It seems that security, rightly so, is all the rage. And, yet, even the measures we think will work are vulnerable, leading to ever-evolving responses to the latest threats. Biometric information, for example, was once considered a nearly foolproof security measure: most people are fairly protective of their fingers and retinas.
But, we leave our fingerprints on everything (I’d wager someone’s mother would agree me). And, recall that all of that biometric information is ultimately reduced to strings of binary code that are stored somewhere that can be . . . hacked. And, as Louise Matsakis writes in Motherboard, “if your fingerprint or retinal data is stolen, the government can’t just issue you a new finger or eyeball.” If it could, then the theft of five or six million Federal employee fingerprints a few years ago would not have been such a big deal.