armor is mainly designed to defeat smaller arms and missiles. It has no effect against Sabot rounds. I've seen a couple of comments about how one would have to know what kind of weapons the enemy has. This is not true. Basically, reactive armor sits on top of standard armor. It's usually fairly lightweight, though bulky.
Electrical reactive armor has the benefit of being easier to replace and make, as well as being a bit less dangerous for the crews to service. The reactive system will fail after one hit, but only in the location of the hit. Even if the tank were to be hit in the same spot twice, there is still a lot of armor to cut through. Reactive armor is basically a cheap, light layer of extra protection from HEAT-type rounds.
As far as the effectiveness of the tank on the modern battlefield, one has only to point to the Gulf War. Regardless of the "Air hype", tanks were responsible for most of the enemy vehicle kills. Tanks will remain a part of the battlefield for quite some time, although they are working on some tanks with fewer crew and lower profiles which also incorporate some stealth technology. Finally, tanks are much cheaper and easier to maintain than aircraft, as well as packing incredible firepower. In many cases, ballistic weapons are superior to guided missiles, as well as beaing a lot less expensive. Regardless of it's "low-tech" design, a Sabot round is by far the most cost-effective anti-armor firepower in use today.
Certainly tanks alone will be easy prey for aircraft, but most nations have a bewildering array of Surface to Air Missiles, which make aircraft a lot less effective. Tanks might get better, and incorporate new technology, but I doubt you will see the demise of the tank anytime in the near future.
For more info, check out: http://www.tank-net.org/
I think I'm going to create a distrubited ASP, umm.. internet synergy proxy. it'll use a beowolf cluster of nodes of umm, privacy and corporate responsiblity.
so.. like.. send me your money, and I'll set it all up there..
Sounds great, as long as you stay proactive.
Secrecy failure in the entertainment industry
on
Distributed Security
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The article brought up a good point about cryptosystems that depend on keeping the algorithm secret. Once that secret gets out, the security is hopelessly compromised. The Germans learned this the hard way in WWII.
I think this has a nice parallel to the entertainment industry's approach to DRM. The fiasco with DVD encryption is a perfect example. Once the format was broken, the genie was out of the bottle. Making laws to try and stuff the genie back in just will not work.
With the ever increasing number of people who try to break security protocols as a hobby, it seems that relying on secrecy to keep things safe is a recipe for disaster. The internet allows information to be distributed so quickly and widely that no secret will stay secret very long.
If the entertainment/software/etc industries continue to rely on their nonexistant ability to keep secrets, we will either have an overabundance of silly overbroad laws, or else the companies will falter and die. No matter how large and dedcated their tech geeks are, there is no way to match the vast number of hobbyist nerds trying to break stuff for fun.
Also, the first generation of computer nerds could command vast salaries and respect because they knew about all these arcane protocols and device, and computers were mysterious "black boxes" that worked magically.
Nowadays, however, with universities cranking out IT people, a flood of people who want an IT job because it's hip or pays well, and the general decrease in learning curve for technology, an IT employee is now more akin to an auto mechanic than a doctor.
So, in short, I think the average IT person's salary will decrease. Mind you, there are still going to be high-paid computer wizards, but the average IT person is not as rare as they were a few years ago.
I like how the phone companies used to charge extra money for touch tone dialing. Nevermind that it saved the phone companies millions, if not billions, of dollars per year. Shouldn't they be charging people to use pulse dialing?
It's good that things like this don't still happen. Do they?
Lots of people have discussed technical solutions such as encryption, etc.
Another method that might work is to encode the information into a DNA sequence, and place it in some kind of organism. Something simple that would not be likely to die out, such as rats or roaches would be best. Then warn the world about your discovery. An even better way would be to make some kind of virus which stays in the host, not doing anything, but containing that DNA sequence, and design the virus so that it spreads between people.
The only problem here is how you would let people know to look for this DNA sequence. But, given a virus robust enough to spread and survive, it wouldn't require any person or object which could be damaged/lost/destroyed.
This would be pretty secure, unless someone knew about the DNA encoding, and the data should copy itself more or less (use redunancy), so that it would be fairly easy to piece together with enough copies.
Anyway, you could probably assume that this data will be found eventually, whether you tell anyone or not, especially if it shows up in human DNA. But DNA is probably one of the most robust forms of information transfer available, as it has error correction, makes copies, etc.
Then, of course, you would have to kill yourself so that no one could torture the information out of you, but that's the cost of science.
On the other hand, as per the FSF:
"If we take away the possibility of great wealth, then after a while, when the people have readjusted their attitudes, they will once again be eager to work in the field for the joy of accomplishment."
That's why our educational system is full of wonderful, happy, highly capable teachers, and our children emerge from public schools with a well-rounded and generally excellent knowledge base.
This seems like it should be illegal somehow. It seems, at least to me, that I should have the ability to play a cd that I bought on any system I want. Will we next see Sony CDs not playing on non-Sony cd players?
Or Sony-produced DVDs not working on non-Sony DVD players?
Slashdot Mirror
There seem to be a few misconceptions about how tanks fare on the battlefield and how HEAT warheads work.
First off, a HEAT round detonates several feet away from the surface of a tank. The detonation shoots a stream of molten metal, which impacts the tank and attempts to cut through. Reactive armor helps to defeat this by disrupting the stream of molten metal so that it more or less splatters harmlessly against the tank. The idea is not to MELT or BURN through armor, but to cut it. The jet is moving at immense speeds (Driven by explosives). The bigger the warhead, ie, a TOW vs a LAW, the longer and more powerful the jet is.
