Winner! This is BRILLIANT : )

This is the only time I have seen a *plausible* use of the "don't like it? fork it" on slashdot since my 1998 awakening to Slashdot*. The other 99.9% of the time the rest of you guys are just being jerks by asking us random non-coder slashdotters to fork stuff, like Firefox and Chrome. It's like being slapped in the face with a strawman and insult at the same time (fractaltiger *must be* lazy and dumb if he won't fork after pointing out some design flaw in that program, ignore its millions of lines of code).

Browsers change every month and are hugely un-maintainable by individual coders in the long term anyway :)

So, if YOUR root password were known by your wife, then you must publish it for everyone to see? The enemy only increases in number the easier you make it for them do use your weaknesses.

It's naive to think that the president's only protection is that. Think of all the "useless stuff" that we do with day-to-day security, like setting up both WPA2 AND mac filtering. It's always "just in case." The harder you work to "hide" something, the fewer "evil" people will be interested or able to find it, even if your actions raise orders of magnitude more eyebrows. Look at how RSA encryption is still reliable.

I was going to make a stronger refute, but just really want to help. There's some circular logic if you want the above solution. Adding an RSA key or any key is moot if the government DOES comply to disclose everything impersonal (I noticed you didn't argue against securing individual soldier's privacy, and applaud you for this.) I'll go a step further: Suppose they added iris scans and DNA checks to the launch codes. Then, being transparent, the state is forced to release the names of those imprinted with the correct DNA, suggesting a physical search to coerce that person for codes and bodypart matches.

In our current world's government, a "proper leak" could release that person's location and cause trouble anyway, but in a fully transparent state, the information already out there is dangerously easy to misuse. An enemy does illegal things without any transparency at all; why give them the upper hand if it will not play by your openness game. All that said, I understand that we need more transparency, but obscurity in the government is done mostly for the same reason parents keep sex from kids until they're ready for it --or, if you may, the location of your firearms: self and general protection.

Your answer is answered by the Line of sight (think laser or flashlight) versus omni-directional wave (think home WiFI.) A remote can't power your TV from behind, can it?

I replaced my battery this week... line of sight only appears to be omnidirectional because with strong enough batteries, the signal 'leaks' even if you aren't pointing in a straight line. When batteries went low, our remote stopped being able to power the TV unless a very strict angle of incidence was kept. My old relatives doesn't understand angles, only that the TV is broken. I don't agree with wasteful tech, but I'm sure the /. community, being spend-prone as they are, would rather have something that their family doesn't need to complain about in strange situations.

Yeah, you need more batteries to get the added benefit of increased reception and advanced coordination of DVD-TV-DVR-Remote commands like someone else suggested. The batteries problem and the fact that the responsiveness is slower than current remotes why the future is kinda bleak. Hell, I hate our HDTV cable box. You push a button and it's almost half a second before the channel is changed. Move to normal channels and the problem is gone somewhat. Use the standard DTV box, and the lag is only half. Use a 15-year old analog box, and the response is instant. The trend is not encouraging, because you would think the public and market forces would have regulated this failure out of the market.

Have you even seen how slowly TV's and cable boxes boot these days? Geez. No wonder people go online for media. Our dollars have a higher voting power there than with other media. Er, back to the thread. Thanks for your time.

Haven't tried this stuff, but know that Windows will tell you when you reconfigure a network to use different encryption. It then rejects your login until you go to a very specific connection wizard and tell it to the correct new type.

Why a campground, when you can just stay at an INN. This is specially good if the country you go to is in Europe and doesn't speak English. Any attempts to mine information on you will decrease significantly if the other 3 participants stay in the US while hunting you requires communicating with people and getting records in a little known language.

I don't recommend Spain nor Italy, since somewhat literally, "everyone and their mother" in the US can speak it, assisting your tracker on long distance calls and such. Portugal sounds good, or Germany, but not Russian speaking countries for the same reason. Barring Europe, Japan might be a good choice too, language wise, but the plane fare is steep.

Even if your tracker person were commited to pursue via a plane, attempts to chase people across oceans, languages AND very strict privacy / cultural boundaries are prone to failure. Strangers with little command of the local language can't easily receive restaurant / hotel / bank and credit card bills even with cash bribes that are common in those countries. Your tracker won't be shelling money if they're not sure how far they can get in uncharted territories, even if they were assured some modest reward from the contest's organizers.