[TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff

[shadow at shadowgard.com]

On 6 Nov 2007 at 19:29, Eris Reddoch wrote:

> Bruce Johnson wrote:
> >> I wouldn't be surprised to see a small shaver that slices
> >> a sliver of skin off the end of your finger and do a dna
> >> check in the future,
> > 
> > OUCH! Maybe once, but that would get real old real
> > fast...puts a whole new meaning to the term 'daily grind'.
> > Be simpler to just spit on the sensor.
> 
> Ouch is right! If DNA is your passcode, then you better not 
> let anyone get hold of any of your bodily fluids, dead skin, 
> hair because any of that could be used to simulate *you* 
> and...um, starting to remind me of voodoo!

Also has problems with identical twins (whereas fingerprints, retinal 
scans, etc wll be different)

> Security through Biometrics sounds good and likely will be 
> convenient, but the more convenient it is the less secure it 
> will be. Fingerprints: mold his print, or if you're being 
> gross take his finger or whole hand, dna: that's easy!, 
> retinal scan: hard now, but I bet it could be modeled if you 
> had access to that eyeball, voice/face/hand geometry 
> recognition: I'm sure any of that's fakable.

retinal will probably require that the retina be far enough inside an 
eyball. 

Of course, for some blind folks, there won't be a proper retina to 
scan (it's one of the ways congenital blindness can happen). Likewise 
cataracts will make it hard to read, and glaucoma and other diseases 
will change the retinal pattern.

Most biometrics have that problem of them not being usable for some 
folks. In fact use of many sorts could actually get you in trouble 
for discriminating against the handicapped. 

Fingerprint scanners are useless if you don't have fingers (or if the 
policy requires using a particular finger and you don't have that 
finger, and yes, companies *do* set up policies that stupid). 
Retinal/iris scanners are useless if you don't have eyes or if they 
are sufficiently damaged (or even just bandaged for a while).

Do note that lack of eyes (or fingers) doesn't mean the person can't 
do the job. I know a programmer at Microsoft who is totally blind. 
And he *doesn't* work in the areas dealing with accessibility 
support.

BTW, for fun, you can grab trial copies of various screen readers to 
use as props in your game. Several will run for the better part of an 
hour before requiring a reboot. There are also a number of programs 
that will read text in different voices. Useful for faking a talking 
computer.

Voice input can be done in other ways. I've got a copy of Dragon 
Naturally Speaking that I haven't gotten around to installing.

Various online translation programs can be used to simulate 
translation between languages. For example, translate from English to 
german and back. For poorer quality translation try something like 
english->spanish->german->english. 

It won't properly mess up the way a living translator will, but it's 
a handy way of getting something that resembles a proper "poor 
translation".




--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com