Thumbprint encryption (Was Re: [vox] slashdottable news)

[Bill Kendrick]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2003 at 10:52:09AM -0700, Nicole TWN wrote:
<snip>
> 
> --nicole "Lightyears beyond encryption?  WTF?"  twn

You guys all heard the story about one of the vendors Mike Simons visited
while we were at GTC, right?

They wanted to see Knoppix, because apparently lots of customers asked
if Linux would run on their PCs, and they didn't know.  So, Mike brought
a copy over, booted up the machine, and proceeded to show off OpenOffice.org's
ability to read Word DOC files.

They were STUNNED.  Not because their PC could run Linux.  Not because
OpenOffice.org could read DOC files.  But because, apparently, the DOC files
were ONLY supposed to be readable if you provided the proper thumb-print
to a little biometrics device connected to the machine.

Yeah... /real/ secure...  depending on the OS, and not even encrypting the
file at all.


Sufficed to say, the only people there were marketing folks... and based
on their response, the tech folks are LUCKY they weren't around, because
they'd have lots of questions to answer. :^)  (And I'd like to think that
the marketing folks would throw the thumbreaders at them... but that's
just my fantasy.)



-bill! ;^)

or maybe I should be saying:
-bill1 ;60'

since shift-key's a no-no


-- 
bill@newbreedsoftware.com                           Got kids?  Get Tux Paint! 
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