How 10 digits will end privacy as we know it

Internet denizens and urban dwellers alike need to recognize that an era of anonymity is ending.

The population of the world stands at about 7 billion. So it takes only 10 digits to label each human being on the planet uniquely.

This simple arithmetic observation offers powerful insight into the limits of privacy. It dictates something we might call the 10-Digit Rule: just 10 digits or so of distinctive personal information are enough to identify you uniquely. They're enough to strip away your anonymity on the Internet or call out your name as you walk down the street. The 10-Digit Rule means that as our electronic gadgets grow chattier, and databases swell, we must accept that in most walks of life, we'll soon be wearing our names on our foreheads.

A study of 1990 U.S. Census data revealed that 87 percent of the people in the United States were uniquely identifiable with just three pieces of information (PDF): five-digit ZIP code, gender, and date of birth. Internet surfers today spew considerably more information than that. Web sites can pinpoint our geographical locations, computer models, and browser types, and they can silently track us using cookies. Banking sites even confirm our identities by verifying that our log-ins take place at consistent times of day.



Database dossiers, too, carry surprising amounts of identifying information, even when specifically anonymized for privacy. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin last year studied a set of movie-rating profiles from about 500,000 unnamed Netflix subscribers (PDF).

Knowing just a little about a subscriber--say, six to eight movie preferences, the type of thing you might post on a social-networking site--the researchers found that they could pick out your anonymous Netflix profile, if you had one in the set. The Netflix study shows that those 10 deanonymizing digits can hide in surprising places.


Our physical belongings also betray our anonymity by silently calling out identity-betraying digits. Small wireless microchips--often called radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags--reside in car keys, credit cards, passports, building entrance badges, and transit passes. They emit unique serial numbers.

Once linked to our names--when we make credit card purchases, for instance--these microchips enable us to be tracked without our realizing it. One popular book inflames imaginations with the lurid title, "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID."
There's little point in hiding the serial numbers of chips when your mobile phone squeals on you.



But wireless microchips also highlight the futility of anonymity protections. To begin with, concerns about RFID tracking miss the forest for the trees. After all, mobile phones are ubiquitous and can be tracked at much longer ranges than standalone chips. Many people have GPS receivers in their phones and are signing up for location-based services, voluntarily (if selectively) disclosing their movements. There's little point in hiding the serial numbers of chips when your mobile phone squeals on you.

Many scientists have developed antitracking techniques for mobile phones and microchips. Instead of fixed serial numbers, wireless devices can call out changing pseudonyms, such as the rotating license plate numbers on spies' cars in the movies. The problem is that the plates may change, but the car always looks the same. In this regard, chips are like cars.


Scientists at ETH Zurich recently showed how to identify microchips uniquely using radio waves (PDF)--and consequently to see through the disguise of pseudonyms. Their experiments showed that thanks to manufacturing variations, microchips, laptop Wi-Fi cards, and other devices can't help but emit physical "fingerprints"--essentially God-given serial numbers. More digits that we radiate unknowingly.

In the end, we probably won't need to carry anything at all to see our identities betrayed in public spaces. There are already tens of millions of surveillance cameras in public spaces in the United States.



Face recognition software is crude today, but it will improve. Cameras will eventually recognize faces as well as people do. Unlike people, though, they'll have the backing of databases containing millions of faces--or the headshots that so many of us already post online.

Thankfully, despite proliferating sources of those 10 digits that are fatal to anonymity on the Internet and the sidewalk, we can still prevent the world of the film "Minority Report." There are many defensible facets to privacy beyond identity. Even if our names are blazoned forth to all and sundry, we still have the opportunity to safeguard health care and financial data, entertainment preferences, purchase histories, and social interactions.

In this battle, identity theft is a key challenge for technologists and policymakers. The only way to prevent unauthorized access to personal data is to ensure that even when criminals learn the digital constituents of your identity, they can't steal it. Strong authentication will need to fill the gap as the privacy of identities crumbles.

Perhaps the world will be friendlier when in-store advertisements greet you personally, criminals wear "Hello, My Name Is" badges, and the people you meet at parties already have your bio in hand. Facebook, Twitter, and pervasive blogging already augur a society of reflexive exhibitionism and voyeurism. But the technologies that advance us into a world of omniscience will also bring us a step backward.

For years, people aspired to escape small towns for the big city, for the fresh start of an identity without history. The Internet offered similar horizons of freedom. But the society of the small town will soon have us back in its clutches, for good and bad. And on the Internet, everyone will know if you're a dog.

