Sun's McNealy seeks national ID card, too

[Anonymous Coredump]

from <http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20011011/tc/tech_id_dc_1.html>

Thursday October 11 2:12 PM ET 

Sun Micro CEO Sees More Support for National ID
By Broward Liston

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun
Microsystems Inc., said Thursday his long-held belief the United States
needs a national identity system has gained a lot of traction since the
Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

``This is more than a sea change,'' McNealy said to reporters at an 
industry conference in Orlando. ``I have not spoken to one person who 
hasn't flipped a switch to say, 'You're darn right, I want to know who's 
getting on a plane with me.'''

Sun developed the Java computer platform, which could someday provide the 
language needed for a smart-card identification system to deal with 
computers at airports, shopping malls, research facilities and other 
locations where McNealy said anonymity could prove dangerous.

``Absolute anonymity breeds absolute irresponsibility,'' he said. ``We 
need a thumbprint Java card in the hand of everybody in the country.''

Civil libertarians have heaped scorn on McNealy, but he dismissed their 
concerns.

``I'm tired of the outrage. If you get on a plane, I want to know who you 
are. If you rent a crop duster, I want to know who you are,'' he said.

McNealy said it would be the job of Congress to decide when people can be 
anonymous and when they cannot. He warned that the United States faces ``a 
huge efficiency tax'' for security if it does not adopt a simple system of 
identification.

``Hiring 50 humans isn't going to solve that problem,'' he said.

McNealy appeared at a symposium sponsored by Gartner, the high-tech 
consulting and analysis firm. McNealy also responded to remarks made at 
the conference the previous day by Steve Ballmer, chief executive of 
Microsoft Corp.

Ballmer said Sun's Liberty Alliance Project, an identity authentication 
and authorization service meant to speed on-line transactions, ``has 
absolutely no probability of mattering to the world.''

Microsoft will compete with a similar service called Passport. Microsoft 
will go it alone on its service, while Sun is working with dozens of 
companies from eBay Inc. to General Motors Corp. 

McNealy said Thursday the number of partners could grow into the 
thousands. He said the strength of his system was that each partner would 
maintain its own customer list and could arrange data sharing with one 
another on their own terms.

``Hertz and United Airlines can work out their own deal instead of going
to Microsoft and saying 'How much do we have to pay you?''' McNealy said.

Microsoft believes its customer base of 120 million will make it dominant 
in the field. Sun is betting the flexibility of its system will make it 
more appealing to merchants.