Iris Scans Are the New School IDs 217
An anonymous reader writes "Winthrop University in South Carolina is testing out iris scanning technology during freshman orientation this summer. Students had their eyes scanned as they received their ID cards in June. 'Iris scanning has a very high level of accuracy, and you don't have to touch anything, said James Hammond, head of Winthrop University's Information Technology department. 'It can be hands free security.'" I wouldn't want to be locked out a building because of a scratched lens or a system outage, though.
How would that be different... (Score:5, Insightful)
from being locked out due to a broken/lost/defective key/card/etc in any other building access system...?????
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I don't have eyes you insensitive clod!
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Re:How would that be different... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the first thing I would do, then, is to opt to use a 'disabled' alternative. My iris pattern is not something I am willing to provide to the school under any circumstances, along with my fingerprints, retinal map, and a number of other biometric options.
If they need something beyond an ID with RFID, QR code, or a magstripe, they need to provide some pretty fucking compelling reasons for me to go along with it.
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Naturally, you'll have to have cameras watching the scanners...
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"A nice layer of petroleum jelly or a good rub with some coarse sandpaper come to mind."
I find it both very amusing and very aggravating that government at all levels has been wasting so much of the public's time and money on things like this, considering how INEFFECTIVE they have proven to be.
In most cities where they have been tried, traffic cameras have increased traffic accidents. There are some lawsuits going on in my area, which will probably result in them getting banned statewide. Not just because they are ineffective, but because enforcing anything via camera violates long-standing
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from being locked out due to a broken/lost/defective key/card/etc in any other building access system...?????
You can replace keys/cards if somebody else gets the numbers off them and uses them for other activities.
Now stop trolling.
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Because OMG privacy that's why!
Timothy needed to get above a minimum word count to post the story.
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from being locked out due to a broken/lost/defective key/card/etc in any other building access system...?????
Oh, my good eyeball is around here somewhere, just a second. How embarrassing! Ah, you know I think I left it at home. How did I even make it here without it? Ha heh, oh.... Say, you could just lend me yours?
School full of stupid kids? (Score:4, Insightful)
The reader will beep if they're on the right bus and honk if they're on the wrong one.
Or you could teach them to read the numbers on the side of the bus, but that's just my zany, wacky idea. Or are the kids too stupid to get on the exact same numbered bus day after day?
Re:School full of stupid kids? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:School full of stupid kids? (Score:4, Insightful)
That part's harder than you think. I drove two busloads of kids a day with 50+ kids. I knew where the stops were, but it took me a few weeks to start getting familiar who was getting on and off where, still it would have been easy to sneak an extra person or less people- plus people are absent, have approval to bring home a friend, etc. We do our best, but there's no way I'm going to learn 100+ kids faces that I see for at most about 30 seconds a day as they get on and off to the point I'd know exactly who gets on and off at each stop and their names/faces.
Re:School full of stupid kids? (Score:5, Funny)
Or you could teach them to read the numbers on the side of the bus
if these were regular kids, you'd have a point. But these are college students. It's not fair to expect people like that to master such sophisticated mental tasks.
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My first reaction to the 'kids lose their school IDs line' was the same as yours here though.
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I see that Eyelock is testing its stuff [secureidnews.com] in at least one elementary school.
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Or you could teach them to read the numbers on the side of the bus
if these were regular kids, you'd have a point. But these are college students. It's not fair to expect people like that to master such sophisticated mental tasks.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to read the numbers, never mind remembering which one is the one you should get on, when you're drunk on cheap beer?
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Wait you want people to remember numbers just for a bus? Getting on a bus should require zero Maths knowledge.
That way they can better accommodate the majority of Americans.
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I think maybe one time I got on the wrong bus because I was in a co
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Or you could teach them to read the numbers on the side of the bus, but that's just my zany, wacky idea. Or are the kids too stupid to get on the exact same numbered bus day after day?
In the 1800's because there were a lot of illiterates, horse drawn trams were using wooden panels with the line numbers with different colours, so for instance the line 5 was using a green panel and line 6 a blue panel. Problem solved. Anyway the actual school buses are using only the colour designation.
What are we doing to our children? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, and then looked what happened? City 17 was completely destroyed by a dark-energy explosion.
Moral of the story - don't trust anyone except a mute with a lot of guns.
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We are conditioning them to live in a police state.
