The world seriously needs to get over its Victorian fear of the nude body.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd rather have a percentage of the 'pedophilicly inclined' spending their time acquiring pictures of nude cartoon characters than pictures of children. Further, in relation to the article, the way to get rid of undesirable elements of our ever changing society is not to punish the 'customer' but the 'distributor'. File sharing makes the line between the two difficult to see, but rather than putting people behind bars for the crime of clicking, why not focus more on removing the source? Under the current laws in many western nations, glancing at a computer screen displaying questionable photos of children is dangerously close to breaking the law. But there is a mile wide gap between the person who clicks a link and the person who subjects their own child to such inhumane treatment. I would suspect that the average person in a western nation sees hundreds if not thousands of simulated murders on television and in the movies, and murder is arguably a more heinous crime than active sexual deviancy targeting children. Cartoons are just as unreal as movies.

Thats like saying, 'if you want to keep that steel deck plate in place, that bolt will work, but as for keeping the whole aircraft carrier together, its meaningless.' The 'war on drugs' is a multifaceted movement, not only restricted to government or high technology. The 'war on drugs', in its most general and broad definition is the attempt by society to restrict and/or control the usage of 'unnatural' chemical modification of the mind or body - which I believe could be extended as far as overeating (junkfood, which is proven to be more addictive than heroin in mice) and alcohol abuse. The goal of this hypothetical situation(aquagliders as border patrol, basically), would be to further increase the ability of the nation to control and/or monitor its borders, and stop unwanted elements from entering - theoretically for the good of society through a general consent. Whether or not this is the right course of action is not the point. The US already pisses away billion upon billions of dollars on military operations and technologies that have poor results and sometimes lead to a redistribution of wealth in ways unanticipated by the public. The thought of a nearly real-time global oceanographic reconnaissance system I believe would be too good to pass up for a government who has all the money in the world to do with as it pleases. The interception of illegal marine drug trafficking operations seems like the perfect test bed for this technology. Im sure that with enough research you can uncover plenty of technologies in use by the US Military in Iraq and Afghanistan that were taken through their initial paces in border patrol capacity.

Intercepting 20 to 30% of covert drug shipments I would bet is about a 15 to 25% gain over our current stats, and would prove the feasability of such a system for a massive big brother of the ocean full scale deployment.

"I think it would need modification. Would it need to be made of some sort of stealth material (or shape), to avoid sonar detection? Or is it already small enough that it would be mistaken for debris?" I don't think his point is too far out. Right now, perhaps sonar is limited to a short range and fixed or limited range/purpose platforms like military subs, but if this aquaglider technology (UMV) develops in the manor suggested by the article, I don't see why the world governments wouldn't have thousands, perhaps millions of these (or similar configurations) out there with sonar rigs. They would autonomously operate and surface once a predetermined set of conditions were met, such as the detection of enemy subs, or small man made objects coming from known vectors of transit between drug making and drug loving countries. Maybe someone with some time on their hands could calculate whether or not, based on the range and accuracy of current sonar technology, it would be feasible to 'mine' the coast of Florida with these things and get something like a 15% or 20% coverage.

"No invisibility cloak can hide" famous last words...

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=RQ-170+Sentinel&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10&start=0 wtf.....

Here's what I wonder about the whole issue of games letting us act out illegal/abhorrent/socially unacceptable actions: do they serve as 'first base' for those inclined to commit such crimes or actions? What I mean to say is, lets say I've got a desire to run people over on the streets and speed away. Playing GTA might help me break the ice for this action in an environment where there are no consequences. I can test out how it feels, practice the best speed/turns/whatever that is needed to make a clean getaway, all within the comfort of my living room. If you take this to a rape simulator, I'm sure the same applies. One can conduct their own tests as to methods or perverse pleasure feedback from the suffering of others, without the full weight of the crime itself, as well as breaking down the fear of committing a crime itself. And perhaps after playing for a while, they are one step closer to actually committing a crime. Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate censorship for all of us, just to protect the small percentage of the insane who live among us. But before someone says 'adults aren't that malleable', let me say "bullshit". Every single 'evil' leader in history had a full population of active adults behind them. Its all about power, or being close to it and feeling special as a result. And while 'these games' provide a mere drop in the bucket of the feeling of power that criminals claim exist in capital crimes, the existence of these games may be the drop that causes the whole thing to overflow.

you have too much faith in the public. remember that dude who got his head cut off on a greyhound bus? everyone just sat there screaming, and then ran off the bus while this poor kid was being stabbed to death. and we called them brave for locking him in the bus so he could decapitate the body. no, if another airliner is hijacked, the exact same thing will happen. people are scared and have way too much faith in their government to jump in and save the day.