Oracle gives away 9i to security
agencies
Thursday 6th December 2001
In the aftermath of September 11th, Larry Ellison was
one of the first on his feet to offer Oracle’s assistance
in setting up a federal ID database. In his keynote
speech at OpenWorld, he confirmed that Oracle’s 9i
database software has been delivered to certain
security agencies free of charge.
As usual, the deal involves giving away the initial
licenses but the agencies will have to stump up for
annual maintenance and upgrades. Given Oracle’s
usual discounting policies, this doesn’t actually
amount to much of a give-away since maintenance is
based on list prices and it wouldn’t be very long
before an upgrade was required. In much the same
way that Microsoft and Red Hat have been criticised
for trying to take advantage of situations to increase
their own brand position, Oracle is leaving itself open
to comment.
A D V E R T I S M E N T
That apart, the idea is one that has been discussed
at some length over the last 12 weeks. How much
should we citizens give up in terms of personal
freedom in order to ensure the overall safety of our
civilisations? What Larry has suggested is quite
simple. A simple database that allows individuals to
be identified in terms of their social security id and
fingerprints. Thus, as we board an aeroplane, we
hand over our id and match the fingerprint to that
stored with our records. Of course it would work but
the problem would come with getting everybody to
participate. Whilst Oracle is talking of government
agencies sharing information and developing national
standards for identification records, human rights
activists are shouting about individual rights and ‘Big
Brother’.
The really interesting thing is that, if we can just get
over this hurdle and start to accept that we should
give a little of our private information for the better
good of us all, then the gates are open for a world of
convenience. Larry wouldn’t need to give away his
database because we could all carry smartcards with
our fingerprints embedded into them. We could use
them to spend money, gain access to our buildings,
operate mobile phones (most of us are known by our
phone numbers anyway) and a whole host of
filofax-style activities.
Smartcards could also maintain our life preferences –
contact information, organ donor preferences,
whether or not we want to receive junk mail. All we
have to do is plug them into the systems to make
things happen. Ultimately, if we are not breaking the
law, why should we have anything to hide? A small
leap of faith could give us all so much more.
it-director.com
steve |
