Slashback: Passports, Microscopes, IQ Points

Slashback tonight with updates and clarifications on recent Slashdot stories (and story arcs), including a downright Operatic end to Jon S. von Tetzchner's cross-oceanic attempt (or was that just in fun?), the status of post-death email privacy, minimizing the dangers of RFID passports, and more - read on for the details.

Actually, it's taking tests that reduces IQ. The guys at Mind Hacks have dissected the widely reported story that 'email destroys the mind faster than marijuana' [Posted on Slashdot a few days ago -- T.] and found that it is more spin than science. The results show simply that people do worse at IQ tests when distracted, although Hewlett-Packard are not releasing details of the experiment, so others cannot even evaluate if the research is sound. The use of psychobabble for marketing marches on.

One day this will all be commemorated as ... an opera. GreyPoopon writes "It looks like Jon's attempt at swimming the Atlantic has ended in early failure. Taking the blame once again is is PR Manager, Eskil Sivertsen. The raft he was using was somehow punctured this morning, and Jon had to abondon his trek to perform a heroic rescue. Perhaps someone should take on the task of sending our downtrodden adventurer a cup of Mom's hot chocolate."

PCP theorem simplified, still way over my head. Stridar writes "Sanjeev Arora's proof of the PCP theorem was a great acheivement. This theorem, a reduction of NP to PCP, allowed for many striking results on the difficulty of finding approximate solutions to NP-Hard problems. However, his original proof is long and technical, focusing on the arithmetization of booelan formulas. It has long been an open problem to simplify this result. Now Irit Dinur , a mathematician at the Hebrew University, has given a purely combinatorial proof of the PCP theorem, in her exciting paper "The PCP Theorem by Gap Amplification" ."

I think several other things end at death, too. microbee writes "The Register reports that Yahoo has complied with a court order to give a dead soldier's email account to his parents. It's not clear to me from the news whether they got direct access to the actual mail box, or just hard copy of those emails. If the former, it's a bit funny to read "the family complain they have only got emails received by Justin, not those he wrote." People have to wonder whether their privacy ends at death."

Haven't they ever seen The Killing Fields? valdean writes "Following up on past Slashdot stories, Wired News reports that the State Department is now considering adding a password to the new RFID passports, in response to 'criticism from computer security professionals and civil libertarians.' According to the article, 'The data... would be locked and unavailable to any reader that doesn't know a secret key or password to unlock the data. To obtain the key, a passport officer would need to physically scan the machine-readable text that's printed on the passport page beneath the photo... The reader would then hash the data to create a unique key that could be used to authenticate the reader and unlock the data on the RFID chip.'"

Anything with LEDs in it makes me happy. HunterD writes "Apparently a company called DigitalBlue purchased the rights to the Intel Play series, which included the Intel QX3 microscope. Well, DigitalBlue has released an upgrade called the QX5 that features an Ultrabright LED, a better camera, and a number of other upgrades."

Comments

MJ?

[Ugodown]

I don't think that anyone says that marijuana destroys the brain besides the US governmnet, and these guys.

Re:MJ?

[Ugodown]

It's a consensus that no brain cells are killed from the ingestion of marijuana, it will impare learning, but what do you expect when you're stoned? After a period of time of not using it, IQ levels and intelligence goes right back to normal levels. The only emperical evidence of brain damage comes from an experiment with monkeys where they were administered with 200x the normal amount. Check this out: http://www.marijuana.com/Exposing_08_1095.html it has sources

Re:MJ?

[Metapsyborg]

libertarian and "legalise it to stop the criminal elements" arguments considered, it might well be better off legal... but it's hardly the pressing issue of our times. There are many other unfair and unjust laws and relations of power etc. that abound. That someone would care enough about MJ to make it their first political priority is evidence of how far they have fallen. It's lame, it steals a certain edge/quickness from your mind (much more than it's supposed "benefits" - do a philosophy course and tell me which one "expanded your mind" more).

On the whole it's fucking boring and I wish the middle class whingers would stop complaining in the face of the science that ANY type of smoking is bad for your lungs (I pity the fool who tries to dispute that, yes you can eat it), and that MJ is bad for your intelligence (there is evidence of this), bad for some people's mental health (there is evidence of this) and on the whole there are some convincing arguments that it's bad for society.

While I agree with some of the "facts" you state, I think you completely miss the point. From your arguments and the way you perceive the issue, it is apparent to me that you are a very pragmatic person: "it's bad for you, don't do it."

Just think about what you are throwing out when you say, "many stoners will testify that it lessens mental agility" or "On the whole it's fucking boring and I wish the middle class whingers would stop complaining in the face of the science." You relegate the entire realm of art, sprituality and philosophy (yes philosophy) to some substandard realm because it does not produce anything useful.

Have you considered that the lessening of "mental agility" is exactly the state that spiritual beings the world over attempt to capture - it's called a lucid state, and is the goal of many meditations, including yoga. I know for a fact that if you ask a monk in meditation what 485 X 391 is, they aren't going to spit out the answer instantaneously. Does that make them lesser entities? I don't think so, and I'm willing to wager that they far surpass our petty intellects in many profound ways.

