Identity
World is a big place with a lot of people having lot of faces. Each individual has his unique identity. We can recognise him by lot of things
1) Voice recognition: Every individual's voice is different from others. Software are already being written with an aim to make voice recognition possible. But still technology miles away from perfect.
2) fingerprinting: It is done by comparing questioned and known friction skin ridge impressions
from fingers to palms to determine if the impressions are from the same palm and fingers. But no 2 fingerprints are the same. Even 2 fingerprints of same person taken simultaneously are not the same. So fingerprint recognition is an inexact science. The probability of error is in order of
> 10^-4 . This includes human error also. Some people may question if no 2 fingerprints are the same then why there is probability of error. Its because 2 fingerprints of the same person are not even the same.
3)DNA profiling: In DNA fingerprinting DNA structure of 2 persons are compared. Its probability of error is somewhere around 10-5.
Some people may question if DNA profiling error rates of 10e-5. Then how it can be used as an evidence in criminal trials. The fallacy lies in how this probability is calculated. When we say probability of error is 10^-5, we mean if 1 million people are chosen randomly from a population and their dna compared. Then on average DNA of 10 people will match of the person at hand. But suppose a native of 1 million strong population is tried in a murder trial .It would not mean there is 1 in 10 chance of accused being the culprit. Actually there is a theorem in probability called Bayes theorem . When it is applied it shows probability of accused being the culprit is much greater than 1 in billion.
Actually there was a very famous murder trial in USA in 1993. It evoked such a large interest among the population that court ruling were telecast to national audience. A black NBA star O.J Simpson was accused of murdering his blonde wife and her boyfriend. Since it was case of Black against white. It piqued interest of very household of America. There was DNA evidence against O.J Simpson. But lawyers of O.J Simpson rallied on ground that DNA evidence
was not entirely accurate. Above this adding the white bias against black they were able to
obtain acquittal for OJ. Of course the juries latter realised that Simpson but too late. He was
allowed to go scot free.
Returning back from the digression .Lets discuss about what was the original intention of this
post
4) Email Address.: Has everyone wondered that though there are people in the world who have
same DNA profile . Email address of no 2 person of the world are the same. They are easy to
verify. Only the password is enough. They are the representative of homo sapiens on ever
evolving world wide web. Have we ever wondered how Internet is replacing day to day functions
of our daily life. We chat through web , people do all official communication through web,
we organise together and discuss on coterie of topics through forums,and lot more . And with
emergence of 3g network and more fast Internet this list is bound to grow exponentially.
Besides that anything that we communicate over computer can be encrypted. There is no method
more secure and faster than email for sending sensitive information. For any communication
channel can be tapped , letters could be split open, telephone conversations could be heard.
This has been a problem since days of Julius Ceaser who used to encrypt his messages with substitution ciphers. Anyone do have an idea how mind boggling strong computer encryption is versus any ting possible human.
1) Voice recognition: Every individual's voice is different from others. Software are already being written with an aim to make voice recognition possible. But still technology miles away from perfect.
2) fingerprinting: It is done by comparing questioned and known friction skin ridge impressions
from fingers to palms to determine if the impressions are from the same palm and fingers. But no 2 fingerprints are the same. Even 2 fingerprints of same person taken simultaneously are not the same. So fingerprint recognition is an inexact science. The probability of error is in order of
> 10^-4 . This includes human error also. Some people may question if no 2 fingerprints are the same then why there is probability of error. Its because 2 fingerprints of the same person are not even the same.
3)DNA profiling: In DNA fingerprinting DNA structure of 2 persons are compared. Its probability of error is somewhere around 10-5.
Some people may question if DNA profiling error rates of 10e-5. Then how it can be used as an evidence in criminal trials. The fallacy lies in how this probability is calculated. When we say probability of error is 10^-5, we mean if 1 million people are chosen randomly from a population and their dna compared. Then on average DNA of 10 people will match of the person at hand. But suppose a native of 1 million strong population is tried in a murder trial .It would not mean there is 1 in 10 chance of accused being the culprit. Actually there is a theorem in probability called Bayes theorem . When it is applied it shows probability of accused being the culprit is much greater than 1 in billion.
Actually there was a very famous murder trial in USA in 1993. It evoked such a large interest among the population that court ruling were telecast to national audience. A black NBA star O.J Simpson was accused of murdering his blonde wife and her boyfriend. Since it was case of Black against white. It piqued interest of very household of America. There was DNA evidence against O.J Simpson. But lawyers of O.J Simpson rallied on ground that DNA evidence
was not entirely accurate. Above this adding the white bias against black they were able to
obtain acquittal for OJ. Of course the juries latter realised that Simpson but too late. He was
allowed to go scot free.
Returning back from the digression .Lets discuss about what was the original intention of this
post
4) Email Address.: Has everyone wondered that though there are people in the world who have
same DNA profile . Email address of no 2 person of the world are the same. They are easy to
verify. Only the password is enough. They are the representative of homo sapiens on ever
evolving world wide web. Have we ever wondered how Internet is replacing day to day functions
of our daily life. We chat through web , people do all official communication through web,
we organise together and discuss on coterie of topics through forums,and lot more . And with
emergence of 3g network and more fast Internet this list is bound to grow exponentially.
Besides that anything that we communicate over computer can be encrypted. There is no method
more secure and faster than email for sending sensitive information. For any communication
channel can be tapped , letters could be split open, telephone conversations could be heard.
This has been a problem since days of Julius Ceaser who used to encrypt his messages with substitution ciphers. Anyone do have an idea how mind boggling strong computer encryption is versus any ting possible human.
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