Nolan's Corner - Essays

GCHS Use of Biometrics

sneakin — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 00:15:08 -0800

This is a Letter to the Editor that I sent in a while back, and I am finally putting it on my blog. Enjoy.

The November 9th edition of the Daily Journal featured an article describing Greenwood Community School Corporation's use of fingerprint scanners to secure its computers. The article quoted Joe Huber, GCSC's director of information systems, saying, “there's no combination of letters or numbers to try to crack”.

That statement is false. As any knowledgeable computer user knows, all information that goes into and is stored by a computer gets converted into a series of ones and zeros. The same goes for a fingerprint that is scanned by a computer. Thus to a computer a fingerprint is no different than a combination of letters and numbers. Just because an attacker can't crack the “password” doesn't mean that a biometric system is more secure.

Using one's fingerprint as a password only gives the appearance of security because it's a fingerprint. It is no more secure than using a single, really long password. It's actually much less secure than a different password for each system because every system would be using the same “password”. An attacker would either have to capture the raw fingerprint data to gain access to all the information that that fingerprint is allowed to access or get a hold of the entire database of fingerprints. Either way using fingerprints alone only decreases the overall security of the information it's trying to protect.

Biometrics also presents another problem: a user's fingerprint can't be changed. There are only a handful of “passwords” available unless their toes are counted too, and if their toe-prints get captured by an attacker then there's not much left to scan on the body.

There are two possible solutions that are more secure: password managers or a public key infrastructure. Password managers are just that, programs that manage and securely store a list of passwords. The only password that can be captured is the one that is used to open the list of passwords, instead of a password that grants access to a system.

While using a password manager doesn't get rid of the multitude of passwords, a public key infrastructure can provide the only secure means of verifying a user's identity on a computer network while using a single password. In a public key infrastructure the only password that is used is used to unlock the user's key. With the proper setup a public key infrastructure can be used as the basis for a secure login along with other benefits. To be completely secure, a public key infrastructure would require smart cards that store the user's key and can also perform encryption on the card.

Both, password managers and a public-key infrastructure, offer greater security than a biometric fingerprint scanner appears to and can ever offer, and if Joe Huber believes that biometrics is a cure-all then he's either not paranoid nor informed enough to be in charge of a school corporation's computer security.

Nation founded on reason, not biblical principles

sneakin — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:06:35 -0800

Published in the Dec. 14th edition of the Daily Journal.

In the Nov. 26 edition of the Daily Journal, Paul Hammons wrote a letter to the editor that touched on quite a few things. He touched on the election, evolution and the founding of this country.

I will correct him on his statement that this country was founded on biblical principles because it’s an attempt to rewrite our history.

The governments of the Dark Ages were founded on Biblical principles. Those centuries were dark times that only saw meager progress. Hence why we call them the Dark Ages. The meager progress was directly related to the power of the Church, because the Church suppressed ideas and people who were critical of it, effectively keeping the majority of the people ignorant.

Whereas the United States was founded on the concepts of reason and individuality along with the three principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. None of which are Biblical, and none of which are detrimental to a strong society. In fact those principles are the sole reason we do have a strong society, because men are free to exchange ideas and live their lives as they see fit.

The only rights and freedoms that exist are individual rights and freedoms. The freedoms and rights of a group are related directly to the rights and freedoms of the individuals who make up that group or society. If an individual is not free then there can not be a strong society, because an individual would not be free to participate in and contribute to society as he wishes.

It is also wrong to place society before the individual. There were societies that placed society before the individual. Two such societies were Nazi Germany and the USSR. Both of which did not have strong societies because an individual's freedom was restricted, and the state came first. Those societies even sacrificed the lives and liberty of individuals in pursuit of the state's goals.

Both are also two societies in which our veterans sacrificed life and limb fighting. Sacrifices that are depicted realistically in Saving Private Ryan, a movie Mr. Hammond refuses to see. Their sacrifices must not be forgotten, and should not be censored from the public airways because the real story was and is being paid for by the American public.
Life and limb is sadly the true price of keeping the US free. A nation founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A nation that must not forget that and what it means, lest we desire to return to a darker time in the name of a strong society.

Blame Canada (For Your High Drug Costs)

sneakin — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 03:45:26 -0700

The soaring costs of prescription drugs is one of the issues this election year. One of the proposed solutions is to import drugs from Canada which a few states have done despite a federal law against it. The federal government keeps refusing to officially allow the practice citing “safety” concerns. But people seem to want drugs imported from Canada because they are cheaper since the Canadian government sets the price. Cheap medicine from Canada sounds attractive to the American consumer, but it doesn't get to the root of the problem that the federal government isn't bold enough to state.

