This argument could be used for many professions. My wife is a dental hygienist. Her instruments wear out and she has to buy new ones. My brother-in-law is a plumber. After so many uses, his tools become useless, too. He has to maintain his van to go onsite, and he has to pay to maintain his certifications from year to year. This is no different than what you are talking about. So build the cost of your tools into the price you charge for your time. It still doesn't refute the fact that a photographer shouldn't need to maintain the copyright to pictures of my kids.
Now, let me start by saying that what the "large faceless corporation" did in this case was clearly wrong. No matter how you feel about an artists' work and their ability to charge what they want for it, telling them to piss off and using their work anyway, then lying to a judge about it is not only wrong but stupid.
That being said, I am recently finding myself unable to wrap my brain around how photographers charge for their work and how they can justify their business model.
Case in point: I'd like to get my kids' pictures taken. No print ad campaigns or web advertisements, just pictures of my kids, maybe myself and my wife. In the past we've used a place that takes really nice pictures, but they insist that the only way you can get their prints is to purchase print packages from them. I understand they are trying to make back their money invested in the initial sitting, but I can't wrap my head around how they are trying to take an old business model (selling photographic prints) and apply it to this new, digital age. All of their cameras are digital, but they won't sell me the RAW digital files, not for any price. However, they also delete the copies after 90 days, so they take digital pictures, print me out copies, then (presumably) destroy the originals.
Now, I'm by no means a photographic professional, but I know my way around Photoshop, and can think of dozens of things I'd like to do with these pictures, maybe now, maybe 20 years from now, I don't know. What I'd really like is a photographer whom I could pay for his/her time and the use of their equipment to produce pictures that I can do whatever the hell I want with. I've called around and can't find anyone who operates in such a way. The photographers I talked to all said I was nuts to be looking for such a service, because they were unwilling to enter into an "open ended contract" whereby they lose control over their own work. I don't think it's an unreasonable request. In all honesty, I know how much I spent on the print packages I got in the past, and I'd be willing to pay a premium above and beyond that for such a service. Nobody is losing money, and in fact some photographer could get more of my money for providing less of a service. (i.e. maybe they don't have to print so many prints up front because I know that I can get more printed later somewhere else, or maybe even with them if their work is good and prices are fair.)
I design and install computer systems for a living. People pay for my time. Let's say I set up the network for some small startup operation called "Facebook." (I didn't, purely hypothetical) That operation takes off using the backbone that I set up, becoming one of the fastest growing and most successful business on the Internet. Guess how much of that $15 billion I'd see. (Or expect to see) ZERO. Never mind that it was my genius design that enabled them to do what it was they were trying to do. I went in, did a service, and I was done. Why is photography inherently different?
Dang, your maths are right on. I have some (bad) experience with satellite connections. I always assumed the relay back and forth to the satellite was responsible for a few milliseconds here or there, but I always thought that the majority of the delay was due to processing at the satellite or a sucky head-end from the ISP. 477ms of latency just due to the speed of light, so really there's no way that they are ever going to be able to offer anything good based in space, unless they figure out a way to use networked satellites in a much lower stable orbit. They wouldn't be geosynchronous, but I bet there's a creative way they could mesh satellites together to relay data.
Millions of dollars for what is now a giant hunk of metal. I sure hope they got something out of the project before transmission was cut off. Hell yeah! Preach it brother! Reminds me of those two hunks of junk they shot up to Mars. I mean, those $820 million tin cans aren't even 5 years old yet, and they're barely running. What a waste of money! My car only cost $15000, and it's been running for 15 years. Someone at NASA really deserves to be fired over these blatant wastes of money.
Your hubris is unjustified. I have personally seen a (rather beefy) Linux router that had 150 - 200 users at any given time on a single public IP, and ran fine. My friend was re-selling wireless Internet access at a campground, so it's likely that at least 4 out of every 5 of those connections were surfing porn.
I've admittedly been out of the Cisco game for a few years, but as of 2002 or so, most of their equipment was running 368 and 486 level processors with a few megabytes of RAM. That's much more likely the problem in your example. My friend's Linux box was a dual processor high end XEON with 4GB of RAM. He ran these connections through NAT as well as a SNORT firewall, and the load on the box stayed relatively low. Also, the NAT software has a lot to do with it. On the linux distro that I use (ClarkConnect) the NAT table expires the states in like 2 minutes. Unless you're running persistent services on these machines, I think each user would have trouble keeping 300+ connections up all the time. That's not saying that they couldn't get 1000 connections up for a short period, but for 200 users to keep 300 connections up for any length of time would likely take some sort of organized effort. Plus if they're surfing porn, their high level of activity probably doesn't last more than 5 minutes.
