Up Next: 911 For the Web
I am old enough to remember the security-free era of air travel when you could walk (or run) from the ticket counter to your gate without waiting in line to be ID’d, scanned, frisked or now pulled aside to be seriously groped by a TSA agent as my wife was on a recent trip leaving Phoenix. Those innocent care-free days of security-free air travel we took for granted are gone forever to reduce the risk of terrorist acts being committed aboard commercial aircraft.
The best the TSA can do is to narrow the margin of risk that a terrorist will evade our airport security systems and blow up a plane—but they can never eliminate all risk because every security measure can be broken, and there are practical limits to what methods they can employ. And without exception, everyone is opted in to a security check—you have no choice but to submit to security checks if you want to fly. The Web may soon be headed down a similar path to an era when most Web Sites will require that you surrender the anonymity provided by your device—mobile phone, computer, iPad, whatever—before you are allowed to enter a Web Site. Digital fingerprinting, technology that identifies your device to the Web sites you visit, will be a key enabler to reining in the carefree era of anonymity we enjoy today on the Web.
Notice that I said carefree—not risk free. Without a digital fingerprint to verify you, there is risk that someone other than you may be logging in to your account, using your credit card, or creating a new account in your name. Fraud and cybercrime flourish on the Web today because of device anonymity… [Read more]
- Tom
