Michael S. Lorrey writes:
> Since the government will want to be able to disable someone's chip if they see
> the need to, it will create a backdoor for black market disablers. It will also
I don't give a damn about government. It's just that such a thing would be good to have if you have got kids and guns in the same house, or if a crook steals your gun. Mechanical guns are intrinsically difficult to secure, but these things would be safe (unless somebody throw them into fire, or microwaved them -- hmm, "I microwaved daddy's gun, that's how he got mugged").
> enable crooks to embed incriminating use information in other people's chips to
There are flashable transponders, but why bother? Hardwired IDs must seem much more secure.
> frame them for crimes they didn't commit. No, keep the technology stupid and
> unfutzable.
The bad thing about transponders is that they can be used for unsolicited identification. The chip that opens the door into your house and activates your car could also be used by the cops, without asking for your cooperation. However, with biometry recently become viable this is only a very small worry. It would be nice to be able to talk to the transponder by tapping a code on your wrist, though. And to delete the id irreversibly (in case somebody wants to use torture on you). This is always the trouble with biometric devices not based on cryptographic authentication: you can't remove your signature without surgery, and everybody can read it. Somehow, I doubt life signatures will be so extremely resistant to forging. Fingerprints are extermely easy with removed digits or plastic casts (or even processed fingerprints clandestinely taken off with tape), iris is only slightly more difficult, as is retina.
> please describe these 'compound tubes'. Are these use once and throw away?
Yes, essentially you wind carbon tape/epoxy on a polished, greased thorn. Then bundle the straws in a cylindric container. For better structural integrity this should be a front loader (wire with slug/pyrocharge inserted frontally). If the electronics content is low, the thing won't show up on a metal seeker.
The pyrocharges gets ignited sequentially. A harder push on the microswitch should trigger automated fire. The rounds should be really explosive ones.
> Hardly allows one to practice, though I'm sure very profitable for the
> manufacturer.
One could make metal version of these for the shooting range. The thing should be essentially a lethal equivalent of a can of mace. You don't often practise with these.