Hackers break into police computer as sting backfires

An Australian Federal Police boast, on the ABC's Four Corners program last night, about officers breaking up an underground hacker forum, has backfired after hackers broke into a federal police computer system.

Security consultants say police appear to have been using the computer as a honeypot to collect information on members of the forum but the scheme came undone after the officers forgot to set a password.

Last Wednesday, federal police officers in co-operation with Victoria Police executed a search warrant on premises in Brighton, Melbourne, connected to the administrator of an underground hacking forum, r00t-y0u.org, which had about 5000 members.

Many details of the investigation were revealed for the first time on Four Corners last night.

After the raid, the federal police covertly assumed control of the forum and began using it to gather evidence about members.

"We can operate in a covert activity here fairly seamlessly with no harm to our members with continual and actual significant penetration," Neil Gaughan, national manager of the federal police's High Tech Crimes Operation, told Four Corners.

However, what the federal police did not know was that hackers had already cottoned on to their plan.

Police were monitoring the forum by logging into the account of the administrator they had raided, but this aroused suspicion among members who knew the raid had taken place.

A hacker broke into the federal police's computer system and, according to a source close to the investigation, accessed both police evidence and intelligence about federal police systems such as its IP addresses.

A spokeswoman for the federal police confirmed that the hacker broke into a computer system used in its investigation but denied that any evidence was compromised, saying the computer was not connected to other federal police systems.

"The AFP has identified a person whom [sic] has attempted to access the stand-alone computer system and we are currently working with our law enforcement partners regarding this matter," the spokeswoman said.

The hacker appears to have been provoked by a message published on the r00t-y0u.org site by the federal police, warning members they were under surveillance and that "all member IP addresses have been logged", with some arrests having already been made.

In two provocative messages published on anonymous document-sharing site pastebin.com, the hacker slammed the federal police for "making it sound like they can bust 'hackers', when all they have done is busted a COUPLE script kiddies". "Script kiddies" is hacker parlance for novice hackers.

The second of these messages contained several links to screenshots allegedly proving that the writer had access to the federal police's server.

These included shots of files containing fake IDs and stolen credit card numbers, as well as the federal police's server information.

The hacker then defaced the r00t-y0u.org website with the same message it had posted on the anonymous document-sharing site.

The federal police spokeswoman said: "The information posted on the http://pastebin.com website is information contained on a stand-alone [federal police] system designed specifically to be used in investigations such as this.

"The information consists of directory file names of previously compromised credentials. No information or files exist that have, or could have, been compromised."

The hacker wrote "I couldn't stop laughing" on seeing that the federal police's server was running Windows, which is known among hacker communities for being insecure. Police had also "left the MYSQL password blank".

"These dipshits are using an automatic digital forensics and incident response tool," the hacker wrote.

"All of this [hacking] had been done within 30-40 minutes. Could of been faster if I didn't stop to laugh so much."

Shaon Diwakar, a security consultant at Hack Labs in Sydney, explained how the hack occurred.

"The attacker has discovered that the server didn't have a password for its database application and he has logged on ... and, using a technique called SQL injection, he created a PHP file on the disk and browsed through that PHP file to get complete control of that particular server," he said.

Diwakar said the hacker would have had access to anything that was stored on the computer.

"When they took this action they should have known that they would have been a big target, so they should have taken more precautions," he said.

The federal police said it had yet to charge anyone over the r00t-y0u.org forum bust, but "numerous items" were seized and the investigation was ongoing.

It declined to comment further on the case.

British UFO sightings spiked when blockbusters released

Lemon-headed aliens, scrambled fighter jets and mysterious lights over a cemetery were among details of some 800 UFO sightings released by British authorities.

But another intriguing finding to emerge from the 1981-1996 archives was a surge in reports at the time of UFO-related blockbusters such as 1996's Independence Day, not to mention the British television run of The X-Files.

Among the most striking accounts released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is that of two boys who reported being spoken to by an alien with a lemon-shaped head, who appeared before them in a field on May 4, 1995.

"We want you, come with us," said the alien's voice, according to a police report filed after the youngsters, who seemed "agitated and distressed," recounted their experiences.

"They stated the object was about four houses high in the sky and about forty foot away from them," said the report, adding that when officers went to check two days later, they found only a farmer spraying his crops.

In another account bound to excite ufologists, a former armed forces chief urged authorities to take more seriously a report by US Air Force (USAF) staff near an airbase in eastern England.

