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Hardware That Recognizes You
Amit Upadhyay writes "Gizmodo is reporting about extra funding for smart guns at NJIT. Few have qualms about it, mostly on the line of: would optical sensor for finger prints work when the hand is soaked with blood? Would you get time to enter the override code in an emergency? But if we remove speculative emergency situations, the technology seems to be interesting. While checking out Fingkey Hamster what struck me was, this is one passkey I will not mind publishing on my webpage, and it can't be cracked, unless hardware tampering takes place. Kind of thing that you can put in all the car ignitions and lockers where password entry using keyboard can become too obtrusive."
Given that nothing is unbreakable/unhackable/unspoofable, the real danger is putting into widespread use something that people believe to be unbreakable/unhackable/unspoofable. When you go to court because your gun was used in a shooting, everyone will "know" that you did it, since "no one else can fire the gun." Except we all know that no system is perfect, and someone else could have.
Just as bad is the case of identity theft; the more that biometrics become used to verify identity, the more vulnerable you are to having your identity easily stolen. After all, it's perfectly reliable, so there don't need to be any other checks. The fingerprint/retina scan/brainwave pattern says the person is you, therefore s/he is. Even worse, once your identity has been suborned in this fashion, you can't get it back, since you can't change it.
You can potentially address this by adding something like a PIN or password into the system, but that loses both the supposed benefits of the biometric identification and simply shifts the burden of security back where it's always been: remembering a unique piece of information that no one else has.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
hardware reocgnizes YO--oh, crap
"But if we remove speculative emergency situations, the technology seems to be interesting."
And as we all know, guns are never used in emergencies...
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
You don't get thrown out into the cold night. At least not all of you.
So, you wouldn't mind putting an image of your fingerprint on a webpage, where it can be downloaded and printed in gelatin, and then used to unlock all of your devices forever, thus excluding you from ever using fingerprint based security?
Which, as another poster suggested, raises the great problem with a lot of biometric security - as soon as it's defeated - someone taking a gelatin mold of your fingerprint, someone making a nice glass replica of your eye (for example), you're doomed - EVERYTHING you access then becomes invalid. Sure, you can just use your remaining eye, or fingers, but those are a finite resource .. it's like putting all your eyes in one squishy basket
if you read the story...
"By using a series of sensors along the grip, the gun can determine who is holding it and can even support multiple users."
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
I have always thought that a large-scale fingerprinting implementation would be helpful for a lot of things -- just think about never having to carry a wallet again -- rather, you would simply scan your fingerprint for whatever business you were involved in (making a purchase, showing proof of ID, etc.). A system like that would be convenient, but it's also really centralized, so there would definately be a "big brother" out there watching us.
As far as security goes, I would risk saying that is is much harder to dabble in fingerprinting than other forms of identity theft. If credit cards could be swiped and then authenticated with a fingerprint scan, I think we would have much less trouble with theft in that area as the technology to duplicate fingerprints doesn't seem to be widely available (how many people do you know who can do it?).
Anyhow, that's just my two pennies. Just hope that someone doesn't cut off your fingertips at night!
Two freaks, no foes. It takes absolutely nothing to make some people angry.
Another interesting option for firearms is a ring lock. It uses a magnetic ring to unlock the firearm, which keeps the weapon from being taken during a struggle and used against the owner. Since the decline in popularity in magnetic media, unpleasant side effects of wearing a magnetic ring seem to be less of an issue.
Sounds like a great idea for cops, though.
Well, we need fuckable hooker robots, too, but, hey, they're just around the corner.
Or they would be if the techno-wizzes of the world would stop mucking about with tablet computers and first-person shooter game engines, and deliver to the world what it really wants.
--- Ban humanity.
A few years ago, a prototype of a smart holster was shown -- it wouldn't let you draw the gun from it unless it recognized your fingerprints. Although this wasn't perfect, it seemed very promising, and it seems like an idea that many people would find more acceptable than smart guns.
s _151_25/ai_70380673
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BTT/i
Smart guns conjure up a lot of fears from gun owners. There's a fear that "smart" technology might be required on new guns. There's a fear that they might be too expensive, or unreliable (batteries gone dead), or that it might be possible to disable them remotely with something like EMP. Don't laugh, it's already possible to stop many motor vehicles this way.
Smart holsters could provide practically all of the same benefits without all the associated fear.
