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"Cyberpunk worked when the Internet was in its hand-wound crystal radio phase, when you had to be a sort of hobbyist to do e-mail, and it all had a very steep learning curve. Those days are over."
- William Gibson

Android Safety Mechanism  
  A device that temporarily incapacitates an android.  

How can you defend yourself against a superior android?

"In my purse," she said, " I have a mechanism which our autofac on Mars builds as an... emergency safety... while they're putting a newly made andy through its routine inspection checks. Get it out. It resembles an oyster....

"Is this it?" He held up a metallic sphere with a button-stem projecting.

"That cancels an android into catalepsy," Rachel said, eyes shut. "For a few seconds. Suspends its respiration; yours, too, but human can function without respiring - perspiring? - for a couple of minutes, but the vagus nerve of an andy -"

"I know." He straightened up. "The android autonomic nervous system isn 't as flexible at cutting in and out as ours. But as you say, this wouldn't work for more than five or six seconds."

"Long enough," Rachel murmured, 'to save your life.... If Roy Baty shows up here, you can be holding that in your hand and you can press the stem on that thing...."

Technovelgy from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Doubleday in 1968
Additional resources -

Compare to the restraining bolt from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick

Android Safety Mechanism -related news articles:
  - EU Debates Kill Switches For Robots
  - Jibo Home Robot Says Goodbye, Is Killswitched

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We Need To Build Anti-Drone Systems For Civilian Spaces

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