I don't think you're stupid, the issue is somewhat complex. The $0.20 charge is not for the consumer, it's for the registrant. The scripts would be written by folks like you and I, (or a million other nerds that read Slashdot) and they would be designed to generate lots and lots of noise so that the companies could stop using their positions of power to take advantage of the regular folks on the Internet.
Here is an experiment that I encourage you to try on your own: I just now, right now, made up the domain flipperjikk.com. Make up your own and follow along. Use long random strings of letters to make sure it's not an accident. I went to GoDaddy and did a search and the domain is available. Great! I then went to Network Solutions and searched for the same domain name, just to be sure. Yep, it's still available. Immediately, I went back to GoDaddy, and lo and behold, in the 15 seconds since I checked the first time, somebody else must have come up with the exact same domain name as I did, because flipperjikk.com appears to have now been registered, and is no longer available. And it cost Network Solutions nothing to register this, because they can just get a refund in 5 days if I decide not to register it. The insidious part is, odds are that domain may NEVER become available again, because once the 5-day period expires, some squatter will see it's expiring, someone's interested in it, and register it for themselves, using the same technique. Domains can sit in limbo for months going back and forth between different shell companies using this trial period. Nobody pays a dime (or two) for all this activity.
The script I mentioned could search the availability for random domains all day. djiuqeruoweit.com, agrhlreijilaer.com, wejhafkljherk,com, etc. The registrants would be overwhelmed with searches, and they would no longer be able to tell which domains people were actually interested in, and which ones were garbage. If they register all the searches using an automated script (which they clearly did with flipperjikk.com) it would cost them millions per day.
This $0.20 tax would in no way hurt you and I. It would just discourage the registrants from registering every domain that they think people might be slightly interested in, because now it costs them money.
I know this is Slashdot and nobody is expected to RTFA anymore, but at least RTFS(ummary):
In some cases... the committee found that a separate practice of domain name tasting may be causing problems ICANN acknowledged that domain tasting is bad and is considering charging a $.20 non-refundable fee to registrants per domain reserved. This would more or less end domain tasting, or at least create an economic disincentive for registrants to do it.
If they would put this $.20 fee in place, then people would just start writing scripts to generate millions of random queries per day, and the practice would end overnight.
Why would they do that? Then they would lose ALL revenue, as the work is no longer copyrighted. At least when they're paying out royalties, they get something.
Well, like I said, I don't really agree with your point of view.:) I think that our administration had a boner for Iraq since before Bush's term even started. I think that the charges of WMD were trumped up as an excuse to invade a country that, while not the greatest place in the world, was more or less minding its own business. And if we're going to criticize a country for human rights violations, we should really take a long, hard look at our largest trading partner before killing thousands of innocents in the name of "Saddam was a bad guy."
That being said, I disagree ten times more with the douchebag(s) who tried to censor your opinion because he/she doesn't agree with it. The lynch-pin of freedom is the ability to tolerate, even rationally discuss with those with whom you disagree. I probably didn't change your mind about the war in Iraq with my little soapbox spiel above, and you didn't change my mind with your previous post. However, I think that we are both richer people for having exchanged points of view and engaged in rational discussion.
You know an even easier way to get out of jury duty? Present yourself as honest, intelligent and capable of rational thought. They'll throw you out on day one.
You know, I don't agree with this guy one bit, but how is this modded troll? Just because people don't agree with his opinion? I troll mod should be reserved for "FIRST POST!!!", people from the GNAA or someone who says "All you liberals suck! GO USA!!!"
His opinion, while disagreeable to some, is still valid.
my bandwidth is not shaped (unless I exceed a soft limit of 100 GB of bandwidth per month) In North Korea, freedom of speech is not limited, unless you say disparaging comments about the great and glorious leader.
