From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:20:05 +0800
To: Lucky Green <emc@wire.insync.net>
Subject: Re: British Ministers Adopt Unbreakable Crypto
In-Reply-To: <199801192330.RAA09810@wire.insync.net>
Message-ID: <v03102803b0e9d51b59ea@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 7:53 PM -0800 1/19/98, Lucky Green wrote:

>This reminds me of a conversation I had at a recent biometrics exhibition.
>One company exhibited hand shape scanners, such as those installed at San
>Francisco International Airport to control access to "sensitive" parts of
>the airport. [Do not pass security, go straight the "clean" area].
>
>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
>severed hand was part of my thread model (not using these terms), then my
>"facility had larger problems than could be solved by access control". The
>booth staff, visibly shaken by my insinuation that there are people that
>might severe somebody's had to gain access to an environment, kept
>following me with their eyes as I walked away from the exhibit.
>
>Seems these amateurs hadn't considered that somebody getting ready to blow
>up an airplane with 250 passengers on board just might have relatively few
>qualms about detaching the hand of one Filipino airport janitor on his way
>to work.

Well, the droids they hire to man their booths are Happy People.

No wonder they missed the point of Oklahoma City.

>To their credit, the EyeDentify booth staff (the world's sole manufacturer
>of retinal scanners), knew what they were doing. Their system checks for
>blood flow, etc. A removed eye or a cadaver won't do. Now there is a
>company that understands security.

Biometric on removed eyeballs was old hat in "Thunderball," as I was
approaching adulthood. That the Disneyfied world fails to understand
realitities is hardly surprising.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."