Yup, I'm with you on this one. The mere existance of a key, the sharing of the key and then the subsequent movement or reproduction of the encrypted knowledge is all exploitable. Just watch any popular spy thriller where the leading security/scientist steals the data to save his hostaged wife/kids. The fact is, quantum encryption removes much of the key's weakness. Blame other security systems if physical security is weak.

Yeah, but little girls from Whoville keep getting stuck in them when the Grinch breaks into their secure boxing section - I've seen it on TV so it must be true!

DOOM shipped on diskette (~2.8Mb) but DOOM needed about 4.8mb of hard drive space, which is a fraction of the number of pixels on the cameras in the article. In fact the image size per frame will be bigger than the entire game. See this site for all your DOOM info needs. http://www.gamers.org/docs/FAQ/doomfaq/sect1.html

I know the rest of you will post the childish big put downs, like the fact you have to carry a laboratory everywhere with you, or wait for the first legal case over accidental removal of testes at the toilet or the wife jokes of "at last he can help with the washing up" so I will post the sobering comments that we all have to start somewhere .. and get 3 good punches in at the same time :-)

What's wrong with physical storage for say 200 years? Most data we save these days will be fine stored this way. The issue is what we choose to store just because we can which caused problems. The net is overflowing with the minutia of boring existances. What we really need is a data scythe to cut the rubbish out and then store it. The Victorian era handed down lots of books, magazines and pamphlets. Some of these are preserved and read by historians. In 150 years will we really care about the financial statements for Goldman-Sachs or want the blog of Paris Hilton? (No lewd comments, it was rhetoical).

Does it have Digital or DG written on it too? Happy days. From the time when a cluster was better than a cloud? When computers were "managed" by people who knew how they worked and who knew Netbios was for something only a friend would share (with another friend). If you wanted a file over a network you sent a request to the Operator for a kind lady to haul your disc pack to the big washing machine thingy and mount it for you. Promotion meant getting system privileges like clearing your own printer queue. Goodbye PDP-11. Mourn not for AOS-VS II. Farewell DG/UX. No more CLI. Welcome to the nouveau "geek" who needs to know why it's bad to have port 139 open but kicks ass in Gears 2. To quote Ripley from "Aliens", "Did IQs suddenly drop while I was gone?"

Actually, this modern usage of the term "piracy" in relation to media probably stems from the 1970s pirate radio stations which broadcast alternative songs by radio from ships offshore in international waters just outside the legal limits of the country concerned. This allowed them to (a) broadcast what they liked and not what the media machines wanted and (b) to avoid certain "costs"... Needless to say, the media machines got their way. Here is one of several sites that describe those halcyon days. http://www.offshoreradio.co.uk/

Email is a one way tranference of information. Communication is two way, needing a confirmatory "message heard and understood". We have become casual in assuming that text messaging, social application posting and email are part of global communication. It is not. It is like shouting from your front porch; you have to hope someone is listening and understands the message. Email has a role to play, just don't think it's communication. This is why chat, IRC and Skpye all offer the immdediacy of knowing you're message is on target, even it is just a subtle joke. How often do those blow up in your face using email? Cheers

Aparently 50 other countries wanted to supply crew for the re-enactment but the British and Dutch won out highlighting Darwin's law of national selection. There is talk Beagle II may stop off in California to replace the first crew to prove the theory of survival of the hippest. I can't keep this up - mod me to death, I deserve it.

Is there anybody else up there we could talk to?

Thanks. I haven't laughed so hard on /. for a good while. Though with TCP/IP over power sockets now this solution could get even more suboptimal :-)

I agree. Check out this background website which helps to show how the cycles are developing. http://www.predictweather.co.nz/assets/articles/article_resources.php?id=89 I am sure counting sunspots was not as sophisticated in the 1700s but it was still straightforward so the science should be solid. The risk is in drawing cause and effect conclusions. Our atmosphere gets a real bashing from the distortion to the Van Allen belt caused by solar emissions. Sound principals to show how this affects climate are more difficult to demonstrate.

Many of today's top models look like zombies. :-p I have had many zombies on my unix systems and Wikipedia here shows how to kill them.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_process Not as satisfying as Left 4 Dead, but it does the job.

It missed Jupiter after all. :-)