Yes, because "we" demand zero-defect terrorism policies. Don't blame the gubrmnt just because people flip out over bombs but accept causes of death orders of magnitude more significant. The terrorists have officially won.
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Yes, because "we" demand zero-defect terrorism policies.
The people are demanding that. The politicians are claiming that the people are demanding that. The distinction isnt subtle.
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(I assume this is a typo or an error of omission, and that you meant for there to be an aren't in there somewhere.)
You haven't heard the friendly, give-you-the-shirt-off-their-back folks I know who rail against "them Muslims." They live in the midwest and don't really do anything but work every day, live simple lives, and go to church on Sunday. They seldom leave the county for anything, let alone the state or c
How should I step up my opposing? (Score:2)
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We are conditioning them to live in a police state.
More bullshit.
Accept legal responsibility for 1500 kids in your ten acre suburban campus from 7:30 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon. Five schools with their associated libraries, cafeterias, athletic facilities plus a theater, day care, community center and so on and on and on.
Your annual budget apart from state and federal contributions is $40 million dollars.
If anything goes wrong, it is your head on the block,
Now tell me how you are going to manage physical security. Inventory control. Emergen
Re:What are we doing to our children? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is such bullshit. Public education leads to more workers full stop - that's why industrialists promoted public education.
The whole brainwashing/docile/pod-people crap is just conspiracy theory gone wild.
Re:What are we doing to our children? (Score:4, Interesting)
These things are not mutually exclusive. I think you have mistaken my meaning and that we have more in common than you might guess. I hold to know "brainwashing" or "pod-people" theory. Indeed, the only snarky comments you'll find me make on /. is in response to people who reckon others "sheeple". Neither did I indicate that manageability was the only interest industrialists would have is in publicly educated workers. I only focused on this because it pertained to GP's comment. Just because the powerful secure one set of interests does not mean they do not simultaneously secure others. Nor is this "conspiracy theory", much less conspiracy theory gone wild.
From your statement quoted above, I'll take for granted that you agree with me that the industrialist/philanthropists who supported public education did so at least in part to serve their own interests (much like the modern parallel FWD.us [wikipedia.org] has an interest in promoting certain kinds of immigration policies). Indeed, having a worker who can at least read is an enormous advantage to the industrialist, to say nothing of the worker. Even so, there are aspects of public schooling that lend themselves quite well to promoting what I described as "docile" behavior. The first is the unnatural hours for a child. No one who has spent any amount of time with children can hold that maintaining an 8-4:00 schedule is natural for them (or, arguably, any human being). It's not. But it's perfectly fitted for the needs of an industrial economy where laborers working in shifts make the system more efficient.
Second, the grouping of children in the institutionalized environment inevitably requires that they maintain a certain kind of regular discipline which would be unnecessary for other economic structures, but is essential when you've an industrial economy. In school you learn you must work precisely when you're told and rest only during allotted breaks. You have a lunch hour (which you must walk in a line to attend). You must request trips to relieve yourself. You are always answerable to supervisors, indeed for every word that comes from your mouth. You learn to apply peer pressure to others on the line (I mean classroom), knowing you're often evaluated based upon group projects. You're encouraged by those in power to rat your peers out. All these things are necessary in the setting of the modern classroom but they're also perfect motivations for support from industrialists. Little wonder, in light of this, that the pro-industrialist Whigs would be so pro-public schooling. Thus we find so important figures as Horace Mann promoting public education as a means of "moral" improvement and disciplining the rabble. The discipline here is the discipline of the industrial age, governed by the clock and not by the natural rhythms of the adult (much less the juvenile) person.
But I also say this from personal experience. My own wife was home-schooled and I've had numerous friends who were as well. Of the home-schooled, I've noticed a common pattern: they've a much lower tolerance for institutional, bureaucratic nonsense than I and my other public-schooled friends have. For the latter (myself included) it seems perfectly, even comforting, to pull a 9-5, deal with irrational BS from coworkers, and blow it off at the end of the day. For the former, at least in my experience, have some trouble adjusting to the rather absurd work schedule and, above all, to the basic irrationality of human behavior in institutionalized life. They're just as bright and often better educated (again, in my experience) than their public school peers. But they frequently lack that cynicism one manages to develop as a survival mechanism in public school. I remain uncertain whether such a survival mechanism is a blessing or curse.
