on Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 03:58:04PM -0500, Trei, Peter (ptrei@rsasecurity.com) wrote:

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Tim May[SMTP:tcmay@got.net] wrote

The confusion "Nomen Nescio" shows in thinking that an is-a-person government tracking system fixes the airline security problem is common these days. It's the same confusion that causes many to think national I.D. cards will fix current pressing problems. They won't.

This is the same "security ticket" problem that shows up in computer security with malicious actors obtaining passwords or other access permissions.

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I've been thinking along these lines myself - Tim got to the post first.

There are two points I'd like to make.

1. The reasons which are publicly aired for installing the current 'security' regime are (in my considered opinion) NOT the actually reasons.

US airlines insisting on IDs which match tickets has nothing to do with airline security, and everything to do with extracting as much cash as possible from the public.

Before the Pan Am 800 accident, when people were freeer, there was a secondary market in airline tickets which the original purchasers could not, for one reason or another, use. If you bought a non-refundable return ticket, and then could not use it, you could sell it to someone who did want to travel on those dates to that location. The price varied, but was less than the cost to the repurchaser of buying a ticket from the airline.

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It's got nothing to do with security.

...and, as previously reported here, an age-old practice: It's an older practice than you'd think. I just ran across the following while looking at some IBM history, regarding the "Hollerith Card": http://www4.wittenberg.edu/academics/mathcomp/bjsdir/history0.shtml Hollerith claimed he got [the punched data card] idea from "punch photograph cards" used by rail road officials. Used to prevent the theft of railroad tickets from passengers, conductors would "record" the physical characteristics of the ticket owner (e.g. eye color, hair color) by punching specially marked areas on the edge of the card. Hollerith used holes punched through the card, not on the edge of the card. Maybe someone should propose a "three strikes" law for suicide terror attacks. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]