U.S. Begins Digital Fingerprinting In Airports 1174
lemist writes "Cross Match has rolled out digital fingerprinting at major airports in the United States according to MSNBC. It's designed to increase border security. They appear to be using Cross Match's Verifier 300 LC. Note that the actual capture of the fingerprint requires no interaction with the device. It determines when the image quality is excellent and grabs it."
Re:28 countries exempt (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:....And? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just saw this one the news... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:3, Interesting)
Blame Canada! (Score:2, Interesting)
Uh, no you shouldn't expect Canada to protect your borders for you, and the moral implication repeated constantly (such as your pathetic little sheep-like "oh wait") that we should is absolutely ludicrous. As a Canadian, I personally have no problem with the US crawling down into the basement, curling up into the fetal position and sucking its thumb -- It is your country, and as a visitor people simply have to accept each country's sovereign right to self-protection. Of course this measure would have done absolutely nothing to prevent 9/11, nor does it do anything to affect the hundreds of sleeper cells in the US, nor does it do anything but provide the illusion of safety for the ignorant (such as yourself). Of course this is from the same administration that is so bloody uninventive and unoriginal that they can only imagine that terrorist could only possibly conceive of hijacking airliners and smashing them into buildings -- until the terrorists put toxins in the water supply, at which point they'll then imagine that the world's terrorists are perpetually focused on putting toxins in water supplies...rinse and repeat.
Having said that, it is fascinating, though -- The United States currently hosts some 8 to 11 MILLION illegal aliens. The United States has rampant illegal weapons and drug trade. The United States Southern border has a guesstimated 6,000, uncaught, illegals crossing it every single day. Yeah, keep up the Canada jokes...You and Hillary Clinton can keep up the charade that we're the source of your security ills.
This is the first step... (Score:2, Interesting)
slippery slope (Score:2, Interesting)
Foreigners pre-guilty until checked into Guantanamo Bay.
With the state of the US, I can't even make up a funny slippery slope, cause we are already at the bottom of the hill.
Re:get over it. (Score:2, Interesting)
This measure (a) will do nothing to stop terrorism or crime, (b) will give the government inappropriate powers to track foreigners, and (c) is the thin edge of the wedge that will lead to mandatory fingerprinting of ALL foreign nationals (and non-native-born citizens) as well as mandatory ID cards, which must be carried at all times. Just like Hitler did with the gays and jews.
Re:28 countries exempt (Score:3, Interesting)
Facist/Communist (Score:5, Interesting)
(Yeah, yeah, f--- Godwin's Law. Remove the racist purges and replace zealous worship with apathetic inaction by the masses and you've got a good model of where we could be going if Bush were honestly an evil man instead of being mostly misguided. Read German history. The parallels are terrifying, and yet reassuring in that we did not step off that chasm that presented itself so many times.)
Similarities between Dubya and the Fuhrer..?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider the following, it's an old tactic: Adolf Hitler presided over a major national disaster (the burning of the Reichstag, the national parliament building) which he was discovered later to have participated in creating. That event gave him the opportunity to declare an emergency and expand his dictatorial powers further. He used the war-terminology "homeland" often, and whipped up fervent patriotism to support his wars. He used war as a means to distract people from domestic troubles and issues, kept the population of the country in constant fear, and exploited that fear for his own purposes. Hitler said in his writings that if you cannot create war then at least continue to propagate the idea that war is coming. -- R. E. Bell
"Never leave people in peace, because when they are in peace, you are nobody. Then they don't need you; your very purpose is gone. They need you only when there is danger; so create danger. If there is not real danger, at least create the climate of a false danger." -- Adolf Hitler
Re:I think it's good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Good for you! I personally don't have the need or desire for lethal weapons likely to be used to commit crimes. All I'd like is to visit my American friends and see more of your beautiful country.
