The Office of Management and Budget’s new policy asking agencies to improve how they disseminate public information is at the heart of a larger battle over how much categorization is needed to make government information publicly accessible.

The new policy, required by the E-Government Act of 2002, is another piece in an ongoing disagreement over whether search technology is good enough to find specific instances of government information or whether metadata tagging and other categorization techniques are necessary at some level.

In a memo issued late last week, Clay Johnson, OMB’s deputy director for management, detailed three steps—for the most part involving publishing materials online—agencies must complete by Sept. 1 to meet the requirements outlined in Section 207 of the E-Government Act of 2002.

The memo also encourages agencies to use the newest version of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Data Reference Model to meet those requirements. OMB released Version 2.0 of the DRM earlier this week.

The memo follows recommendations from the Interagency Committee on Government Information that were sent to OMB in December 2004. The E-Government Act directed OMB to set up the committee to help implement Section 207.

But at least one federal official, who requested anonymity, said OMB ignored the committee’s suggestions and is asking agencies to do nothing more than they are doing now.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the bill’s author, said there are “serious concerns about whether OMB’s new guidelines comply with the act’s requirements.” He added that he intends to ask OMB officials “to explain how the policy meets statutory mandates.”

Lieberman’s office would not offer any more specifics on his concerns.

Patrice McDermott, deputy director for government relations for the American Library Association, called the policy “disturbing.”

“Essentially, what OMB appears to be saying is, for information you want to make publicly accessible, if you put it on your Web site or post it electronically, you have fulfilled all requirements of law,” McDermott said. “That is not true. That is not the spirit or intent of the law.”

She added that intent of law was to give the public the ability to know about and gain access to all information the government creates.

“There was a lot of discussions of how deep that goes and the distinctions between publications and records,” McDermott said. “That becomes less and less clear on the Web, but the intent was for agencies do an inventory of all of their information and to categorize or catalog it, and apply some metadata to it so that anyone going in anywhere in government could search across agencies and meaningfully find things.”

But OMB disputes the complaints.

“This policy certainly meets the spirit and intent of the E-Government Act and capitalizes the extraordinary advances in search technology including the way they crawl and index information preparing it for retrieval over the Internet,” said an OMB official, who requested anonymity. “To say that this policy ‘only’ requires agencies to post information ignores the great advances in search technologies over the past two or so years and the considerable ongoing research.”

In the guidance, Johnson said that agencies might be meeting some of these requirements already. Agencies must:

• Organize and categorize information intended for public use and ensure it is searchable across agencies. This includes publishing information directly to the Web, and performing advance preparation, such as taxonomies and ontologies.



• Review the performance and results of your information dissemination program to identify gaps in meeting new or existing user needs, and take corrective action.



• Publish your information resources management strategic plan on your Web site. The IRM plan will detail how the agency will meet new and existing information dissemination requirements, the results of the agency’s program review and the plan to reduce gaps. It also would discuss how the agency would use the taxonomy or ontology.

These three steps do not include any of the ICGI’s recommendations, the federal official said. The ICGI defined what categorizable information is, suggested searchable identifiers such as handles or the Uniform Resource Name, and said agencies should use ISO standard 23950 for interoperable search.

“Libraries have been doing this for 100 years and agencies been doing this for many years,” McDermott said. “Agencies need to do some serious cross walking using common standards and build on those efforts that were quite successful in government. They don’t have to catalog to the level that libraries do, but have to do more than they are doing now and that the policy calls for.”

The OMB official said the administration did consider the ICGI’s recommendations, but found them “unnecessarily complex and too costly for agencies to implement and sustain over time.”

Agencies still are trying to understand the policy. A Government Printing Office spokeswoman said the agency is discussing the guidance with OMB.

Johnson also identified three ways for the new DRM to help agencies meet the three requirements. The DRM could help agencies:

• Determine how data is created, maintained, accessed and used



• Define data and describe relationships between mission and program performance and information resources to improve the efficiency of mission performance



• Define data and describe relationships among data elements used in the agency’s and others information systems.

In addition to this guidance, OMB and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are developing guidance for sharing terrorism information as required under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

ODIN technologies, the leader in the physics of RFID testing and deployment, has published its 'RFID Gen 2 Tag Benchmark Report', sponsored by Unisys. The report presents analysis of eleven of the leading EPC compliant Gen 2 RFID tags.

The benchmark was developed to provide end users with objective insight into how well tags actually work in the field and what criteria should be evaluated when making tag selection, placement and orientation decisions. The Benchmark is the first scientific and objective comparison of how Gen 2 RFID tags work with various standard materials such as corrugate packaging, water and metal. boitel44q This article is copyright 2006 UsingRFID.com.

What's in the report?
The benchmark report includes performance testing related to distance, orientation sensitivity, material type, modulation depth and quality. It also provides a framework for selecting an appropriate tag converter and educational insights into the Gen 2 standard and recent market developments.

The report includes details and benchmarks on Gen 2 RFID tags from seven manufacturers (Alien Technology, Avery Dennison, Impinj, Rafsec, RF IDentics, Symbol, and Texas Instruments).

The benchmark measured how well each tag extracts, consumes and reflects RF power and assesses the quality variance in a random lot of 100 tags. It also includes:
Distance performance analysis, providing a ranking based on tag performance at several distances with different common product materials;
Orientation sensitivity analysis, ranking each tag based on orientation sensitivity with different common materials;
Material dependence of tag performance, evaluating the relative performance of each tag on different material types;
Modulation depth, evaluating the effectiveness of each tag in backscattering power to the reader antenna by employing a real time spectrum analyser

Why the benchmark?
ODIN technologies President and CEO Patrick J. Sweeney II said: "Gen 2 is the foundation for the rapid growth of RFID. ODIN technologies is proud to once again produce a comprehensive, scientific analysis of Gen 2 RFID tags. The RFID Gen 2 Tag Benchmark can save end users time, money and hassle during this important technology transition."

ODIN leveraged its scientific lab combined with the industry's most experienced RFID deployment team to test the products from an end user's perspective. The RFID Gen 2 Tag Benchmark is designed to be an end user's trusted source for comparing the performance of leading RFID tags.

According to Sweeney, "Tag and reader communication is the first point of success or failure in any RFID system. The tag typically represents the weak link in the equation and must be selected with great care. The RFID Gen 2 Tag Benchmark results provide surprising insights that will help end users make better tag selection decisions. The fact is that some tag manufacturers continue to outpace others in tag quality and versatility. This information should be central to an end user's tagging strategy."

Education, education, education
ODIN also wrote RFID for Dummies to help educate the industry and improve the quality of RFID deployments. ODIN technologies continues to produce benchmark testing to break through the marketing clutter and provide sound, factual data to end users and vendors working to improve RFID system performance.

Peter Regen, vice president, Global Visible Commerce for Unisys added: "Gen 2 represents a critical technology transition that can go smoothly or with great difficulty. Unisys recommends its clients leverage RF science combined with a proven process to ensure the right tags, readers and other equipment is selected to create secure business operations. ODIN technologies' RFID Gen 2 Tag Benchmark provides a sound, scientific basis for beginning the tag selection process."

Buying the benchmark report
The benchmark report can be purchased from ODIN technologies (at US$750 for a single user license and US$1,500 for an enterprise license).
========================

The RFID Consortium publicly announced its intent to form a patent pool in August 2005 and followed with an announcement in September 2005 that it had selected MPEG LA, LLC as the administrator for the RFID patent licensing process. boitel44q This article is copyright 2006 UsingRFID.com.

The RFID Consortium official members are Alien Technology, Applied Wireless Identifications Group (AWID), Avery Dennison, Moore Wallace, Symbol Technologies, ThingMagic, Tyco Fire & Security and Zebra Technologies. The group of eight companies that are official members of the consortium has not grown since the August announcement according to Stan Drobac, vice president of RFID applications at Avery Dennison and spokesperson for the RFID Consortium.

Royalty model?
Patent pool structures and consortia royalty sharing models vary. Drobac told RFID Tribe, "We are borrowing elements from multiple business models to construct our model."

RFID Tribe talked with Andrew Updegrove, partner at Gesmer Updegrove LLP and editor of ConsortiumInfo.org. Gesmer Updegrove has advised more than 70 standards-setting and promotional consortia regarding their formation, member classes, dues structure, standards and certification processes, including the Near Field Communication (NFC) Forum and the Mobile Payments Forum.

Updegrove said. "The idea for patent pools is to cap the 'tax' on a device to allow for greater market adoption." The tax in the form of a royalty is set at 'what the market will bear'. The cap is typically either a percent of the device's price or a flat fee per device.