The individuals "reported seeing a strange glowing object in the forest," said a report by a US air force commander, recounting what three of his staff told him of the incident, early on the morning of December 27, 1980.

"It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolmen approached the object, it manoeuvred through the trees and disappeared."

Then there is the report of how, between November 1989 and April 1990, the Belgian air force scrambled F-16 fighter jets to investigate a series of UFO sightings - and reportedly "locked on" to them with their radars.

"The mystery remains unresolved," wrote General Wilfried de Brouwer, Chief of Operations, Belgian Air Staff, adding that despite being sceptical, "the evidence was remarkable."

One of the spookiest incidents occurred in the early hours of July 15, 1996, when a UFO was spotted hovering over a cemetery in Widnes, northwest England, before firing burning laser beams into the ground.

Cynics would note that the man involved was heading home from a night out at the time - possibly in a similar mental state to two revellers who claimed to have seen a UFO hovering over the jazz tent at the 1994 Glastonbury Festival.

And sceptics will also point to a more general trend made clear by the latest archives.

In 1995 there were 117 UFO sightings reported to authorities, but this spiked to 609 in 1996, according to the MoD reports, released after a three-year project with the National Archives.

"It's evident there is some connection between newspaper stories, TV programs and films about alien visitors and the numbers of UFO sightings reported," said UFO expert and journalism lecturer David Clarke.

"Aside from 1996, one of the busiest years for UFO sightings reported to the MoD over the past half century was 1978 - the year Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released," added Clarke.

Cooked in plastic, flavours are fantastic

MODERN technology is dramatically changing the restaurant kitchen. Traditional stovetop cooking is no longer an indispensable tool for chefs as they embrace other methods.

The most significant and widely used is known as sous vide, which involves plastic bags and water baths. Unbeknown to most diners, it's been used in Sydney's top restaurants for some time.

The method allows ingredients to ''taste unnaturally like themselves'', according to Mark Best of the three-hatted Marque restaurant, quoting one of his French heroes, chef Pierre Gagnaire.

''It's not an easy concept to get your head around. Many chefs don't get it but once you do get it, you never go back,'' Best says.

In the process, the protein cells of the most delicate fish barely change, leaving its flesh cooked even though it looks raw. The cartilage of the toughest brisket can be melted so it reaches a state of tenderness usually associated with fillet. Even a watermelon can be prepared sous vide to hype its flavour.

Food prepared sous vide (under vacuum, in French) is sealed in plastic. The absence of air lowers its boiling point, allowing proteins to be coagulated at a much lower temperature. Often, the portion will be cooked in a bain marie, where a thermostat maintains the water temperature at levels precise to 0.1 of a degree. Alternatively, a steam, or combi, oven is used. Sometimes, it's just the act of vacuuming that achieves the desired result of infusing flavour. Just one mint leaf can flavour a dish of vegetables.

It is one part of a huge arsenal of techniques embraced by the chef-scientists who are dominating international restaurant rankings. Spanish chefs, led by Ferran Adria of El Bulli restaurant, have created a market for kitchen instruments that would look at home in a laboratory: blast freezers, chrome griddles, water circulators. There's no need for a naked gas flame these days.

''I have used the technology but I haven't made it so removed that [diners] don't know what's going in [their] mouths,'' says Universal restaurant's Christine Manfield, who believes most patrons are unaware fine restaurants are cooking sous vide.

Beyond the city's adventurous top chefs, cooking in a plastic bag is still regarded with suspicion, according to Robert Erskine, who sells high-tech gadgets and equipment for Spanish company International Cooking. Erskine says they are not yet snapping up the thermostat, vacuum sealer and water circulator needed to cook sous vide.

''Chefs are still looking at it. They don't buy it,'' Erskine says. ''It's a coming thing.''

But Sydney's three-hatted chefs have been doing it for years. Tetsuya Wakuda of Tetsuya's says reading about the method inspired his renowned confit of ocean trout in 1987. At first, he used oil to create the air vacuum. It wasn't until the early 1990s that he had success with the new equipment.

Fish expert and chef Greg Doyle says even bananas get the treatment in one of the desserts in his restaurant, Pier.

At Marque, strawberries are cooked sous vide with sugar at 65 degrees for 40 minutes. Their grey carcasses are discarded and the remaining syrup is put back in a plastic bag with fresh strawberries and then vacuum sealed. The process forces the syrup into the fresh strawberry, creating hyper-real, translucent flesh.

