Yow! $3500 ? Not $350? Palm VIIx sale price is $199 at Fry's, or you can spend probably about $350 for a $99 Visor/Palm3/Palm100 plus an OmniSky modem. NYC may not have Fry's, but they've got 47th Street Computer, which will do just as well. You'd have to teach cops how to write Graffiti instead of just busting people for it... Alternatively, the RIM Blackberry and one of Motorola's 2-way text pagers are all under $500, and there are several products from the cell phone makers that also let you input text, albeit a bit more clumsily. What a scam. And with the Palm-like devices, adding encryption is just a Simple Matter of Programming, rather than something that required new PROMs or replacment of the operating system. But hey, it's another opportunity for police scanners or HERF. At 02:42 AM 05/24/2001 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Note on NSA fiber optic snarfing: they undoubtably had one >of our national laboratories figure it out. I remember a >long time ago an URL to Los Alamos National Labs, where >it was a project for getting past locks. > >---- > >Will cops be more likely to ask people to identify themselves? >(Identification wanderlust.) > >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/24/technology/24COP.html ># ># May 24, 2001 ># ># Patrol Officers Soon to Carry ># Minicomputers on Gun Belts ># ># By THOMAS J. LUECK ># ># Weighing five ounces and closely resembling the ubiquitous black ># pocket pager, it might be overlooked on the overstuffed gun belts ># of police officers on foot patrol. But the device, a $3,500 ># minicomputer, will let the officers check whether a car has been ># stolen or someone they stop on the street is trying to conceal ># an arrest record. ># ># After putting 15 of the gadgets through their paces in housing ># projects, stolen vehicle "chop shops" and crime scenes in the ># last year, senior police officials said yesterday that they ># planned to buy 200 more this year in the first phase of a plan ># to equip a larger segment of the patrol force with the devices. ># The decision to give officers the new computers was first reported ># yesterday in The Daily News. ># ># "It works discreetly, without creating a fuss," said Rafael ># Pineiro, the assistant chief in charge of the department's ># Management and Information Systems Division. He added that the ># New York Police Department would be the first in the nation to ># use the minicomputers on routine street patrol. >[snip] > >(yes, 'minicomputer' is the wrong terminology)