The fact is that the modern educational system works on
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(much like the modern parallel FWD.us has an interest in promoting certain kinds of immigration policies)
No, absolutely NOT like FWD.us - thats a PAC that has absolutely no redeeming public value. They are 100% self-interest and 0% public interest. Public education is a literal public good - as in a rising tide lifts all boats.
The rest of your explanation is, as the AC pointed out, working backwards from (some) results to divine intent. That is the stuff of conspiracy theory.
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By the same token, rolling out fingerprint scanners on middle- and highschools, and irisscanners here, are as much a test of the technology as, if not moreso than, any benefits for the administration('s political squabbles).
Its about crony-capitalism. Check out the people responsible for making the decision to deploy these systems. historically they have always been connected to the companies that won the bid to do it. Lots of times the link is as straightforward as the CEO being on the school board.
This is yet another example of why it is important (Score:2)
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What sorts of public campaigns have you witnessed for school boards where these sorts of asinine discussions are raised? This would be injected into the meeting agenda as a minor item lumped with a bunch of others which would have all been approved with a single quick vote so they could move on to much more important topics such as wasting money on some frivolous sporting event or booster club meeting.
These sorts of discussions only come up during campaigns AFTER they've been put into place and one person i
Not an easy process for some people (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not an easy process for some people (Score:4, Interesting)
They can scan the Iris with Infrared light which is not detected by the eye, and therefore won't trigger the bright-light reaction. The part they are scanning is also the Iris - the colored ring surrounding the pupil - and not the Retina, at the back of your eye, requiring said pupil dilation.
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Better, but still worthless (Score:3)
I'd prefer it over fingerprint scanners as it is much less usable for mass surveillance. You don't leave it all over the place like DNA or finger prints and at least for the moment the technology doesn't exist for setting up mass scanners for public areas (think "Minority Report"). That said it has the same deficiency as all biometric systems, if your "password" gets stolen you can't change it. And don't think that "you can't fake iris scans", they have said that about every biometric security system invented and within 5 years after it becomes widely used someone is parading around a method of beating it, sometimes in hilariously easy ways.
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Your average CCTV camera has a lower resolution than a 30 year old camcorder, and while there are attempts to bring the resolution up currently there is neither the bandwidth, storage, or processing power to capture/process all of that data cheaply enough to be widely distributed. I'm sure iris scanning can be done with current technology at a distance, but not cheaply, not reliably, and not quickly. The scanners at London Gatwick appear to be a modern, slow turnstile, people have to stand and stare for a
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Your average CCTV camera has a lower resolution than a 30 year old camcorder, and while there are attempts to bring the resolution up currently there is neither the bandwidth, storage, or processing power to capture/process all of that data cheaply enough to be widely distributed.
Sure there is, if instead of trying to stream high-def video to the mothership, the feed is processed on the spot and only the digested information (e.g., iris hashes) is sent.
So when someone steals... (Score:4, Insightful)
Again, biometrics are not good for authentication. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Another good article that makes the same point by Bruce Schneier himself. Biometrics: uses and abuses [schneier.com].
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So umm, wouldn't revoking authentication be as simple as banning eye #1234 from the scanner?
This is a school, not a top secret research lab. The chance of a student being killed and his eye pulled out of its socket in order to get through a locked door is minimal. It would usually only work once, too, after which the eye would decay too much to be used in the scanner anyway, which serves as a built-in revoke.
What exactly is the security issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Obviously, they need iris scanning to prevent some 35 year old perv from sneaking onto a school bus pretending to be a second grader!
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That's easy to answer: They are not yet conditioned enough to accept all-around surveillance and ID requests under all circumstances. This is clearly a threat to the US "war on terrorism" and thus a security issue.
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What exactly is the security issue that's significant enough to warrant such extreme and invasive measures? Is it such a prestigious institution that there are hoards of non-registered kids trying to sneak in? Is there a problem with rampant crime or extremely bad behaviour? What possible real reason could they have, other than, "hey, we got funding for this fancy new tech!" or conditioning them to the future of a police state?
Lawyers. Lots of lawyers and parents ready to sue over the slightest thing.
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systematic training of citizens to 'follow orders and don't question them'.
just that simple, really.
behave or you are marked as a troublemaker. and it goes on your 'permanent record' (gee, that phrase has a new meaning, these days, doesn't it?)
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Its a race worth funding at cost per university and with a national roll out as the prize.
As for why, you can prevent substitute test takers for all exams, timed tests or practicals in classes with many 100's of students.
