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The 2D barcode also has all that info. See this or this page to see what's on there.

The 2D barcode also has all that info. See this or this page to see what's on there.

OMG! The first time they did that I friggin' flipped. They asked to 'see' my license - I held it up so she could read the birthdate, and the salesperson grabbed it out of my hand and scanned it before I could object. Man, I was pissed! I complained to her, the store manager, and I wrote a letter to HQ. No one understood the privacy implications of them scanning all of that data from my license.

this site has a map and a table that tells you what's on your license by state. Virginia has a ton of info that I'd rather Target not have.

OMG! The first time they did that I friggin' flipped. They asked to 'see' my license - I held it up so she could read the birthdate, and the salesperson grabbed it out of my hand and scanned it before I could object. Man, I was pissed! I complained to her, the store manager, and I wrote a letter to HQ. No one understood the privacy implications of them scanning all of that data from my license.

this site has a map and a table that tells you what's on your license by state. Virginia has a ton of info that I'd rather Target not have.

I saw someone demo a similar system at a small art exhibit a while back (Intro.Inter.Tech 2007). There was not (yet) a force-feedback interface tied in, but kissable cubes / 'lips' with embedded cameras and software that superimposed the kissers over a telepresence system. I was there showing an internet-connected vibrators project (which was not a new idea even then), so tying in appropriate methods to transmit force remotely is not exactly a stretch of the imagination.

This nifty applet I bookmarked from a decade ago shows the frequency of integers that appear online and some of their associations. It's neat to see the increase around the 1900s since they obviously appear in dates a lot more and the grids of popularity formed by the increased usage of "round" numbers.
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/nums/applet.html

Also of interest at that same site is that you can see what states/territories store what information and with which methods. http://www.turbulence.org/Works/swipe/state_analysis.html So yeah.... Manitoba is looking good. :)

There's been a lot of talk about what the motion-sensitive controls might or might not be used for with the revolution, but I think everyone's missing the obvious.

Wii need a remake of Desert Bus for the revolution!

You and your daughter may enjoy interpreting the real-time decisions of a chess machine.
-- volvo -l US

I say we use the Data Calculator at the Swipe Toolkit.

We may not be able to control these companies but we can at least get our cut.

I say we use the Data Calculator at the Swipe Toolkit.

We may not be able to control these companies but we can at least get our cut.

A barcode is a series of numbers the is then compared to a key in a database and returns the results.

posted this at Schneier's sit and decided to share with ./:

I took a closer look at the actual bill, and my Washington state driver's license. Using the SWIPE tool downloadable at (http://turbulence.org/Works/swipe/barcode.html), I decoded the 2D 'PDF417' barcode on the back of my drivers license. Here's what the bill requires, followed by whether it's in the barcode:

1. Full legal name. NO
2. Date of birth. YES
3. Gender. YES
4. Driver's license or ID number. YES
5. Digital photograph. NO
6. Residence address. YES
7. Signature. NO
8. Tamper/duplication prevention measure. NO

Now the bill doesn't seem specific on this account, but it seems to me that if you swipe the barcode on the back and get an image of the front for items 1, 5, and 7, you've got everything the bill requires of the card itself.

So is Washington already compliant? I suspect they are when it comes to the card itself, and I can't say for sure about the other stuff like verification and database linking.

In fact, there are only a few states which don't already have machine-readable drivers license/ID cards. Check out this map: (http://www.intellicheck.com/support/manuals/C-Lin k%20Map.pdf)

and this device for reading cards: (http://www.intellicheck.com/products/IDC1400.asp)

Hmph. When it comes to the card itself, I suspect most people reading this already have one! I've had this DL and barcode for 4+ years now, and no one has ever swiped it through a barcode reader. They do have a photocopy f it on file at work, and of course at the DMV. That's it! So what does this law *really* change again?

oops.. http://www.turbulence.org/Works/swipe/request.html

This site: http://www.turbulence.org/Works/swipe/request.html was the first to bring Choice Point and data mining to my attention. Acxiom has an opt out clause though Choice Point and LocatePlus.com do not. Most still charge for personal reports which is interesting since the major credit bureaus now have to provide a free copy once a year.

