Advent of another technology wide deployment of which we must delay as long as possible. In absence of rentable cryptographically anonymized telepresence proxies it is provably impossible to completely hide all unique fingerprints of a human, or even a complex mass-produced artifact. Such a composite fingerprint will be impossible to fake and is impossible to change without completely remaking the object of measurement. (Try changing your body odor (MHC is genome-encoded and is the target of the immunosystem), or rewire parts of CNS in control of your motorics).
While all current technologies are extremely limited in their capabilities and have a high error rate this is not intrinsic to the principle. Such systems can be eventually made to work sufficiently well for practice. This is being made possible by further falling technology costs in regards to mass fabbing, crunch and cheap ubiquitous wireless. Where's light, there's shadow. Unfortunately, brinistas welcome this development because they idiotically assume that the technology enables symmetrically, or even assymentrically in favour of the governed vs. the government. Their arguments sound superficially convincing to those unfamiliar with the political process and the logics of power flow. This is the reason they're doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Supply the missing part of the argument whenever you see Brinworld meme propagating. Your best angle to delay this is to circulate this information widely, and explain its potential impact to technologically naive. Write (personalized dead tree, no electronic communication) to your political representatives. No technical solution will work in absence of laws making it legal. Once countermeasures are made illegal the development is basically irreversible. Catch it before it's too late. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 01:36:42 -0400 From: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: FC: Privacy villain of the week: DARPA's gait surveillance tech See also: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38775,00.html --- Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 17:19:34 -0400 From: J Plummer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: NCP: Privacy Villain of the Week: DARPA's HumanID at a Distance Privacy Villain of the Week: DARPA's HumanID at a Distance The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency <http://www.darpa.mil/> has been one of the more fruitful government agenies in the past, its DARPAnet computer network being the foundation for what would become the Internet some years later. That is why reading about what this outfit is up to now can at times be disheartening. One such project is the HumanID at a Distance program, which aims to move beyond face-recognition technology and purportedly identify people by the way the walk. The idea here is that by measuring with video or (clothes-penetrating) radar the distance between, say, 17 different points on the body <http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/images/gait1.jpg> and measuring how these points move in relation to one another, a person can be positively and uniquely identified. This "gait technology" by itself is neutral of course, just as technologies such as a gun or a needle or or the banging of flint against stone. The problem here arises in that by funding such research, the government is pushing a technology on society that it has not freely accepted through the voluntary choices made in the market. A patina of legitimacy is unfortunately added to such technologies when they have the imprimatur of the state behind them. Even when the lead researchers on the project issue a press release <http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/GAIT.htm> with conflictuing estimations of accuracy ranging from .0001% to 95%. These selfsame researchers go on to tout the tech for use "around federal buildings" and in airports (which have now had their security systems completely taken over by the federal government). The airport situation is particularly troubling, in that it would be installed after the new Transportation Security Agency has complete control of all US airports. Adding the full-body radar scans that are part of a gait-biometric system to their CAPPS database incorporating name, Social Security number, credit history, travel history, etc., is a small step. This would be another peice of information in a federal database left wide open to abuse by not only those with official and unofficial clearance but anyone who bribes or hacks their way in. In addition, the potential for false positives seems to be overwhelming. Even if the number is closer to 95% than .001%, what happens when a heavy piece of luggage and lack of sleep slumps the shoulders enough to peg a weary traveler as a dangerous terrorist? Is he or she strip-searched and detained by armed federal employees while the plane to his mother's funeral leaves for the other coast? This kind of technological forcing, especially in situations controlled by the state, puts individuals in a position where, due to lack of adequate societal knowledge, individuals are unable to control the kind of information being disseminated about themselves. Identification technology has its uses. But when government forces it on everyone, from a Social Security number onward, the long-term effects are net negative -- oversurveillance , undersecurity, identity theft, etc. DARPA scientists and their colleagues at places like Carnegie Mellon <http://hid.ri.cmu.edu/> and Georgia Tech may be taking great strides forward -- but do they recignize where to, or why this may earn them the title of Privacy Villain of the Week? The Privacy Villain of the Week and Privacy Hero of the Month are projects of the National Consumer Coalition's Privacy Group. Privacy Villain audio features now available from FCF News on Demand. <http://www.fcfnews.com/> For more information on the NCC Privacy Group, see www.nccprivacy.org or contact James Plummer at 202-467-5809 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] . ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. 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