When historians look back on this decade, one of the things I hope they see, aside from a cure for cancer, which we've been promised since 1950, is that we finally found a way to prevent identity theft.
There was a time, of course, when a person's signature on a piece of paper was pretty much a guarantee that they had actually signed it. Forgers were rare and required considerable skill.
In case a signature wasn't enough, a photo ID would do the trick, or on rare occasions, a notary seal. A photocopy would never be mistaken for an original, because the quality was inferior to the naked eye.
You also had to produce an original document, or a certified copy with someone's original signature, to prove anything of importance, including your date of birth, marriage, stock ownership or to collect under a contract. To use a credit card, you had to hand over the card and show identification. To pay by check, you often had to show both a picture ID and a credit card.
But commerce dictates law, that is, whatever reasonable people are willing to accept in order to do business, courts will learn to accept as proof. So today, we routinely spend hundreds of dollars online with only a credit card number.
Faxed signatures have been good for years, and now courts are finding ways to accept e-mails as proof of a written contract. Corporate boards meet and act by teleconference and a videotape can be used to convict a criminal.
At the same time, our technology has progressed to the point where none of these items of proof are truly reliable. We can assemble a document using a signature from one page with text from another. Date and time codes on e-mails can be altered. Images can be manipulated to place us where we've never been and make it look like we're doing things we never did.
I had an incident where someone used my name and credit card number to order free samples. My bank caught the fraud and stopped it before I even got the samples.
But, you ask, why free samples? Who gains from that? The people who ran the online advertising and got paid for increased responses, even for free samples.
Society has put measures in place to try to authenticate transactions, such as a username, password and the security code on the back of your credit card. Yet, the first time I hand that card to a waiter, my security code is no longer secure.
I recently tried to make an online payment to a company and because I was using a new computer, the Web site asked me my three secret questions. But since I couldn't remember whether I'd said commerce or city of commerce, I got the answer wrong and my account was locked. Some security.
One answer could be the universal use of encrypted biometric data, things like digital versions of our finger or retinal prints. Some see us implanting identification tags, but I hope we never get to that.
Of course, the world faces bigger problems such as global climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation and potential water shortages, but we also have to continue our daily business in order to have the time and resources to address bigger issues. But we will address them, because ultimately the human being is a problem solver.
Every day, we all find solutions to problems, ranging in complexity from where to park our cars to how to cure diseases, which is why it's important for us to encourage inventive people who make problem solving their life's work. They are medical researchers, doctors, engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs and even lawyers, who try to prevent or resolve conflicts before they become big cases.
One of the things I like most about Carlsbad and San Diego is that we focus on innovation and foster invention and entrepreneurship. The global solutions we seek are just as likely to come from here as anywhere else in the world, because that also is part of who we are.
There was a time, of course, when a person's signature on a piece of paper was pretty much a guarantee that they had actually signed it. Forgers were rare and required considerable skill.
In case a signature wasn't enough, a photo ID would do the trick, or on rare occasions, a notary seal. A photocopy would never be mistaken for an original, because the quality was inferior to the naked eye.
You also had to produce an original document, or a certified copy with someone's original signature, to prove anything of importance, including your date of birth, marriage, stock ownership or to collect under a contract. To use a credit card, you had to hand over the card and show identification. To pay by check, you often had to show both a picture ID and a credit card.
But commerce dictates law, that is, whatever reasonable people are willing to accept in order to do business, courts will learn to accept as proof. So today, we routinely spend hundreds of dollars online with only a credit card number.
Faxed signatures have been good for years, and now courts are finding ways to accept e-mails as proof of a written contract. Corporate boards meet and act by teleconference and a videotape can be used to convict a criminal.
At the same time, our technology has progressed to the point where none of these items of proof are truly reliable. We can assemble a document using a signature from one page with text from another. Date and time codes on e-mails can be altered. Images can be manipulated to place us where we've never been and make it look like we're doing things we never did.
I had an incident where someone used my name and credit card number to order free samples. My bank caught the fraud and stopped it before I even got the samples.
But, you ask, why free samples? Who gains from that? The people who ran the online advertising and got paid for increased responses, even for free samples.
Society has put measures in place to try to authenticate transactions, such as a username, password and the security code on the back of your credit card. Yet, the first time I hand that card to a waiter, my security code is no longer secure.
I recently tried to make an online payment to a company and because I was using a new computer, the Web site asked me my three secret questions. But since I couldn't remember whether I'd said commerce or city of commerce, I got the answer wrong and my account was locked. Some security.
One answer could be the universal use of encrypted biometric data, things like digital versions of our finger or retinal prints. Some see us implanting identification tags, but I hope we never get to that.
Of course, the world faces bigger problems such as global climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation and potential water shortages, but we also have to continue our daily business in order to have the time and resources to address bigger issues. But we will address them, because ultimately the human being is a problem solver.
Every day, we all find solutions to problems, ranging in complexity from where to park our cars to how to cure diseases, which is why it's important for us to encourage inventive people who make problem solving their life's work. They are medical researchers, doctors, engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs and even lawyers, who try to prevent or resolve conflicts before they become big cases.
One of the things I like most about Carlsbad and San Diego is that we focus on innovation and foster invention and entrepreneurship. The global solutions we seek are just as likely to come from here as anywhere else in the world, because that also is part of who we are.