Similarly, Best says, watermelons and cucumbers are given an exaggerated flavour so a diner might think: ''This is like the watermelon I used to know.''

The new technology has allowed food to be developed without pricey ingredients. Best says high-end restaurants are no longer distinguished by a menu of overtly luxurious ingredients such as truffle, foie gras and caviar. ''It's the intrinsic quality of every ingredient we focus on. Caviar is [just] slightly fishy eggs. It's the same with meat. If you look at the fillet, its only qualities are [its tenderness] but, really, it's not flavoursome and the texture can be a little mundane.''

Best uses tough cuts like brisket and short rib, cooks them for 18 hours at 65 degrees, chills them in an ice bath, returns them to a water bath for 40 minutes at 55 degrees and then sears the portion before it is put on the plate and served. The end product looks like a medium-rare steak but with much more flavour. ''This is a third-class braising cut turned into a first-class product through this technology,'' Best says. ''Traditionally, fillet was the cut that was only at the best restaurants … Now there's been a complete [reversal]. Why would we bother with fillet?'' At Quay, Peter Gilmore does similar things to a shoulder of lamb, traditionally another cheap cut, cooking it for 24 hours.

Another beloved instrument is the Pacojet, which creates instant sorbets and ice-creams. There is no need to add sugar to stop the ice-crystalisation process, Best says. It enables him to put the humble pea at centre stage in a sorbet, with no other ingredients besides a little salt and pepper.

Best calls it the ''peasant mentality'' of using everything. The same goes for fish. ''There's no waste from our kitchen.''

Apart from those plastic bags. Erskine estimates each of the top kitchens goes through 1000 bags a week. Chef Shannon Bennett of Melbourne's Vue de monde says the wastage is a problem: ''You feel there's a real trend that will start with this. It's so convenient and so healthy … The only area I would like to see improved is the vacuum-pack bags.''

There is something about this laboratory-like cooking that is a bit, well, frigid. Fans of Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential account, with all its heat, both allegorical and real, will not love what sous vide heralds: the cold kitchen. There are no aromas with sous vide. Everything is sealed into the food and saved for the plate.

It is now possible to set up without any exposed flame, thanks to the development of induction stoves, steam ovens, blenders that cook while they mix and water thermostats. Bennett does it at his new outlet, Cafe Vue at 401, Melbourne.

The advent of sous vide has allowed chefs to prepare more before service starts, taking the stress out of the kitchen environment. In a traditional kitchen, ''people are trying to time things, putting them into the oven, tasting, saucing'', Best says. ''That's a super-heated and stressful environment and that's not conducive to quality.'' Manfield agrees: ''For me it's about efficient, calm cooking.''

For something so apparently cutting edge, sous vide has been around a long time. The method was developed in the 1970s in France for Pierre Troisgros, one of the fathers of nouvelle cuisine, to stop foie gras shrinking under heat. It has been applied heavily in industrial food preparation, thanks to the work of food scientist Bruno Goussault.

After initially working with hotel chains and airlines on low-heat cooking, Goussault's methods caught on with chefs such as Thomas Keller, who were becoming increasingly interested in the science of food. The Roux brothers, who revived French cuisine in England and mentored hundreds of chefs, are also credited with spreading the word.

Dietmar Sawyere of Berowra Waters Inn has been using the technique since he worked as executive sous chef for Regent International Hotels in Hong Kong in the mid-1980s. ''Sous vide cooking started with a reheating method, then a lot of chefs around the world played around with it,'' he says.

Sawyere sees no reason to broadcast the method. ''One of the things I have noticed is chefs will put on the menu 'cooked sous vide' … I see it as an irrelevance. I wouldn't put 'cooked in a roasting pan' or 'baked in a baking tray'. It's a cooking method.''

By contrast, Quay restaurant's Peter Gilmore wears the method loud and proud because customers are curious, he says. "There's no doubt, the face of cooking through sous vide has changed," Gilmore says.

District 9

Just back from seeing District 9 at the Macquarie Megaplex with Peilin and Nishan. Freakin amazing film. Loved it, thought it was brilliantly done. It's good to see some scifi done with brains.

I bought the tickets online before we went, and took a photo of the receipt barcode and ref number with my camera phone in order to remember the ref number to claim the tickets.



I didn't expect the girl behind the counter to actually be able to just hold her scanner up to the bar code in the photo on my phone and pass me my tickets, that was pretty cool.

I guess in hindsight that I really shouldn't have been that surprised, but I was, and lo, it was good.

Anyway, enough of me geeking out, go see District 9.