This site shows how Social Security Numbers are handed out in the US. There are two problems with SSNs. The first is that they provide a unique key for an individual, and therefore can be used to tie together information in all kinds of databases to make a complete picture when perhaps such a complete picture should not be available. Proper legislation that provides a strong privacy safe harbor and a short enumerated listing of acceptable uses could solve this problem. This issue is the “national ID” issue, and the closest thing we have today in the US is state drivers licenses.

The second and more immediate issue is that SSNs are being used both as identifiers (because they are a unique number) and as passwords. You call up a bank, for instance, and to verify your identity, they ask for your SSN and a mother’s maiden name. Businesses frequently have to use their Tax ID number as a secret code. The massive and readily apparent problem with this system is that you cannot have one item serve as both an identifier and a secret key. This should be obvious, right? If I want to keep something secure, I need a secret key to protect it. A secret key can take the form of a password, a random string of numbers, whatever, but the most important part is that it is non-obvious, so that people can’t easily guess it, not readily available to a random person, and, most important secret, so that the only person who knows it is YOU.

Computer passwords are usually stored in something called a one-way hash, which basically means that it cannot be reconstructed if someone were to compramise the computer.

A Social Security Number fulfills none of these requirements. First, because it is being used both as an identifer and a password, plenty of people have access to it. Bank employees, government employees, your employer and some of the people you work with, car companies, insurers, schools, the state, county, and local government. Accountants. Some stores. Credit card companies. The list goes on, and it is continuing to expand as more and more companies and organizations are using SSN as a unique key. Even if someone doesn’t have your SSN, however, they can still guess it. As the page linked above demonstrates, your SSN is just a serial number, meaning it goes in order.

If you know where someone is born, you can figure out the first three digits. Know when they are born and you get the next two. Now there are only four digits left, and they go in order. But it is even easier then that. Pay a few bucks to any of a myriad of sources and you can get someone’s SSN, and from that medical history, insurance records, employment information, legal history…the list goes on.

My solution, and that of many privacy advocates, victims of identity theft, and concerned individuals, has been to avoid giving our your SSN at all costs. But just not giving out your SSN doesn’t really solve the problem. As the web page above shows, SSNs are easy to guess. As a few minutes of googling will show, SSNs are readily obtainable for a small fee. And experience shows that your SSN is everywhere, and the systems that it connects to, which are being increasingly linked together, often store inaccurate or mis-categorized data about you.

The solution is simple: restrict SSN use. It can be an ID or a password, but not both. Just like we have to remember different passwords online for different web sites, so should we in person. Ideally, companies could start utilizing public key infrastructures. A person’s public identifier key could be readily available, while his or her private key could be keep secret and safe. When someone needs to verify their identity, they can use their private key to digitally sign a document, and anyone can verify ther person’s identity against their public key. Now that is real security.

AMC was showing Highlander, the original film today, so I watched probably 85% of it. I had occasionally caught some episodes of the series in my pre-TiVo days, so I was interesting in seeing where this had gone, and where the movie fit in the context of the series. A quick IMDb search showed a whole slew of Highlander properties. I read about the first movie and confirmed it was what I had seen, and then went on to Highlander II which is set in the future and involves an ozone shield. The hell? After a bit’s reflection I realized the best way to figure this thing out quickly. I went to Amazon and typed in Highlander. Up popped search results, and on the left the wonderfully helpful “So you’d like to…” entitled “figure out Highlander.” Bingo! Turns out the the progression is even weirder then I could have imagined. At some point between the series and the third movie the continuity gets completely screwed up. Still, I would like to watch this thing through at some point…

The good news: lots of new photos online over at images.agblog.com. The bad news? They’re all older photos from 2001 and 2002 that I never transitioned to the new site. But hey, they’re new to you! Let’s see…I got the pictures from Shaina’s Bat Mitzvah, the April 01 Rocky Horror, some from Cable First (ah, freshman year!), and a few others. I’m lazy tonight, so no links — go find them yourself! It’s not hard!

Now that Buffy is over, we can reflect on the entire beautiful run, and realize that while the show may have ended, it has changed our culture, and through that (and reruns) it will continue to live on.

The series may be done, but the influences left on television culture are unmistakable. Without a demon-kicking Buffy the chances are there would be no Sydney Bristow on Alias, or Charmed witches, and series pitches for Smallville and Dark Angel would have been laughed out of the room.

