Welcome to Biometric Hell

There is a 19-page supplement inside today’s ‘Times’ newspaper called ‘Biometrics, the definitive guide to Biometric Technology.’ It has chilled me to the core.
Here’s a page-by-page guide as to what it includes. I must point out that every single article included in this supplement is surrounded by adverts for various biometric companies, peddling their wares.

Page 2, ‘Biometrics: technology for the new world’ (Order)

A foreword from Max Snijder, CEO of the European Biometrics Forum, and Tovah LaDier, Managing Director of the International Biometric Industry Association. Obviously they are both extolling the virtues of Biometrics in our day-to-day lives.

During the next 10 years we will watch many different biometric applications evolve, as biometrics have the unique ability to improve convenience, efficiency and security, as long as they are used in the proper way.

Page 3, ‘Multi-Modal Fusion HOW?

A full-page advertising ‘Multi-Modal Fusion. There is a picture of a smiling woman, with images of her hair, eye, ear and fingerprint next to it. The advert proclaims ‘Demands for security are staggering.’ and ‘the use of a single Biometric isn’t good enough.’ Apparently, combining multiple Biometrics in a single search is needed to reduce ‘security anxiety.
www.multimodalfusion.com...

Page 4, ‘Measuring up Man.’

There are many Biometrics in use today. The entire list is too long to reel off completely and would enter the realms of the bizarre – human smell being one of the stranger concepts to have been considered. But for starters, there is fingerprint, face (two- dimensional and three-dimensional), iris, voice, hand and finger geometry, vein, retina and signature. These are all being used today to verify or discover identity in applications around the globe.

According to new research by LogicaCMG, 84 percent of people in Europe would be happy to use their fingerprint or iris scan to prove who they were when travelling abroad.

Page 5 – ‘Voice Biometrics find their calling?’

Organisations increasingly understand that voice biometrics could not only save them money, but also provide added benefits to customers and staff.

Also on this page there is an ad for the ‘Biometrics Exhibition and Conference 2006’ with speakers Joan Ryan MP and Jerry Fishenden from Microsoft.
www.biometrics2006.com...

Page 6 – ‘Back to the Beginning.’ A spurious article with a picture of the pyramids in Egypt, claiming that biometrics has been used since Ancient times.

Biometrics go back a lot further than you think –perhaps even to Egyptian times. It is believed that workers of the day were sometimes identified from easy to measure bodily characteristics such as eye colour, height or scars. This was to ensure workers did not claim more provisions than they were entitled to- much in the same way as today’s Governments are looking at biometrics as an answer to lessen benefit fraud.

Page 7 – ‘Standards development far from standard.’

In December 2002, ISO (The International Standards Organisation) set up a group called SC37, which has responded rapidly to demands from industry to deliver biometric standards that support the mass adoption of biometric technologies. This includes the use of face data interchange formats within the first generation biometric passport now being issued by the UK’s Identity and Passport Service.

An automated border processing system –called Smart Gate Series 1 –is to begin operating in Australia from February next year. The system is designed to match a live facial image of a traveller against the digitised photo stored on the chip embedded within their ePassport.

Page 8 – ‘Biometrics to fly in Airports?’

Its ultimate aim is to have passengers check in before getting to the airport via the Internet or at self-service kiosks in train stations or large companies. They would then arrive at the airport and check in their baggage automatically using the biometric system to create the important luggage –passenger link.

Page 9 – ‘Corporate profile: IBM.’

As a technology provider, IBM’s processors are used by most of the leading biometric vendors to power their software. With today’s security challenges, it is results that count. IBM not only has extensive knowledge biometric based systems, but also has a framework for implementing cutting – edge technologies designed to enhance them. What is more, IBM can leverage its worldwide network of strategic collaborative relationships to match up each strategic objective with the most appropriate world-class technology.

Page 10 – ‘Password Overload?’

The number of passwords the average person has to remember is spiralling out of control. For those people seeking an answer to password overload there are options out there, and biometrics are increasingly being considered as cost effective. Configurations range from securing a single PC using a mouse with embedded fingerprint sensor to network based logon solutions.

