Absolute anonymity breeds absolute irresponsibility?
mikecabot at fastcircle.com
mikecabot at fastcircle.com
Thu Oct 11 13:52:18 PDT 2001
Quote:
"Absolute anonymity breeds absolute irresponsibility," [SUN CEO Scott
Mcnealy] said. "We need a thumbprint Java card in the hand of
everybody in the country."
Unquote.
Yeech.
Here's the text and URL of the whole Reuters story:
Sun's McNealy touts Java-based ID system
By Reuters
October 11, 2001, 12:05 p.m. PT
McNealy defends Liberty Alliance project
Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems
ORLANDO, Fla.--Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems,
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, Fla. "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 programming language, which someday could
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 company. McNealy also responded to remarks made at the
conference the previous day by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
Ballmer said Sun's Liberty Alliance project, an identity
authentication and authorization service meant to speed online
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 to General Motors.
McNealy said 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.
Story Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
URL:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7491959.html?tag=mn_hd
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