Tin Foil Passports?

Steve Furlong sfurlong at acmenet.net
Sat Nov 27 07:12:49 PST 2004


On Sat, 2004-11-27 at 09:36, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
> At 09:13 AM 11/27/04 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> >Link: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/27/0026222
> >Posted by: michael, on 2004-11-27 05:05:00
> >   low-cost solution: '[I]incorporate a layer of metal foil into the
> >   cover of the passport so it could be read only when opened.' Don't
> >   they know that the whole tinfoil hat thing is supposed to be a
> joke?"
> 
> What is most poignant about this post is the lack of education
> of /. authors.  Don't they teach Maxwell any more?  Is Faraday
> just the guy who said
> "Sir, I do not know what it is good for.
> But of one thing I am quite certain--someday you will tax it."
> 
> Put your cell phone in a metal tin, and call it.
> Wrap your access point or receiver or other radio in Al foil.
> Do you think Brin in _Enemy of the State_ was just a potato-chip
> fetishist?

But, but, but ... This is *government approved* metal foil. It's the
good stuff. You can trust them -- they're from the government, and
they're here to help.

On your broader point, yah. I'll check out /. once in a while for
pointers to news items and more rarely for the "ask slashdot" items, but
most of the comments are garbage and probably half of the posts are
garbage. The question is, has /. gotten worse since it was fresh, or
have I grown less tolerant of ill-informed, shoot-off-at-the-mouth
kiddies? (I have a 4-digit slashdot user id, to show how long ago I came
across them.)





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