Page 11 – ‘Plotting a course towards a biometric future,’

Dr KH Shum, RCG’s chief technology Officer, whose R&D team has perfected the combined RFID/biometric concept says, ‘RFID is an emerging technology for ‘tagging’ human beings. It has many benefits and could appear in the form of a staff card, an RFID wristband for patients or newborn babies in health care industry, among many other applications.

Page 12 ‘A secure Homeland.’ The inevitable use of 9/11 to further the biometric agenda.

The sickening terrorist events of September 11th 2001 changed the world forever. In the USA, alongside its grief, an almost immediate reaction was for all levels of government to cooperate like never before to strengthen aviation and border security.

Page 13 ‘Biometric makeovers for passports.’

The rectangular golden symbol at the bottom of the page of your passport means that you are now officially part of an expanding international movement which is seeing millions of citizens worldwide being given passports containing embedded contactless microchips.

Page 14 ‘Do biometrics cut the mustard?’

Hollywood and the United Arab Emirates share something in common. Fascinated with biometrics, both entities love to depict their biometric systems as rapidly functioning, virtually infallible high technology whose only means of defeat lie in elaborate spoofing or hacking schemes. Several biometric vendors support this notion, claiming their products can work in a matter of milliseconds and with absoule precision of identification.

Page 15 ‘Dispelling biometric myths.’

A common myth is that you could bypass a biometric system using stolen body parts. With most biometric devices it is possible to include ‘liveness detection’ which works by measuring a variety of variables, from a finger pulse to an eye pupil’s response. Other things to bear in mind when talking about stolen body parts is that an extracted eyeball quickly decomposes, and a severed finger also dies rapidly – typically becoming useless after about 10 minutes.

Page 16 ‘A match made in heaven?’

Mathematically speaking, a better way is to store all information-biographic and biometric –about each individual in one single database in order to create profiles of each person.

Page 17 ‘Biometrics and privacy: a sacrifice worth making?’ This is in extremely odd article in the context of this supplement, addressing the issues regarding civil liberties and privacy. If it an attempt to show both sides of the coin, it is a very poor one. The article is short, uninformative and non- persuasive. The article includes a photograph of the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

To the uninformed, this may sound like a Big Brother science fiction nightmare. However, I am sorry to say, it seems to be happening right here in the UK, with innocent individuals being assigned criminal records incorrectly and without their knowledge. We are in reality creating a virtual police state in this land of ours, once noted for its fair play and democratic ideals.

Page 18 ‘News in brief.

BMS Biometrics has just released the next version of its Secure Network Fingerprint Logon Solution.

Biometric hand geometry readers have been installed at the Port of Felixstowe, which requires all truck drivers to biometrically identify themselves.

Aware has announced a suite of biometrics software tools designed for use by integrators to help develop enrolment, card personalization and card reader systems for applications such as fingerprint, background checks, border management, ePassports and smart card ID’s.

Page 19 ‘Will biometrics boom?’

since 2001, dramatic changes have occurred in the political, social and economic landscape. From these stem three things suggesting biometrics is on the verge of a boom. Biometrics will afford opportunities to rethink marketing targeting and messaging in the real, virtual and wireless- delivered retail environments, and good customers and forward thinking companies should both benefit from this.

We end on the back page – a full colour, full-page ad brought to you by IBM.

What makes you different from everyone else? What makes your customers stick with you? As globalisation continues to blur the line between one business and the next, companies have reacted by cutting costs. But now the pressure is on top-line growth. Creating new, clearly differentiated value, and defending it. In a word, innovation. Innovation is critical to every objective in your business: growth, margins and customer loyalty. It will not only make you special, it will keep you special. It can start with just a small change in your company. A single process. Or a question. You can even ask IBM where to start. Because we have been working with thousands of companies in virtually every industry to help them become special. So, if you want to learn more about them, or how IBM can help you, start here.

www.ibm.com...


