When I took 6.001 here at MIT, they told a story which I haven't seen mentioned in this thread. Maybe it's real, maybe it isn't, but it's entertaining. Apparently the Navy was testing a new type of torpedo, but some of the code wasn't finished yet. Eventually, they wanted the torpedo to be smart enough to turn around and try again if it missed its target. That part wasn't done yet, but they wanted to do a few live tests to determine the weapon's effectiveness. As a hack, they put in a simple if-then -- if the internal compass ever turned more than 180 degrees, the torpedo would self-destruct. Several torpedoes with this code were loaded onto a ship and taken out to sea. During the trials, a few of them failed to leave the tubes. What do you do after a hard day of torpedo testing? Well, you turn around and go home... Boom!
Everyone and their mothers are saying to use a digital camera. One of these would make it easier. Copy stands are basically like tripods for shooting straight down. I once saw a foldable one on ebay for $10. It was just a board with a hole in it and four legs. You fastened the legs onto the board, put your camera's lens through the hole, focused, and took the picture. Lights would help a little, but with still media (like books), you can do long exposures without risk of motion blur.
--Dan
Privacy aside, what gets me about this article is the fact that one might be permanently stigmatized without doing anything wrong. Say I rent an apartment in Boston for a year. If for some reason (without my knowledge) that apartment is somehow "linked" to terrorist activities, I'll be searched, questioned, and harassed every time I fly for the rest of my life! To make matters worse, I won't even know why. If the secrecy around this new system is anything like that around CAPS, there is little chance I would be able to get a copy of my own dossier in order to figure out why I'm always being flagged. A truly fair system would have to have an inquiry mechanism so that one could check their own file. It would also need some way of challenging one's own threat index - through arbitration or some similar process. I would also hope that one's threat index would be reassessed after every flight. If (after renting that apartment in Boston) I flew several times, was questioned, and was determined not to be a threat, my index should reflect that.
And what are the chances that this new whiz-bang security software will fall under the GPL...?:-)
I see a few problems that would be hard to overcome... First, say (as stated in the article) someone left a message in mid-air informing people of a car accident on the expressway. Suppose the average speed on that that road is 75 km/h. In addition, the polling frequency, the protocol, and lags in the devices themselves delay the delivery of the message...
This all suggests that messages must be tagged with a radius as well as a location. On the highway at high speeds, one might need a 1-2 km radius to ensure that the message is delivered before one encounters the accident. On the other hand, one only needs a 1m radius to leave graffiti over the crapper at your local McDonalds.
Now what happens if the highway passes through a city (like Boston's 93) with lots of McDonalds... Will I walk into the men's room and get:
"Accident on 93 North - use left lane...."
"Here I sit all broken-hearted...."
If the restaurant falls within the message radius, I will. Now let's go for the low hanging fruit - the obvious fix-all. Let's tag the messages with a location, a radius, and a speed! It's GPS - calculating speed is easy, right? If I'm walking into McDonalds at 4km/h, I won't get the message intended for cars at 75km/h.
Now not only do people know where I am, but how fast I am going. Cross-reference with a map, and they know what road I'm on. Should I expect to see speeding tickets enclosed in my mobile phone bill? Will Mapquest email me:
"You know Dan, there's a much better route to work..."
Will my local health club text my mobile:
"We noticed you go to McDonalds quite frequently and you're not walking too fast these days..."
Slashdot Mirror
When I took 6.001 here at MIT, they told a story which I haven't seen mentioned in this thread. Maybe it's real, maybe it isn't, but it's entertaining. Apparently the Navy was testing a new type of torpedo, but some of the code wasn't finished yet. Eventually, they wanted the torpedo to be smart enough to turn around and try again if it missed its target. That part wasn't done yet, but they wanted to do a few live tests to determine the weapon's effectiveness. As a hack, they put in a simple if-then -- if the internal compass ever turned more than 180 degrees, the torpedo would self-destruct. Several torpedoes with this code were loaded onto a ship and taken out to sea. During the trials, a few of them failed to leave the tubes. What do you do after a hard day of torpedo testing? Well, you turn around and go home... Boom!
--Dan
Everyone and their mothers are saying to use a digital camera. One of these would make it easier. Copy stands are basically like tripods for shooting straight down. I once saw a foldable one on ebay for $10. It was just a board with a hole in it and four legs. You fastened the legs onto the board, put your camera's lens through the hole, focused, and took the picture. Lights would help a little, but with still media (like books), you can do long exposures without risk of motion blur. --Dan
Privacy aside, what gets me about this article is the fact that one might be permanently stigmatized without doing anything wrong. Say I rent an apartment in Boston for a year. If for some reason (without my knowledge) that apartment is somehow "linked" to terrorist activities, I'll be searched, questioned, and harassed every time I fly for the rest of my life! To make matters worse, I won't even know why. If the secrecy around this new system is anything like that around CAPS, there is little chance I would be able to get a copy of my own dossier in order to figure out why I'm always being flagged. A truly fair system would have to have an inquiry mechanism so that one could check their own file. It would also need some way of challenging one's own threat index - through arbitration or some similar process. I would also hope that one's threat index would be reassessed after every flight. If (after renting that apartment in Boston) I flew several times, was questioned, and was determined not to be a threat, my index should reflect that.
:-)
And what are the chances that this new whiz-bang security software will fall under the GPL...?
I see a few problems that would be hard to overcome... First, say (as stated in the article) someone left a message in mid-air informing people of a car accident on the expressway. Suppose the average speed on that that road is 75 km/h. In addition, the polling frequency, the protocol, and lags in the devices themselves delay the delivery of the message...
This all suggests that messages must be tagged with a radius as well as a location. On the highway at high speeds, one might need a 1-2 km radius to ensure that the message is delivered before one encounters the accident. On the other hand, one only needs a 1m radius to leave graffiti over the crapper at your local McDonalds.
Now what happens if the highway passes through a city (like Boston's 93) with lots of McDonalds... Will I walk into the men's room and get:
"Accident on 93 North - use left lane...."
"Here I sit all broken-hearted...."
If the restaurant falls within the message radius, I will. Now let's go for the low hanging fruit - the obvious fix-all. Let's tag the messages with a location, a radius, and a speed! It's GPS - calculating speed is easy, right? If I'm walking into McDonalds at 4km/h, I won't get the message intended for cars at 75km/h.
Now not only do people know where I am, but how fast I am going. Cross-reference with a map, and they know what road I'm on. Should I expect to see speeding tickets enclosed in my mobile phone bill? Will Mapquest email me:
"You know Dan, there's a much better route to work..."
Will my local health club text my mobile:
"We noticed you go to McDonalds quite frequently and you're not walking too fast these days..."
Privacy? What privacy?