Cryptosmith

Matt Blaze has posted a blog entry following a visit to the Titan Missile Museum that’s just south of Tucson, Arizona. It’s a well written summary of the place.

Blaze talks a bit about Titan, PALs, and the “butterfly switch;” mechanisms intended to prevent an unauthorized launch. The Titan system didn’t have PALs. The butterfly switch, also known as the “Coded Switch System” (CSS), authorizes the launch. PALs were first required on overseas nukes starting in 1962. Titans were never overseas, and the system was already under construction in the continental US by the time the PAL idea arose.

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Over the years, our family has bought three copies of the Crosby, Stills & Nash album. My wife and I each bought a vinyl copy back in the ’70s. Recently we bought a “clean” (not copy protected) copy from the iTunes music store. I expect that’s the last time anyone in our family will have to buy a copy of that album, including all our descendants.

I believe that music sharing is “fair use” within a family. I’m inclined to feel that way about video, and no doubt I’ll feel the same way about digitized books. Cousin Jon sent me a couple of links describing “do it yourself” book scanners. I need to get myself one of those. But a family library of digitized books has an interesting implication for publishers: it will decimate the reprint market. My (not-yet-existing) great grandson won’t ever have to purchase a copy of Pride and Prejudice and should never have to buy any other books I collect in digital form.

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David Himmelstein of Cambridge Hospital and Harvard Med School (with co-authors) recently published a paper on the effect of computerization of hospitals.

The results, as Computerworld put it: Computers don’t save hospitals money.

This makes sense, especially when you look at the study. They focused on data collected reported by individual hospitals nationwide between 2003 and 2007. Computerization, especially at the clinical level, is incredibly disruptive. Thus, the efficiencies aren’t likely to arise soon.

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I’ve been looking at the evolution of electronic funds transfer (EFT) and payment systems recently. My research uncovered a gem: about two years ago, David Stearns completed a dissertation that looks at the early evolution of the Visa card (originally “Bank Americard”) in the context of other evolving electronic payment systems. Stearns’ work is both readable and filled with interesting information.

What I find most fascinating is that the card systems followed the same security trajectory as cell phones. The first cards, like the early analog cell phones, were  vulnerable to fraud. In fact, the cards were absurdly vulnerable to fraud.

However, the promoters believed that the long term benefits of electronic cash were worth the risks. They also assumed without evidence that they could fix the fraud problems eventually.

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