points by baobabKoodaa 1 day ago | 0 comments
Of course HN wants to fix train crashes with a "cryptographic p2p lock". On a blockchain, presumably.
[–] athrowaway3z 19 hours ago
[–] baobabKoodaa 17 hours ago
I don't know anything about trains so I can't really propose a solution. I just thought your proposal was funny in that it was very "HN flavored" in a domain that is somewhat far from typical HN domains. Not saying if it's good or bad, just saying I thought it was funny.
Did you instead want to build some central hub that grounds all train traffic if unreachable, or create a bunch of semaphores that anything can overwrite by accident or on purpose?
I'm genuinely curious here.
I can understand being intimidated by concepts outside your wheelhouse, but if you have a simpler solution you'd feel safe with i'm all ears.
I'm not saying this is all there is too it, but I am saying all the other design choices like recovery modes, operator experience, etc - should build around cryptography between tracks and trains.
We can call them cryptographic semaphores if that makes your brain turn on again.