it's a teddy bear that keeps the closet monsters away

My teddy bear keeps the closet monsters away; have you ever seen one? I also have a rock that repels tigers.

[Writing a resignation letter] does take several minutes, at least, and requires a word processor and a printer.

Yeah, before the C64, it was impossible for anyone to quit their job!

Not really necessary when you can lock someone up for two years for refusing to divulge keys.

Which is only effective if you want to spy on the public or small-time criminals. Anyone accused of a serious crime facing a sentence longer than two years would still refuse.

I'm not sure why everyone is concentrating so much on time travel and backward causality. There is a perfectly simple explanation for why it appears that LHC can not be activated: it would destroy the universe if it was turned on (much to the glee of a certain group of people whose sanity I will not question at this time). Therefore, the only surviving universes are those in which some event (no matter how improbable) has prevented its use. The upshot of this is that, once one has a universe-destroying device, quantum bogosort suddenly becomes practical. This would also make cryptography based on one-way functions obsolete, so don't be surprised if the NSA is watching very carefully.

Note: I'm not sure if I'm joking or not.

Asus ships the software you're describing with laptops they sell; it came on mine. It takes a bunch of snapshots of your face through the webcam (you're supposed to rotate your head) and then if it sees your face at the login screen, it logs you in.

So all I need to log on to your computer is a lifesize photo of you, or alternately, your severed head?

Wait... We're talking about Usenet here, right? It's cool, I can say that, it only shows up as X's for everyone else-- try it.

You can go Usenet my Usenet-ing Usenet.

Last I checked, most places won't extradite you for things that aren't crimes in their legal code, especially when you did the deed in that country in the first place.

Tell that to Marc Emery.

First of all, no one would be using manual storage to transfer the data.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.-Tanenbaum, Andrew S.

I do realize if you hate mother nature, one could just unplug sensors on any factory setup, immediately after testing. But it is less likely to give you any advantages (more difficult to modify for your gain.)

But not impossible. One resistor on the fuel pump stroke sensor of a TDI engine tricks it into allowing you more fuel than the ECU otherwise would: more power but more particulate emissions under some conditions.

So if they used state specific codes, what happens when the vehicle owner moves to another state? The vehicle owner has to replace their ECU? What if someone is driving in another state and their car breaks down? Also, that would require them to have another model specifically for Massachusetts. I think it's unlikely that a car company would go to that much effort just to spite the other 49 states. Besides, just imagine the PR nightmare it could become. Some TV news station (or news website) will run a story that says "ACME Automotive won't let your mechanic fix your car! More at 11!"

You're describing the current situation. OEM-approved mechanics (dealerships) get full read and write access to your ECU (which is much more than OBD-II), others don't. I've never seen a TV story about it.

What I said was that if Massachusetts forces car companies to publish their access codes, they could circumvent the law by using different codes on Mass vehicles (or otherwise locking them, cryptographically or whatever). OEM-approved mechanics would get the codes for all states (same as now), non-approved mechanics would only get the codes for Massachusetts.

That is the point of this law, they currently "lock you out" by not publishing what those codes mean. I'm pretty sure that what you are suggesting would violate either the current OBD-II legislation or this new law. Additionally, the problem with releasing the key only for cars sold in Massachusetts is that the manufacturer can only know what cars are sold new in Mass, this law would also cover cars sold used.

The poster that I originally replied to said "Similar to other US state laws regarding pollution or safe materials, this will affect us worldwide". While this may be true, I posted an example showing how it wouldn't necessarily affect anyone outside of Massachusetts . What I suggested would allow them to continue doing exactly what they currently do for every car they sell outside of Massachusetts . As for used cars, I doubt that Massachusetts has the jurisdiction to demand the unlock codes for every vehicle sold worldwide. The most I suspect they could do is prevent non-compliant used vehicles from being imported or sold in Mass, similar to California's emissions legislation.

The difference between how California's emissions legislation effects North America and this, is that California has (or had) a dominant economy in the US and that their requirements require hardware changes that would be more expensive to produce on a per-state basis. Defeating this bill would only require a software change. A national bill might be useful, but that seems unlikely to pass.