I have have posted a "pledge" http://www.pledgebank.com/100laptop that would allow others to express their interest in supporting the project by purchasing one of the Laptops for ~$300 and letting the extra profits be used to subsidize the ones for developing companies.
If you think that this might be interesting, I suggest that you sign the pledge and also "forward" the link to others who might be interested also so that the media labs can gage the number of people who might support the project.
To repeat, the link to the fuller article on the $100 laptop is:
I am sending this to: PassportRules@state.gov (comments befor april 4-th)
I understand your "desire" to have information on the passports but I would suggest that you re-consider the current proposal of having lots of unencrypted info readable via RFID.
My suggestion would be that you REQUIRE:
a) That there be no way for another person to read the information without knowledge of the passport holder. -- e.g. what ever system you use it should require physical contact, or some other secure way of ensuring that it is NOT POSSIBLE for an eve's dropper or scanner to get the information. RFID is designed for remote reading, and I do not believe that this is acceptable for password information.\
NOTE: Including shielding in the passport is ESSENTIAL regardless, but can only prevent others from reading it while it is closed and not when it is open for you to read it.
b) As little personal information as possible should be stored on the passport. I would suggest that you will need to be able to update the information anyway, and thus it would be desirable to put a machine readable ID on the passport, but then leave personal information on your system. That way anyone who accesses the passport is not obtaining any personal information, but just the ID. This ID is as useless as a stolen passport and does not present any additional security or privacy risks.
Thus, I agree that there should be some way to identify a passport, I hope that you strongly consider the down sides of remote reading and of putting a lot of information on the system and instead set up a system that can not be read by third parties and even if it is, only carries information that is an index, ID, into a system that you continue to control.
I think I'd prefer the PC (open) solutions, but...
. 1) They tend to be more expensive, harder to setup, and may be somewhat less user friendly (depending on the user)
. 2) More importantly, they do not record 2 channels of straight digital. -- The DirecTiVo, and Microsoft put the original digital signal on the disk and don't need A/D converters so that the signal is not degraded Digital --> Analog --> Digital with cheap D/A converter --> Analog to TV. and since there is no need to have the A/D converter, the Microsoft system can record 2 channels at the same time.
So, though I'd prefer the open system, until we can get Digital tuners for the PC's, there are some majore advantages to the Microsoft, DirecTivo type propritory systems.
Slashdot Mirror
I have have posted a "pledge" http://www.pledgebank.com/100laptop that would allow others to express their interest in supporting the project by purchasing one of the Laptops for ~$300 and letting the extra profits be used to subsidize the ones for developing companies.
If you think that this might be interesting, I suggest that you sign the pledge and also "forward" the link to others who might be interested also so that the media labs can gage the number of people who might support the project.
To repeat, the link to the fuller article on the $100 laptop is:
. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003707.html
and to the pledge site is:
. http://www.pledgebank.com/100laptop
I am sending this to: PassportRules@state.gov (comments befor april 4-th)
I understand your "desire" to have information on the passports but I would suggest that you re-consider the current proposal of having lots of unencrypted info readable via RFID.
My suggestion would be that you REQUIRE:
a) That there be no way for another person to read the information without knowledge of the passport holder. -- e.g. what ever system you use it should require physical contact, or some other secure way of ensuring that it is NOT POSSIBLE for an eve's dropper or scanner to get the information. RFID is designed for remote reading, and I do not believe that this is acceptable for password information.\
NOTE: Including shielding in the passport is ESSENTIAL regardless, but can only prevent others from reading it while it is closed and not when it is open for you to read it.
b) As little personal information as possible should be stored on the passport. I would suggest that you will need to be able to update the information anyway, and thus it would be desirable to put a machine readable ID on the passport, but then leave personal information on your system. That way anyone who accesses the passport is not obtaining any personal information, but just the ID. This ID is as useless as a stolen passport and does not present any additional security or privacy risks.
Thus, I agree that there should be some way to identify a passport, I hope that you strongly consider the down sides of remote reading and of putting a lot of information on the system and instead set up a system that can not be read by third parties and even if it is, only carries information that is an index, ID, into a system that you continue to control.
. 1) They tend to be more expensive, harder to setup, and may be somewhat less user friendly (depending on the user)
. 2) More importantly, they do not record 2 channels of straight digital. -- The DirecTiVo, and Microsoft put the original digital signal on the disk and don't need A/D converters so that the signal is not degraded Digital --> Analog --> Digital with cheap D/A converter --> Analog to TV. and since there is no need to have the A/D converter, the Microsoft system can record 2 channels at the same time.
So, though I'd prefer the open system, until we can get Digital tuners for the PC's, there are some majore advantages to the Microsoft, DirecTivo type propritory systems.