Consortia advantages
There are several advantages to patent pool consortia. Patent pools enable efficiency when the market can obtain a single capped royalty for a device where equipment providers need only one license and deal with one entity for licensing. Consortium patent pool participants benefit by sharing in the consortium's royalty stream according to a patent pool formula devised by the participating companies. In addition, patent pools level the playing field so that one firm pays the same royalty fee as its competitor for selling a device. Consortia tend to save valuable resources for member companies - they spend less time and less capital defending a lower number of lawsuits.

With much at stake, companies work diligently to set technology standards and to commercialise their intellectual property by pooling their patents with others. "Standards setting is a game of hardball" said Updegrove.

Anti-trust issues
Due to anti-trust issues associated with patent pooling, some consortia in the United States send a letter to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking an opinion. This letter details the consortium's structure, membership model and licensing algorithms and asks the DOJ for an opinion on whether the consortium, as proposed, would violate anti-trust laws. The DOJ issues a non-binding letter back to the consortium rendering an opinion. The DOJ letter is not required, but gives the consortium member companies a signal on whether their consortium will withstand potential legal challenges regarding anti-trust issues.

"Consortia and patent pools are like a poker game" said Updegrove. Anyone can play, anyone can drop out if they don't like the game and any player can challenge another's patents to "call a bluff."

Recipe for success
Successful consortia start with a population of "promoting companies" and grow their efforts to include "adopting companies" which adopt the licensing model. The RFID Consortium "promoting companies" began marketing their efforts with the August 2005 announcement, followed by the September 2005 announcement on selecting MPEG LA as the licensing administrator. As the poker game continues, potential member companies should receive invitations from consortium member companies to join the patent pool, followed by announcements defining the patent pool and regarding licensing enforcement.

According to Updegrove, a typical path for a consortium forming a patent pool might involve the following activities:

• pre-formation meetings held by the initial promoting companies,
• seeking a DOJ opinion letter,
• selecting a legal or operating structure,
• selecting a licensing administrator,
• setting the agreement for the patent pool,
• selecting an expert or experts to qualify the patents for inclusion in the pool,
• creating a call for patents,
• qualifying patents,
• documenting patents included in the pool,
• releasing a public announcement of the patent royalty,
• ensuring the licensing administrator protects patent pool IP, and
• directing the licensing administer to manage the royalty stream.

Efficiencies
According to Larry Horn, vice president of licensing and business development at MPEG LA, the "most efficient" licensing structure for the RFID industry is a place to obtain a single license for all the patents associated with a given standard. This saves transactional costs associated with negotiating with several firms and paying multiple license fees to use a technology. To achieve that most efficient structure requires that all of the patent holders for the technologies required to implement the RFID UHF standard would be a part of the RFID Consortium. Horn indicated that 100% participation is a goal but is not always possible. He has seldom seen any patent pool obtain all the patents for a given standard.

A recent study published in November 2005 examined licensing rules for 63 patent pools established between 1895 and 2001 ( "The Design of Patent Pools: The Determinants of Licensing Rules" by Josh Lerner, Marcin Strojwas, and Jean Tirole). The study found that pools consisting of complementary patents are more likely to allow members to engage in independent licensing. The study also found the requirement that firms license patents to the pool (grantbacks), should be associated with pools that consist of complementary patents and allow independent licensing.

License fees?
License fees for the RFID Consortium have not been set. Horn commented that the license fees will be non-exclusive – the market retains the right to negotiate bilaterally with any of the firms in the patent pool for rights to use that firm's technology. But most equipment providers who want to license the applicable RFID technologies will recognise the efficiency of licensing from the RFID Consortium's patent pool.

"The RFID Consortium has not yet selected a structure" said Bill Dolan, of Bell, Boyd and Lloyd, LLC, the law firm advising the RFID Consortium. The consortium may form as a limited liability company (LLC) or it may require members to sign patent pool agreements and create an administrative committee comprised of representatives from its member firms.

The RFID Consortium's current agreement with MPEG LA, its licensing administrator, more closely resembles a memorandum of understanding (MOU) than a contract. RFID Consortium members are to be determined in the consortium's early stages. A more detailed contract may be forthcoming when the consortium membership solidifies and when there is more definition regarding licensing details.

Call for patents soon
There are no patents in the pool at this point. Horn anticipates that the call for patents will come from MPEG LA in the first quarter of 2006.

The RFID Consortium will identify an independent expert to qualify patents as part of the patent pool. Horn says, "The expert is like an umpire in a baseball game calling strikes and balls for each pitch." As patent holders submit patent claims through MPEG LA, the expert will make a call on each patent. The expert evaluates the patent to determine whether the patent is required to implement a given technology standard.

The RFID Consortium may send the DOJ a letter seeking an opinion on the consortium's structure. Horn claims that the MPEG LA licensing model is widely accepted by the DOJ with respect to anti-trust issues and that there may not be a need to seek a DOJ letter of opinion for the RFID Consortium. That decision will be left to RFID Consortium members.

Agreements?
The following agreements are not completed, but are anticipated as the RFID Consortium progresses:

1. Agreement to pool patents using reasonable and non-discriminatory pricing (RAND). This is an agreement between the patent pool participants – the licensing administrator is typically not a party to this agreement. The agreement would detail license fees and royalty split algorithms.
    
2. Agreement in which RFID Consortium grants licensing rights to the licensing administrator (MPEG LA).
    
3. Licensing administrator agreement in which MPEG LA and consortium agree to the terms for services provided by licensing administrator and details of payments for those services.
    
4. License for the RFID Consortium's pooled patents detailing the rights purchased by the licensee.

Technology standards, patent pools and efficient licensing structures are all part of the landscape as RFID technology matures and gains market acceptance. Eight companies have answered the call to "ante-up" and join the patent pool, optimistic that the RFID industry will benefit from a more efficient licensing model.

Kansas is now able to help other states catch crooks easier. The state just jumped on board the FBI National Fingerprint Database. With just a few quick clicks law enforcement in other states can eye a Kansas suspect's rap sheet.

"We'll have names, addresses, employers, alias information regarding dates of birth, social security numbers and arrest information," explained David Sim, Special Agent in Charge of Records Section at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Kansas is just the eighth state to join the National Fingerprint File. The state to state link only takes seconds allowing a free flow of instant criminal info.

"It gives them more complete info on a quicker basis than receiving it from the FBI," said Sim.

It's good for states trying to track down criminals, but bad for criminals trying to out run the arm of the law.

"If they say they are one person and we get finger prints in we know they're not," said Tina Ortega of the KBI.

Kansas receives more than 300,000 fingerprint check request a year. Now as a member of the National Fingerprint File that number will likely go up.

The FBI hopes eventually all 50 states will become a part of this file. Though that is expected to take years to complete.

=================================

07.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Laws fall short in safeguarding the public's health and safety when it comes to the blossoming science of nanotechnology, according to report being issued Wednesday.

The new materials made through nanotechnology are finding their way into dozens of everyday products, from toothpaste to trousers, often without gaining the notice of regulators or consumers.

Few will say whether the nano materials, often hundreds of times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, are unquestionably safe or dangerous given the lack of definitive research into the matter. But Terry Davies, author of the report, said it's time to start discussing changing laws -- and perhaps drafting new ones -- to identify and protect the public from any risks that may crop up in the future.

''The technology is new but it's not so new that it's not being commercialized,'' said Davies, a senior adviser to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former Environmental Protection Agency official.

Nanotechnology involves the manufacture and manipulation of materials at the molecular or atomic level -- the smallest things get. At that scale, materials are measured in nanometers or billionths of a meter. Nanoscale materials, including particles used today in stain-resistant pants and suntan lotions, are generally less than 100 nanometers in diameter. A sheet of paper, in comparison, is a whopping 100,000 nanometers thick.

Nano boosters herald the potential for small-scale materials to have enormous effects on much of what we do, including develop drugs and sop up toxic pollution. Nano materials already are used in at least 80 consumer products made by U.S. companies, according to Small Times Magazine, which covers the nanotechnology industry.

U.S. regulatory agencies, including the EPA and Food and Drug Administration, say their regulatory options are adequate to cover nano-engineered materials, said Clayton Teague, director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office. Officials continue to evaluate the field as more studies are done, and updating the rules or adding ones now would be premature, he said.

''Until we have information that there are truly inadequacies in existing regulations, any additional regulations beyond what we already would have would be burdensome to industry and the advancement of the field,'' Teague said.

The sometimes unpredictable behavior of materials at the nanoscale does give some pause. Even seemingly subtle changes in the size of particles can precipitate wildly different changes in the basic properties of those materials, including their toxicity.

Laws like the Clean Water Act or Toxic Substances Control Act lack either the authority or resources -- or both -- to adequately address those sorts of peculiarities inherent to nanotechnology, Davies said.

Others, like the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, are probably adequate when it comes to governing the safety of nano materials in food and drugs, the report said. But that act falls flat when it comes to cosmetics, which remain essentially unregulated by the FDA, Davies and others said.

''It's a list of things they can't do because the list of things they can do is practically nonexistent,'' Davies said.

