Hulleye Comes By!

an overly excited jon s. von tetzchner, ceo, opera software, proclaimed at an internals company meeting that if the download numbers of the new opera 8 web browser reach 1 million within the first four days of the launch, he will swim from norway to the usa with only one stop-over for a cup of hot chocolate at his mother’s house in his home country, iceland. the new browser was released tuesday and was downloaded 600.000 times in the first 48 hours since release. as of saturday when the challenge ended, the browser downloads had well surpassed 1 million downloads. the ceo held true to his words and is on his way to the US with his wetsuit and his pr manager in a rowing raft. that’s some very cold waters that he’s swimming across. you can track his progress here.

following up on my previous post about security and how badly our resources are spent, here we have some serious terrorist threats from seaworld. also now you know why it takes so long for you to get past security queue’s at airports.

biometrics, the science of identifying individuals by their physical characteristics, are playing more and more in the eyes of national security. the oldest method of biometric identification is fingerprinting. the fbi has some big databases. one of the largest it keeps is of fingerprints, known commonly as the IAFIS or the integrated automated fingerprint identification system where it stores close to more than 47 million prints. here is a slate article that streamlines the entire procedure and laws (read as ‘power’) the fbi has in documenting, keeping and using these prints.

“…If a suspected criminal is found to be not guilty, his or her prints are supposed to be removed from the system, but that doesn’t always happen. You can also petition to have your prints removed if you received an official pardon for your crime or if the laws governing the severity of your crime have changed since your arrest.”

“…How do you know if you’re in the FBI database? According to Department of Justice rules, you have the right to submit your own fingerprints for a background check on yourself. (This allows you to contest anything that might be on your rap sheet.) Just write out a formal request and send it to the FBI, along with a full set of fingerprints and a money order for $18.”