I think you'll find that most embedded hardware has your "broken" IP implementation. Probably partly because it's more work to set it up correctly, but also because there are a lot of times where installers in the field or repair people in the shop have no way of knowing what the IP address of this stuff is supposed to be and need to be able to get at it. Devices that I have personally worked with would include a plethora of security cameras, Seimens I/O panels, Lantronix and Mercury TCP/IP to serial I/O converters, AMAG security hardware, two kinds of infant abduction systems, intercoms, and emergency alert systems. Some (most?) SCADA hardware is set up that way as well, I've been told. I suppose the reason why this isn't really considered a security issue is that you need physical access to the device to make it work.

Works, I've done it several dozen times. You're communicating at the physical layer. The exception would be if some absolute moron of a programmer hard coded an IP address for the source in the application.

Because the device isn't identified by its IP address at the physical level, but by the MAC address. Your NIC will first do a MAC broadcast to see if the target is on the same network segment. If you use a hub it will be forwarded to all the other ports and the other NIC will answer, if you're on a switch it **should** forward the packet, but sometimes they'll be flaky and ignore a MAC broadcast.

"for example 172.16.16.20" Example.

The arp command will work with any valid IP address, not just 172.x. I assume that the IP address is not hard coded into the app.

MAC addresses are assigned by NIC manufacturers, not the pump manufacturer (and I'll guarantee that a pump manufacturer has no clue how to build a NIC). Every NIC manufacturer has a set range of MAC addresses assigned to them, and each NIC gets its own unique MAC. I can look at a list of MAC addresses connected to a switch and tell you which devices are Lantronix boxes, which are Axis cameras, and which are Mercury access control panels just by looking at the MAC address ranges in use.

Won't make any difference until you make corporate executives legally/financially responsible.

The 13,000-16,000 number is a bit out of date. Humans are pretty reliably known to have been resident in South America by around 20,000 years BP, and possibly as early as 30,000.

So nuclear physics doesn't work on your planet?

The number of people who have no clue how paleontologists and archeologists work but feel completely competent to criticize it never fails to amaze me. If it's this bad on Slashdot then I can only guess how ridiculous it must be on sites like CNN and Faux News.

some ape or monkey type of creature

That's exactly what they're saying, that a very early hominid was making tools. Probably Australopithecus, considering the time period.

Tool-making marks are quite distinctive. It's not a process that happens by accident, which is why you don't see naturally-created flint knives laying in riverbeds. If you look with a magnifying glass at a rock that has a sharp edge because it fell against another rock, and a rock that has a sharp edge because a human did it the difference is fairly obvious. Knowing which is which takes practice, of course.

It's unlikely that a "primitive" 60,000 years ago would put an edge on a rock and then bury it in a level deep enough to be mistaken for 3,300,000 years ago, and even less likely that the disturbance of the burial would not be noticed. Even less likely that your phantasmagorical "primitive" would know how to fake the patina of an extra three million years of aging on the worked surface.

You really have no idea how paleontologists and anthropologists work, do you?

There is an answer to this, I've done something similar with security devices. Ideally you would use a hub, if you can still find one, rather than a switch. You'll need the MAC addresses of each pump first, well use 00-12-34-56-78-9A and 00-12-34-56-78-9B. Set a fixed IP address on your laptop, for example 172.16.16.16, and turn off your wireless. Open a command prompt as an Administrator and enter:

arp -s 172.16.16.20 00-12-34-56-78-9A

arp -s 172.16.16.21 00-12-34-56-78-9B

Now your laptop thinks that you have pumps at address 172.16.16.20 and 172.16.16.21. Enjoy your extra time!

30 megabit Internet connection to the home? Give me that amount of terrible, please!

In the case of small bodies (such as spacecraft) the atmosphere can substitute for the third body. I would assume that if it is small enough a debris cloud like Saturn's rings could substitute over a long period of time, but the upper limit on that would have to be pretty low.

Glass hasn't "cratered hard", just the marketing people misjudged the market sector. It's very much alive and well, and being refocused towards market sectors that are actually interested in its utility, such as medicine, engineering, architecture and spelunking(?). Personally I loathe driving, the day of the self-driving car can't come soon enough for me (although it probably wouldn't let me grossly overload the suspension with landscaping blocks, so I will probably still be stuck driving my truck from time to time.) From "20 years away" in 2010 to 3 or 4 years away now, the advances have been astounding.