Davies said he hopes the report will spark discussion, in part to help skirt the pitfalls that have befallen other emerging technologies.

''We've learned with biotech and nuclear power, if there are not adequate safeguards, the public is going to resist the technology and it won't meet its potential,'' Davies said.
============================

C.I.T. Technology Group has commenced work on Phase two of a contract it has with Ravenpack International to implement a demonstration identification documents system. Phase one was completed last month and Secugraphics, the division of C.I.T. Technology working on the contract, will receive US$391,000. Phase Two is worth US$474,000.

Secugraphics will develop and implement the new biometric identity card and passport system within the province of Andalusia utilizing the company’s Biometric eID issuing process.
 

"The opening of the demonstration facility in Spain will now create a destination in Europe for companies and government officials to come and see first hand our company’s products. They will be able to see the biometric identity cards and also see how our products can be tailored for their individual use," commented Abraham Adizes the president and CEO of C.I.T. Technology Group. He also stated, "We are currently executing and poised on an aggressive path to getting our technology recognized worldwide."
 

After a period of fairly slow growth since 2000, the UK access control market showed signs of picking up in 2004. We estimate that the value of the market increased by 6.8% to GBP 251m in 2004.

The market includes installation and maintenance, as well as the supply of hardware and software, and is segmented into the following product sectors: audio and video entry systems; keypad entry systems; card access systems, such as Wiegand, magnetic stripe and barcode; radio frequency (RF) proximity systems; long-range/hands-free systems; systems to control vehicle access; smart-card systems; dual-function cards; and biometric systems. Some systems include more than one technology for added security.

The high crime level and fears of terrorism continue to be driving forces for all areas of the security market. The new building sector is of particular importance to the access control market and building output trends play a major role in determining market growth. Although the trends in building output in 2003 were fairly good, there was a downturn in the important commercial sector, following several years of growth. However, construction figures for the first half of 2004 show some improvement in this sector, as well as in the depressed industrial sector, and very strong growth in the output of housing and public-sector non-residential buildings.

The enforcement of the final part of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in October 2004 means that customers must take into account the access needs of disabled people when choosing access control systems. Products adapted for disabled people have been launched by most of the major suppliers in 2004.

Proximity technology systems still account for the largest share of the market, but the need to cater for wheelchair users and people with manual disabilities is tending to favour hands-free systems. At the same time, the market for contactless smart-card technology is beginning to take off as customers `future-proof' their systems in anticipation of needing the extra capabilities offered by smart cards at a later date.

New building output picked up in 2004 and orders for new construction work increased. Economic forecasts at the end of November 2004 were favourable to investment in corporate premises. We forecast that the UK access control market will continue to show real growth between 2005 and 2009.

Topics Covered

Executive Summary

1. Market Definition

2. Market Size

3. Industry Background

4. Competitor Analysis

5. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

6. Buying Behaviour

7. Current Issues

8. The Global Market

9. Forecasts

10. Company Profiles

11. Further Sources

Companies Mentioned

-- Abloy Security Ltd

-- ADT Fire & Security PLC

-- Assa Ltd

-- Bell Group Ltd

-- Bell System (Telephones) Ltd

-- Bewator Ltd

-- Blick UK Ltd

-- BPT Security Systems (UK) Ltd

-- Chubb Electronic Security Ltd

-- Controlled Electronic Management Systems Ltd

-- Group 4 Technology Ltd

-- HID Corporation Ltd

-- Initial Electronic Security Systems Ltd

-- Kaba (UK) Ltd

-- Newmark Security Plc

-- PAC International Ltd

-- TDSI Group Ltd

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c30671

Encentuate TCI's support for multiple authentication factors provides secure access to information systems while eliminating the need to remember cumbersome passwords and making security virtually transparent to users. The solution is also unique in that it leverages existing building access badges, such as HID proximity cards, to provide unified physical and logical access. The policies defined and managed by Encentuate TCI govern the use of these authentication factors.

"Each organisation is different, and each situation provides a unique access security challenge," said Peng T. Ong, founder, chairman and CEO of Encentuate. "What sets Encentuate TCI apart from other solutions is our ability to seamlessly integrate with a number of authentication technologies, from RFID to USB tokens. As a result, we can eliminate an organisation's dependence on weak passwords and ensure secure access to computer systems using a variety of authentication factors. The authentication opportunities are practically limitless and we work with each organisation to determine the solution, which is most effective for their requirements."

Encentuate TCI's ability to integrate with a variety of authentication factors provides enterprises a seamless path to strong digital identity without introducing additional complexity, cost or overwhelming deployments. With Encentuate TCI, organisations can efficiently manage risk, achieve regulatory compliance, decrease IT costs and increase user productivity. Encentuate TCI also integrates with existing information, network, and physical access infrastructure without any modifications. As a result, integration time and costs are reduced, allowing organisations to realise a much quicker return on their investment.

"Building access badges allow users to access many things -- facilities, parking, photocopying services, time and attendance technologies are just a few examples. At RF IDeas we enable organisations to extend the use of their physical security badges to all areas that employees are required to identify or authenticate themselves," said Greg Gliniecki, vice president at RF IDeas. "With Encentuate TCI and our RF IDeas reader technology, organisations can integrate access to information systems using their same physical access badge. This allows them to realise the extended value of their current investment in cards and be assured that their information systems are secure from unwanted access."

"By integrating XyLoc active proximity-based authentication technology with Encentuate TCI, the combined technologies allow users convenient information access, walk-away security and managed change of control, which improves access time, productivity and user satisfaction," said David Shook, senior vice president, Ensure Technologies. "This solution is ideal for complex access workflows in fast-paced environments, such as those found in hospital clinics."

"It is critical for organisations today to implement access security solutions," added Ong. "Simple password-based systems are ineffective and inefficient causing a number of bottlenecks within IT departments and at workstations, as well as potentially violating regulatory compliance requirements. Encentuate TCI gives organisations a choice of authentication solutions, each of which greatly improves security. With a simple swipe of an RFID badge or a fingerprint scan organisations can strengthen access to computer systems while allowing the staff to quickly access the information they need to be productive on their jobs."

http://www.encentuate.com

=============================

12. UK Passport Service struggles with facial recognition - Look straight ahead and don't smile. - Bryan Betts,- Techworld - Jan 12,  2006
Source Next Contents

The UK Passport Service is suffering high rejection rates with its biometric facial recognition technology, it has admitted.

The agency said recently revised guidelines for passport applicants have reduced the problem, but it is still rejecting one photo in every ten. In December, it was one in seven.

Photos are now scanned to generate a biometric based on key facial features, which is then stored in a chip on the passport. The biometric technology needs a full-face pose, a "neutral expression", and specific features such as the eyes and closed mouth clearly visible.

A UKPS spokesman said facial recognition is already being used to detect fraudulent or multiple applications, but that the ultimate plan is to be able to compare the stored biometric with a live picture taken at a border crossing. "To do that, the photo has to be of sufficient quality," he said.

He added that as well as difficulties with the pose, problems have been encountered with watermarked photo paper confusing the scanning software, and with digital photos printed at home. "We blow up the picture a lot, and a home printer is unlikely to be high enough resolution," he said.

UKPS, which expects to issue seven million passports this year - more than any other country except the US - denied that its biometric technology was at fault.

"We are improving the rejection rate - it's a submission issue, not technology," its spokesman said. He noted that the new passports are in response to US demands and follow standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

However, privacy campaigners have highlighted the unreliability of facial recognition in many trials, with error rates up to 50 percent in one, while unpublished studies suggest that the technology's sensitivity to lighting conditions can give false results in as many as one in 10 scans.

Indeed, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology has said that facial recognition is less accurate than fingerprinting. However, it is popular because of its relative simplicity of implementation - and of course its potential for covert use.

===============================

Stricter checks at immigration, including the compulsory photographing and fingerprinting of foreigners on arrival, are laid down in a revised immigration bill the Justice Ministry will present to parliament in the next few months, Isao Negishi of the ministry's Immigration Bureau said in an interview.

The revised law would allow Japan to deport any arriving foreigner it considers to be a terrorist, Negishi said.

A Japanese newspaper reported last month that a member of a radical Islamist group banned in Pakistan had entered Japan two years ago to try to establish a foothold in the country. A police report also released last month said the country was at risk of attack because of its close links with the United States.

A lawyers' group said on Jan. 11 that the country risks breaching human rights and invading individuals' privacy if it goes through with the plans.

Japan's Federation of Bar Associations said in a statement on its website that the plans should be abandoned because the fingerprinting of foreigners violated a constitutional requirement to treat people with respect.

The use of biometrics -- identifying individuals through techniques such as retinal scanning, face recognition and fingerprinting -- raises questions about privacy and control of personal information, the lawyers' group said.

"The proposal says the information will be used for criminal investigations as well," said Masashi Ichikawa, the deputy head of the committee on human rights for the lawyers' group.