Says Anonymous Coward. Anyone else see the irony of the situation here? Anyway, I will think long and hard before visiting the US again, even though I am from one of the 28 excluded countries, since customs and immigration seems to be ignoring their instructions at will and just fingerprint the hell out of everybody anyway. I visited relatives in what was at the time held as part of the Soviet Union with less invasion of my privacy back in the 80s. It's really sad to see such a beautiful country fall victim to such totalitarianism.
The reason I am "bitching" about it is that this is a highly unusual procedure conducted on foreign nationals merely for the fact that they are just that, and I hope more countries follow Brazil's excellent example. Perhaps we could also get American travellers to wear something... a little yellow star, say, with the word American printed on it, you know, just in case, just so we know who they are.
Psychic stunt (Score:3, Interesting)
how funny is this article that unwillingly proves the inefficiency of that measure.
After a short presentation, we have the list of countries that are exempted from having their tourists and/or workers scanned. Which countries are these ? Europe, Japan, Australia. I can understand for the two latters, but if September 11th proved something, it's that terrorist networks are deep-rooted in Western societies, especially Europe and the US. So, guys, you still have until October to make a great deal of this measure.
Plus a nice snippet in this paragraph : The travel data are supposed to be securely stored. Oh, Yeah.
The funniest thing is that people do believe in that kind of crap. They think it will make their country more secure. They think that preventing a crime or other legal issues -(Oh, Yeah)- charged person will prevent them from having some other non-beared people bombing towers with suicide planes. Or maybe it's the governement that initially thinks it will make the people more confident. Until the next time. But for now it's working. Psychological assault, well done.
Apart from that, there are remarks to make on a more general scale :
Again, I'm not trying to depict a black and white landscape. It's not the Arabs versus the Americans. But indeed it has some things to do with the global relationship of the West with them. Think about it ; we've been playing the geopolitic bastards with them for more than a century now. How may they feel ?
Regards,
jdif
Reminder : I'm not Arab :)
Re:28 countries exempt (Score:5, Interesting)
Which actually raises a good question. What is the US comparing fingerprints against? Do we have terrorist fingerprints on file? I would guess that we don't have too many.
While I love Brazil (lived there for two years) I think this policy of knee-jerk reciprocity is a bit immature. Brazil needs to realize that people visiting the USA from Brazil are far more likely to simply make their visit permanent (illegally) than people visiting Brazil from the USA. Once that situation has changed then we can start talking about lifting visa requirements. Somehow I don't think that Lula is going to make much progress on the matter, but I wish him the best of luck.
Re:28 countries exempt (Score:2, Interesting)
As for the photograph, many of us USians know just how little a state issued ID photo has to look like its carrier...
Re:What a terrible thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is the first step... (Score:5, Interesting)
It probably will start as a voluntary, convenience measure - that proverbial carrot. There are enough people who do not care, or do not understand what they are subjected to. Many people today are just consumers of goods and services, and they will gladly take 10% discount on airfares (or something) for using a fingerprint-based identity check.
Once part of the population is hooked, that will be played against the rest of people, placating them as "OBL's helpers" or something else, equally ridiculous and equally effective. A "Red Corridor" can be set up for refusniks, for example, and it will be much slower. The attrition will move the plank from the original 30% to maybe 80%, since people will just submit and continue with their lives.
The rest, 20% or less, will be then forced into the new groove. A mandatory body cavity probing, complete with X-ray, in every airport would be a good start; after some time, cumulative dose of X rays will be deadly anyhow. And to clean things up, a little-known rider will be inserted into an agriculture bill to completely outlaw travel and some other activities unless positively ID'ed with biometrics.
You may say it is too dark a future. I say, if it can be done, it will be done.
Re:28 countries exempt (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still a big hole in the short term (Score:5, Interesting)
The waiver skips fingerprinting only if you are visiting briefly, with only sightseeing purpose, or for very limited business activities (like a trade show.)