So there you have it. Full on, in your face. You can read the full supplement in today’s Times newspaper.

Here it is, this is our future, our children’s futures.

We can do nothing but helplessly watch as our freedoms are trampled on. We exist as statistics, data on a computer screen, walking body parts.

What have we to look forward to? A complete lack of privacy. A complete lack of rights as human beings, born onto planet Earth. Manipulation, discrimination, examination. Every aspect of our lives under scrutiny.

This is not speculative conspiracy theory. This is absolute fact. What can we do to stop this? Nothing.

Welcome to hell, Ladies and Gentlemen


mod edit to use external quote code, please review this link

[edit on 31-7-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

I don't know as much as I could, or perhaps, should about computer science. However, I feel like I should ask the question, "What did you expect"?

For the most part, civilized society has become enslaved by the computer. What I will, euphemistically state as, "most jobs" in our civilized societies revolve around support or skillful use of computers. Computers, on the surface, tend to make life simpler. unfortunately, what many people do not consider is the cost of that simplification. Computers have almost become a cradle to grave business.

In the US, one cannot be born and exist any longer without a social security number that is tracked by computers. It is illegal to not have the social security number.
For birthdays, Christmas, Hannukah, and other gift holidays, children are given play stations, x-boxes, and all the supporting software. Most schools now require students to have computer courses, or to at least use computers in their education process.

How often do you use a computer in your daily life? Do you have to have one at work? Is it supported by staff? Does the company you work for track your email? Your use of computer time for productivity vs porn exploration, or perhaps, online gambling?

Do you, as a computer support individual, if you are one, go into work with the intent of staying until the job is done, sometimes staying at work for 10 to 12 hours at a time? Working on weekends, all weekend? How does this impact your family life? Your external social life? Do you Geek out and go to a bar with fellow "computerians" and discuss the latest science, fixes, problems over a pint or a mixed drink, and perhaps hot wings?

Do you, while at work, and/or at home, spend a lot of time in front of the keyboard cruisng your favorite sites, responding to emails, and perhaps, IM chatting with folks you may not be able to pick out, physically, in a crowd of two? e.g. I have a great friend that I have had for about 6 years. We have met, face to face, one time only. The rest of it has evolved through the use of IM.

Does society not cater to the computer science lifestyle with cafés that are specifically for computer hook up and supported by people providing coffee based drinks, and donuts? Do you not, perhaps, have your home hooked up to a computer so that lights, air conditioning, and other power using processes are being governed by a computer? Lots do.

Is not your automobile computer operated? My 1999 Corvette, my second great love after my wife, is strictly drive by wire. I have little to no direct physical input into stopping or going or how fast I do either. My home air conditioner died a couple of weeks ago. It was all stopped, in hundred degree heat, by a $200 computer chip that burned out.

With those kinds of advances, and I didn't delve to greatly into them all, what would you expect from a society that is, generally, bound to a point of view that is conformist in nature?

Across our great country the diversity of regions is quickly losing it's identity. Wal-Mart is Wal-Mart is Wal-Mart in New York, Florida, Missouri, Utah, and California.
Denny's restaurants are, virtually, the same throughout. Just two examples of the rules of societal conformity. Gone, for the most part, are the quaint restaurants, the "mom and pop" grocery stores, the local hardware stores. These entities are becoming a memory and a taste of a simpler time.

Computers have even been known to dictate the outcome of recent Presidential Elections. People on the west coast have used the election results of the east coast to dictate how they vote, or do not even bother to, to a large degree.

So, we are quickly becoming a society of conformity. With that in mind, it is no surprise that large companies must facilitate the methods they use for security, for identity of employees, and bad guys alike. They have to be able to adapt and evolve quickly in a society that is quickly becoming a techno-world. Otherwise they will not survive.

From companies, it is a very short step to military and political application. After all, these entities are always looking for the next big bang for the buck, and the way to make it all go smoother. And rightfully so, if I may say. All the aforementioned entities from Big Government to big business down to little old me, and you are in the business of making life easier. In pursuit of that, we seem to spend more time working to enjoy that ease.

