I agree that the risk of upgrading their system in that fiscal enviornment might have been more, in their minds, than the risk of keeping what's been working fine for 20 years, but to according to the article they did not even have a backup system and this was a mission critical application. It sounds like they still do not have a backup and instead just split it so that the 32k limit is harder to reach. The failure here was in Disaster Recovery Planning rather than Risk Management Assesments.
Majel Barrett on TOS played Nurse Chapel not the computer, though she did the voice but on Voyager and TNG. Also calling Rommie "just an upgrade" is like saying a Maserati is a slightly better Cooper Mini, there just ain't no comparison. Rommie *and* Doyle? Shamus Harper is my hero!
Call me a cockeyed optimist but I'm not too worried, at least not about the Government enforcing RFID. Anything they field can easily be defeated, if history is any teacher. Here are my thoughs on some of the issues brought up:
1) "you can't opt out" - Yes you can, you can have the thing removed or destroyed. Even if the government said it's against the law to do so doesn't make it technicly imposible to do. And if enough people do it, it gets to be unenforceable. You can't opt out of DNA and while facial recognition software is easy to defeat it's way too costly to permently change your face. I'm more worried about the general economy addopting it, as some posters have alluded too. I don't think the Gov will mandate it, not sure they could anyway, our paper money say "legal tender for all depts public and private" so by law they probably have to supply it but there may be some businesses that will become "electronic transactions only" outlets but major stores will probably still take cash. Even in a worst case where you can't get by with out an RFID (which will only happen if better encryption can be implemented) it'll be business's that'll drive it and not the Gov. And I can only guess at the black/grey markets that'll popup with anonymous/fake RFIDs, it'll be a brave new world.
2)Why not wearable instead? - This has been covered pretty good by others but it boils down to if you wear it, it can be stolen/lost. Some folks, possibly as jokes, mention the cutting off of his hand to seal his ID; not an easy thing to do, most folks would easliy give up their watch/rings/wallets but would fight rather hard to keep their hand.
3) Its unencrypted - The author understands that, he even understans that the 40bit encrypted ones have been cracked already. He mentions some form of 2 factor authentication on some critical operations, such as open a door, but that's not needed when turning on a light. And I agree that even a 1 to 2 inch read limit is of little protection against theft, Credit cards require the target to remove them from their wallet and make physical contact with a reader (to get the info off the magnetic strip) but that's an easyenough crime to commt, scanning a hand should be no problem. Thougth we might see a surge in sales of wire mesh gloves for blocking this.
4) We already are being tracked by RFID in cloths and other products - Partly true, but it's a very iffy way of doing it. WalMart has hundreds of shirts in stock to be able to track my shirt and associate it with me would take the updating of possibly dozens of databases, not an easy thing to do (the IRS has been working for 20 years to try and get computerized and they still can't get it right and they only have one DB)
In conclution: RFID, DNA, Facial Recongnition, federal ID cards all of these are useless for near 100% identification purposes (DNA comes nearest but is nowhere near realtime) so other than a token effort by the government I am not too worried. They'll pass it, it'll be a major headache for a few months/years then it'll go away (congress has a notorisly short attention span and when the next new birght shiny object comes into view they'll forget all about it).
P.S. One poster mentioned everyone getting an GUID at birth, I go one further, I think we should all get a 48 bit Mac address at birth so that when the IPv6 enabled RFIDs come out we can jack in right away.
They are a free on line book supplier. I did a quick scan of their offerings and did not find very much but their list keeps growing and you might have better luck.
http://www.promo.net/pg/
I think your wrong about "International Law" not existing. Treaties are between countries and/or groups of countries but the UN does have an international court and some folks have been tried on violation of International law (genocide being one of them) the problem is that they don't have any enforcement arm. For the most part anyone can opt out, as the US has done on numours occations.
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I agree that the risk of upgrading their system in that fiscal enviornment might have been more, in their minds, than the risk of keeping what's been working fine for 20 years, but to according to the article they did not even have a backup system and this was a mission critical application. It sounds like they still do not have a backup and instead just split it so that the 32k limit is harder to reach. The failure here was in Disaster Recovery Planning rather than Risk Management Assesments.
Majel Barrett on TOS played Nurse Chapel not the computer, though she did the voice but on Voyager and TNG. Also calling Rommie "just an upgrade" is like saying a Maserati is a slightly better Cooper Mini, there just ain't no comparison. Rommie *and* Doyle? Shamus Harper is my hero!
Call me a cockeyed optimist but I'm not too worried, at least not about the Government enforcing RFID. Anything they field can easily be defeated, if history is any teacher. Here are my thoughs on some of the issues brought up: 1) "you can't opt out" - Yes you can, you can have the thing removed or destroyed. Even if the government said it's against the law to do so doesn't make it technicly imposible to do. And if enough people do it, it gets to be unenforceable. You can't opt out of DNA and while facial recognition software is easy to defeat it's way too costly to permently change your face. I'm more worried about the general economy addopting it, as some posters have alluded too. I don't think the Gov will mandate it, not sure they could anyway, our paper money say "legal tender for all depts public and private" so by law they probably have to supply it but there may be some businesses that will become "electronic transactions only" outlets but major stores will probably still take cash. Even in a worst case where you can't get by with out an RFID (which will only happen if better encryption can be implemented) it'll be business's that'll drive it and not the Gov. And I can only guess at the black/grey markets that'll popup with anonymous/fake RFIDs, it'll be a brave new world. 2)Why not wearable instead? - This has been covered pretty good by others but it boils down to if you wear it, it can be stolen/lost. Some folks, possibly as jokes, mention the cutting off of his hand to seal his ID; not an easy thing to do, most folks would easliy give up their watch/rings/wallets but would fight rather hard to keep their hand. 3) Its unencrypted - The author understands that, he even understans that the 40bit encrypted ones have been cracked already. He mentions some form of 2 factor authentication on some critical operations, such as open a door, but that's not needed when turning on a light. And I agree that even a 1 to 2 inch read limit is of little protection against theft, Credit cards require the target to remove them from their wallet and make physical contact with a reader (to get the info off the magnetic strip) but that's an easyenough crime to commt, scanning a hand should be no problem. Thougth we might see a surge in sales of wire mesh gloves for blocking this. 4) We already are being tracked by RFID in cloths and other products - Partly true, but it's a very iffy way of doing it. WalMart has hundreds of shirts in stock to be able to track my shirt and associate it with me would take the updating of possibly dozens of databases, not an easy thing to do (the IRS has been working for 20 years to try and get computerized and they still can't get it right and they only have one DB) In conclution: RFID, DNA, Facial Recongnition, federal ID cards all of these are useless for near 100% identification purposes (DNA comes nearest but is nowhere near realtime) so other than a token effort by the government I am not too worried. They'll pass it, it'll be a major headache for a few months/years then it'll go away (congress has a notorisly short attention span and when the next new birght shiny object comes into view they'll forget all about it). P.S. One poster mentioned everyone getting an GUID at birth, I go one further, I think we should all get a 48 bit Mac address at birth so that when the IPv6 enabled RFIDs come out we can jack in right away.
They are a free on line book supplier. I did a quick scan of their offerings and did not find very much but their list keeps growing and you might have better luck. http://www.promo.net/pg/
I think your wrong about "International Law" not existing. Treaties are between countries and/or groups of countries but the UN does have an international court and some folks have been tried on violation of International law (genocide being one of them) the problem is that they don't have any enforcement arm. For the most part anyone can opt out, as the US has done on numours occations.