<http://www.cbronline.com/print_friendly/b6e1a01bb2c038c380256e450038609e> DATE: 25/02/2004 Microsoft Plans Biometric ID Cards Microsoft Corp yesterday announced that it plans to get into the identity card business, as it lifted the veil on software, under the name Tamper-Resistant Biometric Ids, it currently has under development. Demonstrated during Bill Gates' keynote address at the RSA Conference yesterday, the software comprises a system for producing cards and subsequently verifying that they have not been altered. Cards would consist of a photograph of the bearer, along with some personal information such as date of birth. The photo and the data would be hashed and stored in a two-dimensional color "bar code" on the card itself. Tampering could be subsequently detected by scanning the entire card and reperforming the hash, to see if it matched the one on the card. The word "biometric" seems to be loosely applied here to the fact that the cards carry photographs. Gates did not give a firm data for when the company expects to come to market with this technology, but it was suggested that it will not be this year. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Add to Favorites Copyright | ComputerWire 2004 -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
No doubt such a card will automatically be linked to a Microsoft Passport account, Microsoft Wallet, etc. to make sure that the violation of your privacy can continue unhindered. No doubt, the 2nd step will be to either add an RFID chip inside it plus a reader on the PC... Or setting the next Microsoft PC spec to include a barcode/RFID reader on the PC. (Or perhaps this is already in the spec, just not advertised?) Then you'll need to login with the card, and activating Windows XP, etc. will require the card; all Office documents will be signed/stamped with a GID that matches said card, etc... Hell, it might as well be your SSN... After all, continuing abuse of the social security numbers meets all Microsoft criteria for such a thing: it's a sensitive number, that when handled in an unsecure way (Microsoft's modus operandi, of course) it's guaranteed to open you up to ID, financial, and privacy theft... That said, "Backdoor*" Billy Gee is about two and half years late to share the feed through at the scummy emperor of privacy invasion: You see, both Larry "I wear a kimono" Ellison, and Scooter (formerly known as the "The Dot in dot com" CEO) both had immediate wet dreams of a national ID card right after 9.11.2001. Of course, the former wanted it to involve Oracle, the latter wanted it to be on a Java smartcard... uh huh... Yes, we all know great government issued ID's worked to prevent the disposable terrorists of 9.11. I'm sure that the Microsoft ID will work even better in making us just even more "secure." * "Secure" is a newspeak marketing feechure checklist item which is to be translated the same way as the word love in Ministry of Love, the word peace in the Ministry of Peace, the word truth in the Ministry of Truth. * Backdoor in this case refers not to Billy's preference of human interaction, but rather to the 'More "Secure" than before' feature of Windows XP which was made famous by various trojans, worms, and other self-replicating bits of code. R. A. Hettinga wrote:
<http://www.cbronline.com/print_friendly/b6e1a01bb2c038c380256e450038609e>
DATE: 25/02/2004 Microsoft Plans Biometric ID Cards
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