The download would happen only when the switch was turned on, and of course it would have to be kept up to date as the database of illegal images changes. I don't know how large the database is, but storage is cheap: it should be possible to store it on a cell phone. Perhaps the regulator could subsidize cell phones and forbid those without enough storage.

Yes, though as noted in a previous response they could be encrypted.

The images can be encrypted with the regulator's public key. The sender's computer would encrypt each of its images using the regulator's public key before comparing it to the downloaded encrypted images. Having these encrypted images would not be illegal because without the regulator's private key they cannot be viewed.

Storage is cheap. It should be possbile to store an encrrypted copy of every image in the regulator's illegal image database on a standard cell phone. If not, the regulator can pay the extra cost.

I don't think it is possble to create a fuzzy hash for illegal images that will not either miss some illegal images or incorrectly identify legal images as illegal.

No, the image to be tested would stay on the sender's computer and be compared there with images downloaded from the regulator.

Depending on how the law is worded, this might actually be sufficient. If a regulator asks a platform to monitor its users for child sexual abuse, the platform turns on a switch in the app which causes every image to be compared to images of child sexual abuse provided by the regulator. If there is a match, the app refuses to send the image.

The proposal is that all scanners should be able to accept the new barcodes by 2027, not that the old ones should go away by then.

Yes. See GS1_Digital_Link_Standard.

I am glad I live in a society in which dissent can be heard, even if it is from within the Government. In a repressive society, everything coming from the Government would be "on message" and contrary opinions coming from outside the Government would be suppressed.

I don't know which I trust more: the elected President of the United States or some nameless staffers at the Federal Reserve. I'm just glad I can hear them both.

I don't see any mention of simulating Mars gravity. In a long-duration human experience, it surely matters that the force of gravity on the surface of Mars is 1/3 that of Earth.

Not simulating gravity reminds me of the mission to rescue Solar Max in which the astronauts trained to capture the satellite under water, but discovered when in orbit that without the inertia of the water, touching the satellite causes it to bounce away. They finally captured it by surrounding it so it couldn't escape.

In a world of tight budgets, "besides" quickly becomes "instead of".

There is a down side to personalized learning: the lack of socialization that kids get by learning together. Does anybody remember Issac Asimov's The Fun They Had?

Really? It seems like just yesterday to me. :)

The floor plans of some of those apartments look like the one I rented. However, I don't recall paying that much in 1968. I see why police officers and fire fighters who work in Atherton cannot afford to live there.

I didn't mention Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, because they were expensive even in the 1960s. However, I had no trouble renting a small apartment in Mountain View in 1968. Are they all converted to condominiums?

I wouldn't think you would have to go that far. I used to live in a studio apartment at the intersection of the Oregon Expressway and Middlefield Road. It was an easy bike ride to classes and the Computation Center (Pine Hall) at Stanford, and a short automobile commute to the AI Project on Arastadero Road behind the campus. SLAC wasn't too far away, so Page Mill Road couldn't be too bad.

I assume things have changed since the 1960s, but surely there must be affordable housing in Palto Alto, Mountain View, Menlo Park or Atherton.