"So the authorities could match footage from CCTV cameras to digitised pictures to work out exactly where an individual had been on a particular day," Ichikawa added. "We don't think that should happen to people just because they are foreign. Japanese people do bad things too."

The lawyers' group also expressed concern over the difficulty of defining "terrorism."

The Immigration Bureau's Negishi defended the constitutionality of the proposed law.

"We are aware that this information must be treated extremely carefully," he said. "But we do not consider the act of taking fingerprints a violation of the constitution in itself."

He added that the issue of whether an individual could be labelled a terrorist would likely be decided by discussion between various government agencies.

Fingerprinting and photographs were introduced at U.S. immigration checkpoints in 2004.

But the issue is a particularly sensitive one in Japan, where local governments were long required to fingerprint all resident foreigners, including "special permanent residents" of Korean and Chinese origin.

Many of these residents are descendants of those brought to Japan as forced labour before and during World War Two.

Local government fingerprinting was halted in 2000 and special permanent residents are to be excluded from the new rules.
===========================

14. Japan fingerprinting plan sparks strong opposition - People's Daily (China) - Jan 12, 2006
Source  Next Contents

TOKYO: Japan plans to fingerprint foreigners arriving at its ports and airports in a move aimed at preventing terrorism, a Justice Ministry official said yesterday, but the move is opposed by a lawyers' group.

Stricter checks at immigration, including the compulsory photographing and fingerprinting of foreigners on arrival, are laid down in a revised immigration bill the Justice Ministry will present to parliament in the next few months, said Isao Negishi of the ministry's Immigration Bureau.

The revised law would allow Japan to deport any arriving foreigner it considers to be a terrorist, Negishi said.

A Japanese newspaper reported last month that a member of a radical Islamist group banned in Pakistan had entered Japan two years ago to try to establish a foothold in the country. A police report also released last month said the country was at risk of attack because of its close links with the United States.

Japan's Federation of Bar Associations said in a statement on its website that the plans should be abandoned because the fingerprinting of foreigners violated a constitutional requirement to treat people with respect.

The use of biometrics "identifying individuals through techniques such as retinal scanning, face recognition and fingerprinting" raises questions about privacy and control of personal information, the lawyers' group said. It also expressed concern over the difficulty of defining "terrorism."

"We are aware that this information must be treated extremely carefully," Negishi said.

Fingerprinting and photographs were introduced at US immigration checkpoints in 2004.

But the issue is a particularly sensitive one in Japan, where local governments were long required to fingerprint all resident foreigners, including "special permanent residents" of Korean and Chinese origin.

Many of these residents are descendants of those brought to Japan as forced labour before and during World War II.
================================

"The government has been considering who would be an appropriate person to head a review of the national ID card, and there is ongoing discussion on the terms of reference of such a review," a spokeswoman for Attorney General Philip Ruddock said. "This review would be conducted independently of government."

The proposal by the government of Prime Minister John Howard for a national identity card has stirred controversy in the country, with unease being expressed over issues of privacy as well as government priorities in the war on terror.

The Australian newspaper quoted the opposition Labor Party's spokesman on homeland security measures, Arch Beavis, as saying the proposal was a "red herring" to divert attention from government security failures. In addition, he said, it would cost too much money to implement an ID card with biometric data and then obtain machines to read them.

The Howard government, in the wake of last July's London bombings and terror attacks in Indonesia targeting Australians, has increased security measures in the country. Raids in the country's two largest cities late last year netted more than a dozen Islamist militants suspected of planning terror attacks.
=================================

PLANS for a national identity card could receive bipartisan support.

Acting Opposition Leader Jenny Macklin said yesterday Labor would consider supporting the introduction of a national smart card.

"Obviously people have a number of privacy concerns (about the cards) but, if the Government puts forward a serious proposal, we'll have a look at it," she said.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock is expected to present the findings of a departmental review into the merits of a single identity card to Cabinet by the end of March.

Prime Minister John Howard and Queensland Premier Peter Beattie ignited the debate on a national identity card following the London bombings and Immigration Department bungles.

It is envisaged a national ID card, which would be used for services such as Medicare and Centrelink, would help prevent identity fraud.

Although acknowledging Labor would consider any proposal put forward, Ms Macklin said the party would rather see improved security at airports and ports.

"We've put forward a number of other very important proposals to the Government to improve security in this country," she said.

Embattled Nationals Senate leader Ron Boswell said this week his party would also consider a move towards a national identity card.

Most Queensland Coalition MPs have already voiced support for a new card using biometric technology, such as fingerprinting or facial recognition.

However, privacy advocates poured scorn on the idea, arguing a central identification system would be heavily targeted by organised criminals and actually increase identity fraud.

A similar plan for an Australia Card in 1987 was abandoned by then prime minister Bob Hawke.

=================================

17. Review to take sting from ID card - James Riley - The Australian - Jan 12, 2006
Source  Next Contents

A RETIRED judge or senior public servant will review plans for a national identity card as the Howard Government seeks to head off criticism of the proposed scheme.

Attorney General Philip Ruddock is considering a short list of candidates to head a review.

"The Government has been considering who would be an appropriate person to head a review of the national ID card, and there is ongoing discussion on the terms of reference of such a review," a spokeswoman for Mr Ruddock said.

"This review would be conducted independently of government.

"This is the next significant national security measure that will be looked at in the wake of John Howard's announcement that all national security areas would be reviewed after the London bombings."

Even before the review begins, the ID card proposal has become a political lightning rod for debate, just as the Hawke government's Australia Card proposal polarised the nation in 1987.

Senior Nationals this week said they were open to the proposal, but the card has drawn wary responses from Labor and the Democrats.

Labor deputy leader Jenny Macklin said there were more important security issues at ports and airports that needed to be addressed before an ID card was debated.

"Obviously people have a number of privacy concerns, but if the Government puts forward a serious proposal we'll have a look at it," Ms Macklin said.

Labor homeland security spokesman Arch Beavis called the proposal a "red herring" designed to draw attention away from failures in existing security programs.

"The Government can't even operate the Aviation Security Identity card properly, with 384 cards having gone missing," Mr Beavis said.

"How would it cope with a national ID card for almost 16 million Australians aged 16 years and above?

"Labor will consider any proposal the Howard Government puts on the table but until that happens our focus is on practical measures to improve national security, not red herrings about a national ID card."

Mr Beavis said ID cards containing some form of biometric data would cost $1.6 billion to produce. "Add the cost of the machines to read them and a system to maintain them and we are looking at a very expensive piece of plastic."

Democrats legal affairs spokeswoman Natasha Stott Despoja said the card would do little to prevent terrorism and would unnecessarily encroach on the civil liberties of ordinary Australians.

"While I recognise that privacy must be balanced with security, the scales are already seriously weighted against the protection of rights and liberties," she said.

=================================

18. Press Release - Sandia researchers aim to keep points-of-entry safe through systems-level modeling of operations - Jan 11, 2005
Source  Next Contents

Almost as quickly, however, she asserts that Sandia's recent work on border security is well on its way to providing an enormously valuable national asset by providing federal agencies with a reliable and comprehensive simulation capability that lets officials "test drive" various security solutions prior to investing in them.

The focus of the Borders Grand Challenge, funded by a three-year, $6 million laboratory-directed research and development (LDRD) project, was to develop simulation-based systems analyses characterizing the security of the U.S. Border System and the impact of new detection technologies and concepts of operation. The work capitalizes on a range of existing Sandia capabilities, including the Weapons of Mass Destruction Decision Analysis Center (WMD-DAC), the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC, a joint Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratory program), and even the lab's expertise in robotics. Some 21 Sandia researchers from both its California and New Mexico sites worked on the project with Pura serving as principal investigator and Dan Horschel as project manager.

Models examine flow of people and goods

The interactive analysis that serves as the hallmark of the program has largely focused on the illegal smuggling of radiological/nuclear material but can also be applied to other threats such as explosives or chemical/biological agent attack. The work uses detailed models that capture actual facilities and procedures and examines border operations of all kinds. Of utmost concern is the flow of people and goods through the various border choke points.

"There is a cost-benefit tradeoff associated with any technology that might be used in border security," Horschel explains. With commerce, for example, officials must consider the flow of people and goods crossing the border, any delays that may occur due to security provisions, and the operational costs that emerge as a consequence of the flow and delay. Sandia's unique systems-level methodologies and tools address these complexities and allow homeland security officials to make data-driven decisions.

Economic impact is key

Sandian Mark Ehlen served as the lead for economic modeling. Ehlen points out that a unique feature of the program is its ability to project the economic impact that might be felt if a venue implements certain security options. A typical port whose processing time increases due to a newly configured set of chemical detectors, for example, might expect to increase its on-site inventories and shipments by up to 15 percent, leading to increased business costs and decreased sales figures. In addition, said Ehlen, the firms that ship through the port will be affected by the delays and increased costs and may take their business elsewhere. Such consequences will fluctuate from venue to venue, of course, depending on the security measures and the venue's own operational plan.