Yep. I'm sure there will be pleanty of illegal guns all over the streets of NJ... just as there are today. All this shit they do to with LAWS is meaningless unless CRIMINALS all decide to OBEY the LAW and ONLY use APPROVED guns to commit CRIMES.
"Oh Fuck, I have to reboot my gun before I can defend myself!"
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
My (patented) self-cloning kit (instructions below) will break this security system in no time. In fact, I suspect MS are already flagging it on their all-new security alert system.
-----------
Self-cloning Instructions (Pat. pending)
Go fuck yourself.
Did he inhale?
The article said it can be programmed to recognize multiple users. So, I am assuming all members of the police force would be made users of all guns owned by the department.
And by the way... in NJ, the first state with an idiotic smart gun law, federal, state and local law enforcement officers and members of the armed forces and the National Guard serving in New Jersey are exempt from the law.
Funny, the technology isn't reliable enough for them to use, but it is for me. Nice!
Here's a good article on why this NJ law is ridiculous
People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
Given that this is for smart guns, I'm a little concerned with what appears to be the suggestion that emergency situations are rare and not worth much consideration. With the exception of practice on the firing range, all situations a handgun is being used are emergency situations. As such, something like the technology not working if the users hand has blood (or grease or dirt...) on it is a show-stopper.
Electronics just aren't reliable enough to trust, particularly fancy finger-print-reading or AI-grip-recognizing electronics.
Technological fixes to social problems are usually bad ideas, and I think that this is a great example of that.
See what I've been reading.
No serious gun owner would want this. No police officer would ever use this. When you need your gun to fire, it has to work. There's no room for error.
A lot of serious gun owners won't even use handguns with a safety. Because if the safety is on in the fraction of a second you it to work, you're dead.
The following wizard will assist you:
:-}
1) Enter BPA (Bullet Product Activatin) code.
2) Verify that this person is really an intruder.
3) Aim weapon.
4) Pull trigger.
Did gun fire? Yes/No
No.
5) Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete while depressing trigger.
6) Did gun fire? Yes/No
No.
7) Are you still alive? Yes/No
This is probably why Smith & Wesson and Microsoft shouldn't merge.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
These days, that's called Fox News...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
These things are actually dimly sentient, and cantankerous to boot. I swear they know when you're under pressure from an immoveable deadline. That's when they chose to break down/clog heads/eat your last sheets of glossy presentation material at 5am / have the driver b0rk...
It's the reason we call them plotters
Guns don't kill people, people *with* guns kill people
Maybe so but they make people pretty damned effective at it. As for the other choices, well, they are pretty poor
Take a look at the statistics for assault in great britain. Guns simply shift power. Instead of the biggest, strongest, most aggressive, longest armed person, survival goes to the fastest, most accurate, most cool-headed person.
As to your other points, knives are often the choice of a professional killer because they are quiet, concealable, and frightening. Bows can be fired bloody fast and guns require just as much skill to hit anything. Fists and bricks and chairs and everything else can be used to kill people, and often are. Why don't you look to why people are killing each other rather than what they are using?
California recently banned .50 caliber breech loading rifles. These rifles are very high power, long range, and effective. This will stop exactly zero crimes. Why? Because this type of gun has never been used in a violent crime in the U.S. The only crime it has been used in was vandalism (shooting signs). The reason for this is simple, people who own guns costing more than a thousand dollars, don't generally commit violent crimes. That is because violent crime is usually committed out of desperation by poor, angry, young people (usually men). I'm not stereotyping, those are the recorded statistics. Passing more laws that say people can't use things/have things/do things that enable them to break other laws don't work. If they are already desperate enough to break the law, they won't care if they are breaking two or three or four laws. That is just paperwork on how long the police can lock them up. These laws do, however, take rights away from non-criminals, important rights, like the ability to defend oneself.
"Life is more valuable than property. By a factor of infinity. There are no exceptions."
Your lawfully-gained property is one of the products of your life. For example, let's say a burglar is stealing your wife's $6,000 engagement ring. How much of your life did you spend earning the money for that ring? Maybe 300 hours? If someone came up to you on the sidewalk and tried to forceably inject you with a drug that you know would instantly shorten your lifespan by 300 hours, would you use a potentially lethal defense (like a gun) to stop that attack?Money is your irreplaceable life energy in a convenient, portable form. When someone steals your money, or something you bought with your money, they are stealing part of your life. I applaude your respect for human life, but don't you think that since people's property is bought with their lives, their right to defend their property should be given the same recognition as their right to defend their lives?
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