The root of the problem is Canada. Canada has socialized medicine as do most of the countries in Europe. Canada dictates the price that a certain drug will be sold at resulting in prices that are lower than in the United States. By setting a drugs price, Canada indirectly raises the price that Americans have to pay.

This can be proved with a little thought experiment. The thought experiment consists of a pharmaceutical company, Billy & Co., that has developed a new drug called CureAll, and a market of twenty people who will be taking the drug while CureAll's patent is still valid. Before we delve into the details of the experiment, some background on the business model of a pharmaceutical company is needed.

Pharmaceutical companies spend years developing a new drug. As they develop a new drug they seek patents on any novel chemicals they make during development, any processes used to make the drug, as well as the drug itself. They seek patents so they can protect their investment in the new drug and to make a return without having to worry about any competition. That means they have to pay for the development, the costs to bring the drug to market, and make a profit. In the US, companies have seven years from the time the patent is granted until it expires to pay for the all those costs.

For the thought experiment, the patent will expire in five years. The hypothetical drug, CureAll, cost Billy & Co. $200,000 to develop. That is the minimum amount of money they need to recoup the cost of development. Billy & Co. will also want to make a profit along with paying for manufacturing and distribution costs. Billy & Co. estimate that it'll cost $300,000 more to manufacture and distribute the drug to their market of twenty people while the patent is valid. To pay for CureAll, Billy & Co. need to make $500,000 from the twenty people.

In a capitalistic world, this cost would ideally be distributed evenly over all twenty people over the five year period that the patent is valid. So each person will end up paying $5000 per year for CureAll. That will pay for the complete costs of developing, manufacturing, and distributing CureAll to the twenty people before the patent expires.

In a socialistic country like Canada, Billy & Co. are forced to charge each person no more than $1500 per year for CureAll. Obviously if all twenty people paid that price Billy & Co. would not be able to pay for all the costs that were incurred to produce CureAll before the patent expires. So how does a company make up the difference? The difference is made up by charging the people who live in the country without price controls more.

Here's how it works out: If we divide the market in the thought experiment into two halves, one in the US and the other in Canada we can determine what Billy & Co. will have to charge. So if the ten Canadians only have to pay $1500 per year for CureAll, Billy & Co. will only make $75,000 selling to the Canadians before the patent expires. $500,000 minus $75,000 leaves $425,000 that needs to be charged to the ten Americans. Dividing that out, each American will have to pay $8500 per year for CureAll just so Billy & Co. can break even. That's an additional $3500 per year for each American! All thanks to the Canadians.

Does the above thought experiment match reality? Everything but the numbers. To make it match reality you would only need to start out with larger populations, larger costs, and a longer amount of time before a patent expires. The business model behind it is accurate, because drug companies do make use of patents to have a monopoly for a limited amount of time, and the price that they set during that time period is set to pay for the costs of bringing the drug to market.

No matter how much a new drug costs to develop and produce, a new medicine will always cost more in the country with the freer economy than in the country that dictates the medicine's price. The higher price isn't due to corporate greed—unless breaking even is considered greedy in your book. They are due to one government having price controls while the other does not.

The conclusion that can be drawn from the thought experiment is that Canada is the cause of our high drug prices. Our prices are high because of the price controls that Canada imposes on drugs causing drug companies to charge the American consumer more. If we allow the importation of drugs from Canada we implicitly accept the price that they dictated for the drug leaving our pharmaceutical companies high and dry.

If the pharmaceutical industry is left high and dry they would not be able to pay for the cost to develop new drugs. If they can't pay to develop a new drug, the new drug will not get developed. The pharmaceutical industry would stagnate, and so would any industries that serve the pharmaceutical companies—unionized or not.

That would be the result from allowing drugs to be imported from Canada. The better solution would be to force Canada and any other socialist countries to remove their price controls on medicines, and let the companies decide on the price that they will charge for the drugs they sell. That'll raise prices in the other countries, but prices would lower here in the US. Which is what we want—to lower the cost of drugs for Americans.

