****** Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 00:12:47 -0700 From: Todd Jonz <toddat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: Thought police: a "serious" proposal Declan, Every once in a while an outrageous idea is proposed that I have trouble categorizing; a part of me finds it laughable due to its impracticality and sheerly preposterous nature, while another part of me is scared silly that there are individuals out there who would actually propose such an idea. Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Kirsch (Mouse Systems, Frame Technology, Infoseek, Propel) is currently advocating just such an idea. In a nutshell, Kirsh has proposed the creation of a "voluntary" federal database of "brain fingerprints", a record of a person's brain wave activity when shown images with which a terrorist would have a strong personal connection (such as the inside of a terrorist training camp or the contents of a terrorist code book), and correlating these to iris scans. Prior to boarding an airliner a passenger would look into an iris scanner and a fully automated system would retrieve the associated brain fingerprint and decide whether the individual would be allowed to board or -- well, Kirsch's proposal doesn't go into what becomes of individuals who receive a negative evaluation from his proposed system. You can find all the gory details and some spirited debate on this concept in the following locations: "Identifying terrorists before they strike" by Steve Kirsch http://www.skirsch.com/politics/plane/ultimate.htm An article in "The Register" blasting this proposal http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/57/22020.html Debate between Kirsch and the author of the "Register" piece http://cryptome.org/brain-scan.htm I'll bet you thought the term "thought police" was only a metaphor. (Disclaimer: Steve Kirsch was one of the founders of Infoseek, as was I; even during the best of times our relationship would probably be most accurately described as "tense.") -- Todd Jonz When cryptography is outlawed, toddat_private bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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