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Students use student IDs to demonstrate that they are a student, either at the institution where the student ID is issued, or at related institutions and businesses, some of those businesses provide significant discounts to students. Whether a student 'needs' these things or not is a different matter. Most schools that I'm aware of hllow online registration that doesn't require an id, just a login. Books for classes are often available at a lower cost through third party sources. If you're living off campus
Minority Report (Score:2)
43 comments and not a single reference to Minority Report [wikipedia.org]? Is this Slashdot? Nor is it just a silly geek reference.
horrible real-life preparation (Score:3)
We train our kids for more than a decade in a school system that is the opposite of the kind of society we want: it's a draconian, nearly totalitarian system that promotes belief in centralized authority and subjugation to expert opinion. And now, in addition to that, it trains kids to accept intrusive around the clock tracking and biometric identification. This does not bode well for the next generations of Americans.
Random university does random program (Score:2)
I have to say this is the first time I heard about this Winthrop University. Random small universities always seem to have more money than those more prestigious ones. Well at least they seem to have more money on this kind of random programs.
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Random small universities always seem to have more money than those more prestigious ones.
is very different from this:
Well at least they seem to have more money on this kind of random programs.
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It's just your impression. Yale, for example, has a 20 billion dollar fund, with returns that make a Wall Street investor jealous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_F._Swensen [wikipedia.org]
questions remaining unanswered... (Score:2, Interesting)
What are the procedures when the information that the iris scanner has recorded is no longer valid? The human iris is not a static unchanging feature of the body. Obviously it changes with the intensity of the light it experiences, but it also changes as a result of the fact that it's moving, and the components of the iris do break down over time. This is going to chang ethe pattern of lines in the iris. This may not be significant for a 4 year degree (does anyone really get a 4 year degree in 4 years anymo
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All you do is re-scan the iris every few years. I bet that will be less often than the number of times the key card gets lost.
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It's called adaptive templates, and it avoids this specific probl
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What are the procedures when the information that the iris scanner has recorded is no longer valid?
The procedure will be that the student is blocked from entering the main entrance and required to report to the nurse's office within 45 seconds for mandatory drug testing.
Until the result of the drug test comes back from the lab, the nurse will issue the student with a pre-scanned animal eye in a jar to act as a temporary key. Also the kid in the wheelchair, the student with a bad case of cross-eyes, and the tenured Professor with macular degeneration, will be given their own permanent animal eye in a jar
they better not use this to force Large Lectures (Score:2)
Some Large Lecture Classes are next to useless to be at each Lecture and the last thing needed is forcing people to go all of them.
I have a better idea (Score:2)
1. remove all surveillance and tardy punishments. They aren't needed.
2. the kid doesn't have to be in class everyday as long as he passes his tests and hands in his projects on time. if his grades suck, he fails the course and has to retake it.
3. repeat offenders are dealt with according to their situations.
This saves buttloads of money because the kids who want to learn or at least graduate will do so, the teachers wont' have to waste time with those who don't want to be there, and when those people do fin
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There's one problem with your argument:
1. Schools exist to fund phat jobs for those who couldn't find work in the real world.
The last thing they want is to be more efficient and effective, then jobs get cut and they can't demand more money for doing a bad job.
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I wonder when it will all unravel..
Stealing eyeballs (Score:2)
You know what's valuable now?
The best kind of fake ID -- someone's eyeball, removed.
"It's him, we've got the iris scan... it does look a little dead... oh well, ring him in just in case."
Accurate? Really? The iris scanner at the airport. (Score:2)
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is the biggest piece of crap I have ever encountered. If you have a lazy eye and are tired, that scanner won't be worth shit. It probably also won't work if you are coming down with something. The iris tends to change over time. Ignoring how stupid and fascist it is, iris scans have been shown to be horribly inaccurate. I use the fingerprint reader to enter the US but I never bother trying the iris scanner to enter Canada anymore and just use the regular customs line.
I've had an operation to correct my eye turn a bit but if I am tired, I am going to have trouble co-ordinating my eye positions.
I often use iris at heathrow, it has never fail to recognise me on the first attempt, I've used it about 50 times over the last 3 years.
Just wondering... (Score:2)
So if the server at the back-end performing password authentication is compromised, you ask everyone to change their password.
What do you do when the server at the back-end is performing biometric authentication?
Biometrics is the dumbest authentication scheme on the face of the planet and anyone who relies on it is a moron.
Two words.. (Score:2)
Two words..Spray paint.
