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Technology Stocks : Identix (IDNX) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David who wrote (12823)	3/22/1999 5:34:00 PM
From: Hockeyfan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26039

How about this excerpt? "Art Money, the civilian official in charge of the Pentagon's information security, told a Senate Armed Service Committee panel last week that the military is working to better protect its more than 2 million computers from outside penetration and inside attack." Looks like biometrics is called for in the near term.

To: David who wrote (12823)	3/22/1999 5:35:00 PM
From: jean	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 26039

David...For what it's worth, I think protecting military networks in all of their forms will have to go far beyond biometric authentication. Such authentication will certainly make some of the nets less vulnerable and make tracing a spy easier, but it won't stop the really sophisticated hackers who figure out how to access the guts of a system merely by punching the right combination of keys. Jean P.S. As for Buck being more trustworthy...well, he is a great guy. Much nicer than an old curmudgeon of an English teacher. Remember what Shakespeare said about Cassius who read too much? "...such men are dangerous." Shakespeare meant women, too, I'm sure, and I read a lot. That's why it's important to fingerprint me.

To: David who wrote (12823)	3/22/1999 5:58:00 PM
From: David	Respond to of 26039

To Sspenard on Yahoo (the following is too long to post there, and this discussion is interesting to SI, also): "In your . . . post you said Microsoft wouldn't put the industry back to square one.I think Bio-ID is at square one because there is no standard developed yet and this maybe the reason for lack of widescale deployment. IT people love standards...makes things a lot easier and doesn't limit them to one vendor." IT people do love standards, and that's why this API effort is going on. It will allow everyone's device to work together, no matter what language they speak. In other words, it won't be a Betamax v. VHS world. We'll know things have fallen into place when NRID finally caves and joins up with BioAPI. As to 'square one,' we are already past it -- Compaq is shipping relatively low-cost IDT scanners -- low cost enough to be worthwhile to the corporate buyers. If Microsoft were to come out with its own, new algorithm (more on that later), no hardware supplier would have the core technology to provide an input device for the new algorithm. They would all have to go back into a development phase. That would probably set sales back for a year or two, just when they are getting ready to take off. How would Compaq, one of the gorillas, like that? "This is why Ethernet blew away IBM's Token Ring even though Token Ring is more robust and gave much higher utilization on the LAN.The standards in Ethernet are far better than Token ring and an Intel Ethernet NIC will have no problems communicating with a 3Com Ethernet NIC.With Token Ring..it's a different story... thanks to IBM trying to dictate the standards and changing things without telling the other vendors.Having first hand experience with this,I know the importance of standards in High Tech.This is why I always felt BioAPI is a big deal that Fowler [missed]. Especially with the players involved.Maybe Fowler had planned on the IDT merger all along and didn't need to be part of BioAPI." Either he did miss it, or getting IDT was his way of getting in. I can believe either one. If you read the S-4, Fowler was after IDT in the fall of 1997, and BioAPI came out in the spring of 1998. Either way, it's history now and IDX is in BioAPI with the IDT line. (By the way, I don't think the F3 needs an API if the authentication occurs in the peripheral itself, since the only message sent in that circumstance is "match confirmed.") "I think since these big boys [Compaq, IBM and Microsoft] are some of the founding members of BioAPI..they must have a strategy for this market or why would they bother being in a working group like BioAPI.Obviously,they must want to play in the Bio-Id market somehow." That's especially easy to answer in terms of Compaq and IBM. They are potential resellers. In the IDT deal, I'll bet that Compaq is getting product for maybe $47/unit, and reselling for $99. Compaq adds values by vetting the product, shaping it for the market, going out on sales calls, and promising all needed tech support. That beats the hell out of an NRID-supported product, by the way. Same is potentially true for IBM . . . or HP . . . or NEC . . . or Dell . . . or whoever is a big computer seller. Regarding Microsoft, having biometrics will generally add value to networked systems. A network that lacks authentication may not, ultimately, receive a maximum degree of consumer confidence. That would hurt software sales down the line. "A concern I have is if there is a BioAPI standard developed (which is what BioAPI purpose is for), why couldn't Microsoft just implement the algorithm with supporting software in Windows NT bypassing the need to install SW from third parties? This would only leave the hardware left for other Bio-ID companies to sell to customers in the Windows world.At this point the scanner or other Bio-ID device would just be another input device like a mouse or keyboard.And if the scanner conformed to BioAPI standards and plug and play...you could plug it in and it would be working in a couple of minutes with little user intervention. If Microsoft has this ambition, I think this could be accomplish.Since Windows NT already has password security functions...how difficult would it be to implement additional Biometric security functions via the BioAPI standard?I think it is something to ponder." I don't think this is a realistic scenario. First, there are two algorithms in the core technologies: extraction and matching. If Microsoft were to take over the entire algorithmic functions, then an actual fingerprint image would have to be transmitted from the peripheral to the OS-device, i.e., the PC. Maybe it could be encrypted. All extraction and matching would be done at a network level. I think this is inherently pretty insecure compared to present technical approaches. Second, replacing present software approaches throws all peripherals 'off-line' until they get re-engineered. That ain't market-friendly. It would also hammer the bio-ID players financially, perhaps to the point where they couldn't stay in the business, especially with such lower profit potential. What is slightly more likely than your scenario is this one: Microsoft picks the leading algorithm supplier to license its mathematics and software to MSFT (a la Trimble in Auto PC). Then MSFT has no software development costs, and can count on immediate hardware supplies. Of course, today that means it would pick up IDT software solutions. Only the present nonselling IDT competitors would suffer, but Compaq wouldn't. A final note on this MSFT worst case analysis -- it wouldn't affect the F3/Sony Puppy/BII 'CPU onboard' products at all . . . they only send out a 'match confirmed' signal that should be understandable in all PKI environments.