Looking at the map of High Speed Providers by Zip Code, it would in fact appear that we as a nation are in pretty good shape. Problem is, the pictures people are using to educate our leaders reflect some fictional, non-existent universe. I live in Central Ohio. Looking at that map, it appears that I have PLENTY of choices for broadband coverage. It would also appear that there is no place in my state that isn't covered by at least 4-6 providers. I'd like some of whatever that map-maker was smoking, because it must be some good stuff. As an IT consultant, I can say assuredly that MOST places in the state have, at most, a single provider. Where I live, it's Insight (RoadRunner) or nothing. My parents have another, single, provider. Where I work, I have only one option. I have a client who lives about a 22 miles from me who has no broadband options at all.
I think the fallacy here is that they're probably counting technologies as "broadband" that shouldn't really be considered. ISDN is not broadband. Counting Satellite as broadband is a mistake, too. If you've ever used it, you know what I'm talking about. You can't count the cellular 144k as broadband, because in practice, it's not really faster than dial-up, and you can't count a $1000/month leased line as broadband, because most people aren't going to pay 30% of their income to cover their broadband connection.
We can't delude ourselves with fake numbers and expect to know what's really going on. We're holding on to our past glory not even realizing that we're becoming less and less relevant every day. Sure, we built a nuclear bomb and put a man on the moon, but do you know of anyone in today's workforce that was part of either of those projects? Our highway system, built in the 50's, is great, but there's a heavily travelled bridge down the street from me that's been out for 2 years. The World Trade Center got knocked down over 6 years ago, and there's still a giant smoldering hole in South Manhattan because we can't see past our greed and get our crap together. We have a president that thinks scientific advancement is sinful, and an aging, over-extended military that can't even defeat a bunch of disorganized rebels in two third-world countries.
I hope and pray that we soon get our stuff together. I don't think it's too late yet, but it's getting pretty close.
I think the thought process is this: 20 years ago it would have been inconceivable that most people would have their own cell phones and many people would be ditching their land lines. It's a rough, but fair analogy. I still don't think it'll happen, but it's an interesting concept.
I am, but I am also aware that they seem to be dragging their feet. It may just be that the artists I enjoy aren't available on the site because of the labels they are signed with, but I have found that every time I have ever searched for anything on Amazon.com MP3 downloads, it hasn't been there. I really hope this announcement is followed by some real action and I can start purchasing music again...
It's nice to hear about these companies that are going to release DRM-free music, but I have yet to see anything real. It's the kind of thing that makes a nice press announcement, but it seems like they don't really have to do anything. With today's technology and the existing infrastructure, it should take about 15 minutes to get this thing up and running. What's the hold-up? I'm still waiting on my Beatles on iTunes that was announced in early 2007!
That CNN link probably wasn't a communications satellite. It was probably a "communications" satellite. So the end result could be similar to what we saw in your photos, except we have no idea where it's going to land.
I'm afraid you have it backwards. Gasoline is not directly subsidized in the US, but it is very heavily taxed in other markets, especially Europe. Now, there ARE subsidies for oil companies, thanks to the lobbyists in Washington, but those are intended strictly to further profits^H^H^H^H^H^H^H research and executive bonuses^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H discovery for the oil companies, NOT to reduce the cost of gasoline. In the US, you can pretty much follow the cost of oil, refinement, tax and profit to arrive at the cost per gallon, give or take a few cents.
Beethoven and Bach were paid to write music, but they did not get royalties each time it was performed. Nor did the person who commissioned it. Nobody at the time would have considered it stealing if some other orchestra performed their works. In fact, they would have most likely been honored. (Assuming it was performed well... Beethoven was a notorious perfectionist when he still had his hearing, and WOULD have taken offense if someone butchered his work.)
You tell someone on the phone your password. That person now knows your password. That's why a single-use password set on a secure site would be such a huge improvement. When I go out washing-machine shopping, I know in advance that I'm going to apply for instant credit. Before I pack up and head out to the Buy-More, I just go to a site and get a single use password. I could even get two or three if I know I'm going on a mad spending spree. It doesn't even have to be that secure, because dictionary attacks aren't very useful for a single-use password that expires in 8 hours and has to be validated by a person rather than a machine that accepts 1.4 million passwords per second. Granted, there are weaknesses in this system. Someone could hack into my 'secure' account when I set my password to 'Password123' and generate passwords all day. However, at least it gives me the power to protect my own information, rather than trusting some 19 year old intern who keeps an unencrypted backup tape in the back seat of his car.
