You're ignoring the fact that the app on your phone is (presumably, since it would be nuts to do it any other way) responding to Google's servers with a cryptographically signed response; even if somebody were to route the authentication request to a different end point, they would not be able to answer with an appropriately signed response. And then Google would know that it wasn't you. The benefit of this sort of system is that it could be implemented over completely insecure networks (which is good, because SS7).

"Simply draconian". Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but from what I read the intent seems to be to ensure that hobby aircraft are being flown the way they've been flown for years. I've flown R/C and been a member of the AMA, so I have some experience here though I'm hardly an expert.

I think the "problem" now is that, thanks to amazing technologies, it's so much easier to fly R/C aircraft than it has ever been. Because of these technologies anyone can learn to fly on their own, and that ends up bypassing the flying clubs and other groups that had, as an effect of their existence, a way to ingrain the principles that allow us to "operate in accordance with a community-based set of safety guidelines and within the programming of a nationwide community-based organization". When Joe Schmoe orders a quad-copter kit off the internet and doesn't have to scale the learning curve, both actual flying and pilot safety, he ends up, on average, more dangerous than those that had the benefit of those groups.

When those groups no longer become the dominant form of 'policing' of the use of these aircraft, it's no great surprise that regulators feel the need to step in to do the job, which doesn't fill me with great confidence.

A better solution, and it may be too late already, would be to get the developers of these aircraft to work with the AMA to get these new pilots involved with the existing R/C community rather than seeing them as something different.

Have a look at TimeTrex: http://www.timetrex.com/ The type of software you're looking for is often called "Time and Attendance" tracking. Hopefully that helps your Googlefu.

Not only are the "more photos" two years old, they're pictures of upgraded American Cobras that were sold to Iran before the 1979 coup.

The time was once when slashdot articles were properly vetted and *edited*.

I don't really want to start a "my UID is lower than yours" thread, but I certainly don't remember a time like that...

You do realize that your phone isn't some miracle device that just magically receives web pages and texts on its own, right? There's a whole infrastructure in place for connecting that phone to the interweb, and part of that infrastructure exists to log everything that happens on the network. Yeah, if you're reading the copy of Moby Dick you downloaded last night, that won't be so easy to prove; but when you're sending and receiving texts for the six minutes leading up to your crash, that'll be an easy case for the DA to make.

For example, my local paper ran this same story today with the headline:

Students lack literate for complex tasks

Yes, that was the headline. If professional writers and editors blow something like this, what's a poor college student to do? I'd love to think this was done on purpose, some editor's attempt at humor, but mistakes like this are far too common, but usually not so ironic.