Here is a site I found that has a calculator that suggest how much the bits of information about you are "worth".
They suggest you "refer" agencies which collect information about you to this site so you are properly compensated.

I just introduced my five-and-half y.o. son to computer chess http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/chess.htm l after I couldn't keep up with his demands to play chess with him all day (have a job...) I think he spends his time much better than if he sat in front of TV (disclaimer: he's usually in the kindergarten during work hours, but is being ill for a week; we don't keep him in front of screen all day usually)

They can get money for your information.

The SWIPE calculator will tell you what a company will get for selling your information. I'm not sure who is buying, but you can make 20-30 USD from each person's records.

Beyond that, "they" can use a compromised box to send out more spam, and enough people buy to make it profitable. The same goes with ad servers and adbots on your machine. Eventually, you'll find an ad that's interesting. Slashdot wouldn't have ads if some of us didn't click them, would they? Ads also keep google afloat - if they didn't rake in the dough from google ads, then the program would have been discontinued.

To put it another way - if they weren't making money, they wouldn't do it.

Not necessarily... Some rfid tags do only store a serial number, but there also exist tags that store data on them... for that matter, most 2d barcodes store a lot more on them than just a number. For instance, there is this tool that slashdot mentioned earlier that'll let you keep track of what's recorded on the barcode you have on the back of your drivers license...Barcodes are used a lot more places than just on the upc, and they often store a lot more information...

Anyhow, back to what this software does (and forgive me, I'm familiar with some RFID stuff, but not the EPCGlobal standards work)...more than likely the enterprise system that's keeping track of your inventory doesn't have the faintest idea how to ask a reader for information about tags or how to read the information that comes out. Nor is the information you get back going to be exactly set up to be dumped directly into your database. That' s what this is supposed to do (?).

Feel fee to correct me if I"m wrong...

great interface for number visualization

I think the same guy who did the smartmoney maps did this one also:
visualize a musical piece's relation to parts of itself

make your own galaxies as part of search

hrm, they don't all seem to be working properly now with mozilla 1.7 and java 1.4.2_04-b05 although they worked fine a couple years ago. I had the same sort of problems with smartmoney which is why I didn't buy a subscription.

great interface for number visualization

I think the same guy who did the smartmoney maps did this one also:
visualize a musical piece's relation to parts of itself

make your own galaxies as part of search

hrm, they don't all seem to be working properly now with mozilla 1.7 and java 1.4.2_04-b05 although they worked fine a couple years ago. I had the same sort of problems with smartmoney which is why I didn't buy a subscription.

Slightly off topic but... Check out The SWIPE Toolkit The toolkit contains a data calculator to tell you how much your personal information is worth, as well as an application to read the 2d barcode on state drivers licenses. Pretty interesting stuff.

See what a good scan looks like.

And this is what a good decoding looks like:

NCZJGWECBSCYGFFKCXCFEV DVRHU:KFEHBTBXD%%/:40CBDLCA QWTDJBTDHPEEWALEUAITHMXKQEKDANADBJ'NP AHAWWADCZDZE N"KPZRQFSAUVYWUZLY OA

• Education: $12.00

• Employment: $13.00

• Workers Comp: $18.00

• Bankruptcy: $26.50

• Lawsuits: $2.95

• Sex Offendors: $13.00

• Felonies: $16.00

When I got out of the military in the early 90s we were strongly encouraged to take our DD-214 (summary of military records) and submit them to the county clerk when we got back home so they'd become public record, that way if we ever lost it we could go look it up. I'm REAL GLAD(tm) I worked with Privacy Act information for my whole career and developed a healthy reluctance to hand out the juicy tidbits contained on my DD-214, e.g., SS#, DOB, education, and of course your whole military career.

The SWIPE Toolkit page has a link to a listing of the 39 states with barcode technology. It also lists those considering implementation of magnetic stripes and/or barcodes...

...will it do something like this?

Any idea what software was used to make those graphs?
It looks like a neat tool for visualizing sets of numbers.
It reminds me of this awesome applet that shows frequency of numbers used on the net: numbers