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Comment by igravious | Hacker News Reader

That should read Theoretically Solve but I admire the ingenuity nonetheless and hope that the road from theory to practice is short and uneventful.

A shame this hack has military applications, it would be nice if every now and again scientists patented their discoveries and precluded military use in doing so. [ Please don't downvote me for expressing this sentiment :) ]

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Pretty hard to lock down a communications technology to "no military use". What are they going to do, ask pretty please don't do that with a cherry on top?

I know, right?! Like I said elsewhere, I'm probably letting the warm fuzzies of the holiday season get the better of me.

Is there even any precedent for this? Also, I seem to remember a quote from the mathematician Hardy boasting that he loved working in pure number theory because it had no application (military or otherwise) to the real world. Fast forward 50 years and pure number theory is widely used in encryption technologies ... so you just never know.

Anyway, and this might be cynical but a system that is used to imposing its will down the barrel of a gun will surely just take what they want regardless of the prohibitions.

I am reminded of the blessing that accompanies the public domain Sqlite. http://www.sqlite.org/different.html

  May you do good and not evil
  May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others
  May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

Evil is such a comic book superhero word nowadays but I wonder how many times Sqlite has been put to nefarious ends.

I thought there was a clause making all technology available for national defence, regardless of patents... but can't find the source. Anyone?

I've heard this too. A quick search found a book briefly covering the topic. I couldn't find an official source.

As a matter of public policy - national defense trumps patents - http://bit.ly/faNGT3

That may be true in the US but what about in other jurisdictions? I mean doctor's have the Hippocrates oath of do no harm to the patient but (and not to come over all tree-hugging peacenik like) why do chemists/bioengineers/physicists not have a similar oath with respect to the our species or other species in general or the planet in its entirety? But I guess the scientists do the theorizing and the engineers and coders build weaponize or apply the theoretical results in military applications so what good would it do ... Hmm, maybe the New Year is making me come over all compassionate and fuzzy :)

Other jurisdictions can certainly make similar exceptions for themselves.

In Canada, there is a Ritual Calling of the Engineer, which has an "Obligation" which is not exactly an oath. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ritual_of_the_Calling_of_an... I'll paste the text here if I can find it.

It's a beautiful tradition. On my graduation all soon-to-be engineer colleagues also made a solemn promise more or less like the ones other engineers take in other countries and schools.

I also like the idea of passing the iron rings down through generations of new engineers. In Brazil we don't. It reminds the ones new to the career that others came before them and that others will come after them and of the obligations we share. That's one thing many of us forget much too frequently.

In Canada, I've heard it's more "traditional" to let the newer engineers wear shinier rings, so the more experienced ones have tarnished rings. One of the older engineers lost his in some machinery and had to get a new one. He hated it, said it made him feel like a n00b :-)

I found it very interesting that joining any of the Australian Professional societies (Engineers Australia, Australian Computer Society) as a Software Engineer we have to agree to a set of bye-laws and a code of ethics with fairly harsh internal penalties.

Personally I think it's a brilliant idea and wish that more professions adopt a similar thinking (I don't know of any that do but then again I haven't looked very hard).

Would this be an oath to not implement technology in offensive ways?

> That may be true in the US but what about in other jurisdictions?

I think that could be "the rule of the bigger gun". It's hard to argue with the guy who drives a tank across your lawn.

And preventing military use is a bad idea. The military are not always in offensive roles. And they are not automatically wrong when they use the force.

What do you do then when Country X ignores the patent and incorperates it into THEIR military? Your idea sounds like voluntarily hobbling yourself for idealistic reasons.

The article says that one of the potential military applications would be the ability to disarm or redirect a weapon as it reenters the atmosphere -- Having taken the same topical look at the article that you have, I am not sure why you think that is a categorically bad thing to implement, from any standpoint. I mean, you could make the case that having that capacity will make the fingers that rest on the big red buttons all the itchier... if you wanted to be all ad hominem about things. I for one think that gapingly general fiat mandates like the one you propose are just as potentially damaging as any weapon.

This is a silly and naive sentiment, akin to "This new factoring algorithm has DRM-breaking applications. We'd better outlaw it."

Downvoted accordingly.

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