The Departed

I don't tend to give movie or concert reviews, but you should go see 'The Departed.' It has it's dramatic moments, yes. However, despite all the wonderful tension, it was also wicked funny. Blue Velvet funny. Or maybe it's just funny to the locals; I'm not really sure.

The engineers among you may note that the infamous "microchips" used to put a nuclear warhead up a camel's ass from 100 miles away were some generic ST Microelectronic components, as such. Choice! Does that count as product placement? I admit it. I laughed when they flashed the case full of "goods." The Chinese were paying millions of dollars for ICs that weren't properly baked, sealed or packaged in any form of ESD protection. But my mirth concealed my utter shame.

Besides, everyone knows the best microcontroller to use in your nuclear warhead is the DS5000 from Dallas Semiconductor.

Like, no kidding. Thousands upon thousands of nuclear warheads are/were controlled by something that runs BASIC. The DS5000's claim to fame is that it purports to be a secure microcontroller. There's a cipher between code and code execution; you're not supposed to be able to tell what instructions the part is executing. Why bother, you ask? Because a guy can tell a lot about a system from it's EMR, so the goal is to obscure the executed instructions from the program. In theory. That sort of tamper-proof security never really works in practice, though. The DS5000 can be (and has repeatedly been) cracked. It's not just a story that S. Burns tells to his 6.121 students.

I know I feel more secure already.