Also note here that I'm talking about ID theft and applying for credit, not credit card authentication. That's a whole 'nother ball of yarn.
Honestly, how long until someone realizes the current system is broken? We can't hope to keep our Social Security numbers secret indefinitely. We have everything in your life tied to this one, unchangeable number. The credit system needs to be overhauled so that it doesn't matter if you have my name, address, SS# and mother's maiden name. Just off the top of my head, how about a challenge-response system. In a secure manner, I set a secret password. For more security, you could even set single-use passwords. When I go out to get credit, I tell someone on the phone my password. Someone else goes out and tries to get credit without my password and they get arrested. It's not perfect, but a hell of a lot better than what we have now. And it took me 5 minutes to think that up. I bet someone with 6 weeks and half a million dollars could come up with an even better way.
Slashdot Mirror
This argument could be used for many professions. My wife is a dental hygienist. Her instruments wear out and she has to buy new ones. My brother-in-law is a plumber. After so many uses, his tools become useless, too. He has to maintain his van to go onsite, and he has to pay to maintain his certifications from year to year. This is no different than what you are talking about. So build the cost of your tools into the price you charge for your time. It still doesn't refute the fact that a photographer shouldn't need to maintain the copyright to pictures of my kids.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that the article appears to be edited by Cookie Monster.
Wow... did you read the rest of my post, or just skip to the last paragraph and post a reply?
Now, let me start by saying that what the "large faceless corporation" did in this case was clearly wrong. No matter how you feel about an artists' work and their ability to charge what they want for it, telling them to piss off and using their work anyway, then lying to a judge about it is not only wrong but stupid.
That being said, I am recently finding myself unable to wrap my brain around how photographers charge for their work and how they can justify their business model.
Case in point: I'd like to get my kids' pictures taken. No print ad campaigns or web advertisements, just pictures of my kids, maybe myself and my wife. In the past we've used a place that takes really nice pictures, but they insist that the only way you can get their prints is to purchase print packages from them. I understand they are trying to make back their money invested in the initial sitting, but I can't wrap my head around how they are trying to take an old business model (selling photographic prints) and apply it to this new, digital age. All of their cameras are digital, but they won't sell me the RAW digital files, not for any price. However, they also delete the copies after 90 days, so they take digital pictures, print me out copies, then (presumably) destroy the originals.
Now, I'm by no means a photographic professional, but I know my way around Photoshop, and can think of dozens of things I'd like to do with these pictures, maybe now, maybe 20 years from now, I don't know. What I'd really like is a photographer whom I could pay for his/her time and the use of their equipment to produce pictures that I can do whatever the hell I want with. I've called around and can't find anyone who operates in such a way. The photographers I talked to all said I was nuts to be looking for such a service, because they were unwilling to enter into an "open ended contract" whereby they lose control over their own work. I don't think it's an unreasonable request. In all honesty, I know how much I spent on the print packages I got in the past, and I'd be willing to pay a premium above and beyond that for such a service. Nobody is losing money, and in fact some photographer could get more of my money for providing less of a service. (i.e. maybe they don't have to print so many prints up front because I know that I can get more printed later somewhere else, or maybe even with them if their work is good and prices are fair.)
I design and install computer systems for a living. People pay for my time. Let's say I set up the network for some small startup operation called "Facebook." (I didn't, purely hypothetical) That operation takes off using the backbone that I set up, becoming one of the fastest growing and most successful business on the Internet. Guess how much of that $15 billion I'd see. (Or expect to see) ZERO. Never mind that it was my genius design that enabled them to do what it was they were trying to do. I went in, did a service, and I was done. Why is photography inherently different?
Dang, your maths are right on. I have some (bad) experience with satellite connections. I always assumed the relay back and forth to the satellite was responsible for a few milliseconds here or there, but I always thought that the majority of the delay was due to processing at the satellite or a sucky head-end from the ISP. 477ms of latency just due to the speed of light, so really there's no way that they are ever going to be able to offer anything good based in space, unless they figure out a way to use networked satellites in a much lower stable orbit. They wouldn't be geosynchronous, but I bet there's a creative way they could mesh satellites together to relay data.
[/sarcasm]
Your hubris is unjustified. I have personally seen a (rather beefy) Linux router that had 150 - 200 users at any given time on a single public IP, and ran fine. My friend was re-selling wireless Internet access at a campground, so it's likely that at least 4 out of every 5 of those connections were surfing porn.