Entrepeneurs are using iPods to create alternatives to Musak. Just drop off an iPod loaded with tunes at a restaraunt and bam, they have 30 hours of music and can customize the mood by choosing a different playlist. Good for the restaurant, good for the independents who get airplay, and good for the people who are running the services. Excellent.

Bob Harris at This Modern World says I shouldn’t be alarmed by the wacky statistics that say 1/3 of Americans think the US has found WMD in Iraq, and 22% believe that Saddam actually used WMD during the “war”. After all, according to various polls, 56% think in war the media should support the government without questioning it. 33% believe a wife should “submit herself graciously” to her husband. 20% approve of how the Catholic Church handles pedophilia. And, best of all, 11% think Titanic was the best American movie of the 20th century.

What are we to make of all this?

Looking at the other opinions floating around 20 percent, I’d say that the extent of lunatic public perception of WMDs is, if anything, surprisingly low, given the constant drumbeat of bullshit coming out of the White House and megaphoned by the press for much of the past year.
…
So one-third of Americans mistakenly think we found WMDs? Great. We can work with that. After looking at these numbers, I’m just relieved 30 percent don’t think Saddam’s disembodied wraith is looming in a vengeful stormfront, ready to deflower the womenfolk, lead our children into Satan’s bosom, and force the men to read science books.

How could Bush NOT win re-election?

Henry Waxman, ranking minority member of the House Committee on Governemnt Reform, to Condoleeza Rice:

What I want to know is the answer to a simple question: Why did the President use forged evidence in the State of the Union address? This is a question that bears directly on the credibility of the United States, and it should be answered in a prompt and forthright manner, with full disclosure of all the relevant facts.

Well, I’m glad someone wants to know the answer to that question.

TeeVee says that the network of crap that is FOX at least had something going for it – they were the network of “why the hell not?” And it spawned some notable successes, including The X-Files and The Simpsons. But this season, FOX has dumped edgy for typical, including this little gem:

More familiar and theoretically comforting to anyone who’s happened to turn on a TV set over the last 20 to 30 years will be The O.C., a program about incredibly beautiful young people and the problems they face by virtue of living in a wealthy southern California enclave. If this sounds like somebody took Beverly Hills 90210, threw it on a flatbed truck and drove it 30 miles south down the 405, Fox would like to plant a big, sloppy kiss on your forehead.

Gag. First a crappy movie, and now this? People must really hate us.

The first group in my buddy list is “Home Friends,” and it includes people I knew from middle school and high school. As people whom I never much talk to change their screen names, the list gets smaller. It sits there, mocking me for my past. I have few, if any friends in California. Spending the summer hear last year was pretty bad, socially. I don’t mind hanging out alone. I actually like doing things like taking walks and seeing movies by myself. But I also like to talk to people to whom I can relate. I was really dreading this summer.

Well, so far it hasn’t been too bad. I talk to a lot of Brandeis folks over IM and email. I talk to Adam Herman on the phone occasionally, but have felt uncomfortable trying to call anyone else. I know there are a few people in California who I could possibly talk to or hang out with…but I didn’t contact them. “Home Friends” sat there mocking me. These are the people of a past life! And yet, they were my friends. And when I chose them (or they chose me), I think it was for a reason. It was because we were compatible, and I think that that can last.

A week or so ago I talked briefly to Kevin Hainline. My erstwhile best friend has a new and different life. He got into theater in high school and continued that. He took a year off to do god knows what, and then ended up at Harvey Mudd, which I think was his dream school (or was it CalTech?). I remember back when he wanted to be a paleontologist, among other things. Now, I think, he is interested in the stars. There is so much I don’t know, we have drifted so far apart, can we possibly still be friends?

Maybe.

I IMed Samantha Ketchum yesterday on a whim. She seems so excited. She is very different from me, but we can still relate, can still talk. She has passions and deep thoughts, and I like that.

I hadn’t talked to Franziska von Heyman in a while. She might go by Carina now, I don’t know. Her profile linked to her blog, and reading it makes me happy. I’m happy that she is finding her place in the world, is becoming happy and comfortable at UCSD instead of hating it. I sent her an IM, we’ll see if she responds. She’s in Mock Trial. She’s doing law stuff! I had no idea…

Tyrone Davoodian is on the list. I haven’t talked to him in forever. I should. There is no reason not to IM him, and yet I hesitate. Why? I don’t know. I will have to take the plunge eventually. Maybe if he had a blog, that would make it easier.

