Vetting a product does not require opening the source. One could look at the specifications of the company. If you think the manufacturer will lie about the specs then you really need to check your paranoia bias. Now not only will the state lie by giving fingerprint data to the police but vendors will too and open themselves up to liability. One sale is not worth a multimillion dollar lawsuit.
Sorry, it looks like I typed in 20 instead of 28. Still, 20% is much less than half.
That's far beyond indulgence, that's overwhelming the discussion with a single viewpoint.
That is your opinion and I disagree. Are we only allowed to speak as much as you deem valid? What happened to free speech?
This is a feature, and one I think the union is right to maintain. I don't want a society where everyone is tracked all the time.
If by "all the time" you mean "when being paid to be somewhere" I disagree. If someone is being paid to be at a place of work for a specific time I see no problem with tracking to ensure they are there. If they are on their own time then tracking is not valid.
I also notice you have backed off on the " pretty much everything you've posted irrelevant", and are now talking about paper systems, without acknowledging the mistake on your part.
So far you have equated 20% to 50% and "during working hours" to "all the time". Obvious exaggerations do not help your case.
knowing that just being there is more important than actually doing anything.
That is an assumption. To me, being there is part of doing the work. If you don't clock in it is obvious that the work is not done and there is no need to send someone out to inspect it.
It is strange how a 5% (a plant producing 10% working at half capacity) reduction in capacity can result in large price changes. This is where I have issue with supply/demand pricing. If one can convince buyers something is scarce the price goes up even when the scarcity is not real.
Do the math; 28 out of 143 is 14% and much less than half. I am just responding to people who post. They are called discussions and I enjoy discussions. I may be a little OCD but I have the time to indulge it.
If so, do you know for certain that the existing system is paper based?
I was responding to a post that mentioned "pen and paper" and showing how it can be faked. Check the parent of my post.
It's an issue of being tracked. With pen & paper there is no certainty you were there.
A few things about your examples. The Brazillian Doctor was caught so it was not successful Here is a quote from the Australian article;
"Whether it can be hacked depends on how clever the device is. If it is a reasonable quality, it will look for blood flow and heat, but entry-level models do not."
Mabe they will use devices better than entry level. The gummie bear issue was from a paper written 11 years ago and there may have been some advancements to counter that threat. I am not saying it is impossible but it is much more difficult than handing a card to a co-worker.
You are blaming the complainer, and you claim that because "everybody is doing it" it must therefore be just and righteous.
I am "blaming" no one. They are stating a conclusion with no supporting explanation. For me to agree with a conclusion I need the explanation. Just because a union says it is "draconian and an attack on civil liberties" does not make it so.
Neither do they, because there's good money to be swindled out of the gullible, or they are the gullible.
By "they", do you mean the unions? Who have a vested interest in making a big stink about everything to justify the money that take in dues and the interest in keeping their time card scam available to the union members?
Just because there is a way something can be done, doesn't mean everyone's going to do it that way.
FTFY. It could be negotiated in the union contract that no images are stored or transmitted from the readers with significant penalties for breaking the contract. One of the stipulation would be that the union has the ability to vet the devices to ensure compliance.
The main group of people who have fingerprints taken are criminals, are the cleaners criminals?
Many other classes of people are finger printed. In some instances it is require for background checks. Taking the image of one finger and storing a mathematical representation is very different that imaging all ten digits and putting it in a criminal database.
There is always a supervisor/ team leader in charge of a particular crew who knows the people working for him and who is on shift and who isn't in any job. Isn't that enough?
Are you sure about that? It could also be one or two workers patrolling a station dealing with issues with no supervisor is present. The London Underground is very spread out.
Both of these issues can be negotiated in the contract with penalties for breaking said contract. The issue with police is moot because the police could just request one's time card to take finger prints from.
Because I have done the research and have not found one. This could also be a point of compromise for the union to stipulate that the readers do not have image capability.
The failure if slipper slope arguments is that no matter what is proposed there is a possible bad outcome after a number of future steps. Nothing would get done. If something is wrong now the stop it. If something is going wrong in the future stop it then. Don't stop a good thing now because something bad may happen in the future. The point is that slippery slope arguments assume inevitability and nothing except death and taxes is inevitable.
It is now 20 out of 96 and almost all of them in a thread I started. I enjoy discussions rather than making an empty comment as AC and walking away. By the way, I never post AC; If I say something I stand by it.(Unlike other people)
On the point of incompetent management. The London Underground is spread out all over London. Workers are spread out all over London. It would take hundreds of supervisors running around station to station all day checking on people to ensure they are actually there doing their job. The London Underground is not a factory floor.
Most people only have ten fingerprints, it can only be compromised so many times before it is a nasty problem for the individual.