I've admittedly been out of the Cisco game for a few years, but as of 2002 or so, most of their equipment was running 368 and 486 level processors with a few megabytes of RAM. That's much more likely the problem in your example. My friend's Linux box was a dual processor high end XEON with 4GB of RAM. He ran these connections through NAT as well as a SNORT firewall, and the load on the box stayed relatively low. Also, the NAT software has a lot to do with it. On the linux distro that I use (ClarkConnect) the NAT table expires the states in like 2 minutes. Unless you're running persistent services on these machines, I think each user would have trouble keeping 300+ connections up all the time. That's not saying that they couldn't get 1000 connections up for a short period, but for 200 users to keep 300 connections up for any length of time would likely take some sort of organized effort. Plus if they're surfing porn, their high level of activity probably doesn't last more than 5 minutes.
I don't think you're stupid, the issue is somewhat complex. The $0.20 charge is not for the consumer, it's for the registrant. The scripts would be written by folks like you and I, (or a million other nerds that read Slashdot) and they would be designed to generate lots and lots of noise so that the companies could stop using their positions of power to take advantage of the regular folks on the Internet.
Here is an experiment that I encourage you to try on your own: I just now, right now, made up the domain flipperjikk.com. Make up your own and follow along. Use long random strings of letters to make sure it's not an accident. I went to GoDaddy and did a search and the domain is available. Great! I then went to Network Solutions and searched for the same domain name, just to be sure. Yep, it's still available. Immediately, I went back to GoDaddy, and lo and behold, in the 15 seconds since I checked the first time, somebody else must have come up with the exact same domain name as I did, because flipperjikk.com appears to have now been registered, and is no longer available. And it cost Network Solutions nothing to register this, because they can just get a refund in 5 days if I decide not to register it. The insidious part is, odds are that domain may NEVER become available again, because once the 5-day period expires, some squatter will see it's expiring, someone's interested in it, and register it for themselves, using the same technique. Domains can sit in limbo for months going back and forth between different shell companies using this trial period. Nobody pays a dime (or two) for all this activity.
The script I mentioned could search the availability for random domains all day. djiuqeruoweit.com, agrhlreijilaer.com, wejhafkljherk,com, etc. The registrants would be overwhelmed with searches, and they would no longer be able to tell which domains people were actually interested in, and which ones were garbage. If they register all the searches using an automated script (which they clearly did with flipperjikk.com) it would cost them millions per day.
This $0.20 tax would in no way hurt you and I. It would just discourage the registrants from registering every domain that they think people might be slightly interested in, because now it costs them money.
If they would put this $.20 fee in place, then people would just start writing scripts to generate millions of random queries per day, and the practice would end overnight.
Maybe he's a bailiff...
Why would they do that? Then they would lose ALL revenue, as the work is no longer copyrighted. At least when they're paying out royalties, they get something.
Well, like I said, I don't really agree with your point of view. :) I think that our administration had a boner for Iraq since before Bush's term even started. I think that the charges of WMD were trumped up as an excuse to invade a country that, while not the greatest place in the world, was more or less minding its own business. And if we're going to criticize a country for human rights violations, we should really take a long, hard look at our largest trading partner before killing thousands of innocents in the name of "Saddam was a bad guy."
That being said, I disagree ten times more with the douchebag(s) who tried to censor your opinion because he/she doesn't agree with it. The lynch-pin of freedom is the ability to tolerate, even rationally discuss with those with whom you disagree. I probably didn't change your mind about the war in Iraq with my little soapbox spiel above, and you didn't change my mind with your previous post. However, I think that we are both richer people for having exchanged points of view and engaged in rational discussion.
You know an even easier way to get out of jury duty? Present yourself as honest, intelligent and capable of rational thought. They'll throw you out on day one.
You know, I don't agree with this guy one bit, but how is this modded troll? Just because people don't agree with his opinion? I troll mod should be reserved for "FIRST POST!!!", people from the GNAA or someone who says "All you liberals suck! GO USA!!!" His opinion, while disagreeable to some, is still valid.
