First Ethernet Switch In Space

Rebecca will you marry me? writes "The ESA's Columbus laboratory module was added to the International Space Station in February, but Hewlett-Packard has only now chosen to reveal that the LAN onboard Columbus uses a ProCurve 2524 switch." HP admits it was the "most unusual and demanding" project ProCurve has done yet.

And this is interesting because?

[cheebie]

Is there some reason why a router in orbit would behave differently in any way from a router sitting in a rack in the server room? (Other than floating, etc.)

Re:And this is interesting because?

[N3TW4LK3R]

In space, it's exposed to all kinds of radiation that normally gets blocked by the earth's atmosphere.
This is one of the reasons we try to limit the complexity of electronics sent out to space. (and additionally, shield the hell out of everything)
I believe the shuttle uses a computer comparable to a 386, for this reason.

is anyone paying attention?

[Anonymous Coward]

HP are bottom-of-the-barrel outsourcers now. Trusting HP to provide networking equipment for the space station would be a scaling up of trusting me, an amateur electronics geek, to build radio receivers for emergency workers. I know I can build working kit and I'm fairly cheap, but I've never had to begin contemplating the construction of gear that needs to be so reliable that great efforts will be wasted and people will probably die if I get it wrong. Neither AC's Shack nor HP Procurve switches are designed to "people will die if you fuck up" spec - that's what military spec is for, and that's why people pay extra for it.

A strong tutting to the Europeans for once again demonstrating that they're no less willing to compromise if a company in desperate need of good PR is willing to slip them a few pennies.

Re:And this is interesting because?

[muffel]

• Cooling: No 'natural' convection
• G-Forces, Vibration
• Radiation

Re:And this is interesting because?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope for the sake of the ISS crew that it's "low rad" in the ISS.

The radiation the semiconductors don't like are heavy particles like neutrons which are extremely harmful to humans too.

Re:vulnerability

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure the OP's implication is not that "creating child pornography by taking photographs or videos of children being abused" is a thought crime. The thought crime occurs when one is punished merely for possessing such images, on the assumption that he or she is aroused. Possessing a photograph or video of a non-sexual physical assault, or a murder, is not against the law.

Another thought crime occurs in the UK when a scene depicting sexual activity with a child is created without actually involving any children - e.g. 3d rendering or adult actresses with youthful features. This is illegal, and the only "offence" as such is in fantasising that some real abuse has occurred. Possessing a film in which a physical assault, or a murder, is acted out, or drawing a picture of such activity, is not against the law.

By targeting those who abuse children or, as a second priority, those who actually pay for the products of abuse, children are helped. But targeting those who merely possess images - real, acted or sketched - is helping child abusers, by occupying resources that should be used to track, arrest and lock up the abusers, and rehabilitate the victims. It is also perpetuating a broken system of rights, in which a man is punished for having a sequence of bits in a particular order on his hard drive; it misdiagnoses paedophilia as a crime rather than a disorder, making it harder to deal with paedophiles; it perpetuates the myth that child abusers are likely to be men lurking in the shady corners of the Internet, when an abused child is almost always abused by a family member or close family friend.

Put another way, to pursue the mere possession of child pornography will inevitably result in a society where child abuse is more likely to go unchecked, and where freedoms in general are curtailed. Thousands of paedophiles right now are thinking about violating children like your young son or daughter, but just as millions of heterosexual men fantasise about adult women every day without raping them, so too are your children safe from fantasy; they're also safe from people half way around the world who are masturbating furiously over a photoshopping of a pic you put up on .mac of little Gemma in her first bathing costume. But they're not safe from Uncle Jim.

And I'm sorry for going off on a rant, but "how do you deal with child porn" is pretty much the ultimate question for testing someone's scope of rationality and freedom. I'm from Spain, which hasn't even reached the stage of understanding why I should be allowed to carry a gun and my neighbor is allowed to describe me by combining simple sounds denoted by letters s,p,i,c without being locked in a cell.