John C Peterson - Slashdot User

Comment Re:commonly confused (Score 1) 178

by John C Peterson on Thursday March 20, 2008 @09:32PM (#22814508) Attached to: Would a National Biometric Authentication Scheme Work?

I think this gets to the crux of the issue. My reading of the article is that they are focusing on the ability of a citizen to control his identity - adding a biometric component to our current means of authentication such as a drivers license is a way to guard against being impersonated by others. I believe that their point is that fear of losing anonymity has caused us to settle for a low level of authentication. A problem with RealID is that if this system gains an underserved trust then it will be harder to fix the damage when you are impersonated by someone with a fake RealID. So a RealID that uses biometrics would be preferable to one that is easier to forge.

Whether the government should mandate / control this biometric information is a good question. The government knows my height, weight, eyecolor, and has some old photos of me at the moment. But would I want them to have a fingerprint? A DNA sample? That would be problematical. The article manages to duck the real issues here - I think that makes their argument a lot less compelling.

Oh, and you can't blame our political ills on Yale profs - it's the students who are doing all the damage. :-)

Feed Techdirt: Looking Back On Another Year Of Patent Insanity (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed on Friday December 28, 2007 @07:13PM

The Patent Troll Tracker is doing what he does best (well, other than pissing off patent hoarders and their lawyers): tracking patent litigation. As we approach the end of the year, he's got a nice rundown on some numbers concerning patent litigation. For those who think that pointless and wasteful patent litigation is on the decline, think again. Even in just the last three months, the pace has been accelerating -- perhaps as patent hoarders rush to get cases in before any patent reform makes progress in Congress -- or before the Supreme Court (thankfully) quashes another abuse of the patent system. The Troll Tracker looks at the Fortune 100 to see who got sued the most for patent infringement, and found that the top 35 companies were sued a combined 500 times for patent infringement in the last two years alone. That's an awful lot of money wasted on lawyers that could be going towards actual innovation. Of the lawsuits over the past two years, approximately 50% came from companies who didn't actually make any products themselves. However, in the last 3 months, that number shoots up to 70% from companies that don't make products. And if you limit the list to tech companies, 80% of the lawsuits came from companies that don't make products. Shouldn't this be ringing some alarm bells?

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Feed Linux.com: Hands-on with the OLPC XO laptop -- and loving it (linux.com)

From feed by lcfeed on Friday December 28, 2007 @12:52PM

Submission + - Egypt to Copyright Pyramids and Sphynx (google.com)

Submitted by empaler on Tuesday December 25, 2007 @06:01PM

empaler writes: We all know the usual pro-copyright arguments. Most of them hinge on the fact that the individual or company that has a copyright needs an incentive to make something that is copyrightable, and therefore ensure a revenue stream in a period after the copyright has been granted. In a never-surpassed move, Egypt is working on legislation to extend copyright well above 3000 years — they are going to start claiming royalties for using likenesses of the Sphynx and the Pyramids. It is still unclear whether the original intent of the Pyramids included "making sure them bastards pay for a plastic copy in 3000 years" alongside "securing a pathway to the heavens for the God King". Speaking as a Greenlandic national, I want dibs on ice cubes.

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