A blog. Sometimes, a window into a person’s soul. Sometimes, a quick tool to catch up. Sometimes, a reminder that someone is alive. What an interesting world we live in.

Also on the list: Phillip Merkow. I helped him with some computer thing the other day. Andrea Huber. Never talk to her, she probably doesn’t even remember me. Kelly Stapelbroek. Way moved on, she is apparently in Germany now. Wow. Adam Kaplan. Might as well keep him on there.

Peter Norvig wrote a funny little story about the Y2K bug. I love things like this. Especially funny time travel.

Back in the 1980s, the record industry told us that home taping was killing music. How can we trust them this time?

Look, I can criticize the Bush administration for policy, but this is beyond policy. Salon offers a quick recap of stories in various papers quoting a plethora of very peeved intelligence officials.

On Thursday, a senior CIA official told the Washington Post that Cheney and his staff “sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here.” There was the story about Powell, first reported by U.S. News & World Report, preparing for his testimony before the United Nations in February and so exasperated with dubious information provided to him that he threw the documents in the air and declared, “I’m not reading this. This is bullshit.” There’s the Time magazine story reporting that an Army intelligence officer said Defense Secretary Donald “Rumsfeld was deeply, almost pathologically distorting the intelligence.” On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal quoted a State Department intelligence official who said of the pre-war WMD information that “much of it wasn’t very solid, and the fragmentary information sometimes produced fierce internal disagreements about its meaning.” Then there was the individual from the Defense Intelligence Agency who told the New York Times that “the American people were manipulated.”

Look, you just don’t tell the CIA what is fact. They’re doing the intelligence gathering! Disagree, sure. Ignore? Maybe. But you don’t tell them what they can report. And when the issue is war, you don’t cover up the other side. I’m not saying this hasn’t been done before — it has. I’m just saying you don’t do it.

Doc Searls says it ain’t simple. I wish more people would understand this.

Basically, all our politics proceed from two radically opposed notions that are nonetheless equally true. The one on the Right holds that the world is a dangerous place, that bad people are on the loose, and that we need to keep ourselves safe from those people. The one on the Left holds that the world is a good place, and that we should do everything we can to nurture whatever keeps it that way. As bases for default thinking both server to explain and dismiss much of what goes on in the world. Neither is correct in every case, and both are biased. […] Only one of those, however, makes interesting news. Only one of those is good for stirring up the kind of righteous anger that carries us to war, and to “delivering justice,” whatever we decide that is, and to justifying the deaths of the few for the good of the many (or of the wrong for the right, or whatever). Only one of those lends itself to handy all-simplifying sports and war metaphors. Only one of those justifies killing folks who have the misfortune of living in the wrong house, eating in the wrong restaurant or wearing the wrong clothes.

Until we discover the limits of the might-makes-Right’s moralities, its obsessions with power and security, its willingness to trash the very liberties it seeks to protect, and its ability to carry out its military ambitions, theirs are the arguments that are not only going to carry the day, but be tested in the real world.

I say let ’em test away. I just hope that somewhere along the way some of the world’s nonviolent goodness (you know, all that Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness stuff) successfully argues for itself.

Most bloggers have heard of Salam, and many articles have been written. He now has a column in the Guardian, so I’ll be on the lookout for that. Someone who employed him has written about it. The short story is this: intellectual Iraqi starts warblogging from the belly of The Enemy. Interesting enough, but he is also intelligent, coherant, and not blinded by either side of the conflict. There were doubts about whether he was real or a hoax. Well, he is real. Read his blog, here is an excerpt from a few weeks ago:

The type of “humanitarian aid” reaching the southern governorates turns the situation into a sick comedy. Nasiriayh Hospital got 20 boxes; six of them had only shampoo in them.
Need a blood transfusion? Have shampoo, it smells nice.

Another four or five were full of past-use-date stitching thread. In Basra the trucks of “humanitarian aid” coming from Saudi Arabia have crates of Pepsi in them. The Pediatric ward there is running out of medicine to suppress a fever, but they do have Pepsi. If this was in a movie it would be hilarious.

Mark Meadows seems like a very interesting person who is doing very interesting things, and somehow knows or meets interesting people all around the world. I can’t quite figure it out, because his web site is evil and hard to navigate and going through it makes me feel trapped and closed in and I really can’t stand it, but what he writes is though-provoking and powerful and insanely interesting. He is at boar.com and also bore.com and boor.com, for some reason, but they all link to each other.

