Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

12/1/2003

Here comes biometrics!

Filed under: Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes,News and Current Events — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is in the early morning or 7:27 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Third Quarter Moon

It’s here!

Good or bad, biometrics has hit the retail markets. I’m not talking about those keyboards that have a thumbprint reader to unlock your PC either. I mean that there are retail establishments that are testing pay-by-thumbprint, right now! There’s an entry on Slashdot that has links to both the good, and the bad, side to this technology. Frankly, it’s the dark side that I find the most interesting.
Ever seen Minority Report? If not, you need to see it for just this. Picture being tracked through a shopping mall via biometrics, with advertising targeted to you and calling you by name. To borrow an overused marketing phrase, it’ll take spamming to a “whole new level”. Ubiquitous computing? Forget that. Ubiquitous advertsing. That’s a more likely scenario by far. I shudder at what this will do to our world. And, I can already see a steep rise in amputation related crimes. You thought identity theft was bad in our time? Wait until people are stealling thumbs!

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.


Powered by WordPress
Any links to sites selling any reviewed item, including but not limited to Amazon, may be affiliate links which will pay me some tiny bit of money if used to purchase the item, but this site does no paid reviews and all opinions are my own.