lkw@csun.edu (Larry Wake) (01/03/89)
In article <268@gloom.UUCP> cory@gloom.UUCP (Cory Kempf) writes: >In article <4498@xenna.Encore.COM> bzs@Encore.COM (Barry Shein) writes: >> >>Fun note but why do a password challenge when a retinal scan would >>have been more secure? (please, no disgusting remarks about how to fool >>a retinal scanner.) >> >Two reasons actually... first, I wasn't too sure about retinal >scans... the only place I have seen any refs. to them has been in SF >(haven't looked much though), so I didn't (and still don't) know how >practical they are for security. In a recent issue of either Time or Newsweek, there was an article on disaster recovery, which also touched on what companies are doing about *preventing* damage from disasters (what a novel concept). According to the article, American Airlines has built a new below-ground machine room for their Saabre mainframes. Access is through an airlock-type entrance controlled by both retina scan and a weight sensor, which I thought was a nice touch: if the weight in the room doesn't match what's in the records for that retinal image, you not only don't get let in, the outer door closes and locks. This should foil some of the "disgusting" ways to fool the scanner; it also follows that every time an AA employee goes to the lavatory it is now vitally important they get a receipt... (apologies to Douglas Adams) -- Larry Wake lkw@csun.edu CSUN Computer Center uucp: {hplabs,rdlvax}!csun!lkw Mail Drop CCAD BITnet: LKW@CALSTATE Northridge, CA 91330
bob@accuvax.nwu.edu (Bob Hablutzel) (01/05/89)
>> >Remember. 60 years ago nuclear weapons were science fiction. >> >mark >> >> So were anti-gravity machines. >What's the point ? >The statement above says that some of the things that used to >be science fiction are now real. (and some of the things that >are now science fiction will be real someday) I think the point is that there are two kinds of science fiction: science fiction based on enhancements to currently available technology, and science fiction based on new technologies. The first kind (cheap, tiny mass storage devices, extremely fast machines, and, 60 years ago, nuclear bombs) are reasonable things to wait for. The second kind (anti-gravity machines, natural language recognition, and mental control devices) require serious breakthroughs before they can become available, and you have to decide if you're going to wait for them or not. Bob Hablutzel BOB@NUACC.ACNS.NWU.EDU
tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) (01/06/89)
In article <10330108@accuvax.nwu.edu> bob@accuvax.nwu.edu (Bob Hablutzel) writes, and having writ, moves on: >I think the point is that there are two kinds of science fiction: science >fiction based on enhancements to currently available technology, and >science fiction based on new technologies. The first kind (cheap, tiny >mass storage devices, extremely fast machines, and, 60 years ago, nuclear >bombs) are reasonable things to wait for. The second kind (anti-gravity >machines, natural language recognition, and mental control devices) require >serious breakthroughs before they can become available, and you have to >decide if you're going to wait for them or not. Whoa! How on Earth were nuclear weapons in the 1930's enhancements of currently available technology? The answer: they weren't, they were breakthrough technology based on currently available SCIENCE (not technology). Going on that criterion, anti-gravity machines will be a 1990's technology, since there have been known solutions to general relativity for years that create a repulsive anti-gravity force (you take a dense torus and rotate it inside-out at high velocities; one side of the hole is a classic "repulsor field"). My point is that simple-minded ways of approaching the problem of prediction will always fail. The only thing one can say for certain about future technology is that it will be immensely complex and unpredictable. Some plausible seeming things, like Heinlein's rolling roads, will never appear; some wildly implausible things, like nuclear weapons, will appear very early. -- Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim "The time is gone, the song is over. Thought I'd something more to say." - Roger Waters, Time