Re:Similarities between Dubya and the Fuhrer..?? (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem was that Germany wasn't soundly defeated in WWI. The only thing that kept the western front from collapsing in 1918 was the timely arrival of American Troops. Germany had already eliminated Russia from the picture, and they were preparing to finish off the French when peace came. What happened was that the blockade, designed to starve out Germany, did just that. It was because of a food shortage that Germany was forced to surrender. Because the troops on the front lines didn't feel like they were defeated, many Germans returned home in disgrace with no idea why they had lost. They needed someone to blame. It was this kind of thinking that provided Hitler et al. minds that would be willing to listen to his garbage.
Yes they did. Almost *half* of them did at least. (Score:2, Interesting)
Waleed M Alshehri [bbc.co.uk] - alive and well in Casablanca, Morocco
Marwan Al Shehhi - Alive; same link as above
Ahmed Alghamdi - Alive; same link as above
Wail M Alshehri [latimes.com] - Alive
Ahmed Alnami - Alive; same link as above
Abdulaziz Alomari [guardian.co.uk] - Working for Saudi Telecom
Salem Alhamzi [telegraph.co.uk] - Working at a petrochemical company
Saeed Alghamdi - Alive; same link as above
Re:What a terrible thing (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't annotate your almanac! (Score:2, Interesting)
The stories we are being spun just seem like a grown up version of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. and
THRUSH. The Man From U.N.C.L.E [wikipedia.org]
I am concerned as to how the War on Terror affects me, personally. Already I was never entirely
trusting of tall buildings and so no change there. I am a little nervous of flying but there
are enough things to go wrong already that hijacking is just another problem. And as we are
going to win the War on Terror, so we are told, I will be able to re-enter high buildings and
sleep on planes. But only when everyone who hates us is dead will tall buildings and planes
be safe. A lot of people are going to have to die.
Which is insane! There must be another way.
Anyway, back to the mundane issue of how this all effects me. And you. We are all being told
by our governments to be vigilent. We are on variously coloured alerts of several levels of
seriousness. We have to be on the lookout for terrorists. Which presents us with a problem:
How do we identify a terrorist? By suspicious activity. We have no choice but to tolerate
being viewed suspiciously by the police and other more secretive government agencies.
This news story from CNN provides insight as to what is meant when the authorities say that
some activity is "suspicious" or "consistent with known methods of al-Qaida". You might
already be guilty of this behaviour so click here:
Don't annotate your almanac! [cnn.com]
Perhaps it is one of my many character flaws but I find I am unable to obey _all_ the laws
_all_ the time. Sometimes I feel guilty just passing by a policeman. [Othertimes, like you,
I smile and say hello.] Did he see me jay-walking? Have I fastened my seat belt? Is he
aware I have annotated my almanac?
I assure you this does not happen often but next time my collar is felt by the local constabulary
I wonder if, having now read the CNN article, I will find myself babbling that the jottings
in the margins of my copy of Lonely Planet are not "suspicious".
USA and UK law allows a policeman to arrest someone he suspects of terrorist activity and that person can be help incommunicado but lawyers
are critical because the laws are pretty vague about what this activity is. Such activity,
presumably, would be "consistent with known methods of al-Qaida". By the measure of the USA's
FBI advice to policemen described in CNN's above referenced article it seems any of us can be arrested at any time.
Am I the only one who thinks that the erosion of civil liberties is unlikely to address the
threat of terrorism? Should you share my opinion about the suspension-of-liberty vs terror issue
(i.e. that it's not the either-or choice we are told it is) I advise you not to air it at USA
airport security. Were you to do so while you are prodded in the genitals both with enthusiasm
and a Geiger counter (or while they flick though your almanac) I bet you would miss your flight.
In my view liberty is fragile and is threatened more by authoritarians than by terrorists.
All these supposed counter-terrorist measures are getting too invasive and pervasive for me.
crash ola (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I just got printed ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Many passengers through Miami come from Latin American countries. Expectations of privacy in Latin American countries are much lower; I would venture a guess that all LatAm nations have a national ID card with a fingerprint. (At least the ones I know of...)And with, as another poster noted, people being scared of customs officials, they'll do whatever they can.
