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Comment Re:what if the car before me fails? (Score 1) 345

Trivial case to resolve using a proper distributed command and control protocol. If each car in the platoon are aware of what the first car is doing in addition to what the car(s) upstream of it is doing, then if any car other than the first fails, the platoon can continue operating under sane conditions. Of course, collision avoidance has to be factored in but that is already on the market in the form of radar braking assist.

The case where the first car fails, well, it is one of the avenues for research.

Comment Difficulty of detecting a compromised machine (Score 2) 378

The thing is, with the security architecture of the PS3, it is plainly impossible for a game (runlevel 2+) or application to test directly the characteristics of runlevel 0.

You could compare the situation to using VMware: the OS inside a virtual machine comprises runlevel 1+, but the real OS running VMware is runlevel 0. VMware isolates anything inside a virtual machine from the rest of the machine, and from any other running virtual machine. In fact, the client OS is like a brain in a jar: it is prevented from even knowing it is not running directly on hardware.

For more details, see this excellent article on Ars Technica

Comment You don't understand what "Anonymous" is (Score 2) 275

Being born in 4chan, Anonymous is much like a great party: it has no definite direction, no leader and will just keep on rolling as long as the people in it like what happens. Given that, Anonymous will continue having an impact for as long as it will, and after that everybody goes home and remember the good time they had.

The fact that Anonymous exists is a relief, because it shows that there is still a part of the people that can not only see that we have taken a wrong turn, but will act to change the course.

Comment Re:Go electronic! (Score 2) 441

As a christian, stories about tracking purchases are very interesting to me. End-time prophecies say that we'll eventually end up with a one-world cashless financial system where the government can approve or deny any transaction in real-time. Say something bad about the government? [snip snip] It's you non-christians who get to deal with that mess. ;-)

When you talk about profecy, please provide a reference.

Ah, "one-world cashless financial system" cannot be found in the Bible, you say? Come on, "mark of the Beast" is not coming close to describing cash or tracking devices. The text pretty much describes a *tatoo worn on the forehead*.

Stop "interpreting" texts by inserting meanings they do not have. That is a big source of man-created wars and strife, which is NOT christian (example: cusades, jihad, Al-Quaeda, inquisition).

Moreover, a "one-world currency" has existed and been in universal use for daily transactions until quite recently: gold. Do you object using gold?

Comment Re:Unclassified (Score 1) 372

Your analogy is flawed. Il would replace it with this nice IP story.

Timmy has a secret recipe to turn lead into gold. Timmy builds a big company to use that recipe, in such a way that most employees do not know the recipe. Timmy also has made a contract with all those who know the recipe that it is not to be communicated to anybody else.

Some day, someone talks, and the recipe is published in the newspaper. Timmy is furious, and bans any employee access to that newspaper. Any employee caught reading that newspaper, regardless if the particular issue read contains the recipe, will get the employee imprisoned in Timmy's gaol, and at Timmy's whim the employee can be thrown in the molten lead vats.

Now, tell me what this accomplishes? Nothing. Everybody has the recipe anyway.

THAT is a good analogy for the situation. Idea != object.

Comment Re:What is it, exactly? (Score 2, Funny) 231

The last time there has been an article on the subject, we were at 9x9 pixels. I can infer that some parallel can be made with the general speed of progress in electronics and expect that within a quick decade it will be hi-res and not require too much power to be implanted with day-long batteries.

Also, inductive charging is quite an elegant solution in this context: no gore, all the joules.

Comment Re:Countermeasures (Score 1) 926

Thing is, GPS per se is a receive-only system. The emitters are in orbit. Therefore, the equipement manufacturers can use just about anything for the report link-back: wi-fi, spread-spectrum, FM, UWB, ULF (unlikely!), IR/laser, anything.

Of course, you could always jam the GPS frequency, but any dumbass doing "drive-by-wire" on their GPS are going to get wierd readings around your car...

The best defense is doing a regular sweep of your vehicles for new extra parts. The device will be one of two formats: autonomous (smallish because it includes a battery) or wired (can be very small, but has to be wired on the power system of your car). Or parking them in a faraday cage and doing a field sweep.

Now, where did I leave my shiny hat again?

Comment Re:That's not the professional term (Score 1) 487

Creole has not developed in the USA. It's based on french, which was the "official" language of the black slaves imported from the Antilles, and various african languages.

In New Orleans, the Cadiens (now written "Cajun") descend from displaced french canadians and also evolved a distinct accent of french in their new english-dominated residence. It's still quite close to standard french by all means, but there are very discinctive regionalisms.

But I digress. I don't buy the "community cutting every head that strives to get ahead" argument. It's used on french canadians and the tough reality is that if two populations live separately, you develop regionalisms and accents. Of course the speed at which this phenomenon happens varies widely.

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