[/analogy]
Looking at the map of High Speed Providers by Zip Code, it would in fact appear that we as a nation are in pretty good shape. Problem is, the pictures people are using to educate our leaders reflect some fictional, non-existent universe. I live in Central Ohio. Looking at that map, it appears that I have PLENTY of choices for broadband coverage. It would also appear that there is no place in my state that isn't covered by at least 4-6 providers. I'd like some of whatever that map-maker was smoking, because it must be some good stuff. As an IT consultant, I can say assuredly that MOST places in the state have, at most, a single provider. Where I live, it's Insight (RoadRunner) or nothing. My parents have another, single, provider. Where I work, I have only one option. I have a client who lives about a 22 miles from me who has no broadband options at all.
I think the fallacy here is that they're probably counting technologies as "broadband" that shouldn't really be considered. ISDN is not broadband. Counting Satellite as broadband is a mistake, too. If you've ever used it, you know what I'm talking about. You can't count the cellular 144k as broadband, because in practice, it's not really faster than dial-up, and you can't count a $1000/month leased line as broadband, because most people aren't going to pay 30% of their income to cover their broadband connection.
We can't delude ourselves with fake numbers and expect to know what's really going on. We're holding on to our past glory not even realizing that we're becoming less and less relevant every day. Sure, we built a nuclear bomb and put a man on the moon, but do you know of anyone in today's workforce that was part of either of those projects? Our highway system, built in the 50's, is great, but there's a heavily travelled bridge down the street from me that's been out for 2 years. The World Trade Center got knocked down over 6 years ago, and there's still a giant smoldering hole in South Manhattan because we can't see past our greed and get our crap together. We have a president that thinks scientific advancement is sinful, and an aging, over-extended military that can't even defeat a bunch of disorganized rebels in two third-world countries.
I hope and pray that we soon get our stuff together. I don't think it's too late yet, but it's getting pretty close.
I think the thought process is this: 20 years ago it would have been inconceivable that most people would have their own cell phones and many people would be ditching their land lines. It's a rough, but fair analogy. I still don't think it'll happen, but it's an interesting concept.
I am, but I am also aware that they seem to be dragging their feet. It may just be that the artists I enjoy aren't available on the site because of the labels they are signed with, but I have found that every time I have ever searched for anything on Amazon.com MP3 downloads, it hasn't been there. I really hope this announcement is followed by some real action and I can start purchasing music again...
It's nice to hear about these companies that are going to release DRM-free music, but I have yet to see anything real. It's the kind of thing that makes a nice press announcement, but it seems like they don't really have to do anything. With today's technology and the existing infrastructure, it should take about 15 minutes to get this thing up and running. What's the hold-up? I'm still waiting on my Beatles on iTunes that was announced in early 2007!
That CNN link probably wasn't a communications satellite. It was probably a "communications" satellite. So the end result could be similar to what we saw in your photos, except we have no idea where it's going to land.
I'm afraid you have it backwards. Gasoline is not directly subsidized in the US, but it is very heavily taxed in other markets, especially Europe. Now, there ARE subsidies for oil companies, thanks to the lobbyists in Washington, but those are intended strictly to further profits^H^H^H^H^H^H^H research and executive bonuses^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H discovery for the oil companies, NOT to reduce the cost of gasoline. In the US, you can pretty much follow the cost of oil, refinement, tax and profit to arrive at the cost per gallon, give or take a few cents.
Beethoven and Bach were paid to write music, but they did not get royalties each time it was performed. Nor did the person who commissioned it. Nobody at the time would have considered it stealing if some other orchestra performed their works. In fact, they would have most likely been honored. (Assuming it was performed well... Beethoven was a notorious perfectionist when he still had his hearing, and WOULD have taken offense if someone butchered his work.)
Also note here that I'm talking about ID theft and applying for credit, not credit card authentication. That's a whole 'nother ball of yarn.
Honestly, how long until someone realizes the current system is broken? We can't hope to keep our Social Security numbers secret indefinitely. We have everything in your life tied to this one, unchangeable number. The credit system needs to be overhauled so that it doesn't matter if you have my name, address, SS# and mother's maiden name. Just off the top of my head, how about a challenge-response system. In a secure manner, I set a secret password. For more security, you could even set single-use passwords. When I go out to get credit, I tell someone on the phone my password. Someone else goes out and tries to get credit without my password and they get arrested. It's not perfect, but a hell of a lot better than what we have now. And it took me 5 minutes to think that up. I bet someone with 6 weeks and half a million dollars could come up with an even better way.