Sandia's models, by simulating the effects of detector placement, the use of facial recognition software, or the impact of other technology devices and strategies, can give decision-makers specific and reliable data to help make sound decisions about how and where to invest.

Mid-fidelity vs. High-fidelity modeling

The models themselves come in two primary forms.

"Mid-fidelity" models offer a broader, bigger-picture look at a border location that might give users the ability, for example, to view personally owned vehicle and cargo vehicle flows at an actual facility, using that facility's own procedures. A "higher-fidelity" model, seen on the computer screen when the operator "zooms in" on the activity, might focus on security interrogation and feature detailed sensor modeling. High-fidelity models, because of their visualization features and accurate geometries and motion, provide a sound environment for training and can be quickly reconfigured to address border concepts-of-operation.

Sandia's models have been integrated to include multiple domains, including air, sea, and land. All of the domains have been built with the capability of analyzing the impacts of different types of sensing equipment, from radiation detection to x-ray equipment. Both a land crossing pedestrian model and an airport, for example, examine the movements of people and look at biometrics technology, while a seaport and land cargo port analyze cargo inspection equipment.

"Hot Source" dilemma

One significant issue that security officials are known to face is the problem of "hot sources." These occur when multiple detectors sound alarms simultaneously due to benign radiation sources. Hot sources significantly disrupt port operations by causing large delays while the source is sorted out and determined to be non-threatening.

Sandia's modeling work helps users of the system address the hot source problem by examining various detection scenarios and options to consider. An "in-situ" option, whereby traffic is stopped while threat sources are localized with a portable detector and removed from the primary traffic stream, might be suitable for certain venues, while others might choose to maintain a "self-identification pre-sort" lane of traffic that allows medical patients or known radioactive shipments to sort themselves out of traffic. Sandia-developed simulations help officials identify the best "encounter geometry" within their facilities and the most "throughput-friendly" detector locations.

Though Pura and Horschel say the work represents the most comprehensive modeling work available on border security, the research has the potential to go much further. Ideally, Sandia could extend the capability to all ports of entry across the country, creating a complete national model that is able to examine changing security measures and operations and their impact. "What we have now are high-quality, targeted studies," says Horschel. "The value a national model could offer decision-makers at the highest level could be immeasurable."

Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness.
==============================

For the five people who still think it's awesome to bring weapons into night clubs, this new "BioBouncer" surveillence device, all pressed-out page-1 Metro New York and elsewhere, might come as a major bummer:

Utilizing facial recognition biometric technology, BioBouncer compares the facial images of club patrons to a database of potentially dangerous persons who have violated club policy in the past. Upon a confirmed match, an alert is sent to club security personnel detailing the identified subject--including location, offenses, and special instructions. The offenses are divided into levels of alert so that more serious offenses (e.g. possession of a weapon) are treated with greater urgency.

This "highly skilled security guard," says JAD Comm prez Jeff Dussich, is hitting Manhattan as early as next month apparently, 10 clubs up for beta testing. Since people get antsy when it comes to privacy, Dussich insists a few things w/r/t his product's unintrusiveness:

• A circular camera, BioBouncer only collects info on the shitheads, not the regular dudes. When patrons leave the club, their image is flushed from the machine.
  
  
• Info re: shitheads is only shared within a "virtual private network" of clubs subscribing to the BioBouncer network. (Cost would be around $1000/month.)
  
  
• "These familiar faces may have been kicked out for fighting, for carrying a weapon, dealing drugs or for any other violation."
  
  
• Ultimately, a real, human bouncer (generous word choice zing) will process the info BioBouncer provides on the patron awaiting entrance, then make a decision from there. So theoretically, you could reason with the bouncer that the one night you pulled a knife on the bartender for giving you Blue Ribbon when you asked for Cobalt Blue, you were just having a bad day.

Honestly I could care less about the civil liberties stuff--as if privacy violation isn't most clubs' bread+butter (yezzir). And when I really want to get my privacy violated, all I have to do is use the bathroom in my apartment and wait for my roommate to make ghost noises through the door crack like he always does.

What I do care about: Hey, what if I want to bring weapons into a club? What if I'm at Webster Hall for 80s Weapon Night? It seems like it'll be a tad annoying when I try to hang out with my hunting buddies at the Gun Club in the Upper West Side, but possibly can't because of my mild penchant for bringing Asiatic weaponry to indie rock shows. I assume if I just keep my machete in my pants, the BioBouncer won't detect anything--but why be deceitful about this? You gotta be kidding me if you think I don't like to roll up on a club pretending my machete is a really shiny moustache.

And that's another thing--come Halloween time, I feel bad for the guy who goes to Movida dressed like Spiderman when the Spiderman at Club Exit just got thrown out for committing five counts of knife murder a/k/a spider-dancing. And imagine all the twin brothers out there, or friends who just sorta look the same, who try to go into two different clubs at the same time--what will happen to their knives? Hey, human bouncers are the worst, but at least when they look at your face, you know where their hands are. They're on your face.
============================

• Global biometric revenues are projected to grow from $2.1B in 2006 to $5.7B in 2010, driven by large-scale government programs and dynamic private-sector initiatives.
• Fingerprint is expected to gain 43.6 percent of the biometric market in 2006, followed by face recognition at 19.0 percent.
• Annual iris recognition revenues are projected to exceed $250M by 2008.
• Asia and North America are expected to be the largest global markets for biometric products and services.
• Multiple-biometric systems will emerge to comprise roughly 5 percent of the total market for biometrics.

• Civil ID
• Consumer ID
• Access Control/Attendance
• Device/System Access
• Criminal ID
• Surveillance.

In March, Britain will enhance its reputation as the surveillance capital of the West with a global first: recording the movements of all cars on the road and storing the data for at least two years.

It's a network of thousands of cameras harnessed to software that can read car license plates, check them against a central database, and alert police to suspected criminals or terrorists. Police chiefs are thrilled at the technology, arguing it will provide an unrivaled crime-fighting tool that will also aid anti-terror efforts.

In regional trial runs, the number of arrests per officer shot up from around 10 per year to 100 per year. Convictions also increased.

But civil liberty activists are aghast at yet another move by the authorities to spy on citizens in the name of security and law and order, warning of a growing bank of Orwellian technology.

"The freedom and anonymity of the open road is something that is culturally important here," says Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. "Now like some scene in '1984,' the fact that we will travel and be detected and analyzed changes the whole psyche of the nation."

In their defense, police say they need the best technology available to reduce perennially rising crime rates and face an acute terror threat.

"Criminals use cars, it's as simple as that," says John Dean, a retired officer who is coordinating the rollout of the automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) program.

"It's taken a while to get the police service to realize that this can make a significant difference to crime detection and terrorism."

Same cameras, new cross-checking

Britain's 30 million motorists have long been used to assiduous roadside camera surveillance, be it to deter speeding or monitor London's congestion charge — an £8 ($14) fee charged for driving into central London during business hours.

But the ANPR nationwide system will use the extensive camera network already in place as well as new cameras to capturelicenseplates from as many as 50 million cars a day and store them in a vast databank with date, time, and location stamps.

Within a matter of seconds, the database will signal whether the car may be of interest to police, cross-checking the plate against a list of stolen and suspect vehicles and also verifying for proper insurance, taxation, and roadworthiness. Dedicated ANPR operators will then alert roadside units to the rogue vehicle.

"People who drive stolen cars often steal them as a result of burglary," says Mr. Dean, so you might find property in the back or other material. It's very efficient."

Police say life is about to get tougher for criminals, whether they are involved with drugs, firearms, identity fraud, or property theft.

Or terrorism. At least one vehicle was used to convey the July 7 bombers and their materials part of the way to London last year. Police are not saying that ANPR would automatically have foiled the plot. But Dean says the technology, already in use at a local level in some parts of the country, had brought "benefits to the investigation."

Tracking movements over a long period

Even if an immediate arrest is not possible, the data will help the authorities build up an intelligence picture of the movements of suspicious vehicles and analyze journeys that drivers have made over several years. The intelligence service MI5 will also use the database, according to Frank Whiteley, a senior police officer.

But not everyone thinks that trusting cameras and cops is a good idea.Already in Britain there is a fierce lobby opposed to the proliferation of speed cameras, which many see as a tool of the tax man rather than a road safety enforcer.

Some wonder whether ANPR, which will cost tens of millions of pounds to set up, will be used primarily to drum up fines and revenues from road-tax delinquents.

Nigel Humphries of the Association of British Drivers lobby group worries that "real criminals have cars that can't be traced anyway." He says the system may offer benefits, but "there need to be safeguards."

