h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We started using Tamper-Proof Torx bolts on our equipment, to try and discourage customers (a word that is usually synonymous with 'idiot') from taking them apart.

Tamper-proof torx are the screws that have the little stud sticking up in the middle. The way to undo these is (A) with a tamper proof torx screwdriver, usually easily available from the same place you bought the non-tamper-proof torx screwdriver, (B) by drilling them out and replacing them with normal crosshead screws, or (C) with an angle grinder or axe, when (A) is unavailable, and (B) takes too long.

Imagine our suprise when a week later we discover in our head salesman's office one tamper-proof torx screwdriver.

Now, customers taking these things apart is one thing; our own sales force? Yikes! No wonder the things never work. We have hidden his 'toolkit'* now.

*Toolkit, n: 1. A set of tools used by an engineer to perform useful, possibly delicate work on an item of hardware.
2. A set of tools used by a software engineer to perform useful, possibly delicate work on an item of software.
3. A set of tools used by a sales person to make unauthorised adjustments to said hardware or software causing the hardware and software engineers to look for larger, blunt tools, with which to inflict injuries on the sales person.

Ah yes, tamper-proof fasteners. Reminds me a lot of the arms race; I don't think you can ever win for long. After all, Torx themselves were tamper-proof when they first came out. And of course the telephone company still uses allen-head bolts with a stud in the middle even though the corresponding drivers are widely available now.

I've seen screws that have regular flathead slots, plus bevels on half of each side of the slot. These are designed so that you can use a screwdriver to tighten them, but so that any attempt to loosen them just results in the driver sliding out. Only useful if your service department doesn't need to get into the equipment either, though.

Tamper-Proof anything is a bit of an oddity. It's like when medicine bottls had to be made child proof (make the lid a push and twist system) the only people they kept from getting to the needed stuff was the grannies who's joints couldn't cope any more, so what do they do, please little jonny, open this bottle fron gran...

Tamper proof lids on medicine bottles/bleach/etc. are an oxymoron. Sounds like a cue for a guide entry. Other ideas?

Wordnet ( http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/ ) describes an oxymoron as:

1. oxymoron -- (conjoining contradictory terms (as in `deafening silence'))

Anyone got any more.

'jumbo shrimp' and 'military intelligence'