U.K. National ID Card and Real ID

IBM and CSC were awarded the contract by the U.K. Identity and Passport Service for creating biometric enhanced IDs. The goal is to provide a safe and secure ID which contains built in verification of identity.

Biometric enhanced IDs are the future. This could take the form of finger printing, retinal scans, or perhaps DNA.

There are a number of people especially in the U.S. who are opposed to a national ID card. The fear of Big Brother is even more overwhelming than in Britain where 1984 was a predicted future.

The national ID card, if combined with other identification, could simplify the lives of Americans. Imagine having an ID which was also your driver's license. Perhaps we could include Social Security in an enhanced secure form. I can envision insurance information, medical records, banking, and credit cards.

We live in a public Internet, there can be no expectation of privacy. Get over it, now let us find a better solution where we can be a little safer, or practical with our public and seemingly private lives.

Everyone Should Pay Income Taxes

I read a really great op ed in The Wall Street Journal from Ari Fleischer today. The piece is entitled the same as my blog title: Everyone Should Pay Income Taxes. Although, I am not totally in favor of some of his political ideas, the premise is sound.

I am a proponent of a flat tax system, or tier max tax system. Let me explain...

In a simple flat tax system, everyone pays the same amount, or percentage, for example 10% of their income. This is simple to determine and pay. If we exclude tax credits, or deductions, it is generally considered fair. Those who oppose the system say its not fair that they must pay if they make more. I contend the person who makes $10,000.00 is more affected than the person making a million.

The other system may be more palpable to some. It requires that everyone pay a percentage of their income up to a maximum amount. For example, we all pay 10% up to a maximum of (for the sake of discussion) a tax bill of one million. Anything above ten million in income is not taxed.

These numbers would need to be adjusted to compensate for our budget requirements.

In Mr. Fleischer's article he mentions abolishing estate taxes. I agree. Why punish families for growing wealth over generations. This is what America is all about.

He concludes his article with a wonderful quote:

"Its funny what happens when everyone pays the bills; Americans may want less spending so they can pay fewer bills."

Perhaps this will force some fiscal responsibility to reduce our $2 trillion dollar budget deficits.

The Grid and Spies

The Wall Street Journal published a front page article on 8 April 2009 entitled Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies It is a chilling report on the weakness of our national electrical infrastructure. They point out that the utilities failed to detect the breaches, and that they were informed by the CIA of the breaches. Good for our intelligence agencies, but poor marks for the commercial enterprises which should be more vested in security. The report generalizes the potential threat from countries like Russia, and China. The threats exist from those nations, but I offer a more chilling thought.

Terrorists, rogue nations (North Korea and Iran), and cyber criminals pose a greater risk. Terrorists would love to black out a city and ravage it in the confusion. Shutting down the subways (electrical) in New York, or Chicago and releasing poison gas would be devastating.

Rogue nations like Iran and N. Korea do not have vested interests in the U.S. like Russia and particularly China. They have nothing to lose from disrupting our infrastructure. The Chinese have no interest per se in causing any financial disruptions since they are one of the largest U.S. Treasury debt holders. North Korea can not be said to have the same restraint.

Cyber criminals already cause major disruptions. Holding the utilities hostage would be one more item to add to their lists.

I don't want to sound the alarm of doom. There is hope. Detection of the breaches by the CIA should be the siren's call to take some action.

• Redundant control systems should be put in place on separate secured networks. The Internet was designed by DARPA to weather a nuclear attack. This same idea combined with the available dark fiber could serve as a backbone for a national monitoring grid.
• Every utility should be a part of a national utility grid which flows through a secured national monitoring system.
• The government should look at requiring that the utilities spend more than 2% of their revenue on R&D. An article in Wired points out that only 700 miles of infrastructure have been added since 2000. Perhaps we should require that utilities spend at least 10% on infrastructure and 2% on security.
• Breach information should be passed through a security information clearinghouse similar to CERT.
• The utilities should consider focusing on free open source software (FOSS) and collaborative development of technologies which can be shared. Common software would allow the groups to focus on more reliable and secure systems.
  

Those are a few of my thoughts.