-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Do we then have a de facto (cardless) national ID? I think so.
You got it, Bunky.
There's an article in Forbes (the latest copy?) about a company that's making thermal scanning devices which can identify people via the pattern of blood vessels in their face. The advantage of this system over fingerprinting is that it can be done without letting the target know he or she's being identified.
I think I've heard of that, but does it really handle makeup, beards, severe weather (lets see, it got to actual temp of -25F last Jan. in Dayton, OH)? I noticed a few weeks ago that the tarmac access doors in Chi. O'Hare have hand scanners. At first I thought they looked like palm scanners but upon inspection they were obviously a simple, durable, and effective biometrics reader. It had 3 pins you laid the arch of your hand against and a retro reflective surface. It's occured to me that, to go along with my Internet Doorbell (tm) ;-), I could put a load sensor on the porch and a line of vertical led sensors at the porch threshhold to get a highly probable biometric guess of a visitor.
Alex Strasheim | finger astrashe@nyx.cs.du.edu alex@omaha.com | for my PGP 2.6.1. public key
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2
iQCVAwUBLu8mOREpP7+baaPtAQHgjQP/e+eHxzEKuigSihr/wYfUiUrF2fKzI04U r7rQESL4GNG7UOJOisTmSbp9YYB1fMlAPgu0JkWk22YxbgqXIPMnVhyfsWjzH0d8 z5EZ3/8F+MgXqTowY2weuWvsUx8VKFbHsePDemaKjIAEaRUz7R0kVbpMc57XUFMY 9LLKfAYswiQ= =GEuy -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-- Stephen D. Williams 25Feb1965 VW,OH sdw@lig.net http://www.lig.net/~sdw Senior Consultant 510.503.9227 CA Page 513.496.5223 OH Page BA Aug94-Dec95 OO R&D AI:NN/ES crypto By Buggy: 2464 Rosina Dr., Miamisburg, OH 45342-6430 Firewalls/WWW servers ICBM: 39 38 34N 84 17 12W home, 37 58 41N 122 01 48W work Pres.: Concinnous Consulting,Inc.;SDW Systems;Local Internet Gateway Co.29Nov94