Parliament should have oversight

Edward Garnier, a Conservative MP and spokesman on home affairs, says that Parliament, not the police, should act as arbiters over the system because of its implications for the criminal justice system and for civil liberties.

"I can understand why the police want to use this technology but they should not be the arbiters," he says.

Privacy and civil liberty champions take a more fundamental opposition to the scheme. Mr. Davies of Privacy International, likens it to "weeding with a bulldozer."

"So long as you believe that every person in government and authority is just and fair and that the machinery of the state never screws up, then it's fine," he says. In fact, the ANPR technology has fallen well short of a 100% score in policing London's congestion fee. Other police databases have similarly proven fallible.

Opponents of surveillance say Britain is rapidly emerging as the biggest of Big Brother societies, a "database state" with an increasing tendency for automated answers to social questions.

The government still plans to use biometric identity cards beginning in 2008, together with a national database. A national DNA database already has samples from 1 in 10 British adults, more than 100,000 of whom have never been charged or even cautioned. And last month, Britain persuaded its European partners to join it in storing data from cellphone records for up to two years as a counter-terrorism tool.

And it may not stop there.

Experts are already working on systems that can automatically recognize human faces and it may not be long before machines can pick out a "suspicious" face in a crowd. Many on both left and right of the political spectrum find the growing use of surveillance disturbing.

"Frankly I don't want to see a society in which the Big Brother element comes to the fore," says MP Garnier.

====================================

The 2005 IT budget cycle has ended, and the 2006 budget cycle has begun. And that means the prognosticators, predictors, soothsayers, and auguries of the IT analyst community, and their counterparts on Wall Street, are all gazing into their crystal balls and trying to figure out what is going to happen in 2006 in terms of IT spending and technology trends. Some of you will follow trends, others will buck them, but none of us will escape their effects.

The primary thing that everyone wants to know first and foremost is what is going on with IT spending in the aggregate. Is it going up or down? This is the basic barometer, for better or worse, for the IT economy. And as I have said in past stories about such IT projections, the relatively modest changes in overall IT spending often mask very large changes underneath those numbers--the shift from mainframes to midrange computers, the advent of X86 servers, the increased volumes of servers but their dramatically lowered prices, and so forth. Still, whether we like it or not, the health and wealth of the IT economy is often judged by that aggregate growth or decline number, and this is the number that sets the tone for the business climate we will all live in during 2006.

The good news is that IT spending looks like it will increase once again in 2006. The bad news is that the growth will be smaller than in 2005, and it may turn out that 2007 sees even lower growth in IT spending than 2006.

Each of the major IT consultancies has its own way of reckoning the elements and size of the IT market, with varying degrees of services and telecom thrown into the hardware and software mix. So you have to take these estimates all with a grain of salt. According to Gartner, worldwide spending on IT by companies and governments will grow by 4.5 percent in 2006 to hit $1.76 trillion. Gartner is throwing a lot more things into the IT market than I would, and I often wonder if they are double- or triple-counting some of that revenue, as we do when calculating the gross domestic product of a country. (What happens when IBM sells a bunch of servers to a system integrator like EDS, which in turn supports telecom applications run by AT&T that sells a hosted service--perhaps e-mail hosting--to companies? How many times do you count the underlying technology sales that went into the ultimate service?) In any event, Gartner predicts that IT spending in the white-hot Asia/Pacific region will grow by 7.5 percent in 2006 to hit a whopping $210 billion.

Gartner has identified six trends that it thinks will be key in 2006 (among others). In early 2006, Gartner intends to flesh out its predictions with 50 reports (which you have to pay for, obviously). Gartner says that because people use their work notebooks and laptops at home and during business hours doing non-business activities (we all do it, come on. . . . ), companies will begin mandating that employees pay for and own the laptop they use. Gartner figures that employees will get a stipend for laptop purchases, much as employees who travel get mileage payments on their own cars. I would go one further and say that a corporate virtualized environment, like VMware's ACE product, fits nicely with such a scheme, since that makes your entire desktop environment portable. You could run your work desktop environment from a VM that you have stored on a CD and never actually load it onto your home PC. This provides a tamper-proof environment that businesses will feel safe deploying, and a non-invasive way to use the home PC to do work. As previously reported in this newsletter, Gartner is also suggesting that by 2010, the number of IT professionals will shrink by 40 percent, with "versatilists" who know different aspects of IT and the business surviving and system admins and other specialists doing about as well as the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Gartner is also projecting that by 2010, 30 percent of U.S. homes will have only cell or VoIP phone access. This is interesting, but what I want to know is if businesses will be ahead or behind consumers on this one. The other four predictions were interesting, but not exactly related to general IT topics. So I am skipping them.

Over at Forrester Research, the merlins of marketing have released a more sophisticated and more specific IT spending projection to the general public--obviously in the hopes of selling even more detailed reports. However, Forrester's data is focused only on the United States. Forrester says that the Internet build-out that started in 2001 among companies (not dot-coms) will peter out in two to three years. Forrester says that IT spending in the United States grew at 7 percent in 2005 and will do the same in 2006, but the company is expecting IT spending to only grow by 2 percent in 2007 because it believes that the growth in U.S. gross domestic product will start to slow in the next two to three years, causing the inevitable decline in IT spending as companies cut IT projects first to save money when the economy tightens. Interest rates, high energy prices, a drop in the housing market are all factors in this projection.

Forrester says that computer makers--PCs, servers, storage, and such--will do relatively well in the U.S., with strong growth in early 2006 but a slip in late 2006 and early 2007, followed by a rebound in 2008 as a new IT spending cycle gets under way. Forrester is projecting an incredible IT spending growth rate of 11 percent in 2009 and 2010, but did not identify what on earth would push that growth. In the software sector, Forrester says that spending will remain steady at 6 percent revenue growth in 2006, with new SOA architectures in 2008 and the Vista operating system at the end of 2006 helping to stimulate software spending. The spending in IT services that commenced in 2005 will die out to a mere 1 percent growth in 2008, according to Forrester, but will rebound to 13 percent growth rates in 2009 and 2010 as companies try to digest SOA and other new technologies and seek help from outside their own walls to do it.

As many people have been projecting, Forrester believes that cheap, virtualized hardware, inexpensive and virtualized software, software implemented as a service, and integrated business intelligence will be the hallmarks of future systems. Forrester also thinks that RFID, telematics, biometrics, and mobile networking will spawn a new phase of application development, and that what it calls "social computing," meaning community development projects, blogs, search engines, and viral marketing, will reshape the way IT products are created, distributed, and marketed.

At IDC, the researchers are projecting IT spending growth of about 5.5 percent in 2006, down a bit from the 6 percent growth it calculates will be seen a few months from now looking back at 2005. IDC expects double-digit growth in IT spending in China, India, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

As with other consultancies, IDC is seeing a shift from selling IT products to selling IT services, and that hardware and software will not be immune from this change. IDC is predicting that SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft will deliver their ERP suites as services in 2006, in fact--something they have to do to compete against each other and new players in the market like Salesforce.com.

IDC is also telling people that proprietary, "go it alone" product development is a thing of the past, but at the same time IDC paradoxically lauds Google, which isn't exactly open about its core technologies and never will be. The fact is, the IT industry fears that Google will somehow use all of its PhDs to try to figure out how to make a large part of the IT industry irrelevant, and Google is not going to try to dispel that fear or the myth that it can take on a Microsoft or IBM and challenge it for supremacy in the IT space. Google is a young, smart company, and it is causing IT vendors to re-examine their strategies, to be sure. But Google is no more invincible than Netscape was, and the premise that people are attaching to Google--that essentially, you use Google as your application suite--is not one that the company has officially sanctioned. Google cannot withstand the full weight of Microsoft, which has 10 times the cash and several monopolies with which to fuel its competitive products. Microsoft is a lot stronger in 2005 than it was in 1995 when it took on Netscape and smashed it to bits. That said, if Google can keep companies like Microsoft honest and be a force for innovation among IT service and software suppliers, then that is wonderful. In effect, you have to wreck and recreate your own business before Google does. In that way, Google is not an explosion, but a catalyst that drives the explosion.

And, by the way, Google is not worth $120 billion (its current market capitalization, and a colossal 90 price/earnings ratio) any more than Sun Microsystems was worth over $200 billion at the height of the dot-com boom. Google had $3.2 billion in sales in 2004, and brought just under $400 million to the bottom line--which means it is a great business. Google has $5.5 billion in cash, and it might break $6 billion in sales for 2005, which is just stunning. But that ain't nothin' compared to Microsoft, which has a market capitalization of just under $400 billion, over $40 billion in cash after distributing $32 billion in cash in the summer of 2004 to shareholders. The company is set to book about $41.5 billion in sales in calendar 2005, and about $18 billion of that will fall right to the bottom line.

Google, say hello to Mind Boggle. A monopoly is a terrible, terrible thing--unless you happen to have one.