Sorry but that is overstating the issue. Fingerprint scanner information is not transferable between systems. It is a mathematical representation specific to the company and sometimes model of scanner. It is extremely rare that scanners from different companies can work from the same data.
Punch machines work well if there is one entrance and one exit. The Underground is spread all over London. A cleaner is usually assigned a station or stations to clean. There would need to be a punch card at each station for every employee. That is not a viable system. Should they have to punch in at a central location rather than just going to their assigned location in the first place? What a waste of time.
It would appear that it is the union's job to decide that, not yours.
As a thinking human being I can make judgement calls. In my judgement up to ten minutes a day is no hardship. I have shown up early and stayed late at most of my jobs and it hasn't killed me yet.
Fraud is only one issue. Costs are another. It takes money and introduces transcription errors to process paper time sheets. Card system also cost more to implement due to issuing initial and lost cards.
Whether that qualifies under the rubric of civil liberties, I don't know, but it is a socially destructive path to take.
Then why have any time sheets at all? Why not just pay everyone for the shifts they are scheduled to work? We have been on that path since the industrial revolution. Why is it now a problem? The issue is that there are criminals in the system and to stop them from exploiting the system everyone has to go through the BS. The reason we can not trust everyone is that there is a significant portion of the population that is not worthy of trust and everyone has to be treated the same way.
By the way, the "gummy bear copy" paper as written eleven years ago. There may have been some advancements that make that study a bit outdated.
Glad you admitted the "slippery slope" basis. Like all "slipper slope" arguments this one is an informal fallacy. You last statement would be considered a "red herring", another informal fallacy, as the TSA has nothing to do with Underground cleaner time sheets.
What is pretty certain is that somebody worked and that somebody is attached to a number that should get paid.
There is a simple scam that gets around paper systems. You tell you mate that you are going to be late so he leaves a blank line on the sign in sheet above his name. When you get there you sign in on the blank line and no one will be the wiser.
The other issue with paper systems is that they have to be transcribed by a person into the payroll system. That introduces mistakes and higher costs.
Slashdot Mirror
Then there is "requesting all time cards".
Why should we trust a biometrics vender?
Because they will be sued out if business if they are found to lie. Considering things like Snowden it is very difficult to keep a lie these days.
Vetting a product does not require opening the source. One could look at the specifications of the company. If you think the manufacturer will lie about the specs then you really need to check your paranoia bias. Now not only will the state lie by giving fingerprint data to the police but vendors will too and open themselves up to liability. One sale is not worth a multimillion dollar lawsuit.
No, it's almost 20%.
Sorry, it looks like I typed in 20 instead of 28. Still, 20% is much less than half.
That's far beyond indulgence, that's overwhelming the discussion with a single viewpoint.
That is your opinion and I disagree. Are we only allowed to speak as much as you deem valid? What happened to free speech?
This is a feature, and one I think the union is right to maintain. I don't want a society where everyone is tracked all the time.
If by "all the time" you mean "when being paid to be somewhere" I disagree. If someone is being paid to be at a place of work for a specific time I see no problem with tracking to ensure they are there. If they are on their own time then tracking is not valid.
I also notice you have backed off on the " pretty much everything you've posted irrelevant", and are now talking about paper systems, without acknowledging the mistake on your part.
So far you have equated 20% to 50% and "during working hours" to "all the time". Obvious exaggerations do not help your case.
knowing that just being there is more important than actually doing anything.
That is an assumption. To me, being there is part of doing the work. If you don't clock in it is obvious that the work is not done and there is no need to send someone out to inspect it.
It is strange how a 5% (a plant producing 10% working at half capacity) reduction in capacity can result in large price changes. This is where I have issue with supply/demand pricing. If one can convince buyers something is scarce the price goes up even when the scarcity is not real.
It shouldn't be too difficult for a manager to travel between stations to check on their staff. There are trains.
Difficult no; time consuming yes (leading to higher costs).
The stations are already covered with CCTV cameras
You don't think the union would have an issue with that too?
Having them clocked in by fingerprint makes no difference at all.
The difference is lower costs and less fraud.
Half the comments on this story are yours.
Do the math; 28 out of 143 is 14% and much less than half. I am just responding to people who post. They are called discussions and I enjoy discussions. I may be a little OCD but I have the time to indulge it.
If so, do you know for certain that the existing system is paper based?
I was responding to a post that mentioned "pen and paper" and showing how it can be faked. Check the parent of my post.
It's an issue of being tracked. With pen & paper there is no certainty you were there.
A few things about your examples. The Brazillian Doctor was caught so it was not successful Here is a quote from the Australian article;
"Whether it can be hacked depends on how clever the device is. If it is a reasonable quality, it will look for blood flow and heat, but entry-level models do not."
Mabe they will use devices better than entry level. The gummie bear issue was from a paper written 11 years ago and there may have been some advancements to counter that threat. I am not saying it is impossible but it is much more difficult than handing a card to a co-worker.
