I'll keep this entry short, since I'm not sure how many of you will care... But, I'll tell you a secret: I love biometrics. I got my start in security in the biometrics industry, and I've tried to be an active voice ever since. I've tried to help folks in the community steer their solutions away from things that are doomed to fail (like using them for online banking) and towards things that are more likely to work (using them to enforce licensing schemes the way Bloomberg has done.)
As an interested party, I am a bit saddened by the recent passing of the Biometrics Consortium email list. Apparently, the proverbial bell is tolling for the Biometrics Consortium - and it's tolling loud. The BC email discussion list was a haven for everything biometric for years, and for anybody who has been keeping up, the list is gone and the community is worse off for it. The quick story is this: a few government employees got together (the BC is a government-funded endeavor) and decided that an email list was too expensive to maintain... so they replaced it with a web forum that nobody uses. Reaction to the move was mixed (but primarily negative) - alternative lists were proposed, but the traffic on those lists is minimal.
I've never seen solidarity like what the the BC list represented in any other security discipline: academics, business folks, government, and vendors all participating in a central universal forum - sharing research, sharing insights, and everyone playing nicely together. It really was a haven. All in all, it is a solemn time for biometric innovation.
Posted by Ed at November 15, 2005 08:31 AM