Hold on! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is everyone discussion the actual method, and not mentioning why the hell any sort of security system is needed in the first place?
Ok, maybe i'm going to sound like an old fart here, but when i was a kid school doors were only locked overnight. Otherwise it was open access. Not sure how it is in the UK these days, maybe they are also becoming scaredy cats like the 'muricans. I'm now in Russia and our kids' nursery didn't lock the doors either, they go to private school now, and while the door isn't locked we do have a security guard at the entrance, but i'm pretty sure that is more to stop people coming in and nicking stuff rather than protection of/from the children.
Why do i think this is only about control and security theatre? Making sure he kids actually attend? Hell, when i was at school it was normal to occasionally skive off school but the class register would show your absence anyway. If kids are not attending then its time to have a word with the parents.
Moo (Score:2)
Having larger brains than cows, their acclimation to our invisible fences and behavior modifiers had to be more gradual and less painful, but every bit as effective.
Bobby Tables has a Sister maybe?? (Score:2)
I wonder how many of these systems have a "master lock" pattern to do servicing and such
all it would take is a kid wearing contacts with this to do some very fun damage.
"Okay Bobbi after you get inside run to the west hall service office and then type %this string% into the computer"
Greater incidents of door propping (Score:3)
When you can't lend a guest your ID card to run down to x and grab y, or run back to your room to grab z, all it does is encourage door propping. My college allowed access to neighboring residence halls during daytime hours precisely because of this (if access is granted legitimately less people will bother propping doors). Trying things like door alarms when they're held open too long simply results in more creative and difficult to fix door props (like crazy-gluing cardboard over the door latch, or welding a penny over it).
I once worked with someone in an ID card center who would almost never deny anyone card access to additional buildings. The reason? They're going to find a way into the building anyway, and if it was via a card it will at least be logged (and even if it was a borrowed card, it at least points to a person as a starting point if an investigation is needed).
Re:lol wut? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: lol wut? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can share ID cards, but how do you share eyes between people?
Re: lol wut? (Score:5, Funny)
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You could always, you know, use a high-res macro photo of the person's eyes taped to some lens-less fake hipster glasses.
Or get crazy stealth and have contacts printed to look like the image of the iris.
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The same thing can be said about other access control systems.
You never have to pay for a replacement card and the associated costs with that. Not many people lose their eye balls.
Once you find the culprit, who is probably caught on thousands of campus cameras, you sue them.
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No, but people do wear contact lenses, and I'm not sure that the systems deal well with that.
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Some people wear colored contacts, and some peoples eyes change colors for various reasons.
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No, but people do wear contact lenses, and I'm not sure that the systems deal well with that.
Iris passport control at heathrow copes fine.
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Having seen people put razor blades on water slides (well the after effects), and stuff like that, it's the control of needing to put your eye close to a scanner in such a way that some moron will think it's funny to place a needle sticking out of the lens.
My issues with stuff like this is more about safety; with one exception.
You stop working for a company and you hand your security pass back and you are out of their system. If it's a bio-metric scan then they have that forever and you can't make them get
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Thanks for clearing up for me how the data is stored, I never knew that.
I have seen superglue put on door handles, I have seen broken glass on stairs, I have seen wire strung low through doorways. It's disgusting what people do for fun.
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It is if you take sandpaper to the sensor on the device itself periodically.
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It's much less common than a mag stripe reader picking up a piece of dirt that scratches the hell out of everybody's cards. Then the reader has to be fixed and you get to replace every card in the system.
Re:Height issues (Score:5, Interesting)
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The Nozzle will adapt.
Please remain still while The Nozzle is scanning.
The Nozzle is continuing to scan.
Thank you.
Moving parts are another point of failure (Score:2)
Re:Another reason (Score:4, Insightful)
nice going, those jerks will have spawn but you won't, so you've contributed to the decline of the species.
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Yeah, but why would you want to save a species full of jerks, anyway?
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I would think they would use IR instead, as it doesn't trigger a pupil change in the scannee, and most iris-recognition systems I have seen use this spectrum.
Also, the 'macular degeneration' studies are retinal cells, out of the eye, placed in plastic boxes and bombarded by full-powered LED light at a close range. Not exactly the most conclusive thing to compare to retinal cells behind several Humours and a Crystallin/UV-filtered lens.
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It's not like you can get a new iris.
Are you kidding? You can a whole new head. [slashdot.org]