Brazil takes itself a bit more seriously than other LatAm nations. They have the weight to throw around if they wanted, and they're used to being listened to much more than El Salvador. They resent being treated as less than Europeans. It's not so much the fingerprinting, as much as the grouping.
Re:How about.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The USSR wouldn't have survived without proxy-armies battling its expansion?
What armies and what expansion? Since USSR was founded, Finland separated from it, and the only army that actually fought for USSR Communists was their own (sometimes "helping" governments that didn't ask them, though that was quite rare, and limited to the immediate neighbors). USSR had its sphere of influence, but for the whole its history it didn't do anything to expand it, with the exception of WWII when it became inevitable. Its economy was closed, it could get no benefit from trying to be a robber baron, so its military policy was defensive (and shut up about Afghanistan already, it shared the border with USSR, and was massively messed with by some very hostile groups of people -- not that the situation changed much since then). "Support" of Iraq and other "allies" in the Middle East and Africa was a drain on the USSR, and even now those countries owe huge amounts of money to Russia, that they have no intention to pay back.
US on the other hand, did everything that you accuse USSR for -- supported foreign wars, created proxy armies, expanded its military presence to pretty much everything from Japan to Germany to Cuba, not to mention that its involvement with other countries always ended up providing benefits for American big businesses at everyone else's expense.
I have a long list of things I blame Communists/former USSR government/current Russian government for, but the things you have mentioned just aren't there, and to put it simply, you are ignorant about history.
You guys just aren't getting the picture here... (Score:1, Interesting)
Any time you make a travel reservation - airline, car, hotel - anything - it is categorically stored and used in later profiling. This happens now, I am sitting not 200 feet from systems which contain this very data, as I type this message! And I mean, every single little tiny detail of your information that you submit (everything) is captured.
Fingerprint ID is just a way to tie you personally and physically into this same information store. One of the fundmental difficulties of profiling criminals is determining their identities - however if you can cross-reference millions of peoples' information with their physical ID, profiling of that data becomes a more trivial task.
Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant. I know this is happening because I know where the data comes from, and how it gets there. Here's the real kicker, hold on for this one... How can this be, you ask? "But this is invasion of privacy!" you say. Well, no. The government FUNDS these data stores, but they are handled by NON-GOVERNMENTAL agencies, at least in the collection of the data. It's all big corporate level stuff, who allows the government access. There are no checks on who can use it or how, because the government itself is not collecting the information. There is a big gaping loophole and I'm sure they'd rather you not know about it...
Then again, we're fighting a war across the world. Who has time for this crap anyway...
Don't worry, I am not going. (Score:3, Interesting)
Since the US instituted these and other insane measure flight occupancy for flights from Mexico to the US has fallen by 30%.
For the first time I am reading and listening to middle class Mexicans that emphatically refuse to be treated like criminals.
No we don't like it, and as much as I regret it (I really wanted to see NY and Las Vegas) iw will follow your kind advice and will not visit your country until those demeaning measures are repelled.
My considerable purchasing power, and the one of as many people I manage to convince, can be used elsewhere.
Re:Here's why. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a US citizen who lives in Germany. My US state of residence is Texas. So when I went in to renew my driver's license while I was on vacation visiting my parents, the DMV insisted on fingerprints. I had to give up my fingerprints to get a freaking driver's license.
I'm not quite sure how that can harm me, but it really makes my skin crawl. If I had it to do over again without the surpise factor, I would have refused, and done without a US driver's license. I was in the process of getting my German license anyways.
On a related note: does anyone know if there are other states which require fingerprints for a driver's license? Does anyone know what happens if you actually refuse?
Re:28 countries exempt (Score:3, Interesting)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/3702
Re:Here's why. (Score:5, Interesting)
crypto-gram [schneier.com] issue ???
quote
Fun with Fingerprint Readers
Tsutomu Matsumoto, a Japanese cryptographer, recently decided to look at biometric fingerprint devices. These are security systems that attempt to identify people based on their fingerprint. For years the companies selling these devices have claimed that they are very secure, and that it is almost impossible to fool them into accepting a fake finger as genuine. Matsumoto, along with his students at the Yokohama National University, showed that they can be reliably fooled with a little ingenuity and $10 worth of household supplies.
