A view of the future . . .
Five years from now, the Web may look and feel entirely differently than it does today. For example, you might be relying on web-based applications and file storage rather than PC-based applications and storage. Novell has begun to pilot a file storage service. There's a beta site, www.mywebos.com, that invites the user to have web-based applications. PC makers are beginning to roll out "WEbPC's," with less PC-based features, and for less money. Some PCs are given away, just as long as you sign up for Internet service.
It's not too farfetched to imagine a future in which relatively dumb terminals, with a keyboard and a monitor, tie into application and file service providers that provide customized bookmarks, applications, and files to users who pay a monthly charge for these services. The terminal in the home would be provided free of charge. In some ways, this returns computing to the mainframe model of fifteen years ago, except for the much higher quality of the connections, the applications, and the computing speed. We could expect to see vast fields of servers, guarded on installations with near-military security. We're already starting to see that for routing servers.
How do biometrics fit in? Quite easily, really. Haven't you noticed the car biometrics approach, where you turn on the ignition with your fingerprint and the car automatically adjusts the seat, the mirror, the temperature, the radio settings, the power steering, and maybe even the gear ratios? Why can't we do the same thing with your computer? You identify yourself with your fingerprint, and the Web-connected terminal calls into the application and file service providers, who return your bookmarks, your applications, and provide your personal files. Novell is already pushing this for corporate applications.
You can even see the form of this future taking shape in the AOL/Time Warner alliance. AOL already has a deal with Novell for instant messenger service. Why not run AOL over the Novell Web directory, using Novell biometric standards (perhaps even from IDX)? AOL already has Netscape, and could adapt the browser's technology to recognize and use biometrics. Time Warner has some broadband service, and we may see AOL go after Bell Atlantic, or any other major pipeline owner . . . so that if you will be hooked up on cable, or by phone, you are presented with an integrated system that provides directory service, content, authentication . . . everything.
At home, everyone in the family would have a different computer screen come up on the same monitor. The parents could enroll their children with filtering instructions to the browser, keeping them away from undesirable sites -- or instructing the browser to provide a report to the parents on where the child has been on the Web. And the kid couldn't say, "It wasn't me!" That's one of the beauties of biometrics -- non-repudiation.
Of course, any browser that can report site visits to a parent can also report the family's visits to a marketing database. And that's where the shadows appear among the light of this future. The biometric scanners would be sold to consumers as a convenience, not as a security measure. A great deal of their value would accrue to credit card companies and sellers on the Web, who will cut way down on fraud -- and even more value accrues to the marketers. Not only will you have personalized applications appearing on your screen, but personalized advertising. And since so much of your transactions will be occurring online, the data buildup on your habits and activities will be astonishingly complete. And they will know it is you -- it's your fingerprint, after all, and not your wife's fingerprint. It is true that this oversight will not have access to the entire content of your communications, but it will have the complete facts of who you are communicating with and, from the websites, what you might have bought. Don't worry about cost: The fingerscanners will be free. This new world, not very far off, will have many new jobs for statisticians, sociologists, and marketers.
If this future develops, Identix's biometric software will become a hot property. Not only would it be sought by the PKI companies -- Verisign, Entrust, Baltimore Technology -- but also by Novell, Microsoft, AOL, and anyone interested in owning the biggest possible part of the Internet.
I know about digitalme and Zeroknowledge, the privacy approaches. I don't see how they are going to compete against this anti-privacy universe. We are gong to need good laws to guard our privacy. I'll conclude on this hopeful note from a front page story in today's Washington Post: "Yesterday, the ruled Supreme Court unanimously that states can be barred from disclosing the personal information drivers provide to obtain a license, in a surprising decision immediately extolled by privacy activists and civil libertarians." |