===============================

30. An Enterprise Wish List for 2006 -  by Robert Rosen - The IT Jungle  - Jan 10, 2006
Source  Next Contents

The programmers, administrators, and managers at large enterprises have returned from the holiday season and are back at work again. Having made their personal wish lists late last year and received many of their desires during the holidays, enterprise shops now have some professional wants and needs they want to get fulfilled, including advancements in open software technology, identity management, and a portable electronic newspaper, among others.

As president of SHARE, the largest association of enterprises that use IBM technologies to support their applications, I get involved in lots of dialogues with my peers. Over the past year, I have collected a list of the most wanted product and service enhancements my fellow SHARE members are seeking not only from Big Blue, but from all IT vendors. Rather than concentrate on what new features they want in current products, I asked my peers what they needed from IT vendors to address their more painful problems. Here, in no particular order, is the SHARE wish list for 2006:

1. Relief from the abuses of IP-based applications, including email spam, phishing, and viruses; instant message abuse by spim; and peer-to-peer file sharing. Don't give us a bolt-on solution like spam filters. Deliver real progress in building a network protocol environment providing accountability without unacceptably compromising confidentiality.
   
   
2. Improve identity management as a key that may yield improved results in networking. In particular, the number one wish for relief from spam attacks may come true if users know with certainty the sender of an IP packet. But there's still the need to maintain confidentiality. Naturally, such improvements must work in a heterogeneous environment.
   
   
3. Build a standards-based distributed file system that is scalable, high performance, secure, manageable and referenced by a single name space. DCE/DFS had most of these capabilities, but is no longer supported by any vendor. While open AFS may be the future strategy, development is still needed. IBM's General Parallel File System (GPFS) provides a high performance file system that might be made more secure via NFSv4 access. A meta-data control engine might also provide some name space resolution help before 2006 is over.
   
   
4. Provide truly interoperable calendaring capabilities that will allow easier collaboration among colleagues working at different campuses. These should be reliable, standards-based, and enable calendar synchronization with PDAs, cell phones, etc.
   
   
5. Deliver far longer-lasting batteries or replacements so that battery-powered devices can run for days without a recharge.
   
   
6. Create easier-to-use open source software, ensuring that the software and distributions are enterprise-worthy during installation, operation, and administration. For instance, a Linux distribution needs to install correctly with all drivers including video, sound and peripherals and arriving perfect out-of-the-box. Oh, a good flash drive version of Linux would be nice, too.
   
   
7. Produce a simple-to-implement ssh version of remote desktop for corporate access from the Internet.
   
   
8. Provide free wireless access at all airports.
   
   
9. Ensure easier server consolidation. After a few years of unabated growth of our server farms, the cost of maintaining the software and hardware upgrades necessitates easier server consolidation.
   
   
10. Demonstrate excellent proof of value and easier implementation of Service Oriented Architectures. What are the cost benefits and best ways to achieve those benefits? Give us the information we need to prove there really are benefits.
    
    
11. Help us meet future networking requirements in a cost sustainable way. This is especially applicable within advanced organizations and research groups.
    
    
12. Encourage more cooperation between vendors and research institutions to enable cooperative initiatives for early testing of new technologies. IBM's PowerPC "Cell" processor is an example. It will be available in Play Station 3 this year, yet begs for research on how to use it in HPC and other environments. Adoption will be slowed by lack of exposure in research environments. Such cooperation can answer key questions: How can key research applications work on the Cell processor? What other applications might users find for the Cell processor?
    
    
13. Build a standards-based data reference model which allows users to share, by reference, portions of an enterprise's data. Further the idea of separating the display of enterprise data from the data itself so that users can point to it (perhaps in an email) and enable these displays across all device types.
    
    
14. Find ways to make more intelligent use of Digital Rights Management. Everyone recognizes that intellectual property needs protection, but current schemes punish the innocent and don't deter the guilty. This affects IT professionals who are trying to do the right thing.

And finally, here are five non-traditional yearnings from the 2006 wish lists of my fellow SHARE members:

1. Given all the mandated activities of the past few years (e.g., SOX, new technologies), give enterprise-class users a breather to fully incorporate and absorb all the changes we're dealing with. When people get further and further behind, they tend to skip two or three upgrades, potentially leaving security holes and problems for vendors. A breather will help everyone absorb it all.
   
   
2. Help us properly integrate newer capabilities such as RSS, podcasts, and blogs into the standard ways our companies run our businesses. This isn't easy, since these types of communication relate more to individuals than company processes. With the next generation of IT professionals coming aboard, solving the problem of letting the individual tailor his or her experience within ongoing company policies and processes is a problem needing an answer.
   
   
3. Create the next generation electronic newspaper. Imagine a device that is large enough for anyone to read (like the 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper). Maybe add a grayscale display (or color, if not too expensive) that is flexible (liked a rolled up newspaper) and has intelligence to accept subscriptions, payments, and archive the contents for offline reading all of an individual's news feeds and documentation.
   
   
4. Apply much more ingenuity to servers. Most new IT professionals are accustomed to growing up with extremely interactive (i.e., "hands-on") hardware platforms. If we hope (and expect) to grow the IT industry and keep IT popular (i.e., ensuring a continuing influx of personnel), then we need to encourage the hardware vendors to apply that same ingenuity to servers that is used in the desktop world. I am not saying that we want the ability to "reboot the mainframe at the drop of a hat." Once, you could watch the lights blinking on and off and pretty much make an assessment of system status. I realize this isn't possible today. But somehow, vendors and users working together need to discover ways to keep the IT professional team interested in system performance at a time when the CPU is cruising along at a zillion MIPS and your task is completed before you've poured that second cup of coffee.
   
   
5. Support and encourage attendance at SHARE and other conferences, where people get perspectives from people just like them and in doing so, gain from those in the trenches and recognize the value.

Robert Rosen is president of SHARE. He is also CIO of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. SHARE is an independent, volunteer run association providing more than 2,000 of IBM's top enterprise customers with user focused education, professional networking and industry influence, representing more than 20,000 individual computing specialists.

The monthly reviews were first disclosed in a Justice Department report released Friday. They began 18 months ago, after FBI examiners mistakenly matched a print found near the site of terrorist bombings in Madrid to a lawyer in Portland, Ore., said Joseph DiZinno, the FBI's deputy assistant director for forensic analysis.

The lawyer, Muslim convert Brandon Mayfield, was held as a material witness in the bombings for two weeks. He was released after Spanish police matched the print in Madrid to an Algerian linked to Muslim terrorists. The bombings killed 191 people, most of them on commuter trains.

The episode embarrassed the FBI. It prompted the bureau to focus on fingerprint analyses it had done in death penalty cases, out of concern that an error could lead a wrongful execution. Since the reviews began, the FBI has examined at least 92 death penalty cases and found 10 in which it had analyzed fingerprints, DiZinno said. No error has been found, he said.

The FBI is continuing to examine death row inmates' convictions at least a month before their scheduled executions, DiZinno said. Nine inmates across the USA are scheduled for execution later this month, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C., group that opposes capital punishment. There are more than 3,000 death-row inmates across the nation, but it's unclear how many of their cases involved fingerprint analysis.

"There is no doubt in our minds about the scientific basis or validity of fingerprint identification," DiZinno said. "We wanted to ensure we didn't make a mistake."

He said the FBI also reviewed analysts' work in about 100 convictions for various crimes in which fingerprints were matched through IAFIS, a computer system that compares prints of potential suspects to crime scene evidence. IAFIS, which the FBI says is the world's largest biometric database, contains prints from 47 million criminals and suspects, plus millions more people, including former military personnel. No errors were found in that review, which dated to the system's launch in 1999, DiZinno said.

Mayfield's prints, held in IAFIS because he had been in the Army, were among 20 sets of prints the system flagged as possible matches to the Madrid site, according to the Justice Department report released Friday.

An FBI examiner compared a Mayfield print to one from the bomb site and declared a match. His erroneous conclusion was confirmed by two other FBI examiners and a consultant. The FBI did not back away from its stance until Spanish police matched the print to the correct suspect, the report said.

The FBI review comes as the death penalty is under increased scrutiny. Virginia Gov. Mark Warner has ordered DNA tests to check whether coal miner Roger Coleman was innocent of the murder for which he was executed in 1992.

It also comes amid increased attention to fingerprint analysis. Fingerprints, long thought to be unique to individuals, have been used in U.S. courts since the early 1900s. But critics such as Simon Cole, a professor of criminology at the University of California-Irvine, say fingerprinting is not backed by sufficient scientific research.

This month, Bruce Budowle, the FBI's chief scientist, called for more scientific "validation" to improve fingerprint ID techniques. He wrote in Forensic Science Communications, the bureau's online journal, that there is "overwhelming evidence" fingerprints can be used to make "reliable identifications."
================================

"The government is seeking information on the capability to provide outsourcing of the infrastructure needed for any or all" components outlined in a recent request for information about creating the system, the General Services Administration wrote in a document posted Monday at FedBizOpps.

