NEWZ: Candidate Dean Suggests Logging All Computer Activity

Before Democratic Presidential hopeful Howard Dean got skunked in Iowa last week he wasn't receiving a lot of national attention other than the fawning commentary about how he would be the Democratic candidate.

Now, following that and his enthusiastic speech the same night, he has been getting attention of all sorts. And it's a good thing. What's become more and more obvious to me in the last week is that Dean isn't actually the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party" as he self-proclaims. He was smart enough to be the first guy out the door complaining about Bush's immoral war, but looking back at record in Vermont he's a centrist. He's done some great things, like signing civil union bills for gays and lesbians in Vermont, but he's quite fiscally conservative ... and sometimes otherwise conservative too.

Thus I wasn't too surprised when angelovernh posted a link to this article. The skinny: Dean wants to make computer manufacturers require a national ID before you can login to your computer. Thus, everything you do on your computer and on the 'net is tagged with your personal, unique, non-anonymous signature.

It'd be presented, no doubt, as a convenience for users. You know, "Never have to type your address information again." And a good portion of this country will fall for it, not realising that their personal liberties are being eroded day by day.

Me, I work in the online game industry, and anonymous users can be a serious, serious problem sometimes. But there's no way I'd fight that by requiring digital fingerprints for every transaction, no more than I'd want every American's body to be emdedded with a unique broadcasting ID, so that we could easily identify and capture criminals in the "real world".

After reading more about Dean in the last week, I'd become fairly happy that his campaign had gone into freefall. After reading this, I've got my fingers crossed that it continues.

NEWZ: More on Dean Privacy

Here's a claim that the Dean/privacy story is a smear:

Dean still calls for privatization of information

However, what he really said still sets off my Big Brother sensors:

Again, this points to Smart Card adoption and development of card readers that limit information access but also confirm it —- when appropriate.

The same Smart Card that confirms that a person is a registered voter can also be used to validate age in a liquor store.

The Smart Card owner may decide to put her medical information into the card database, which can be accessed by an Emergency Medical Technician with a universal authorization code. That EMT can learn the blood type and complete medical history of an unconscious accident victim. The beauty of the Smart Card is that the liquor store doesn’t know anything but age, and the hotel doesn’t know about non-hotel purchases, and the state knows nothing about any of it.

On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state network — while also barring anyone who isn’t legal age from entering an adult chat room,
making the internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children’s chat room and preying on our kids.