Matsumoto uses gelatin, the stuff that Gummi Bears are made out of. First he takes a live finger and makes a plastic mold. (He uses a free-molding plastic used to make plastic molds, and is sold at hobby shops.) Then he pours liquid gelatin into the mold and lets it harden. (The gelatin comes in solid sheets, and is used to make jellied meats, soups, and candies, and is sold in grocery stores.) This gelatin fake finger fools fingerprint detectors about 80% of the time.
His more interesting experiment involves latent fingerprints. He takes a fingerprint left on a piece of glass, enhances it with a cyanoacrylate adhesive, and then photographs it with a digital camera. Using PhotoShop, he improves the contrast and prints the fingerprint onto a transparency sheet. Then, he takes a photo-sensitive printed-circuit board (PCB) and uses the fingerprint transparency to etch the fingerprint into the copper, making it three-dimensional. (You can find photo-sensitive PCBs, along with instructions for use, in most electronics hobby shops.) Finally, he makes a gelatin finger using the print on the PCB. This also fools fingerprint detectors about 80% of the time.
Gummy fingers can even fool sensors being watched by guards. Simply form the clear gelatin finger over your own. This lets you hide it as you press your own finger onto the sensor. After it lets you in, eat the evidence.
Matsumoto tried these attacks against eleven commercially available fingerprint biometric systems, and was able to reliably fool all of them. The results are enough to scrap the systems completely, and to send the various fingerprint biometric companies packing. Impressive is an understatement.
There's both a specific and a general moral to take away from this result. Matsumoto is not a professional fake-finger scientist; he's a mathematician. He didn't use expensive equipment or a specialized laboratory. He used $10 of ingredients you could buy, and whipped up his gummy fingers in the equivalent of a home kitchen. And he defeated eleven different commercial fingerprint readers, with both optical and capacitive sensors, and some with "live finger detection" features. (Moistening the gummy finger helps defeat sensors that measure moisture or electrical resistance; it takes some practice to get it right.) If he could do this, then any semi-professional can almost certainly do much much more.
More generally, be very careful before believing claims from security companies. All the fingerprint companies have claimed for years that this kind of thing is impossible. When they read Matsumoto's results, they're going to claim that they don't really work, or that they don't apply to them, or that they've fixed the problem. Think twice before believing them.
Matsumoto's paper is not on the Web. You can get a copy by asking:
Tsutomu Matsumoto
Here's the reference:
T. Matsumoto, H. Matsumoto, K. Yamada, S. Hoshino, "Impact of Artificial Gummy Fingers on Fingerprint Systems," Proceedings of SPIE Vol. #4677, Optical Security and Counterfeit Deterrence Techniques IV, 2002.
Some slides from the presentation are here:
presentati [itu.int]
Re:A European & African perspective (Score:2, Interesting)
- that they never existed in the first place which is why nothing has been found
- George don't misunderestimate me Bush and Tony Blah knew darn well that their intelligence on the matter was shaky but did the Dog & Pony show routine to create FUD and so justify going into Iraq and are now quietly scaling the search for WMD's down now that the public is not focussing its attention there any more
- Soddem Hussain had them buried very deep under the sand.
I think though, that on balance, the fact that no trace whatsoever has been found that would even remotely suggest that WMD's ever existed kinda speaks for itself, despite your 70+ countries. Here in the UK it is well known how unhappy the intelligence agencies were with the way in which the politicians used the information they were given. Dr David Kelly's death substantiates this. It has lead to a situation in the UK where i'd venture to say that the majority of the British public don't believe a word the government tells them anymore, and there is a stong concensus here that George Bush is the most dangerous man on the planet, and will say anything to justify his decision to invade Iraq.
Fuel for anti-americanism. (Score:3, Interesting)
But what has apparently be overlooked by American authorities / officials is the psychological impact. It really pisses people off. Even here in europe.