Hunter gatherer societies work mainly from sun up to sun down while farming societies do pretty much the same. They socialize and go to bed in between the hours of dark. As we techno"ize", we spend more time supporting it all, and less time enjoying it.

We, as an burgeoning techno-globalized society, NEED the benefits that conformity to culture and security bring. This is the end result of what we are becoming, and there is probably very little way out of it now. At least not without every woman, man, and child dumping their own computer into a large dump site, and starting over.

Is it possible that freedom and rights must be ammenable to change based on the needs of the society that is encroaching on them? Is it possible that, in order for us to survive as a race, based on our technology, that we need the increased security, and trackability of the individuall, and thus the loss of the individual?

I often ponder these questions. It is a delicate balance between society and human rights and privilieges that we try to walk within, question, and manipulate. Methinks it is a much deeper subject than many people give credence to.

Still, in a larger sense, as a precomputer generation individual, I have to agree with you to a larger extent. I resent some of the things that I consider silliness being done in the name of our conformist society.

And with that, I will step down, and shut up.

I used to think as such. That the acceleration of technology and it's intrusion into our lives was the end. That we are all screwed.

I don't anymore. I don't even think about it much.
Why?

Because I came to the realization that we are not physical beings having spiritual experiences but spiritual beings have physical experiences. Enslavement of the body can and does happen all the time, but enslavement of the mind and spirit must be given. If we do not give up our spirit to "The Machine" or the PTB (Powers That Be), then there is no real enslavement.

We live in a matrix.

Once you figure that out, none of this stuff matters.

Peace,
~Jammer+

I work in an public-safety related industry that relies heavily on our computers ... to the point we have UPS systems and diesel generators to support our operations in case of power disruptions .. esp. ones that could last days or weeks.

I could not fathom working without my computers ... my job would be much harder. THere are down sides to our computer centric worlds ... I think people expect too much and too quickly in our computer centric world.

My 2002 Camry is also drive-by-wire and there's nothing wrong with that. Yes there are many computers in cars nowadays ... computers controlling the ABS and traction systems, computers controlling all the front and side airbags, computers controlling the transmission shifting points. It all works very well, helps maintain ultimate engine efficiency and decrease pollution output.

As long as we protect our basic privacy rights from the government than the computers will be there to assist us and make our lives better/easier.

Originally posted by sigung86
I don't know as much as I could, or perhaps, should about computer science. However, I feel like I should ask the question, "What did you expect"?

For the most part, civilized society has become enslaved by the computer. What I will, euphemistically state as, "most jobs" in our civilized societies revolve around support or skillful use of computers. Computers, on the surface, tend to make life simpler. unfortunately, what many people do not consider is the cost of that simplification. Computers have almost become a cradle to grave business.

In the US, one cannot be born and exist any longer without a social security number that is tracked by computers. It is illegal to not have the social security number.
For birthdays, Christmas, Hannukah, and other gift holidays, children are given play stations, x-boxes, and all the supporting software. Most schools now require students to have computer courses, or to at least use computers in their education process.

How often do you use a computer in your daily life? Do you have to have one at work? Is it supported by staff? Does the company you work for track your email? Your use of computer time for productivity vs porn exploration, or perhaps, online gambling?

Do you, as a computer support individual, if you are one, go into work with the intent of staying until the job is done, sometimes staying at work for 10 to 12 hours at a time? Working on weekends, all weekend? How does this impact your family life? Your external social life? Do you Geek out and go to a bar with fellow "computerians" and discuss the latest science, fixes, problems over a pint or a mixed drink, and perhaps hot wings?

Do you, while at work, and/or at home, spend a lot of time in front of the keyboard cruisng your favorite sites, responding to emails, and perhaps, IM chatting with folks you may not be able to pick out, physically, in a crowd of two? e.g. I have a great friend that I have had for about 6 years. We have met, face to face, one time only. The rest of it has evolved through the use of IM.

If biometrics were more common I wouldn't need an octopus card.