What about all manner of art? Do you think that "mental agility" or even straight-up IQ have anything to do with that? I think you'll find that many artists, both contemporary and historical, have not had enormous IQs or were not even "mentally agile." Many artists are documented as having used drugs, especially in modern arts such as music.

Philosophy is a subject that does not require a genius IQ, it requires an expanisiveness of consciousness that can look at things from a very broad perspective. The true concepts of philosophy - realism (materialism) vs idealism vs dualism, teleology, morality - these things require, above all, a willingness to release yourself from the daily understanding of reality and look at human existance in a much more grandiose fashion.

Where you get the notion that wanting legalized weed is libertarian is beyond me. At this point the issue, ironically, transcends any political system. You could have legal weed in any governmental system, the only reason it's illegal in ours (usian) is because of social factors.

As for your own experiences with the drug, let me give you mine. I've smoked for many years, and I did explore other drugs - shrooms, acid, ecstasy, coke, crack, heroin, 2cb, liquid g, meth, K, and others. I've partied in heaven with 5,000 of my closest friends until the next morning, and I've been drunk and stoned for hours experiencing the deepest spiritual experiences listening to music by myself. Bad experiences? I've had one or two. And now, now I work in an office 40 hrs a week, I am responsible and fulfill my role in society while looking to possibilities for the future and reminiscing about the past. For me it's been a spiritual, beautiful experience that transcends mere words.

I'll leave you with the words of the father of pragmatism himself, william james:

I guess I don't get what the advantage of RFID is.

[Future Man 3000]

I thought the point was to be able to "read" the card without having to dig it out. But if you have to dig it out to read a key, the technology doesn't buy you anything.

It would help if they explained what the advantages of using RFID in cards would be -- i.e., what do they expect to do with it. I think it'd be helpful to make sure you pass through various checkpoints instead of loitering or sneaking around them, but is it possible if you have to authenticate access to the card?

Limited value in IQ tests.

[jellomizer]

IQ tests are only relevant when someone scores well below average or Well above average. These difference in points like the rise you get when listening to Mozart or the drop you get from Reading emails, while may be statically significant in reality means very little. A person with an IQ of 95 vs. a Person with an IQ of 130 Will not see any difference ones ability to learn. And other factors such as the ability to pay more attention during classes or better memory, better self organization, will to learn the information, ability to manage distractions. Sure people with low IQs have to work very hard to learn information and people with High IQ learn information very quickly. But small difference doesn't really prove anything.

Sol, if you're scanning the passport

[darkonc]

If you're physically scanning the passport, you no longer have any of the advantages of RFID over, say, magstripe or 2D barcodes.

In the meantime, You can still confirm someone's identity uniquely by the transmissions of their passport -- Who they are needs to be determined separately, but you don't need to decode an RFID to use it for tracking. -- it's just a case of having a transmitter/reciever that's powerful enough to get thru the passport's tinfoile hat.

Re:Sol, if you're scanning the passport

[evanh23]

well, my first thought would be that if you are only thinking about using the passport at ONE workstation/checkpoint, you are absolutely correct. However, if you scan the barcode with the key for decryption at the first checkpoint and use a secure network (to transmit the decryption key to other nodes on the network), then the RFID can be read anywhere on this network.

Think about scanning your passport when you check in at the airport, then not having to show ID to get through the metal detector or at customs. There could be good value there.

OTOH, if you are only scanning the passport at the metal detector, then yes, it seems like quite a waste.

You really have to analyze a solution in relation its problem before you can make any judgement as to its utility.

Re:Sol, if you're scanning the passport

[darkonc]

You don't have to send anything other than a hash on the raw data and/or the decoded data itself. The data in the RFID tag (encrypted or not) is it's own identifier. If all I want to do is track where you are, I don't even need to be able to decode the data. If I need the decoded data off of the card, I get it on the first read.

In any case, even if you give the chip adequate protection to prevent at-distance reading, then all of the advantages of the tag (vs smart-chip) go away -- but you still have the risk that (sophisticated) criminals will find ways to do distance readings... especially with changes in technology.

The problem with distance readings is multiple:

• If I know who you are, and I can scan your passport, that data will now identify you (reverse replay attack -- no need to decode).
• If cards of a given country have recognizable features, I may be able to identify someone carrying (say) a US passport.
• People with passports, generally, are likely to be 'juicy' (foreign) targets. Responding to a scan means you're carying a passport.
• There are various 'social engineering' methods to obtain the pasword. Obtaining the RFID data and the password can be done at completely unrelated times and location. Depepending on what's on them, this could be very useful for identity theft.
• Some crooks will simply obtain/trade libraries of password data, and use that in dictionary attacks against a similar bank of encrypted RFID data. (script kiddie approach)

Re:The PCP Theorem

[Pseudonym]

It gets worse than patents...

When Adi Shamir (the "S" of "RSA") discovered zero-knowledge proof systems, the US millitary tried to suppress all of his work on it, including all copies of the journal in which he published. Needless to say, the mathematical establishment was unhappy with this. They relented only when they realised that they couldn't do it to an Israeli citizen.