Thin Foil
I just read this little blurb on Slashdot regarding the US e-enabling their passports. Apparently there are privacy concerns. The experimental chips chosen for the passports can be read from 30-ft. away -- which would be a boon for identity thieves. The proposed solution: wrap the passport in thin foil. ... OK, have you finished laughing yet?
This got me thinking -- in a future of information ubiquity, where everything speaks to everything else, and personal information is constantly being exchanged for identification and authorization purposes, how does one fight identity piracy? I think the thin foil solution isn't such a bad idea. In the future, we will use embedded chips, biometric technology, various wearable computing devices, all connected via a personal area network, which in turn will communicate to the greater world of people and machines. Information silence would become the concupiscence for future society -- and a burgeoning market. Bauxite producing countries will enjoy a boom. Thin foil hats will become the fashion for society's malcontents, subversives and revolutionaries -- those that wish to kill the embedded chips from broadcasting their bank accounts, personal preferences and global position. Putting on a thin foil laced jacket for clubbing to protect one's modesty will be hip.
Choosing when to share and what to share may not be the only times when one would want to wear a body glove of thin foil. There are those who will seek to take from you what you don't want to share. Call them body hackers or identity pirates -- phishing phreaks that wish to jack into you to hijack your digital personality for unscrupulous profits. These need not be the criminal types -- think of what corporations could do with the information on all their mindless consumers. If the criminal types are successful, you could build a global spanning record -- buying, authorizing, creating -- unknowingly being responsible for a chain of illegitimate transactions that fuel an underground economy. Your life could be destroyed. Your property foreclosed to pay your debts racked up in far off lands. Your spouse filing for divorce after it's found out where you've been spending all those 'overtime' hours -- and don't bother arguing; there will be location and biometric data to prove you were there and doing what you weren't doing. When law enforcement officials come breaking down your front door -- oh wait, that's not your front door anymore -- you'll welcome the respite and quiet prison life will offer.
There is an alternative scenario -- another market for the nefarious minded. Virtual identity. When the future arrives, the sum of you will be data from your transactions and interactions with the machine world. How long will it be before someone clever creates entirely new identities, complete with histories, life but no physical existence? Want to buy a weekend as a high roller in Vegas? No problem. A quick download and you're ready to go. You'll be equipped with a multimillion dollar account, spending habits and a life of your design for the weekend. Ready made, with a 'best before' due date.
The future is inevitable. This information dominant future seems inescapable. You may live multiple lives unknowingly -- live beyond your means and potential, even if just for a weekend, knowingly. You could be more than one person -- knowingly and unknowingly, without having multiple personalities. Or maybe multiple personality disorder will come to have new meaning. No matter what happens, remember, with thin foil, you have a choice. So the US government thinks anyway.
This got me thinking -- in a future of information ubiquity, where everything speaks to everything else, and personal information is constantly being exchanged for identification and authorization purposes, how does one fight identity piracy? I think the thin foil solution isn't such a bad idea. In the future, we will use embedded chips, biometric technology, various wearable computing devices, all connected via a personal area network, which in turn will communicate to the greater world of people and machines. Information silence would become the concupiscence for future society -- and a burgeoning market. Bauxite producing countries will enjoy a boom. Thin foil hats will become the fashion for society's malcontents, subversives and revolutionaries -- those that wish to kill the embedded chips from broadcasting their bank accounts, personal preferences and global position. Putting on a thin foil laced jacket for clubbing to protect one's modesty will be hip.
Choosing when to share and what to share may not be the only times when one would want to wear a body glove of thin foil. There are those who will seek to take from you what you don't want to share. Call them body hackers or identity pirates -- phishing phreaks that wish to jack into you to hijack your digital personality for unscrupulous profits. These need not be the criminal types -- think of what corporations could do with the information on all their mindless consumers. If the criminal types are successful, you could build a global spanning record -- buying, authorizing, creating -- unknowingly being responsible for a chain of illegitimate transactions that fuel an underground economy. Your life could be destroyed. Your property foreclosed to pay your debts racked up in far off lands. Your spouse filing for divorce after it's found out where you've been spending all those 'overtime' hours -- and don't bother arguing; there will be location and biometric data to prove you were there and doing what you weren't doing. When law enforcement officials come breaking down your front door -- oh wait, that's not your front door anymore -- you'll welcome the respite and quiet prison life will offer.
There is an alternative scenario -- another market for the nefarious minded. Virtual identity. When the future arrives, the sum of you will be data from your transactions and interactions with the machine world. How long will it be before someone clever creates entirely new identities, complete with histories, life but no physical existence? Want to buy a weekend as a high roller in Vegas? No problem. A quick download and you're ready to go. You'll be equipped with a multimillion dollar account, spending habits and a life of your design for the weekend. Ready made, with a 'best before' due date.
The future is inevitable. This information dominant future seems inescapable. You may live multiple lives unknowingly -- live beyond your means and potential, even if just for a weekend, knowingly. You could be more than one person -- knowingly and unknowingly, without having multiple personalities. Or maybe multiple personality disorder will come to have new meaning. No matter what happens, remember, with thin foil, you have a choice. So the US government thinks anyway.
Comments
Post a Comment