Saturday, January 15, 2005

Preventing child abduction

Schneier on Security: Fingerprinting Students
...Child kidnapping is a serious problem in the U.S.; the odds of a child being abducted by a family member are one in 340 and by a non-family member are 1 in 1200 (per year)...

Schneier, a security guru, points out that fingerprinting children, or attaching RFID tags to them, is a waste of energy and, by creating an illusion of action, is actually harmful.

I was surprised by the 1/1200 risk for non-family abduction. This is about 10 times higher than I'd have guessed. I'm skeptical. If it were so high, I should have a personal acquaintance who's suffered a child abduction. It's not the kind of thing that people stay quiet about. Still, I don't want my wife to hear this number ...

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