Posted on 02/09/2005 11:14:24 AM PST by FreeMarket1
I keep a small wallet with all I need - we really don't' need half our belongings with us everywhere we go, girls!
I keep it safe in a snapped pocket - some shirts/jackets with inside pockets.
This also keep me from laying my 'purse' down where it can get snatched or forgotten...
Your fingerprints are clearly NOT the mark of the beast.
Please.
Can you imagine somebody stealing your FINGERPRINT?
Worked in Back to the Future 2..
Close but not exactly.
But I have always wondered, due to identiy theft, that a system will already be in place BEFORE the anti-christ appears.
That way, it would not take too long to require the whole world to have a mark to buy and sell.
the flip side is, once it gets implemented - it will spread - and then there's a total, hour by hour record of where you go, when you go, and what you do and how much you spend.
Hitler must be green with envy in his grave.
Does it matter which finger?
Nah...that could never happen...
And what would they do with this record? Other than occupy huge quantities of harddrive space and be bored to death? The fact of the matter is that that level of information on the day to day lives of Americans is A - already available if you use credit cards, and B - incredibly useless.
Everyone that carries a cell phone is already tracked. The police use this to locate anyone they want. They can check the computer logs to see who was near the scene of a crime, or who is not being truthful about their whereabouts.
Hey, cool, I didn't know they had Kodak back then! :^)
"And what would they do with this record? Other than occupy huge quantities of harddrive space and be bored to death? The fact of the matter is that that level of information on the day to day lives of Americans is A - already available if you use credit cards, and B - incredibly useless."
Indeed, you are correct. All the hand-wringing over this stuff is equivalent to worrying about being hit by a meteorite.
The more this tech is used, the more useless the data becomes. The FBI can't even install a computer system to deal with its internal data. What makes anyone think they'll be monitoring individuals' grocery purchases?
This should speed up the checkout line even more, since you won't have to sign after swiping a bank card.
Finally, what do you want to bet that you can also shop in this store with a wallet full of $20 bills.
Yes, indeed...it's panic time.
"Everyone that carries a cell phone is already tracked. The police use this to locate anyone they want. They can check the computer logs to see who was near the scene of a crime, or who is not being truthful about their whereabouts."
Oh, piffle. They aren't doing this. The potential is there, I suppose, but there aren't enough computers on the planet to monitor where everyone is at any given time.
As for me, I don't carry a cell phone, anyhow. I know of nobody who absolutely must be able to speak to me anytime or anyplace.
well I will give this topic this...
it DID bring out the black helicopter crowd.
PEOPLE THEY WILL STILL ACCEPT CASH!!! sheesh
These fingerprint scanners have already been subverted and thus proven to be not nearly the foolproof biometric identifier they are heralded as.
Let us fast forward a few years from now. Fingerprint scanners are just about everywhere and many, if not most people use them because they are just so darned convienient. Now, let's say that Alice and Bob go to a resturaunt. They order and consume a meal, then Bob pays for it using that wonderfully convienient fingerprint system. Alice and Bob leave the resturaunt. While bussing their table, Charlie, their waiter, sets the glass that Bob was using aside.
Later on, he lifts the prints from the glass and takes them home. Once home he uses a kit that has become fairly common amonst criminals like himself to create a little latex copy of Bob's fingerprint that he can wear.
Charlie goes on a spending spree. No alarms go off at the credit card company because all the purchases were digitally "signed" with Bob's "unique" fingerprint. Once the fraud is discovered by Bob he's going to have a heck of a time proving that he didn't make the purchases because of the inherrant trust the system gets by virtue of the fact that "everyone knows fingerprints are unique".
Fingerprint scanners are not a cure-all for the problem of identity theft. As a matter of fact, until people start understanding the weaknesses of such systems, they may be even more dangerous than credit cards because of (incorrect) assumptions people will make of their security.
That's the thing most folks are missing, by and large the government really doesn't care about your fiber intake.
Interesting that you used the phrase "swiping a bank card", in duller moments the last few weeks I've been contemplating how the word "swipe" has changed in the last 20 years. Used to be it almost always meant "steal", now it's almost always meant as a specific form of the verb "use" reserved for things with magnetic data strips. Just a silly thought for a dull day.
Yeah that's so much easier for Bob than using your carbon from a regular style credit card transaction, God knows there's no chance that due to the sweat on the glass, multiple times of picking up the glass, and whatever shine coating the dishwasher put on the glass to make it look nice there's no chance Bob would be completely unable to get a usable print and it would be so easy for him to figure out which of those prints he got is from the finger you actually use for your biometric identification.
Sorry, while the system isn't perfect it's much better than what we currently have.
Actually, "swipe" has always meant to move with a sweeping motion. It's an older meaning, but you may think of "taking a swipe at the ball" to find it in common usage;
Yeah in the denotations that's always been there, but in the standard use connotations "steal" was the prevalent usage in the 80s, now that one is pretty much gone.
I suppose so. Isn't language a funny thing? Rather than swiping stuff from a store, you're now swiping something to buy stuff from the same store. Funny.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.