I take a card from my wallet and hand it to the guard. The card is old and scratched from many years of use. The photo on it is small and not all that clear. My face is much clearer - and larger, too - than the image of a younger me on the card. Yet, the guard looks at the card and says, "OK, you are cleared to enter." Reminds me of Nasrudin, that wise fool, identifying himself for a bank. Nasrudin entered the bank to do some transactions. The teller said," Please identify yourself." Nasrudin stepped back and looked at himself in the lobby mirror. "Yep, that's me all right."
The guard trusts the card. The teller didn't trust Nasrudin's self-made confirmation of the mirror image was that of his own face as adequate identitication for business purposes. These odd ceremonies are increasingly important these days as more enemies try to use identity miscues instead of guns and truncheons to get their way.
Inspector Clouseau enters the hotel lobby and a well-dressed man says to him," May I take your hat and coat?" Clouseau is a man of the world and smooth. He wouldn't interfere with the atmosphere of the place by wearing outside gear in a place where that isn't done. He hands the valet-type man his overcoat and hat. The man walks calmly outside and away, donning the garments on the way.
Today, we transact much of our activities online, invisible to those we are dealing with. Kings, generals and governments have done business-at-a-distance for millennia but not with modern tools, not at modern speeds, and not in modern numbers of participants. There is a lower physical risk to trickery than with the use of guns and clubs. Some sorts of deception can be applied to hundreds or millions of accounts simultaneously with a potential to reap way more money than a robber can carry in a bag.
So, what do you trust? My logon and password? My state driver's license with a photo of the younger me? A picture of the veins in my eye? My fingerprint? My voiceprint? Quick analysis of my blood? How recent does the information have to be? What if I have fallen under the spell of an evil manipulator who has persuaded me, the previously non-criminal me, to change my behavior? Must I supply you with a mind print or a morals print? Maybe you have higher safety standards and need to keep me under observation for a minute or a month to get a better idea of who and what I am currently before trusting me? What do you trust?
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P.S. Here is a new page on my web site listing some of the books recently mentioned in the blog
The guard trusts the card. The teller didn't trust Nasrudin's self-made confirmation of the mirror image was that of his own face as adequate identitication for business purposes. These odd ceremonies are increasingly important these days as more enemies try to use identity miscues instead of guns and truncheons to get their way.
Inspector Clouseau enters the hotel lobby and a well-dressed man says to him," May I take your hat and coat?" Clouseau is a man of the world and smooth. He wouldn't interfere with the atmosphere of the place by wearing outside gear in a place where that isn't done. He hands the valet-type man his overcoat and hat. The man walks calmly outside and away, donning the garments on the way.
Today, we transact much of our activities online, invisible to those we are dealing with. Kings, generals and governments have done business-at-a-distance for millennia but not with modern tools, not at modern speeds, and not in modern numbers of participants. There is a lower physical risk to trickery than with the use of guns and clubs. Some sorts of deception can be applied to hundreds or millions of accounts simultaneously with a potential to reap way more money than a robber can carry in a bag.
So, what do you trust? My logon and password? My state driver's license with a photo of the younger me? A picture of the veins in my eye? My fingerprint? My voiceprint? Quick analysis of my blood? How recent does the information have to be? What if I have fallen under the spell of an evil manipulator who has persuaded me, the previously non-criminal me, to change my behavior? Must I supply you with a mind print or a morals print? Maybe you have higher safety standards and need to keep me under observation for a minute or a month to get a better idea of who and what I am currently before trusting me? What do you trust?
---------------------------------------------------------
P.S. Here is a new page on my web site listing some of the books recently mentioned in the blog
