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scott wrote:
>> I was just imagining a scifi novel where The Man has complete control
>> over
>> people's computers and the only way to share software (legally/
>> illegally) is
>> to load your car up with bb pellets. The Man doesn't stop cars and
>> doesn't
>> think to check for bb's. Once you get to the destination, you count
>> bb's, and
>> viola, sofware is shared.
>
> Yeh a good one, although if he doesn't stop cars, then why not just
> write out the code on paper and take that?
The Man will be stopping cars, trust me.
You could always imprint binary code onto paper napkins. Who would stop
to study minuscule topography? :)
Sam
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> The Man will be stopping cars, trust me.
>
> You could always imprint binary code onto paper napkins. Who would stop
> to study minuscule topography? :)
Someone who is already stopping cars and never finding anything :)
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scott wrote:
>> The Man will be stopping cars, trust me.
>>
>> You could always imprint binary code onto paper napkins. Who would
>> stop to study minuscule topography? :)
>
> Someone who is already stopping cars and never finding anything :)
Well in that case, if you can get enough people transporting encoded
paper napkins full of gibberish, you can jam the unjust totalitarian
system ;)
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Darren New wrote:
> I think you're going to need a huge car to smuggle a 256 byte program. :-)
Grains of sand would seem better. Or maybe even salt?
Only trouble is, some of the grains might split in transit...
Now, if instead of transporting X lumps of metal, you transported
several bags and the contents of each individual bag represents one byte
(say), then you have some hope in hell of making this work. (The
difficulty then becomes reading the bags in the correct order.)
Seriously - has the author *heard* of steganography? There are much more
plausible techniques available than this one! o_O
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"gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoo com> wrote
> I heard on a math contest the fact that all programs are essentially just
big
> numbers. The compiled binary or even the ASCII for the source may
ultimately
> be thought of as just some really big, unique number. When you buy
software,
> they tell you what the number is.
True (provided we are careful how to specify the number). By the same token,
all humans are a bunch of particles. These observations are cornerstones of
scientific domains, but ultimately vacuous if you wish to draw legal or
moral conclusions. The latter, for instance, doesn't mean that merely
breaking some molecular bonds is never a big deal.
> I was just imagining a scifi novel where The Man has complete control over
> people's computers and the only way to share software (legally/ illegally)
is
> to load your car up with bb pellets. The Man doesn't stop cars and
doesn't
> think to check for bb's. Once you get to the destination, you count
bb's, and
> viola, sofware is shared.
Reminds me of the "alien stick" story (don't know if there's a proper name):
An alien visits earth but, as it happens, forgets to bring any recording
media. So it calculates a fraction corresponding to all the knowledge it
gathers about humanity, notches a stick at exactly that point, and takes
the single stick to the home planet.
Change the stick to number of pellets, air pressure in a birthday balloon,
whiskey level in a flask... etc
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"Mueen Nawaz" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:4979553f$1@news.povray.org...
> Darren New wrote:
> > gregjohn wrote:
> >> I was just imagining a scifi novel where The Man has complete control
> >> over
> >> people's computers and the only way to share software (legally/
> >> illegally) is
> >> to load your car up with bb pellets. The Man doesn't stop cars and
> >> doesn't
> >> think to check for bb's. Once you get to the destination, you count
> >> bb's, and
> >> viola, sofware is shared.
> > I think you're going to need a huge car to smuggle a 256 byte program.
:-)
> Different color bb's can represent different bases. Problem solved.
You just need one pellet with a carefully chosen colour.
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> Well in that case, if you can get enough people transporting encoded paper
> napkins full of gibberish, you can jam the unjust totalitarian system ;)
They will ban napkins, and cars and walking and throwing paper planes and
...
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scott wrote:
> They will ban napkins, and cars and walking and throwing paper planes
> and ...
This is starting to sound like that blog I read. Apparently America was
planning to enact a law that makes it illegal to "facilitate copyright
infringement". In other words, illegal to make things that can be used
to copy stuff. The blog suggested that this would cause many things to
become illegal - P2P software, backup software, CD-burners, cameras, the
Internet, harddrives, computers, photocopiers, VCRs, set-top boxes,
PDAs, mobile phones, carbon paper, pens, pencils, paper, slate, sharp
sticks, rocks, ferbis, parrots, humans...
I have no idea if this act ever become law. ;-)
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"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> "Mueen Nawaz" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
>
> > > I think you're going to need a huge car to smuggle a 256 byte program.
> :-)
>
> > Different color bb's can represent different bases. Problem solved.
>
> You just need one pellet with a carefully chosen colour.
1) I could do the math, but what would the number be for say a 650MB distro in a
world where SCO won the lawsuit?
2) The idea of color is fascinating. I guess in the physics of color, there are
gobs (somewhere between dozens and zillions) of wavelengths, each with their own
% reflectivity. But I guess that if you could design an object with a precise
color reflectivity across more than 3 or even 10 color bands, you might already
be so advanced as to blow the mind beyond mere software as we know it today.
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> 2) The idea of color is fascinating. I guess in the physics of color,
> there are
> gobs (somewhere between dozens and zillions) of wavelengths, each with
> their own
> % reflectivity. But I guess that if you could design an object with a
> precise
> color reflectivity across more than 3 or even 10 color bands, you might
> already
> be so advanced as to blow the mind beyond mere software as we know it
> today.
Be careful though, if you want to visually distinguish between colours with
your eye (or anything else that uses RGB) you only have 3 degrees of
freedom. Of course you could use spectrometers and then you could even make
a load of "different" colours that look the same to eyes and
cameras/scanners, but actually have different spectra. That would be pretty
cool.
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