Posted on 02/09/2005 11:14:24 AM PST by FreeMarket1
Yep, etymology is interesting stuff, I had a roommate who knew a bunch of it and in bored moments you could just ask him for the history of some word or phrase and kill 20 minutes.
I used to volunteer in a public library, usually after school, when the library was full of kids.
The funniest thing happened over and over again. You'd be shelving books, when you'd suddenly hear giggles from one set of stacks. It happened again and again, and over about three years.
I kept going over there, once the kids had left, trying to figure out what they were laughing at. There were no sex books there, or anything else you'd think would create so much giggling.
Finally, while shelving books in that section, I figured it out. There was this old book from the 1940s shelved with the other books on parties and entertaining. The title?
"Gay Parties for All Occasions"
H*LL NO!
Do you want to know the answer to that question? Kids have been killed for tennis shoes. Killing you to get a finger as a means of wholesale access to your electronic accounts is a much better payback than a pair of fancy tennis shoes.
If you are lucky, you'll just loose the finger to a miscreant with a PVC pipe cutter and a desire to go shopping.
Funny stuff. Reminds me of a favorite George Carlin joke "remember the first time you heard of a cock fight? 'no man it's chickens'"
Not to mention the FACT that similar information is being used in courtrooms as evidence for people's whereabouts.
BIG BROTHER IS HERE, PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP!
You MUST be joking. Your cell phone calls - at least the digital ones - can be readily triangulated.
"In states like Indiana, they're already using the electronic tollway passes to give people speeding tickets. How? Of course they can "clock" how long it takes you to get from one toll booth to the other to figure out your avg. rate of speed!
Not to mention the FACT that similar information is being used in courtrooms as evidence for people's whereabouts. "
the other reasons are that I worked for the largest issuer of Master Card - learned more than I wanted to know about credit cards - and don't want a cell phone as I enjoy being in my car, or elsewhere, with no interruptions. I like 'down' time.
"You MUST be joking. Your cell phone calls - at least the digital ones - can be readily triangulated. "
Actually I think systems like this are going to go away. Speeding tickets are big revenue, but one of the reasons they can give them out is the gamble, people speed because they can get away with it most of the time. When people stop being able to get away with it they'll stop speeding, and no law enforcement agency in the country wants to lose that cash flow.
see my post # 49
The abstract: Potential threats caused by something like real fingers, which are called fake or artificial fingers, should be crucial for authentication based on fingerprint systems. Security evaluation against attacks using such artificial fingers has been rarely disclosed. Only in patent literature, measures, such as "live and well" detection, against fake fingers have been proposed. However, the providers of fingerprint systems usually do not mention whether or not these measures are actually implmented in emerging fingerprint systems for PCs or smart cards or portable terminals, which are expected to enhance the grade of personal authentication necessary for digital transactions. As researchers who are pursuing secure systems, we would like to discuss attacks using artificial fingers and conduct experimental research to clarify the reality. This paper reports that gummy fingers, namely artificial fingers that are easily made of cheap and readily available gelatin, were accepted by extremely high rates by particular fingerprint devices with optical or capacitive sensors. We have used the molds, which we made by pressing our live fingers against them or by processing fingerprint images from prints on glass surfaces, etc. We describe how to make the molds, and then show that the gummy fingers, which are made with these molds, can fool the fingerprint devices.
Oh just wait. With the new Democratic governor effectively putting in a discriminatory system against cash users on the tollways in the Chicago area, they're just getting going on the "benefits" (beneficial ONLY to the government) of having everyone around here using I-Passes.
One thing that I've always thought was funny and frankly a little nonsensical is the way that people feel so much differently about online purchases with credit cards than they do at department stores. In many cases with online purchases, the transaction is never seen by a human being, and in most cases, the entire transaction is encrypted from eyes that might be trying to "watch" the wire. Still, many people are much more hesitant to make online purchases for fear of someone stealing their credit card number, yet they'll hand that same credit card (and license if they ask for it) to a minimum wage employee at a restaurant or department store without even thinking about it.
People are strange.
I hate telephones, which is why I'll continue to avoid cells as long as possible.
I don't sweat the credit card issue. I'm fully confident that my life is so incredibly boring anybody do tracking on me would gauge their eyes out with a fork in a matter of days.
"Speeding tickets are big revenue, but one of the reasons they can give them out is the gamble, people speed because they can get away with it most of the time. When people stop being able to get away with it they'll stop speeding, and no law enforcement agency in the country wants to lose that cash flow.
"
"I'm fully confident that my life is so incredibly boring anybody do tracking on me would gauge their eyes out with a fork in a matter of days.
"
With me, it'd be a matter of hours, I'm sure. When I'm not sitting at this desk, I'm going to the supermarket...at least most of the time in the Winter.
Now, once fishing season starts, it's another story altogether. They can track me as I troll around the lake. That oughta give 'em a thrill. Heck, they can even look up my tackle purchases and try to figure out what I'm trying to catch.
And I'm sure the evil government types are going to be interested to know that I buy Honey Nut Shredded Wheat for a breakfast cereal and Millstone French Roast Coffee (ground) to drink with it. That info is going to be of huge interest to those snoops, I know.
There are a lot of benefits to I-Pass systems, it means toll areas don't need to be this huge knot in traffic expanding to dozens of lanes and re-contracting on the other side, they cut down on accidents, and you don't have to have those poor saps freezing to death manning the booth. Less accidents sound beneficial to people other than the government to me.
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