From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 05:11:49 +0800
To: Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to>
Subject: Re: British Ministers Adopt Unbreakable Crypto
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980120043931.10472B-100000@pakastelohi.cypherpunks.to>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980120112722.00864320@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 08:18 PM 1/19/98 -0800, Tim May wrote:
>At 7:53 PM -0800 1/19/98, Lucky Green wrote:
>>I asked the exhibitor if the scanner would grant access to a hand not
>>attached to the body. At first, the exhibitor paled and replied that if a
...
>Well, the droids they hire to man their booths are Happy People.

Sometime in the late 80s I was at some computer security conference
that had some presentations on biometrics; the issue of body parts
no longer attached to original-condition bodies was brought up by
several of the exhibitors (I think they were checking for pulse
while scanning fingerprints, for example.)  As Tim said, the 
James Bond movie was old by then, and also the military and other
Feds have been early enthusiasts for biometric identifiers - if the
KGB is bothered by detached hands, it's because it takes longer
than just carrying the guard's body across the room, and the
bloodstains might be noticed faster than a "sleeping" guard.
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639