[ISN] CRYPTO-GRAM SPECIAL ISSUE, September 30, 2001 (fwd)

[Karsten M. Self]

on Wed, Oct 03, 2001 at 03:29:17PM +0200, Eugene Leitl (Eugene.Leitl at lrz.uni-muenchen.de) wrote:

> > The real point of photo ID requirements is to prevent people from
> > reselling tickets.  Nonrefundable tickets used to be regularly
> > advertised in the newspaper classifieds.  Ads would read something
> > like "Round trip, Boston
> 
> This much I agree with.

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.

Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
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