L-1 Identity Solutions is acquiring the ID Systems business of REAL ID supporter Digimarc.
Presumably, this will get Digimarc out of the national ID business – and the national ID advocacy business. We’ll see what L-1 does.
It is possible to make money with biometrics outside of a national ID infrastructure, of course. Indeed, it’s penny-wise and pound-foolish for folks in this industry to pursue the small, government-centered market REAL ID would create when there could be a big, diverse identity and credentialing marketplace.
I want to associate myself with Adam’s excellent comments about Jonathan Zittrain’s book. I haven’t read the book yet, so I won’t try to comment on the specifics of Zittrain’s argument, but it strikes me that if Adam is summarizing the book fairly, ZIttrain’s thesis is strikingly similar to the thesis of Larry Lessig’s Code: The open Internet is great, but if we don’t take action soon it will turn into a bad, proprietary, corporatized network. I’ve been mildly surprised at how little comment there’s been on how spectacularly wrong Lessig’s specific predictions in Code turned out to be. Lessig was absolutely convinced that a system of robust user authentication would put an end to the Internet’s free-wheeling, decentralized nature. Not only has that not happened, but I suspect that few would seriously defend Lessig’s specific prediction will come to pass.
But while Lessig’s specific prediction turned out to be wrong, the general thrust of his argument—that open systems are unstable and will implode unless managed just right—is alive and well. I think that basic claim is still wrong. And I think it’s not a coincidence that these kinds of critiques often come from the left-hand side of the political spectrum (I don’t actually know Zittrain’s politics, but Lessig is certainly a leftie). It seems to me that left-of-center techies are in a bit of an awkward position because on the one hand they’ve fallen in love with the open, decentralized architecture that is epitomized by the Internet, but are predisposed to criticize the open, decentralized economic system called the free market. As a result, they wind up taking the somewhat incongruous stance that to preserve the decentralized nature of our technological systems, we need to have more centralization of our economic and political system. Zittrain’s choice of the Manhattan Project as a metaphor for the way to preserve the Internet’s openness is particularly striking, because of course the Manhattan Project was the absolute antithesis of the philosophy behind TCP/IP. It was a hierarchical, secret, centrally planned effort that left no room for dissent, diversity or public scrutiny.
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As I noted in previous installments of this series, our government seems to have an increasingly hard time keeping tabs on sensitive data. Unfortunately, there’s been another incident on this front. The Washington Post reported this morning that:
“A government laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health study was stolen in February, potentially exposing seven years’ worth of clinical trial data, including names, medical diagnoses and details of the patients’ heart scans. The information was not encrypted, in violation of the government’s data-security policy. NIH officials made no public comment about the theft and did not send letters notifying the affected patients of the breach until last Thursday — almost a month later. They said they hesitated because of concerns that they would provoke undue alarm.”
Undue alarm? Geez, I can’t imagine why! My friend Leslie Harris of CDT notes in story that, “The shocking part here is we now have personally identifiable information — name and age — linked to clinical data. If somebody does not want to share the fact that they’re in a clinical trial or the fact they’ve got a heart disease, this is very, very serious. The risk of identity theft and of revealing highly personal information about your health are closely linked here.”
But hey, we wouldn’t want to provoke “undue alarm” by telling those folks about the data breach! Pathetic. As I’ve pointed out before, if this happened in the private sector, trial lawyers would be salivating and lawsuits would be flying. By contrast, when the government loses personal information—information that his usually more sensitive than that which private actors collect—about the most that ever comes out of it is another GAO report calling for “more accountability.”
I can’t wait to see how well all our health care records are “secured” once we have socialized medicine in this country.
I always thought “rickrolling” was a stupid meme. So I’m happy to see it covered in the New York Times, a sure sign that the fad is on its way out. (And yes, that goes to the New York Times, not the stupid video)
Jonathan Zittrain, who is affiliated with Oxford University and Harvard’s Berkman Center, recently released a provocatively titled book: The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It. It’s an interesting read and I recommend you pick it up despite what I’ll say about it in a moment. (Incidentally, if you ever have a chance to hear Jonathan speak, I highly recommend you do so. He is, bar none, the most entertaining tech policy geek in the world. Imagine Dennis Miller with a cyberlaw degree.)
Jonathan’s book contrasts two different paradigms that he argues could define the Net’s future: The “generative” Net versus what he refers to as a world of “tethered, sterile appliances.” By “generative” he means technologies or networks that invite or allow tinkering and all sorts of creative uses. Think general-purpose personal computers and the traditional “best efforts” Internet. “Tethered, sterile appliances” by contrast, are technologies or networks that discourage or disallow tinkering. Basically, “take it or leave it” proprietary devices like Apple’s iPhone or the TiVo, or online walled gardens like the old AOL and current cell phone networks.
Jonathan’s thesis is that, for a variety of reasons [viruses, Spam, identify theft, etc], we run the risk of seeing the glorious days of the generative, open Net give way to more tethered devices and closed networks. He states:
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This is a fascinating article about China’s censorship efforts. I thought this was a bit weird, though: “servers (short for file servers, which are essentially very large-capacity computers)” I don’t think “server” is short for anything. And I kind of thought the term had long since become common knowledge among the sort of folks who read The Atlantic.
One-time TLF blogger Brooke Oberwetter (no really, she posted here one time) fretted to me recently that there was no commentary here on the outcome of the recent 700 mhz spectrum auction. Here goes, Brooke:
The way I see it, the result shows that Google has arrived as a Washington player and rent-seeker. It masterfully used the regulatory process to bend the rules in its favor. Rather than buying the spectrum, it managed to convince the FCC to require any buyer to make use of the spectrum in a way that benefits Google.
The $billions in benefits Google’s owners may reap come at the cost of the relatively tiny sum it spent on PR and lobbying. It didn’t have to plunk down any of its big money on spectrum itself. Richard Whitt’s recent post phrased the outcome in terms of benefit to consumers, of course, but its as much self-congratulations for the rewards that will come to Google from his work.
Make no mistake, I believe that an open network will be a better network with more innovation and more interesting uses, but we could have had that same open network if Google had paid full price for the spectrum in an open auction. Instead, Google will reap excess returns from the encumbrance it got placed on the spectrum.
<mild derision>Well played, Google. Welcome to Washington.</mild derision>
So reports the Missoulian on the Department of Homeland Security’s capitulation in the face of Governor Schweitzer’s resolute rejection of REAL ID.
On Friday, Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath notified the Department of Homeland Security that the state will not comply with REAL ID but will pursue the identity security policies it deems appropriate. McGrath urged DHS not to penalize the state for rejecting REAL ID.
DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker chose to interpret McGrath’s letter as a request for an extension of the REAL ID compliance deadline and granted it.
In other words, DHS has abandoned any pretense that it can tell states what to do. A showdown with recalcitrant states around the May 11 compliance deadline would require the Transportation Security Administration to disrupt the passenger air travel system, something DHS evidently recognizes to be a losing proposition.
Montana wins.
More reporting at the Threat Level blog.
Over at the Cato@Liberty blog, I’ve got a longish post responding to a Center for Strategic and International Studies paper defending data mining for terrorists.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.