From across the entire spectrum of news sources available on the lovely news.google.com, comes the revelation that you can pick Kryptonite's "tough" bike u-locks with a bic pen:
A 50-year-old lock design was rendered useless last week when a brief post to an internet forum revealed the lock can be popped open with a cheap plastic pen.
On Sunday, bike enthusiast and network security consultant Chris Brennan described opening an expensive Kryptonite bike lock using a ballpoint pen.
Bic, meanwhile, is no doubt researching how much more they can now charge for their flagship product. ;)
Rest of the story available at:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64987,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_7
An unrelated thought: you should post book reviews of things like "The Ingenuity Gap" here. Then we can discuss. Still haven't finished it, but made good headway on the subway last night.
I think I've found one possible source of a scrap of optimism in the face of the problems the book identifies: perhaps human institutions can themselves become complex to the point of emergence... e.g. blogging, markup, yada yada...?
Hmmm... Movable Type should really have an "unrelated thought" comments link.
Posted by: George at September 25, 2004 03:16 PM