You are blaming the complainer, and you claim that because "everybody is doing it" it must therefore be just and righteous.
I am "blaming" no one. They are stating a conclusion with no supporting explanation. For me to agree with a conclusion I need the explanation. Just because a union says it is "draconian and an attack on civil liberties" does not make it so.
Neither do they, because there's good money to be swindled out of the gullible, or they are the gullible.
By "they", do you mean the unions? Who have a vested interest in making a big stink about everything to justify the money that take in dues and the interest in keeping their time card scam available to the union members?
Just because there is a way something can be done, doesn't mean everyone's going to do it that way.
FTFY. It could be negotiated in the union contract that no images are stored or transmitted from the readers with significant penalties for breaking the contract. One of the stipulation would be that the union has the ability to vet the devices to ensure compliance.
RFID cards can be passed along to a mate to fake being there. That is much harder with fingerprints.
The main group of people who have fingerprints taken are criminals, are the cleaners criminals?
Many other classes of people are finger printed. In some instances it is require for background checks. Taking the image of one finger and storing a mathematical representation is very different that imaging all ten digits and putting it in a criminal database.
There is always a supervisor/ team leader in charge of a particular crew who knows the people working for him and who is on shift and who isn't in any job. Isn't that enough?
Are you sure about that? It could also be one or two workers patrolling a station dealing with issues with no supervisor is present. The London Underground is very spread out.
Both of these issues can be negotiated in the contract with penalties for breaking said contract. The issue with police is moot because the police could just request one's time card to take finger prints from.
Because I have done the research and have not found one. This could also be a point of compromise for the union to stipulate that the readers do not have image capability.
Care to cite the make and model numbers of these scanners?
The failure if slipper slope arguments is that no matter what is proposed there is a possible bad outcome after a number of future steps. Nothing would get done. If something is wrong now the stop it. If something is going wrong in the future stop it then. Don't stop a good thing now because something bad may happen in the future. The point is that slippery slope arguments assume inevitability and nothing except death and taxes is inevitable.
It is now 20 out of 96 and almost all of them in a thread I started. I enjoy discussions rather than making an empty comment as AC and walking away. By the way, I never post AC; If I say something I stand by it.(Unlike other people)
On the point of incompetent management. The London Underground is spread out all over London. Workers are spread out all over London. It would take hundreds of supervisors running around station to station all day checking on people to ensure they are actually there doing their job. The London Underground is not a factory floor.
Most people only have ten fingerprints, it can only be compromised so many times before it is a nasty problem for the individual.
Sorry but that is overstating the issue. Fingerprint scanner information is not transferable between systems. It is a mathematical representation specific to the company and sometimes model of scanner. It is extremely rare that scanners from different companies can work from the same data.
Punch machines work well if there is one entrance and one exit. The Underground is spread all over London. A cleaner is usually assigned a station or stations to clean. There would need to be a punch card at each station for every employee. That is not a viable system. Should they have to punch in at a central location rather than just going to their assigned location in the first place? What a waste of time.
It would appear that it is the union's job to decide that, not yours.
As a thinking human being I can make judgement calls. In my judgement up to ten minutes a day is no hardship. I have shown up early and stayed late at most of my jobs and it hasn't killed me yet.
Care to cite any studies or article where this has happened? Otherwise it is pure conjecture on your part.
Nothing is perfect but decreasing fraud is a valid goal.
Fraud is only one issue. Costs are another. It takes money and introduces transcription errors to process paper time sheets. Card system also cost more to implement due to issuing initial and lost cards.
Whether that qualifies under the rubric of civil liberties, I don't know, but it is a socially destructive path to take.
Then why have any time sheets at all? Why not just pay everyone for the shifts they are scheduled to work? We have been on that path since the industrial revolution. Why is it now a problem? The issue is that there are criminals in the system and to stop them from exploiting the system everyone has to go through the BS. The reason we can not trust everyone is that there is a significant portion of the population that is not worthy of trust and everyone has to be treated the same way.
By the way, the "gummy bear copy" paper as written eleven years ago. There may have been some advancements that make that study a bit outdated.
Glad you admitted the "slippery slope" basis. Like all "slipper slope" arguments this one is an informal fallacy. You last statement would be considered a "red herring", another informal fallacy, as the TSA has nothing to do with Underground cleaner time sheets.
Read up on how fingerprint scanners work. They do not store the actual fingerprint.
What is pretty certain is that somebody worked and that somebody is attached to a number that should get paid.
There is a simple scam that gets around paper systems. You tell you mate that you are going to be late so he leaves a blank line on the sign in sheet above his name. When you get there you sign in on the blank line and no one will be the wiser.
The other issue with paper systems is that they have to be transcribed by a person into the payroll system. That introduces mistakes and higher costs.