Two excerpts from his page on Baghdad are of specific interest (a bit long, so bare with me):

Time magazine is leading the charge, spured on by the Economist and a nicely balanced story in the Washington Post. That’s good. At the same time, however, Google News is reporting over 1300 articles about mideast peace, and only 22 about the lack of WMDs. In news more widely covered, Russia wants UN inspectors to be doing the inspecting. Maybe they’re worried about the US…um…overstating its findings?

Here is a quote from the excellent Time story:

But if the Bush team overreached, one nagging question is, Why? A defense expert who has spent 20 years watching Republicans argue about foreign policy from the inside believes the hard-liners’ agenda isn’t about Iraq or even oil. It’s simply that the most zealous defenders of America’s role in the world are congenitally disposed to overreact to every threat — which leads them to read too much into the intelligence. “They came in with a world view, and they looked for things to fit into it,” says Lawrence Korb, who served in the Reagan Pentagon and now works at the Council on Foreign Relations. “If you hadn’t had 9/11, they would be doing the same things to China.”

Interesting, because it implies less ill-will then misdirected patriotism. Seen in that light, I am less upset about our leaders, even while strongly disagreeing with them. They still lie and spin to an enormous degree and generally get away with it, but I always thought it was because they are evil. Maybe they’re more psychotic then anything else.

I’m upset with my cats. They’re not being as cat-like as the cats in Cats.

One Irish politician said, “if there were no weapons of mass destruction then the war was fought on a lie.” In the US, over 40% of the public, according to a recent poll, either believe that WMDs were found in Iraq or are unclear on whether they were found. The US has moved on from the war. Iraq is over and done, and the fact that the entire basis for war was lies, falsehoods, fabricated evidence, and spin doesn’t bother us in the least. Meanwhile, the continued reports of civil unrest and American mismanagement in Iraq doesn’t phase anyone here…and people still refuse to accept that we will need to be in that region for several more years, and provide hundreds of billions in aid at the same time that we are cutting taxes and raising the debt ceiling for an already struggling economy.

There is an apt quote that explains all this. It comes from way back seven years ago in the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Vampires had attacked a bar and Xander knew one thing for certain – the town would never be the same. Except that it was. People had moved on, made up stories and excuses, substitued “gangs on PCP” in place of vicious monsters. Well-established worldviews won out over scary and new and real.

Giles commented thusly: “People have a tendency to rationalize what they can and forget what they can’t.” Pretty much sums up our country, I think.

I’ve been spending lots of time in front of my computer doing various tasks as a by-product of ripping all of my CDs to the new AAC music format. AAC is higher quality than MP3 and others, and I want to make sure I have all of my music in a high-quality digital form so that it is easily accessible and I have a copy if the CDs get lost, broken, or scratched.

As a consequence of all the ripping, I’ve been doing a bit of browsing of the excellent Apple iTunes Music Store. I’m trying to be as legitimate as possible, so the few times that I’ve found music I like and have in MP3 format that I don’t have the actual CDs of, I’ve bought them off of iTunes. Now this archiving process is costing me both time and money!

I went and saw Cats with my grandparents and sisters at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. We got to take a quick tour of the stage level (everything is massively hugely big) and talk to the company manager. It was interesting, especially how the tour essentially works out of big boxes everywhere they go, everything is packed perfectly for use and restorage such that it only takes them 8 hours to setup and 5 hours to strike. Fascinating.

Cats itself was amazing, much better then the DVD (half of which I slept through). Each cat had his or her own personality, and the actors were incredible at staying in character, everyone reacted so well that several times I would see a “cat” slink by in the corner of my vision and it would take me a second to register that I was actually seeing a person, and not a true feline. The cats would play and frolick in very catty ways, one in particular was flirting with another. He nibbled on her fur and pranced about while she playfully pushed him away. When something loud or important would happen, every cat would perk up and sit at attention, it was really wonderful. The funniest part was seeing people acting as cats acting as pirates singing bad opera. Genius!

My conversations with Igor and Carol have led me to the conclusion that Brandeis in general seems so focused on the higher learning and liberal arts that the academic departments consider anything hands-on or potentially helpful in the real world as anathema to their curriculum. I need to investigate this further and determine how best to talk/write about it without offending absolutely everyone.

Finally, I’ve decided that my blog posts need to be funner. I’ve been reading the past Justice columns of Lex Friedman and I want to be more Friedmanesque. Guess this post isn’t much of a step in that direction, alas, but I’ll work on it.