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>There's also some fun stuff about people physically carrying information (this also happens in short story "Johnny Mnemonic"). For a world where there's a high
by xor1 10y ago
>There's also some fun stuff about people physically carrying information (this also happens in short story "Johnny Mnemonic"). For a world where there's a highly connected, super fast worldwide computer network available, people sure travel around a lot.
Sneakernet isn't an irrelevant concept in any sort of context where data transferred through a computer network can be intercepted.
- vidarh 10y agoBut carrying a concealed micro-sd card with encrypted data would be a lot more convenient. Heck, you could fit many times as much data as in Johnny Mnemonic (40GB, I think?) inside your head too by shoving a micro-sd card up your nose or into your ear.
- walrus01 10y agoNose, ear, really? On a more realistic note, what is the maximum microsdxc card capacity of a human rectum?
- labster 10y agoA metric buttload.
- pravda 10y agoBelieve it or not, that's a thing, and it's called 'keistering'! Apparently, pro's can get a cellphone 'keistered'. But I think the flip-phone style, not an iPhone. As far as microsd cards -- I think you'd be able to 'keister' many many terabytes. They are so tiny and so thin, I'd guess hundreds would fit.
- throwanem 10y agoThere's a difference between "fit" and "fit without making it impossible to walk normally". And really, you'd want some sort of carrier for the cards, because otherwise they're likely to be lost or damaged. So it becomes a fairly complex question of the optimal balance among total carrier volume, gait effects, and maximizing internal volume of the carrier without thinning the walls so much they're likely to crumple. (Metal walls might serve, but then we're back to gait effects. Not comfortable.) And once the carrier design is in hand, there arises the question of how to maximize its bandwidth, which is itself a rather nontrivial packing problem.
- twic 10y agoGreat, yet ANOTHER USB-C adaptor I'm going to have to pay Apple for.
- vidarh 10y agoThe point was that the physical volume needed to store far more data is so small that you can fit it even the head without going to the lengths in movie, not that it'd be particularly pleasant. But certainly, smuggling things in body orificies has a long tradition.
- gozur88 10y agoMore convenient but not as secure.
- vidarh 10y agoGiven that the entire plot involves someone chasing him to forcibly extract the data, it wouldn't seem it would offer more security than suitable crypto on a micro-sd card.
- qbrass 10y agoThe person chasing him isn't trying to extract the data, they're trying to delete it.
- vidarh 10y agoI might have misremembered though the wikipedia entry for the movie (I've never read the short story, so my comments here are about the movie) specifically says that one of the groups after him wants the data for themselves. But if they just want to destroy the data, that just makes the security distinction even less relevant, as destroying his head with contents would solve the issue whether it's in his brain or on a foreign object in his head.
- witty_username 10y agoHTTPS stops interception. But, sneakernets are relevant because the internet is slower.
- icebraining 10y agoHTTPS stops interception. Even if you have perfect faith that it's currently impossible to crack TLS (and you probably shouldn't), they might record the stream and crack it in the future, having tools you can't even imagine currently.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- stephengillie 10y agoNever underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. - Andrew S. Tanenbaum