Password-Protected Bullets

New Scientist ^ | 6/27/06

[steve-b]

Safety catches do not always prevent firearm accidents and even newfangled biometric guns, which check the identity of a user by their fingerprint, cannot stop thieves from using stolen ammunition in other weapons.

The way to make firearms really safe, says Hebert Meyerle of Germany, is to password-protect the ammunition itself.

Meyerle is patenting a design for a modified cartridge that would be fired by a burst of high-frequency radio energy. But the energy would only ignite the charge if a solid-state switch within the cartridge had been activated. This would only happen if a password entered into the gun using a tiny keypad matched one stored in the cartridge....

[thackney]

"stupid as a box of rocks, and just as useful" ping

[Kozak]

Yeah. lets be sure and arm every Euro weenie army with those.
Make sure you export them widely to any enemy of the US.

[Concho]

Send that wacko to Irak and see how he likes his new password protected ammo.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

user id: ak47luver
password: *********

[Vaquero]

FLAPDOODLE.

While your getting your frequency squared away some perp is drilling a neat hole in your forehead with his old style gun.

[theDentist]

That's great! No one will ever guess my secret password of "1 2 3". It's far to clever....

[kerryusama04]

And then the coyote realized the anvil was actually going to hit him instead of the roadrunner.......

[patton]

man, I hate tiny keyboards. can't see them.

[John Jorsett]

Why not key the shells to your DNA? Just prick your finger and drop in some blood to activate. You could even include some of your blood in the bullet so that they could be traced back to you.

(Somebody's actually going to pass a law requiring this one day, I'm betting.)

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

"You ruined my life, you b!tch" would be easy to remember.

[Thrusher]

"Clatto... Verata... N... Necktie... Nickel... It's an 'N' word, it's definitely an 'N' word!"

[dighton]

“Keep it simple, Scheißkopf.”

[Vaquero]

"1,2,3!!! why thats my luggage combination" President Skroob

[Ben Mugged]

Gee I'd really like to shoot this terrorist with his arm around my neck but I forgot my password. Yeah, like that's going to work......

[Billthedrill]

So would it be a separate password for each cartridge? Or would "Die, M#$%@#!er" work for all of them?

[P8riot]

username="click"
password="bang!"

[GrandEagle]

Ok,so what happens if you own more than one weapon?
You are carrying your weapon, the once in a lifetime event occurs and you need your weapon to defend yourself. OH-CRAP my password expired! Can you hang on Mr. Bad guy while I reenter it?

To borrow a phrase from Forrest Gump : "Stupid is as Stupid does.

[P-40]

Smells like a lawsuit waiting to happen...

[Malone LaVeigh]

Hebert Meyerle of Germany ...