Subject: RE: QC biometrics needs re-engineering NOW!

From: Anders Rundgren <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 10:31:28 +0100

Ed,

>Anders Rundgren wrote:

>> Seeing the virtually ZERO progress on the biometric part of QC, I get the feeling it may be
>> a better idea (if speed counts) to keep things within a group with members that are more focused
>> on solutions rather than just making "noise" or running private political campaigns (Ed & Co).

>Anders:

>Sometimes, an attack is the best defense. Not here. Please either defend your
>"secret standard" approach on its own merit (which I postulate does not exist
>and agree with Ben) or keep silence.

A part of this can be found at the biometric Consortium web site:
http://www.biometrics.org/html/x_509.html

>I have no private (or, public) political
>campaigns to run and I feel harassed just by having to come here and say this
>to you.

Since you (and others) do not address the interoperability questions raised, I feel that the
design issues are obscured by too much politics.  Why not allow a design to support
different political/personal opinions instead of forcing a specific one upon everybody?
You believe that privacy is the #1 issue.  That is a personal opinion that not everybody
have to support.   MY personal opinion (which you don't have to share) is that you can
information-wise be "intimate" with a few selected parties.  And to these parties the
authentication of the subject may be of uttermost importance.  Even for the subject BTW!

So let *implementers*,  *customers*, *lawyers* and *market* decide what they feel comfortable with!
It is a free world, isn't it?

>If your point is not accepted today, there is no need to become desperate ;-)

Since a lot of knowledgeable people outside of this pretty boring list support the in-line bio-stuff,
I don't feel that desperate *anymore* :-).  Just puzzled. 

>Maybe, just maybe, you are wrong.

I won't say that you are wrong or than I am right.  I just say that my suggested solution
(user certificate selection), to the subject privacy issue (in my concept not limited to biometrics)
is well worth a comment and hopefully even could be an OPTION in QC.

>Cheers,

Well...

Anders

---

From: "Anders Rundgren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 14:56:33 -0000

All,
I have a couple of simple questions regarding biometrics as supported in the *current* QC-draft.
Please, I would love to get answers from a purely engineering point-of-view.  For a change.

Background information:

In several countries PKI-based identity-programs are being implemented.

We are talking about of populations with millions of subscribers so it is not that "local".

Many (but not all) use a static unique identifier (SSN-like but truly unique) to identify the subject.

Certificates or subject data is NOT published in any way.  Only CRLs.

The CA/RA should in these schemes be considerad as "trusted" for handling information
concerning its subscibers as this is the foundation for the entire scheme.  Like it or not.

Qyestions:

Q1: In what way could privacy be hampered if  there were an optional selectable version
of such an identity-certificate containing an in-line data object with an image
of the subject?  Note that the unique identity-case is already lost so this question
has only to do with the image.

Q2: In what way would the *user* and *RP* benefit from a system using proprietary protocols
for transmitting the bio-template (image file) and specialized GUIs telling: "Do you really
want to give your image to XYZ" instead of simply selecting between

-  Standard QC   ;Probably just "Name and number"
-  Photo ID           ;Preferably identified by an easy-to-interprete icon on the user display
-  etc etc             

and only using standard authentication protocols.

Note: I here refer to the QCdraft's non-URI version of biometric support, which if it has any
value (where are you Denis?), should be defended or simply deleted.

Anders