meta-roj

earlier this month, british home secretary david blunkett released a lot of information on the new british id proposal.

great britain will assemble a database of biometric information using fingerprints, iris scans and face maps. once there’s a big fat database with all this stuff, they’ll roll out new id cards.

i have big issues with biometrics. it’s something i keep saying, but the biggest problem i have with biometric-based identity is that once the chosen biometric is compromised (and they will be compromised), there’s no way to “revoke” the key.

let’s say, for example, that my fingerprint is used in an id scheme. and let’s further say that i’m careless about where i put my fingers, and i leave little oily fingerprints all over the world. some nice gentleman comes along and lifts one, and is off to the races (perhaps, literally). a physical object – like a card is easy enough to replace, and any system reading the card can be flagged so that the “lost or stolen” card is invalid, but my fingers are a harder issue. so now what? do i go to the home office and ask for replacement fingers replacement eyeballs and a new face?

there’s also the related issue of people who, through the natural variety and horrible accidents that accompany life as a human, aren’t equipped with recognizable fingers, eyeballs or faces.

both of these cases illustrate that any system that relies on biometrics must also have a “backup” mechanism available – something that works for people with compromised fingers, or no fingers at all. and if you’re going to build this huge infrastructure to support biometric ids, and it has to have an accompanying huge infrastructure to support non-biometric ids for all the exceptions in the world, then why would you build both? wouldn’t it be more economic to build the non-biometric system and use it for everyone?

“using multiple identities is one of the most common practices of those involved in terrorist activity.” of course, what this ignores is that we all use multiple identities all the time. but that’s some deeper philosophy than i want to get into right now.

people much smarter than i can probably shed more light on the technical esoterica.

for now, watch your fingers.

i stumbled into an interesting paper over at the center for economic and policy research by dean baker (a co-director of the center), titled the artistic freedom voucher: internet age alternative to copyrights.

it’s a relatively short paper, so i encourage you to read it.

the basic idea is to create a sort of single-payer system for the arts – allocate money by voucher, so the population makes the ‘artistic call,’ but fund the system through a refundable tax credit and require participants in the system to release their material to the public domain earlier than the standard copyright regime. as you might imagine, i have some first-impressions….

one of my biggest concerns is that any system that demands artists relinquish their copyrights, while also allowing other organizations to retain copyrights under the “existing system.” invites a sort of general abuse through the system. yes, you got paid your $5000 for that great childrens’ storybook, and now that you’ve been paid, you give up all rights to the work, and disney is free to make the movie, lock up their rights, essentially forever.

the brothers grimm aren’t around to cringe at the “disneyfied” versions of the stories they pulled together from the common culture so many years ago, but i imagine many living artists would be quite disturbed by such things. this problem with the afv proposal is fairly easily addressed by the good people over at creative commons.

baker also states “it is also worth noting that much of this saving will take the form of lower advertising costs” – this savings, of course, is in the form of corporations appropriating artistic works from the vastly expanded public domain without any regard for the wishes of the creators. of course, the value of using existing art in advertising is that there’s a sort of implied endorsement that comes with the package.

baker’s assertion that “creative workers are only entitled to be paid once for their work, not twice” misses a large dose of reality. aging rock stars are funding their old-age healthcare needs with “second payments” from tv commercials –
* led zeppelin, rock ‘n’ roll for cadillac
* the who, tommy (the overture, anyway) for clarinex
* the cure, pictures of you for hp
* squeeze, tempted for gap and burger king
* queen, you’re my best friend for yahoo
* the who, happy jack for hummer
* gary numan, cars for oldsmobile
* george clinton, atomic dog for mcdonald’s
* cyndi lauper, true colors for kodak
* alphaville, forever young for saturn
* baltimora, tarzan boy for listerine (nothing like a one-hit wonder 🙂 )
* van halen, right now for pepsi
* the cult, she sells sanctuary for nissan
* abba, dancing queen for visa
* ozzy osbourne, crazy train for mitsubishi
* the rolling stones, start me up for microsoft’s windows 95 launch
* styx, mr. roboto for volkswagen
* iggy pop lust for life for royal caribbean cruises

(just digging through my culturally-soaked brain – but that’s enough to make the point. drop into adtunes for more).

there’s also the issue of the cost to manage this system. for some clues, we can look at existing “performance rights” organizations. i guess you can probably figure 10% to 15% off the top.

finally, politics. we don’t have a very solid track record of political support for the arts in this country (witness the perpetual nea-funding debates), so could anything this bold actually happen? the artistic associations (riaa, mpaa, etc) will want to weigh in on the legislation that creates such a system, and i would bet that it doesn’t come through in “pure” form.

update (2003.11.30): mighty fast pig has thoughts.

james hetfield is “bummed.”

in this reuters report (via abc), we have some comments on metallica’s latest release st. anger, which has moved 1.5 million units in the us since june and was a #1 debut.

maybe there’s some blowback from the mp3-fans in the united states – maybe. then again, maybe the band understands what’s going on…. american metallica fans have expectations, and maybe this….

“it’s a very challenging record”

“constructed by a computer program and features no guitar solos.”

…isn’t what american metallica-oids expect.

since this theory echoes some of my previous comments (see “the ponderous public” and “i liked you better yesterday”) on plan g, i thought i’d use it to reinforce my own preconceptions in public.

introducing X(3872).

japanese scientists have evidence of a funky new meson.

Although this is extremely short-lived by human standards, scientists say that a billionth of a trillionth of a second is nearly an eternity for a sub-atomic particle this heavy

true, that. i can hardly get anything done in a billionth of a trillionth of a second.

because there aren’t enough slices in the demographic pie at your local neighborhood magazine rack, coming to a rack near you is tracks, a new music rag about “music built to last”.

ignoring for a moment the business of magazines (which i know nothing about), this quote got my attention:

Over the past decade, music buyers over age 30 have become the majority. They accounted for 56 percent of the music purchased in 2002, up from 46 percent a decade earlier, according to the Recording Industry Association of America

can you guess what that says between the lines?

the last of the breton-ish surrealists

it’s disturbing that it’s now late 2003, and we’ve gone two years without these things, but a rash of new motion in the judicial system is making some progress toward restoring a balance of power between the branches of american government.

this ap story [included below when the link breaks] is more important to more americans than most americans realize.
(more…)

as usual, the courts in america have to go where the popular vote and leading politicians fear to tread….

in a ruling today, the massachusetts high court determined (4-3) that homosexuals are allowed to wed under the state constitution. the ruling gives the state legislature 180 days to figure out the how to do the paperwork.

this issue is an “equal protection” issue – i don’t tread into the business of religion or religious officials. i’m only interested in the civil functions of marriage – the rights, responsibilities and legal status. any two people who affirm the status of their relationship, on the record, declaring that each person is loved and trusted to act in the [selfish] best interest of the other person, should be allowed (and even encouraged?) to do so.

that’s the point, to me.

first introduced here as a crappy-movie-avoidance mechanism, the distributed, mobile hecklebot has gone from passive to active with the chasing bush effort in london.

of course, i’m not in london to see how well it’s working, but it’s gotten news coverage, which, ultimately is the point – it has succeeded in drawing attention. the message is getting out.

so, bush may have escaped the parliamentary heckling, but not so much the ground-level heckling.

ow coming to the alaskan frontier… a gothic palace made of ice.

we’ve seen ice hotels elsewhere, but this one comes with an ice ballerina, and some amazingly cool (ahem) architecture.

just over $1000 for 3 nights. [n]ice.

(i knew zan was a little uncomfortable with his masculinity…)