If you think about it cash is at least as ridiculous. That's just some guys with a fancy printing press and government backing saying "Hey, let's print a few million bucks more today". Works great so long as the government is responsible about it, but as every case of hyperinflation in history shows there's no guaranty on that front.

You and I will (for now). I seriously doubt it'd be more than a minor project for the FBI or other institution that deals with the pattern analysis necessary to identify tradtional money laundering operations.

Now of course you could use any of the numerous mixing (aka money-laundering) services out there to "disconnect" your public and anonymous tranactions - but they have two major problems that I can see:
  * money laundering is illegal in most jurisdictions, and you've just publicly announced that you're using one to everyone who ever looks at your transaction history.
  * You're trusting the service themselves to not keep their own transaction records, which considering the blackmail potential seems rather... optimistic.

Yes, but you'll still need to at some point transfer money from account A to account B before you can spend it in another transaction, and unless you're a brilliant information-theorist or use a money laundering (excuse me, "mixing") service it won't be terribly difficult to link your various accounts to the same entity.

So? That's been the case with bitcoins since day one, the anonymity claims were always pure hyperbole. If you wanted anything more than security-through-obscurity grade anonymity you needed to pass your coins through an (illegal in most jurisdictions) money-laundering service and hope they didn't keep any records themselves. All that's changing is that now there's institutions joining the game who are doing their legal record-keeping duty to tie the accounts they deal with to particular people. Unless they refuse to honor any bitcoins that have passed through a money-laundering service recently nothing has really changed except the currncy is . And if they do so refuse, well then... nothing has really changed because they didn't honor *any* bitcoins previously, so your laundered coins are still just as good.

Have fun. May I recommend a Farnsworth Fusor? It doesn't get anywhere close to break-even energy production, but it's cheap and easy to build, and much safer than any DIY fission reactor is likely to be, assuming you could even get your hands on the fissile material in the first place. Just remember that it *is* a good source of fast neutrons and gamma radiation, so don't stand too close and be sure there's nobody standing over it upstairs either.

Also, let me congratulate you and having the foresight to build it in your basement where the surrounding dirt can provide decent shielding. *Much* more responsible than in the garage where an unsuspecting neighbor could get a lethal radiation dose as they walk past.

Test it every 23 hours - supposedly it takes at least 24 hours with specialized equipment to duplicate the glass key without damaging it.

Not really - a USB drive is laughably easy to duplicate - that's kind of it's purpose. Exactly duplicating (or even just characterizing) microscopic surface imperfections on a piece of glass on the other hand likely requires specialized hardware that a spy can't easily carry in a suitcase. At least assuming that a smooth protective layer is bonded over it to prevent mold creation (say glass with a much different refractive index).

So basically you're adding physical-key security to your OTP, which drastically strengthens the only major weaknesses of the technique.

An even better solution? Stop buying fragile first-world machines that are designed with the assumption that first-world infrastructure is available. Something like the Global Village Construction Set makes *far* more sense in a developing nation. Sure, you pay as much for your butt-ugly DIY tractor as you would for a second-hand mass-produced model that's probably a bit superior when operating well. But your DIY mostrosity is damn near indestructible, easy to fix if you do break something, and the few complicated parts are bog-standard industrial components so that if something fails you've got lots of sources to get replacements from.

Heck, I suffered multi-hour power outages several times near downtown Denver over the course of a couple years. Shit happens, people deal with it. So long as nobody manages to blow anything up it's just a nuisance. And an excuse to eat all that ice-cream in the freezer, just in case.

No, see, that's the benefit of posting anonymously - you don't have to phrase your blatantly libelous accusations as a question in order to avoid legal liablity.

If the only "terrorists" we have to worry about are idiots stupid enough to throw a molotov cocktail on a dam as though that would actually hurt anything then there's not much point in defending against them. Frankly though I don't think terrorists are the problem. Realistically, when has a terrorist caused much more than an inconvenience and a few days of overdramatic journalism. 9/11? More deaths and property damage occur via bad luck and stupidity in any 24-hour window. The only thing that made it noteworthy was that it was concentrated in one place and the video made for good ratings.

Since always. "Airgap" is a anachronistic term that originated before the proliferation of wireless networks. If it's physically possible from a signal to get between the internal and external networks you don't have an airgap. And yes that pretty much means that, actual air aside, if you have a wireless internal network outside of a secure faraday cage you *don't* have an airgap.

You sure about that? From what I've heard in various case-studies, most terrorist organizations are in fact primarily fund-raising groups.

Touche'. Reminds me of a maxim from a SF book from way back - in essence: "Never bring to a fight a weapon against which you have no defense."

Just to support c0lo's point - all the anti-terrorism/anti-cyberwarfare mandates in the universe aren't worth a sneeze in a hurricane *after* a massivle distributed zombie attack has been initiated. Hell, you could nuke half the planet and the remaining machines would still probably be more than enough to cripple the target. Now maybe the tinfoil hatters are right and 9/11 was known about well beforehand and allowed/encouraged to happen for political reasons. We'd better pray that they are, because physical security is trivially easy compared to cyber-security in the face of the 99% who don't give a $#@! so long as they can have their Bonsai Buddy "helping" them browse the 'net.