GSA last month posted a request for information from companies on the potential of such a system, saying the agency wants the "capability to completely outsource the technical solution." Companies had until Monday to respond, and GSA said the contractor would have until August to design a system that would satisfy a 2004 presidential directive ordering a system by October.

President Bush issued the directive to establish common ID credentials to control access to federal facilities and computers. "This policy is intended to enhance security, increase efficiency, reduce identity fraud and protect personal privacy," GSA said in its request for information.

But the administration's plans for a privately run system could spark the ire of members of Congress and privacy rights advocates who repeatedly have voiced concern with companies controlling homeland security databases that contain personal information.

The department also appears to defy a congressional mandate to more effectively use a transportation security clearinghouse database. The database should be the "central identity management system for the deployment and operation of the ... transportation worker-identification credential program," read the conference report to the fiscal 2006 Homeland Security spending bill.

The database is run by a consortium of airport owners. The worker ID initiative aims to control access to airports by issuing a smart card to employees of the Transportation Security Administration and airports.

The Homeland Security Department would give the private sector responsibility for collecting, storing and maintaining workers' personal information, such as driver's licenses and passports, as well as digital photographs and scanned fingerprints. Companies potentially could secure a lucrative five-year deal, as the system would be used for hundreds of thousands of employees and federal contractors, according to the GSA document.

GSA wants to know if a commercial vendor can issue and distribute a card within 24 hours; notify or suspend a card within 20 minutes; and activate a card within five minutes. GSA said individual agencies would control personnel management systems, background investigations and access-control systems for their own employees.

34. Pay By Touch . . .  today announced it is launching its service in all five Hornbacher's grocery stores in Fargo, N.D. and neighbouring Moorhead, Minn. - FinExtrea - Jan 10, 2006
Source  Next Contents

Beginning today, shoppers in Hornbacher's stores will have the option of quickly and securely paying for groceries using a finger scan linked to their financial accounts.

The Hornbacher's launch is part of a companywide implementation led by Hornbacher's parent company, SUPERVALU, Inc. Other SUPERVALU stores throughout the country, including Farm Fresh, Cub Foods, and bigg's have already implemented the Pay By Touch service to provide a safer, faster and more convenient way for shoppers to pay for their groceries. The new system eliminates the need to present cheques, IDs, credit, debit, membership or loyalty cards at checkout. SUPERVALU stores using Pay By Touch are already seeing gains in customer service capabilities and customer loyalty.

Pay By Touch's patented biometric payment products are free to consumers and enable shoppers to quickly and securely pay for purchases using a finger scan linked to their personal identification information, financial accounts and loyalty programmes. Shoppers register once, and then can securely pay with a finger scan anywhere Pay By Touch is installed. Pay By Touch's biometric payment products enjoy the unique protection of more than two-dozen US-issued patents.

Separately, Pay By Touch announced it has launched its service in select Cash Wise grocery stores in Minnesota and North Dakota. Shoppers in these Cash Wise stores will now have another alternative in paying for groceries.

DES MOINES — Southeast Iowa lawmakers aren't wasting any time getting back to work.

Lawmakers from the area either submitted bills before Monday's opening of the session, submitted them on the first day or are close to getting some of their first bills for the session introduced.

State Sen. Tom Courtney, D–Burlington, introduced a bill during Monday's opening session that would allow school districts to use finger–scanning devices they bought for the school lunch program.

The bill provides an exemption to the previously approved child identification and protection act and would allow districts to use biometric technology to scan a child's fingerprint. Last year's bill left some school officials questioning whether the new equipment could be used.

Under the bill, a child's fingerprint can't be stored and the technology can't recreate the fingerprint. Also, it can't be used on a child if that child's parent or guardian submits a written objection to the use of the device.

Courtney, who was recently appointed to the Administrative Rules Committee, said he's also pleased because it reviews the changes that are proposed by any state office.
* * *
==============================

36. Press Release  - FingerGear(TM) Computer-On-a-Stick(TM) Now Available in Micro Center Stores; USB Device Offers Complete Pre-Installed Desktop Environment on a Portable Flash Drive - Jan 10, 2006

In addition to its onboard Operating System, the Computer-On-a-Stick features the Mozilla Firefox browser, an email client, the OpenOffice Suite, integrated PDF creator, Zip compression tools, cross-compatible Instant Messenger, and dozens of other most commonly used applications. "The COS is clearly the future of the USB flash drive," says FingerGear CEO Jon Louis. "Now you can carry not only your data, but also your entire operating system and all essential software applications on a small bootable USB device to use anywhere, on any Windows or Linux PC, without leaving a trace."

Moreover, with its write-protected OS and default 256-bit AES encryption, the COS is among the most secure, virus-proof, portable computing devices in the world. And best of all, startup takes less than 10 seconds and shutdown in 3.

About FingerGear

FingerGear is the consumer products division of Bionopoly LLC. Bionopoly is a leader in the field of secure computing devices and fingerprint biometrics. Bionopoly is a privately held company located in Silicon Valley, CA. For more information on FingerGear products, visit http://www.fingergear.com.

About Micro Center

Founded in 1979 in Columbus, Ohio, Micro Center operates 19 stores in major markets nationwide. Micro Center offers more computer and computer-related items than any other retailer (over 30,000 in stock). Micro Center also boasts more square footage devoted exclusively to computers and computer-related items than any other retailer (stores average 45,000 square feet). The Company's selection, service and sales staff approach is modeled after Nordstrom and other service-oriented retailers, thereby offering a more upscale atmosphere than big box consumer electronics stores.
====================

If you are a licensed health care professional or certified health care employee, you will soon be receiving a letter from the state Office of the Attorney General informing you that you must undergo a criminal history background check and have your fingerprints recorded. The letter says you have 20 days to respond or have your license or certificate suspended.

This is shocking to those of us who have spent our whole lives working to help the physically, mentally or emotionally sick, or the disabled. The work is grueling and the hours long. You work weekends, holidays and nights, and you are underpaid for the care provided and the level of education required to perform that care.

The background checks came about because a male nurse committed horrific crimes against humanity. In doing so, he brought disgrace upon a noble profession and severed the respect and trust of our health care system by the public.

What is most unsettling is the fact that the Division of Consumer Affairs has contracted a private company, Sagem Morpho Inc., to do the fingerprint recording. The fee for this service is $78, to be paid directly to this company.

Why are health care professionals and certified health aides being penalized for a despicable individual's crime? Why are the hospitals and agencies, which have turned a "blind eye" for years in the hiring process and would not allow their Human Resources departments to give more than dates of employment (for fear of being sued), not bearing the costs of enforcing this law? Who is this company profiting off the backs of professional nurses and health care workers?

All professional and certified health care personnel should be outraged that they have been made the scapegoats. Don't allow this to happen without voicing your concerns. Start calling, e-mailing or writing your state legislators, organizations, hospitals/agencies and Board of Nursing today.

HARRISBURG - The state troopers' union has misrepresented talks aimed at putting more officers on the road, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said yesterday, and he asked the legislature to intervene.

In a letter to lawmakers, Miller said a Dec. 14 letter from the head of the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association was inaccurate and urged the General Assembly to pass legislation to mandate the reassignment of 68 troopers by filling their administrative and forensic jobs with civilians.

"The PSTA leadership is making this about politics instead of public safety," Miller said.

Sgt. Bruce Edwards, the union president, accused Gov. Rendell of political posturing.

The current state budget authorizes money for 180 new positions - 120 troopers and 60 civilians to assume troopers' nonpatrol duties - but half of the money is contingent on the sides' reaching a deal on civilian jobs by the end of June.

No talks have been scheduled since union leadership unanimously opposed the Rendell administration's most recent proposal to use attrition to hire civilians for certain duties.

The proposed deal also would have kept about 45 supervisory corporals on the road. The administration lost an appeal of an unfair labor practice ruling that requires corporals to oversee police dispatching centers. The union recently asked the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to enforce that ruling.

The administration proposal also would add 15 clerks to police stations around the state to assume paperwork duties currently performed by patrol troopers, settle five health-care benefits grievances, and convene a committee to look into whether the department should change how it handles minor disciplinary infractions.

Edwards, the union president, said existing labor law requires the two sides to negotiate the civilians issue.

"You're dealing with a governor that really doesn't want to hire more troopers. And he was being pressured into a situation where we were being successful and it has become a hot topic issue, and he's trying to blame us," Edwards said.

The administration wants to hire civilians as fingerprint, ballistics and document examiners; liquor control commanders; communications specialists; and procurement and supply officers.

In Edwards' letter to Miller, which also was sent to all members of the General Assembly and Rendell, the union president said converting forensic jobs to civilian status would make the department's criminal investigations less effective.