Monthly Archive for July, 2002

Red-light cameras actually cause an increase in rear-end accidents. The pro-camera forces know this and are trying to keep you from seeing the data. Part 4 in a series.

Weekly Standard

Its a funny thing about airports. It’s probably because I bought my ticket the day before on Priceline. I got my bags extra screened, my person extra screened, but, for some reason, the guy checking the bags (after they got through the x-ray machines) neglected the big central compartment housing my computer. I mean, why would I put a bomb in the magazine and paper pockets? Oh, well.

I’m sure I’m being singled out because of the method and timing of my ticket purchase, but I still like to think its because I’m the only passenger who is happy and nice to the staff.

So what am I going, you ask, and why? Well, the thing is, all summer I’ve wanted to take a jaunt back to Brandeis and meet up with people and places. And then Adam suggested I jet back, and offered me a free room, and offered to pick me up and drive me around. Cool! So although Robin is gone to Switzerland and there aren’t a terrible amount of people I know who are handing around campus, I jumped onto the web and looked for some tickets for the next day. Well, Travelocity promised the best rates, and on every one of them when I clicked through the tickets were sold out or restricted to a week from now. Southwest offered tickets for, I think, about $550. Which would not be worth it for a fun five day jaunt. So I tried Priceline, typed in $329, and ten minutes later got an email telling me to pack my bags.

So I did, and here I am in Pittsburgh, on my way to good old Waltham. What’ll I do when I get there? Meet up with Jon, prolly, and say hi to some folks and bug Rich Graves and hang out with Adam and Dave and Aaron. And we’ll talk about computers and web stuff. And they’ll probably make me sit down and get all the bugs out of my new site template so it can be switched over. And all will be merry.

Oh, and of course, I will see Sally! Yay!

I watched Gosford Park on the ride here, and it was great, and I had on closed captioning so I could understand some of it and so that the lady in the next seat could watch, and they guy in front of me kept banging back into his seat and putting it further back, and I swear he was trying to kill my computer, and I got here, and I ran around trying to find the terminal, and now I’m about to board the flight, which is leaving late, even though US Air won’t acknowledge it. Oh, I mean US Airways. Musn’t forget they changed their name a little while back to improve their image. But for some reason they insist on spelling it U(dot)S AIRWAYS, which is stupid. The dot is in the middle, where a dash would be. And I don’t know why they can’t put a dot after the “S” as well, but I guess “United” stands for something and “States” doesn’t and then we can spell out Airways. Right.

Before I left I went to Shaina’s last video class at Tarbut V’Torah and got to see much of their little movie, which was pretty well done considering the roudiness of the class. Then Mom and Shaina accompanied me to lunch and then the Orange County Airport. So that is what I’ve done to get into this strange journey.

Nothing more to say now. Gotta board!

No new points, but a very good introduction for the layperson of the evils of copy-protection.

This evening I went to the Marketplace with the idea that I’d eat at Corner Bakery but nothing else planned. I knew there weren’t any movies there that I’d want to see, so I just ordered my standard order (combo – 1/2 chicken pomodori panina, a bowl of chili, and a raspberry bar for dessert). I went out on the patio and listened to some very nice music by the live band. I was given my order almost immediately, which was cool, and for some reason they gave me both my soup and a WHOLE chicken sandwich. So I packed up half to bring home…I was gonna tell someone they should be more careful but they were all very busy when I walked back in, and I heard someone else ordering a combo and being told that she gets half a sandwich, so I guess it was just a fluke.

Anyway, I was sitting on this patio on a nice warm night listening to a band sing Van Morrison and Stevie Ray Vaughan and I’m delicately cradling my grilled panini and popping garlicky crisps into my mouth and I feel completely and utterly contented, without feeling overly snotty. Okay, I know this makes no sense, but I was eating this food that made me feel very calm and good and content but not snobby but not common or lowly. I can’t describe it, it just felt so…so clean and correct.

Anyway, I left there after they finished the set and walked over to Barnes & Noble. I was reading David Brin’s wonderful The Transparent Society about liberties and freedom. He talks about something that a few years ago I was a big advocate of but in recent times I have forgot about — it is the reason I started this blog, the reason why I think blogs are the way of the future. It is the idea that some privacy invasion can often be tolerated when it is reciprocal.

The wearable computer, my erstwhile goal in life, now just a hobby as I’ve sadly moved on…allowing anyone to have cheap digital wear, including a camera that sees what they see and that transmits records to a secure location, using GSM phone frequencies or whatever, so that everyone is watching everyone else. It is encrypted, watermarked, timestamped, and safe, so it is true, verified, and absolutely beyond refrute, but only the recorder has access to it. The crimes of rape, of murder, theft, of muggings…anything where you comfront another person, they would all be drastically reduced. What, everyone’s going to wear a ski mask everywhere? Even when other forms of identification can be sensed, other biometric readings taken?

An open society is desiable over Ashcroft’s closed one, over the society of the Taliban and all the other terrible evils of the world, the evils that we hate but start to gradually become. And wearables would make society open.

Similarily, logging is essential to everything. If someone looks at my credit rating, I want an email telling me who, where, and when. Brin goes a step further with the wonderful assertion that, as we know, security through obscurity is no security at all, and that the ultimate solution for security is transparency of logging. If someone breaks in, as they will always do, the best thing to know is who they are, where they came from, how they broke in, and what they saw. We can’t stop break-ins all together, more firewalls will never compensate for lax passwords. Logging is our best hope.

Again, it has to be timestamped and digitally signed and verified and stored off-location. I think the most important step forward right now will be a completely independent and completely trustworthy digital identity verification system. I’m thinking someone buys an island and starts a country with the sole idea of it being a security capitol. They are accountable to no government or agency, but their operation, including all financials, all employees, everything they do, is completely open to review, voluntairily. The moment they start to throw up veils of secrecy is the day they are supplanted by another trustworthy carrier.

They need to make and distribute free powerful digital signature programs. And all the programs and protocols should be completely open, free, and verified by experts. They should establish a trust metric and a server trust system. They should give trust to local branches, and revoke trust if wrongdoing is uncovered or suspected. People should gain online reputations using real trust metrics.

We have PGP, but it hasn’t caught on. We have various document storage and delivery services, but none are standardized. We need someone to start with, say, the PGP standard, make an easy to use client for all platforms, and start providing verified timestamped authenticaed secured storage at a small cost per megabyte.

Think about it. What would it change? Well, everything that you sign, everything that you buy with credit or check or debit, every time you show your drivers license, every time you verify that something is real and authentic…any time you want to make sure there is no tampering. All of these things would be changed. And police brutality. And rape. And murder. Reduced, removed, taken out of style. Computer crime, wire fraud, breaking contracts, failure to pay, all gone. Yet we can still maintain limited and powerful privacy zones, zones similar to those, to again cite Brin, used in voting. Wherein intense verification takes place, but once you get past the checkpoints, your vote is your own and is anonymous. This would be an amazing leap, and I can see it within ten to fifteen years. Perhaps I’ll have to play a part in it.

First the study that says people who sleep longer will die sooner, then this report that sleeping longer and taking nice hour naps will improve memory and concentration. So a shorter smarter life, or a longer stupider one? *Sigh* maybe I’ll sleep on it.