>'The Flashboys Exchange' that has the wire coiled up in a shoebox (I know it's not a shoebox!), so even hackers can't circumvent the intentional delay it causes.
Explain? How does hiding the delay hinder hackers?
It's not a hidden delay. It's known to be 350μs. The idea is to prevent anyone seeing a large order to beat them to another exchange (like NYSE) and doing an arbitrage there based on that information.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/magazine/flash-boys-michae...