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PAYMENT BY FINGERPRINT - A GOOD THING?
http://www.freemarketnews.com ^ | Feb 09, 2005 | by Michael J. Ross

Posted on 02/09/2005 11:14:24 AM PST by FreeMarket1

PAYMENT BY FINGERPRINT - A GOOD THING?

Feb 09, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.com

by Michael J. Ross

While politicians in Washington, DC dream up new ways to collect our fingerprints and our tax payments, free-market participants in Washington state are putting into practice a new method that makes it easy for shoppers to use their fingerprints to pay for purchases.

Thriftway (http://www.thriftway.com/), a grocery chain which bills itself as "Washington's Food Store", is seeing greater acceptance of a payment system developed by Pay By Touch (http://www.paybytouch.com/), and first deployed in its Seattle location during 2002. Each shopper at their stores is now able to use nothing more than their fingerprint to verify their identity and pay for their purchase using a credit card previously registered with the store.

The system is proving to be quite popular with Thriftway's patrons, who are increasingly using and even demanding the new payment approach -- likely because it is fast and convenient, as well as being a technological novelty. In fact, one customer even drove 400 miles simply to use the new technology.

The President of the firm, Paul Kapioski, noted that they are gaining more customers who are interested in trying out the system, as well as winning the trust of senior citizens, who appreciate the additional security of not having to carry money to the stores.

Paying by fingerprint has its unattractive side - popular culture associates fingerprinting with criminals. But Thriftway has not experienced a single fraudulent transaction during the 2 1/2 years that the new payment ...................Full Article www.FreeMarketNews.com


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: biometrics; fingerprint; paybytouch; politicians; privacy
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To: Republican Red
I stopped carrying a purse years ago - it dawned on that men get along very well without carrying purses. So why not women...

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...

21 posted on 02/09/2005 11:54:55 AM PST by maine-iac7 (...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Lincoln)
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To: wadingthrough

Your fingerprints are clearly NOT the mark of the beast.

Please.


22 posted on 02/09/2005 11:55:09 AM PST by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitor)
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To: BikerNYC

Can you imagine somebody stealing your FINGERPRINT?


23 posted on 02/09/2005 11:55:38 AM PST by FixitGuy
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To: FreeMarket1

Worked in Back to the Future 2..


24 posted on 02/09/2005 11:55:39 AM PST by G32
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To: wadingthrough

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.


25 posted on 02/09/2005 11:58:13 AM PST by TruthConquers (Dominus illuminatio mea)
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To: FixitGuy
Can you imagine somebody stealing your FINGERPRINT?

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.

26 posted on 02/09/2005 11:59:54 AM PST by maine-iac7 (...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Lincoln)
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To: FreeMarket1

Does it matter which finger?


27 posted on 02/09/2005 12:00:37 PM PST by navygal
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To: Reeses
Don't put it past drug addicts to cut off your finger for a few bucks.

Nah...that could never happen...

Woman found alive in ditch, minus hands(Mexico)

28 posted on 02/09/2005 12:12:09 PM PST by ActionNewsBill ("In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act")
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To: maine-iac7

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.


29 posted on 02/09/2005 12:12:43 PM PST by discostu (quis custodiet ipsos custodes)
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To: maine-iac7
and then there's a total, hour by hour record of where you go, when you go

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.

30 posted on 02/09/2005 12:12:55 PM PST by Reeses (What a person sees is mostly behind their eyeballs rather than in front.)
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To: Cultural Jihad

Hey, cool, I didn't know they had Kodak back then! :^)


31 posted on 02/09/2005 12:13:49 PM PST by Incandesia (Please don't eat the Newbie)
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To: discostu

"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.


32 posted on 02/09/2005 12:21:16 PM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: Reeses

"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.


33 posted on 02/09/2005 12:22:51 PM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: FreeMarket1

well I will give this topic this...

it DID bring out the black helicopter crowd.

PEOPLE THEY WILL STILL ACCEPT CASH!!! sheesh


34 posted on 02/09/2005 12:26:45 PM PST by MikefromOhio (An isolationist America will not ensure our safety.)
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To: All
I'd like to point out to supporters of this that this will not protect you against identity theft. If anything, it will make identity theft much easier and harder to prove for the victim.

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.

35 posted on 02/09/2005 12:28:02 PM PST by zeugma (Come to the Dark Side...... We have cookies!)
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To: MineralMan

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.


36 posted on 02/09/2005 12:28:43 PM PST by discostu (quis custodiet ipsos custodes)
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To: zeugma

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.


37 posted on 02/09/2005 12:33:22 PM PST by discostu (quis custodiet ipsos custodes)
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To: discostu

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;



Swipe - definition from gcide
Swipe \Swipe\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Swiped; p. pr. & vb. n.
Swiping.]
1. To give a swipe to; to strike forcibly with a sweeping
motion, as a ball.
[1913 Webster]

Loose balls may be swiped almost ad libitum. --R. A.
Proctor.
[1913 Webster]

2. To pluck; to snatch; to steal. [Slang, U.S.]
[1913 Webster]

Swipe \Swipe\, n. [Cf. Sweep, Swiple.]
1. A swape or sweep. See Sweep.
[1913 Webster]

2. A strong blow given with a sweeping motion, as with a bat
or club.
[1913 Webster]

Swipes [in cricket] over the blower's head, and over
either of the long fields. --R. A.
Proctor.
[1913 Webster]

3. pl. Poor, weak beer; small beer. [Slang, Eng.] [Written
also swypes.] --Craig.
[1913 Webster]


38 posted on 02/09/2005 12:33:23 PM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: MineralMan

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.


39 posted on 02/09/2005 12:35:51 PM PST by discostu (quis custodiet ipsos custodes)
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To: discostu

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.


40 posted on 02/09/2005 12:37:57 PM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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