PDA

View Full Version : Name, Rank & Fingerprint, please!



Sparrowhawk
07-29-02, 11:15 AM
Monday, July 29, 2002


WASHINGTON — A soldier's name, rank and serial number will no longer be enough for a Pentagon that is increasingly worried about security. Fingerprints and other physical characteristics will be encoded on future versions of military identification cards, Pentagon officials said Friday.


The "biometrics" data, most frequently seen only in futuristic movies, will include fingerprints, hand shapes, iris patterns, and voice and facial prints.

Not only will the IDs be used to gain entry into bases and Department of Defense offices, but they will be used alongside ID cards and passwords used to log on to Pentagon computers. Those terminals will then only grant access to the files that the workers are cleared to call up.

"The point of all of this is to allow people to have broader access to information, freely, over a network," John Stenbit, the Pentagon's chief information officer.

Computers will recognize who is on the network and will track what Web sites are viewed, e-mails sent and files retrieved.

The system will also provide a layer of security for users because encrypted e-mail will be protected from unauthorized users, Stenbit said.

Already one million cards have been handed out with computer chips that record military information underneath the picture. At Friday's demonstration of the new technology, Army Spc. Trenton Dugan, who got the one-millionth ID card, sent reporters an encrypted e-mail to the Defense Department press office.

The high-tech ID cards will be available to the more than three million military and civilian Defense Department workers in the next several years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

CAS3
07-29-02, 11:34 AM
As I am one of those who has to go to military installations and government buildings.
I have noticed a small change happening...the decrease in security measures. Security is not the sharpest! We have private contractors who are supposed to TOUCH your ID. Needless to say, they never even look at mine. Regardless I am not an 18-30 year old middle eastern young man, they should still have security tighter than it is.
I reported to the guard one day that there were two large steel boxes outside the front door unattended. She repplied..."SO, somebody probably just dropped them off." Yeah DUH, could have been innocent but the threat of another attack is still here. Our mail still gets irradiated, to my own displeasure. Have you ever tried to open the pages of a court order that has been irradiated. ME EITHER!!!:banana:

wrbones
07-29-02, 12:11 PM
...good or funnyy to say about that. We go about tying the hands of our own people, and leave the door unguarded at the same time? See, I told ya I'm not crazy! It's the rest of the world!

Willie
07-29-02, 12:57 PM
When are they going to put the chips in our head? I'd love to just be able to "think" and reply to a thread :)

It's a far cry from what is now, but like most things, it is in the realm of possibilities.

I wonder if the pentagon sets up secret exercises to see how far one of its own people could get through the system disguised as someone else that works there?

I would hope so.

Barrio_rat
07-29-02, 12:58 PM
It's all top down... When generals and top level supervisors aren't going to be bothered by security checks and friends and close acquaintances are let through without stopping them - even randomly - why should anyone else get stopped? If the top level personnel don't care about security or don't stress it, then those that perform the checks won't care about it either. It needs to be stressed.

I agree with you there bones, why do we tie the hands of the law abiding while letting the criminals get away with more. Letting our borders be so open is a shame!

It took me 2 years to get my wife to this country and 5 years of actively trying to bring my daughter here at a cost of about $20,000. If I had brought her here illegally, it only would have cost me $1,000 for her to stay. Our neighboring countries are able to come and go almost as they please while others, who do check out through background checks, are made to wait and spend money on useless forms that are not needed. I've been told to use a form only to find out later that it was the wrong form, no refund. This has happened several times.

Best you can do is set up a good perimeter and hope they don't come after you.

And park one of these in your driveway....

Sparrowhawk
07-29-02, 01:06 PM
having written on terrorism several articles for our police magazine I realize that some Arabs that marry American women can and do control them ins uch a way that to use a blond ahired women to smuggle material into a building is not a far fetched idea.

Willie; All this is certainly leading us into a cashless society with 666 imprinted on our foreheads, because without it, you wont be able to buy, sell or trade.

Barrio_rat
07-29-02, 01:57 PM
Very true, Sparrowhawk. I believe that in the not so distant future we (the American people) will be sold a bill of goods in the name of security. I know we already have to a large degree and that many of our rights and freedoms have been trampled in the name of peace, security and safety. I just think it will be taken a step, or several steps, further. Three good movies to watch are Conspiracy Theory, Enemy of the State and Arlington Road. If ya watch 'em all, back to back, you'll freak. Got a buddy who used to deal with the satellites, said the stuff they did in Enemy of the State was close, but that the satellites can move quicker and the pictures are even better. Including infra-red imprinting where by they know and recognize one individuals heat signature and can track them by this means. Won't lose 'em in a crowd.

Willie
07-29-02, 02:10 PM
You can run, but you can't hide.

Assume someone or thing is always watching you.

Two things in our lives that are certain; Death and Taxes.

Rat Patrol
07-29-02, 04:35 PM
I catch CAS in various stages all the time.

Good thing Marines are manning many of those image satelite photo generating gagets.

We know that only nude beaches and backyard swimming pools are being spyed upon...LOL

Sixguns
07-29-02, 04:40 PM
I just got a new military ID card earlier this month and some of this stuff is allready happening. Besides the tradional picture, they got a fingerprint. I was also told that the "chip" in the card contains military records and medical information. Pretty scary stuff.

6yrforMar
08-17-06, 12:46 AM
All this new technology is great if used by the right people,but it is scary also.Veterinary surgeons can implant a chip under a dogs skin to track them when lost.The chip can be used to track the where abouts of humans in the worst case scenario, science fiction coming true.