Schneier on Security

Project Guttenberg is a worthwhile digitization of historical documents. I encourage everyone to put in a little time on this.

Lots of good info on the reliability of fingerprint identification here:
http://www.latent-prints.com/

Okay, I must be getting paranoid. When I read the title in my RSS reader, I wondered why the FBI was investigating Project Gutenberg...

Listen to J.Edgar go:

"Civil fingerprints are an invaluable aid in identifying amnesia victims, missing persons and unknown deceased. In the latter category the victims of major disasters may be quickly and positively identified if their fingerprints are on file, thus providing a humanitarian benefit not usually associated with fingerprint records...

"Of all the methods of identification, fingerprinting alone has proved to be both infallible and feasible. Its superiority over the older methods, such as branding, tattooing, distinctive clothing, photography, and body measurements (Bertillon system), has been demonstrated time after time."

Kind of makes me want to turn in my fingerprints right now, just in case.

@ Ian Holmes

Some of Hoover's points are valid, but that does not mean that the police / FBI / government need to be the ones to keep fingerprint records.

I have records of my children's identifying marks (moles, scars, etc). I plan to make fingerprints as well. I hope I never have to use them. But I keep them at home, and not on file at some police station.

Alan

"What are we going to do when Uncle Samuel comes around,
Asking for the young one's name,
Looking for the print of his hand
For some file in their numbers game?
I don't want his chances for freedom
To ever be that slim,
Let's not tell them about him."
-"A Child is Coming", Kantner, Slick; Blows Against the Empire, Jefferson Starship, RCA Records, 1970

"Of all the methods of identification, fingerprinting alone has proved to be both infallible and feasible. Its superiority over the older methods, such as branding, tattooing, distinctive clothing, photography, and body measurements (Bertillon system), has been demonstrated time after time."

Sounds as if they chose fingerprints as an alternative to the tattoos with which Nazis marked jews in concentration camps to gas them later.

Well, I don't want to end up in a concentration camp and be gased, so I better don't give them my fingerprints.

If you give me your fingerprint recognition code, i'll be pleased