Indiana—Timing For the Future

sneakin — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 00:51:17 -0700

This past spring the debate to switch Indiana to day-light savings time was brought back up by government officials and the Indianapolis Star—almost in a jokingly fashion because nobody in Indiana cares to switch.
The debate has gone on for nearly half a century.
Most of Indiana does not observe Daylight Saving Time, except for five counties near Chicago, IL and five counties near Evansville, IN which keep their clocks synchronized with the Central time zone.
There are also five counties near Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH that observe Eastern Daylight
Time.
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Staying on Standard Time all year does have its advantages and disadvantages.
The most prominent advantage is that people do not have to change their clocks twice a year,
while one disadvantage is that Indiana changes between Eastern Time in the fall
and winter to Central Time for the spring and summer.
For people living in Indiana this isn't much of a problem except for people who do business with Indiana businesses.
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That's the main argument for Indiana to switch to Daylight Saving Time—to keep Indiana
in the Eastern time zone all year which would help Indiana businesses as well as attract new businesses to the state.
That might sound attractive, but businesses in Indiana aren't competing solely with businesses in neighboring states any more.
Today's economy is global which makes a third alternative attractive.

That alternative is Coordinated Universal Time or UTC—formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time plus an occasional tweak.
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UTC is the time zone on which all other time zones are based.
Indiana is always UTC minus five hours.
The rest of the Eastern time zone switches from minus five to minus four during the summer.
What are the benefits of UTC for Indiana?

The first benefit, specifically for Indiana is that the sun would rise around 12 PM.
Yes, 12 PM. So the workers of the state can sleep until "noon" and go to work.
Then the first hour of the day is 1 PM, the second 2 PM, etc. with dinner being served at 12 AM or what was 7 PM.
It would no longer be the midnight, but the start of the night.
Then to get a good night's rest, bedtime would be 3 AM instead of 10 PM. Eventually everyone in Indiana will brag about sleeping past twelve on the weekends.

Another benefit would be the start of a single world, single time mentality as other parts of the world wake up to the gloabl economy and begin observing UTC.
No longer would people have to guess what time it is in Indiana. Eventually it would be the same time everywhere.
The only question that would remain is at what hours people are doing business on the other side of the globe.
No longer would time zone calculations have to occur each time to figure that out.
It's 4 PM here, what time is it Bangladesh? Oh, 4 PM! Wow that was easy.
I wouldn't even begin to try to figure it out now.
That would require finding out what time zone Bangladesh is using, if they switch to Daylight Savings Time,
finding out the time in UTC, and finally doing some math.
You might as well use a computer which probably uses UTC to track the time anyway.

Having the whole world on one time zone is a long range benefit.
It wouldn't be realized until all the areas of the world decided to forget their time zone.
No body else currently observes it, except the military; but the benefit would be observed as area by area decides to switch.
Figuring out the time in some other area, would be half way figured out for those people living in UTC areas.
They would only need to know the time zone adjustment.

Currently time zones are setup to have 12 PM occur when the sun is over head.
People would have to adjust to the fact that noon, the sun being overhead, does not correspond to 12 PM.
It would be different for each part of the world.
12 PM would only be noon in Greenwich.
The same for midnight.
It wouldn't be in the middle of the night but when is midnight actually the middle of the night?
Thus people would have to accept the fact that it could be after 12 AM and the sun still be up,
but that would only seem strange to people who live south of the Arctic and north of the Antarctic circles.

CLASS="FOOTNOTES">Notes BORDER="0"
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VALIGN="TOP"
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HREF="http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/f.html"
TARGET="_top">History &
Info - Daylight Savings Time Changes & Irregularities, Indiana

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HREF="http://www.indystar.com/articles/2/121811-1052-009.html"
TARGET="_top">Indiana Time Falls in Twilight Zone

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UTC introduces a leap second according to HREF="http://sts.sunyit.edu/timetech/gmt-utc.html"
TARGET="_top">GMT vs. UTC.

Letter to the Editor

sneakin — Sun, 04 Jul 2004 23:06:14 -0700

I sent this to the editor of the Daily Journal hoping it would get published. Since it did~~n't~~ here it is:

This fourth of July had to be one of my favorites. Not because of what I did, but because of the spectacle I witnessed in my neighborhood and throughout Greenwood. That was the blatant disregard for Indiana's laws on fireworks. In every direction, I could see bottle rockets bursting into colors and hear fire crackers blowing up. The city's fireworks display didn't even compare.

For these were individuals who were providing the ammunition to entertain their family and indirectly their neighbors. There private displays weren't tied to the ground or relegated a secluded area this year where nobody would see. People took matters into their own hands, without reservations if someone would constrain their freedom for their peaceful use of gunpowder.

That's why this fourth of July was different. I hope there is a legislator who took notice of what his fellow citizens were doing, and pens a law to ensure that people can legally exhibit the freedom they did this Independence Day in the future.