by Kei/Carnage


 Take  a  look  in  your  wallet  or coat pocket.  What does the average
working  person  see?   Plastic.   And  loads  of  it.   Yep, these days
everything  is  going  plastic.   There's  just too many companies using
plastic  these  days.  Here's an example of the plastic you may carry in
your wallet:

                            Driving License
                      Bank/Building Society Cards
                    Supermarket discout/point cards
                             Premier Points
                              Library Card
                       Car breakdown members card
                           NUS Students card
                        Discout coach/rail card
                        National Insurance Card
                              Credit Cards
                         Club Membership Cards
                          Security pass cards
                              Phone cards

 Is  there  any  need  for  so much junk?  Several companies involved in
smart  card  technology  do  not  think  so  and have started to work on
combinations   of   the  above  cards.   One  such  application  is  PPV
(pay-per-view)  cards and bank cards.  Yep, you could insert a bank card
into your satellite/cable box and pay direct for what you watch.

 This  is all very well but one idea first thought of in science fiction
is the "ID card" or "Identity Card".  This is basically "you" on a card.
Here's a scenario to give you a better idea of what they mean:

 "You  wake  up,  get  out  of  bed  and head into the kitchen to make a
coffee.   You  check  the  days  news  and weather and then get dressed.
Before  leaving you press a button which ejects your ID card from a slot
in the wall.  Your electric account has been credited so there is enough
electricity to power your fridge while you are out for the day.
 You stop off at a petrol station and put your card into a machine which
releases  the  pump.   You  fill up with petrol and when you replace the
pump  your card is ejected, your account being debited automatically for
the petrol.
 You arrive at work and head into your office block.  You insert your ID
card  into the door slot and enter a passcode.  Your card is ejected and
the door clicks.  You enter your office and sit at your desk.  You place
your  ID  card  into  the  side  of  the computers monitor.  It asks for
another passcode.  Once entered the computer comes to life automatically
activating  the  other  office equipment.  You decide to do some on-line
banking and shopping before you start getting stuck into work.
 Later  on  during  your  lunch  break  you insert your ID card into the
vending machines to retrieve your food.
 Before leaving for the day you sort out your holiday plans over the net
using your card.
 When  you  arrive  home  you re-insert your card into it's place in the
lounge wall.  Your phone bill is paid automatically as well as the FedEx
delivery charges that occured while you were out."

 Some  people  think  this  may  be the way we are heading but there are
several problems with this.

 With  all  this  information  on you on one card, it will be relatively
easy for someone to get an idea as to who you are from the lifestyle you
lead.  Like cookie files on the internet, it would be a small task for a
company  to write a program that retrieves data stored on your card when
you  access their machines.  For instnce you may be paying for groceries
at  a  supermarket  and  the  machine detects that you do not have cable
phone  enabled  yet and it is currently offering cable fone at a reduced
price  so you may get junk mail/voicemail as your address will be stored
on the card.
 What  if  you  currently  subscribe  to  "Big  Blondes  Monthly" and as
everything  is becoming a global economy and money has gone digital, the
only  way  you can pay is by ID card so how do you guarantee privacy for
yourself?

 Smart  cards are not hated or rejected by everyone.  Hackers love them.
They  buy  second hand card readers which they canabalise/modify to read
cards such as phone cards and satellite cards so they can be re-write to
them  to  to  give free/unlimitated untraceable access to digital goods.
With  smartcards  being  a read/writeable technology, what is to prevent
unathorized  individuals from accessing confidential data on Joe Public?
This  is  the main reason that smart cards have not taken off as well as
their designers originally hoped they would.


 This  certainly raises several interesting questions regarding this new
technology  and  I'd love to hear back from some of you on your thoughts
on  this  issue.  However I would be quite happy to own a low-risk smart
card that could contain the following:

                 All the supermarket points cards I use
                            My library Card
                             My NUS card ID
                           My AA breakdown ID
                          Premier Points data
                         Discount cards/passes
                        National Insurance card
                         Club membership cards

 As I couldn't care less if I lost these as they are easy to replace and
low-risk  money  wise.   However  I  would  prefer to keep my bank cards
seperate  as  well as any cards that held money or transaction data such
as vending machine cards, phone cards or maybe security cards.

 In the future there maybe cases of "Personality Hacking".



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