I have dealt with the US immigrations authorities a lot (i was studying there) and it's hard to describe the feeling when you are at the receiving end of it. Maybe prison is comparable. You talk to people behind bullet-proof glass, watched by marines with M16s, go through security scans like at the airport, the place is filled with posters that show handcuffed people who broke some immigration law (implying: YOU could be one of them), and, what's worst, the immigration officers do not believe a single word you say - regardless of what it is they always suspect some kind of scam. Even the holy pope himsef would wonder if he had done something illegal.
And that's in Europe! Other places are probably even worse.
Fingerprinting and taking pictures is not improving this situation.
You reap what you sow. And american immigration sows distrust and suspicion. In order to win peace in the world, the USA must win the hearts and minds of people. As it is, America is doing the opposite, most visibly at its outposts all over the world. The free world, looking like a prison or fortress...
I am not against checks, but there has got to be a way to make this humane, and to remove this aura of complete and utter paranoia. (European newspapers were reporting of "snipers on roofs and marines in attack-helicopters on new year's even in NY... )
Re:28 countries exempt (Score:3, Interesting)
When you look at numbers like that, doesn't it kind of put things into perspective?
Are you still so adamantly giving up your bill of rights, allowing your president to get away with sealing protesters (guys/galss/grandma's with placcards) into 'free speech zones' so the camera's don't see 'em (look this one up...chilling stuff indeed when you can arrest a grandma with a sign saying something against the current administration for standing in a crowd) and much more?
And what about the spending!? More than half the US' budget goes to defence and related activities...and that with you nation in debt, a depressed economy, illitaracy rampant, science graduates [who stay in the US] down, in other words a third world country economy...don't you think the money should be spent somewhere else?
Re:Bush was warned (Score:4, Interesting)
Just curious...what were your thoughts when we were recently placed on "a higher state of alert"?
Re:28 countries exempt (Score:3, Interesting)
If Clinton is responsible for 09.11, then George H. W. Bush is responsible for the 1993 bombing of the WTC. After all, Clinton only took office less than 2 months before that happened.
Both of these attacks were rather low-tech - a fuel and ferilizer bomb in 1993, and taking over planes with box cutters in 2001. I'm all for increasing National Security as long as the Constitution is not violated. If this high-tech fingerprint system can be effective without compromising the Constitution, great. As soon as it crosses the line (they are only fingerprinting Foreigners now, but who's to say won't expand in the future), then it is no longer acceptable. If Ashcroft et al can trash the Constitution, then the Terrorists have won and the Republic is lost.
Re:How about.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Europe after WWII was out of question due the nuke problem. China had too much population to deal with,
and middle east would of gotten them full scale war against Nato. So what they could of done?
I mean they didn't wan't to get a full scale war against nuclear states and wanted to expand anyway. Their hands where pretty much tied up. Their navy was not as capable for non nuclear warfare as NATO so getting a naval assault on small country was not an option. It was simple.
Before WWII they didn't have industry and military prepare for war. And after US got nukes, and there was strong enough allience to stop em with conventional weapons at non european fronts. Europe is a No, no for soviet expansion because of nato... Now what comes next... Middle east? Well thats US oil, and they properly estimated the result of getting a war in there. Next central asia, well they tried in afganistan, and last is china/mongolia, both communist regimes and war against mongolia would result war against china, with US supplying chinese infantry with weapons...
They expanded during WWII and tried to hold that as much as possible and tryid to expand also but failed. Basicly there was EXPANSIONIST individuals in power for some time. Like stalin and lenin...
(Yes Lenin was expansionist he just though that the country was not ready for it and was correct.)
Finlands,baltic states, belorussians and Ukranian s separation was part of a peace deal between russia and germany , and the war that formed USSR got two of those states back. One because it was base operations of the other fraction and other just because... The smaller states was left intact, just because the internal image would of hurt if they wouldn't shown that they kept their words, until the controlling system was build up.
Re:Hello, police state! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Brazil strikes back! (sort of) (Score:2, Interesting)