Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Field Test
Between training, vacation, and holidays, I have been a bit remiss in posting-- apologies to those non-existent people who need their fix.
I have posted a few times on the subject of security, especially in the area of identity, authentication, and trust. There is a movement afoot that I believe illustrates the issues quite well, so I will bring up a specific instance in that movement, and perhaps, (the muse willing), expound further on the subject in the future.
NTT DoCoMo is releasing a FeliCa phone, with the intent of enabling payments, such as public transportation fees, to be made from the phone. Termed by some (for example, MIT's Technology Review) as the early advent of ubiquitous computing, this technology does indeed open the door to a wide variety of possible usage scenarios, many of which have made their way into the general discussion of this technology.
As an exercise to the reader, I pose a number of questions. What kind of security measures are required to make this solution viable? What are the concerns? Are there any usage scenarios that cannot be appropriately secured under the proposed technology?
Some of these questions can be answered with no more information than appears in this post. Some require more research into the underlying systems. Suffice it to say that I am rather surprised by some of the industry response to this new technology-- it reeks of internet-bubble speak. But enough for now. Answers to these questions, and more "conversation" on the general topic of security, coming soon....
