I find it somewhat amusing to see folks talking about the security rationale behind a black and white image of a new music player:

The reason the shot is in black and white is because Microsoft assigned a unique color scheme to every Zune prototype in existence right now—all 150 of them—so any leaks could be traced to the employee who leaked it. We don’t want to be jerks and get anybody fired.

Interesting, but a bit hard to imagine that was the real motive for the color scheme. Basic photoshop trickery seems like an obvious gap, no? In other words the greyscale conversion is as much a statement as an example because color balance changes in any photo-editing program would dissolve the identifier (e.g. you could make a red player green, or a pink one orange). A color shift in the right direction could perhaps even throw Microsoft off the trail of the real leak, if they really did intend to use colors as a control.

And that just reminds me of the issue with expecting color controls to work for those who are colorblind (or failing to test in a colorblind environment). For example, in 2002 a plane crash was thought to be related to a co-pilot that could not distinguish colors:

Federal rules require that pilots see colors well enough to distinguish between red and green, which are used in instrument panels and warning lights. Frye passed vision tests as a Navy pilot from 1981 through the mid 1990s, but failed a color test when he got his airline license in 1995 because of “a mild red-green defect.” The Federal Aviation Administration gave him a waiver because of his “demonstrated ability” as a pilot.

After the Tallahassee crash, the NTSB had Frye’s vision tested at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas. Doctors found he had a “severe” problem that could make it difficult to interpret red and white warning lights like the ones at the Tallahassee airport.

But William Walsh, captain of the FedEx flight, told the St. Petersburg Times this week the lights indicated they were making a safe descent. “Everything visual that we saw told us we were on glide path,” he said.

If you read the story, it looks like the lights were actually red and white. Not sure how things turned out, but I thought it interesting that the pilots’ lawyer tried to make an argument about the lawnmower:

Maciejewski, the attorney for the pilots, said the NTSB tests were inadequate because they did not replicate the nighttime conditions of the flight. He says the PAPI lights might have malfunctioned because of “contamination” on the lenses or because they had been banged by an airport lawn mower.

Maybe the lawnmower was colorblind too.