[ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 45, Issue 34

[BillK]

On 6/27/07, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> There are simple ways to hide secrets, some of them even duress/tamper-proof.
> But in the case of your retina and your fingerprints, DNA included, it takes
> specific readers (manipulating someone to yield a clean fingerprint without
> them noticing is not easy), DNA is similiar.
>
> I would strongly recommend that you do not give that information to
> anybody, and at least make sure that information is securely destroyed after use,
> if you have to use it for anything critical (medical or legal use).


In the UK, if you are arrested by the police, your DNA and
fingerprints will be legally taken and stored in the database.
Note: Even if you are later released without charge, or charged and
found not guilty, your data will still be retained in the database.
So in the UK, you must never annoy the police sufficient to cause arrest.


>
> Really? Some database somewhere "in the system" has my biometrics?
> I don't think so; and I'd like to keep it that way.
>
> The point is that most smartphone users do not realize they're
> toting a remotely-controlled wireless bug with positioning info
> approaching GPS fixes, camouflaging as a consumer device.
>
> Most people also do not realize what consumer cameras with
> face recognition and toll bridges with license plate OCR
> and RFIDs mean, mid-term. Nobody would have believed George Orwell
> if he included technology like this.
>


Most of the thousands of surveillance cameras in Britain are not being
watched by humans.
And if they are, the humans are probably more interested in reading
the newspaper open over the keyboard.  The cameras do not provide any
security to the populace.
(The traffic cameras are an additional tax raising facility).
The camera recordings are usually investigated *after* an event has
occurred. Only on rare occasions are they used live to guide police,
like when having a purge on pickpockets in Oxford Street, or late
night city centre violence at the weekend.


> Any totalitarian system using surveillance and enforcement as
> above is indefinitely metastable. Once you get there, there's
> no easy way to get out of it again.
>


Hey, the populace want to be watched and tracked!  If you don't, you
must be a criminal or a terrorist - we'd better keep a close eye on
you.


BillK