Anyway, reactive armor is mainly designed to defeat smaller arms and missiles. It has no effect against Sabot rounds. I've seen a couple of comments about how one would have to know what kind of weapons the enemy has. This is not true. Basically, reactive armor sits on top of standard armor. It's usually fairly lightweight, though bulky.
Electrical reactive armor has the benefit of being easier to replace and make, as well as being a bit less dangerous for the crews to service. The reactive system will fail after one hit, but only in the location of the hit. Even if the tank were to be hit in the same spot twice, there is still a lot of armor to cut through. Reactive armor is basically a cheap, light layer of extra protection from HEAT-type rounds.
As far as the effectiveness of the tank on the modern battlefield, one has only to point to the Gulf War. Regardless of the "Air hype", tanks were responsible for most of the enemy vehicle kills. Tanks will remain a part of the battlefield for quite some time, although they are working on some tanks with fewer crew and lower profiles which also incorporate some stealth technology. Finally, tanks are much cheaper and easier to maintain than aircraft, as well as packing incredible firepower. In many cases, ballistic weapons are superior to guided missiles, as well as beaing a lot less expensive. Regardless of it's "low-tech" design, a Sabot round is by far the most cost-effective anti-armor firepower in use today.
Certainly tanks alone will be easy prey for aircraft, but most nations have a bewildering array of Surface to Air Missiles, which make aircraft a lot less effective. Tanks might get better, and incorporate new technology, but I doubt you will see the demise of the tank anytime in the near future.
For more info, check out: http://www.tank-net.org/
There might have been advances in computer gaming, but apparently not in grade-school grammar education.
For God's sake, man, apostophe!
so 'distributed' is the new buzzword, huh?
I think I'm going to create a distrubited ASP, umm.. internet synergy proxy. it'll use a beowolf cluster of nodes of umm, privacy and corporate responsiblity.
so.. like.. send me your money, and I'll set it all up there..
Sounds great, as long as you stay proactive.
The article brought up a good point about cryptosystems that depend on keeping the algorithm secret. Once that secret gets out, the security is hopelessly compromised. The Germans learned this the hard way in WWII.
I think this has a nice parallel to the entertainment industry's approach to DRM. The fiasco with DVD encryption is a perfect example. Once the format was broken, the genie was out of the bottle. Making laws to try and stuff the genie back in just will not work.
With the ever increasing number of people who try to break security protocols as a hobby, it seems that relying on secrecy to keep things safe is a recipe for disaster. The internet allows information to be distributed so quickly and widely that no secret will stay secret very long.
If the entertainment/software/etc industries continue to rely on their nonexistant ability to keep secrets, we will either have an overabundance of silly overbroad laws, or else the companies will falter and die. No matter how large and dedcated their tech geeks are, there is no way to match the vast number of hobbyist nerds trying to break stuff for fun.
Also, the first generation of computer nerds could command vast salaries and respect because they knew about all these arcane protocols and device, and computers were mysterious "black boxes" that worked magically.
Nowadays, however, with universities cranking out IT people, a flood of people who want an IT job because it's hip or pays well, and the general decrease in learning curve for technology, an IT employee is now more akin to an auto mechanic than a doctor.
So, in short, I think the average IT person's salary will decrease. Mind you, there are still going to be high-paid computer wizards, but the average IT person is not as rare as they were a few years ago.
I like how the phone companies used to charge extra money for touch tone dialing. Nevermind that it saved the phone companies millions, if not billions, of dollars per year. Shouldn't they be charging people to use pulse dialing? It's good that things like this don't still happen. Do they?
Lots of people have discussed technical solutions such as encryption, etc.
Another method that might work is to encode the information into a DNA sequence, and place it in some kind of organism. Something simple that would not be likely to die out, such as rats or roaches would be best. Then warn the world about your discovery. An even better way would be to make some kind of virus which stays in the host, not doing anything, but containing that DNA sequence, and design the virus so that it spreads between people.
The only problem here is how you would let people know to look for this DNA sequence. But, given a virus robust enough to spread and survive, it wouldn't require any person or object which could be damaged/lost/destroyed.
This would be pretty secure, unless someone knew about the DNA encoding, and the data should copy itself more or less (use redunancy), so that it would be fairly easy to piece together with enough copies.
Anyway, you could probably assume that this data will be found eventually, whether you tell anyone or not, especially if it shows up in human DNA. But DNA is probably one of the most robust forms of information transfer available, as it has error correction, makes copies, etc.
Then, of course, you would have to kill yourself so that no one could torture the information out of you, but that's the cost of science.
Why? This seems like a bit of overkill as compared to, eg, a lock.
On the other hand, as per the FSF: "If we take away the possibility of great wealth, then after a while, when the people have readjusted their attitudes, they will once again be eager to work in the field for the joy of accomplishment." That's why our educational system is full of wonderful, happy, highly capable teachers, and our children emerge from public schools with a well-rounded and generally excellent knowledge base.
This seems like it should be illegal somehow. It seems, at least to me, that I should have the ability to play a cd that I bought on any system I want. Will we next see Sony CDs not playing on non-Sony cd players? Or Sony-produced DVDs not working on non-Sony DVD players?