On 0, David McNett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 23-Mar-2001, Michael Aronsen wrote:
> > Has anyone been working on or know of any work being done on getting any
> > fingerprint gadgets working in FreeBSD?
>
> This is mostly off-topic, but I wanted to take the opportunity to point
> out an excellent treatment of the downsides of biometrics (fingerprint
> gadgets being the most popular such device these days) and concerns that
> you should be aware of if you're considering adopting biometrics for
> authentication in your environment.
Just read the article - he does bring up some good points, but he does (sort
of) miss one point - biometrics are most useful when combined with some
other form of authentication. (What you have (fingerprint), plus what you
know (password)).
On that note, I'll put this on-topic for -hackers... (In my opinion...)
Due to the upcoming HIPAA regulations mandated by HCFA (see note 1), I am
extremely interested in writing a driver to read data from one of the
various fingerprint gizmos on the market. Does anyone have any experience
with these (good/bad), or suggestions as to which ones might lend themselves
toward a FBSD driver?
mike
Note 1 (as promised)
--------------------
(Non-US residents - this doesn't apply to you... Be grateful... :) )
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is a set of
rules scheduled to take effect in (last I checked - they keep changing it)
October 2002 by HCFA (the Health Care Financing Administration), the federal
agency that is responsible for Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Basically, HIPAA is
designed to make sure that everyone gets a fair shot at medical insurance.
However, there is a section in there that deals with privacy of medical
records, and that's where the geek factor comes into play.
The phrase going around the IT departments of health care providers right
now goes something like "HIPAA will cost health care providers three to four
times more money than Y2K did." (It's a big deal.) Essentially, the old
"username and password" method of verification is completely inadequate -
they want Smart Cards, fingerprints, retinal scans, infrared facial
signatures, and the last four digits of your dog's Social Security number
just to keep the guard, armed with an AK-47, to keep from shooting you as
you walk up to the keyboard to type in your username and password. (OK,
that's stretching it a little bit, but that's really the attitude they're
taking with this.)
(Political statement starts here - sorry....)
Ah, the joys of living in the USA... Can't let teachers discipline kids
(and the parents get thrown in jail for doing so), but dammit, we'll make
sure that nobody finds out that Joe Schmoe has high cholesterol and needs to
get out and exercise a bit...
(And yes, I do enjoy living here, but the political correctness of it gets
to me at times.)
--mike
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