Imagine you're in charge of infiltrating sleeper agents into the United States. The year is 1983, and the proliferation of identity databases is making it increasingly difficult to create fake credentials. Ten years ago, someone could have just shown up in the country and gotten a driver's license, Social Security card and bank account -- possibly using the identity of someone roughly the same age who died as a young child -- but it's getting harder. And you know that trend will only continue. So you decide to grow your own identities.

Call it "identity farming." You invent a handful of infants. You apply for Social Security numbers for them. Eventually, you open bank accounts for them, file tax returns for them, register them to vote, and apply for credit cards in their name. And now, 25 years later, you have a handful of identities ready and waiting for some real people to step into them.

There are some complications, of course. Maybe you need people to sign their name as parents -- or, at least, mothers. Maybe you need to doctors to fill out birth certificates. Maybe you need to fill out paperwork certifying that you're home-schooling these children. You'll certainly want to exercise their financial identity: depositing money into their bank accounts and withdrawing it from ATMs, using their credit cards and paying the bills, and so on. And you'll need to establish some sort of addresses for them, even if it is just a mail drop.

You won't be able to get driver's licenses or photo IDs on their name. That isn't critical, though; in the U.S., more than 20 million adult citizens don't have photo IDs. But other than that, I can't think of any reason why identity farming wouldn't work.

Here's the real question: Do you actually have to show up for any part of your life?

Again, I made this all up. I have no evidence that anyone is actually doing this. It's not something a criminal organization is likely to do; twenty-five years is too distant a payoff horizon. The same logic holds true for terrorist organizations; it's not worth it. It might have been worth it to the KGB -- although perhaps harder to justify after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 -- and might be an attractive option to existing intelligence adversaries like China.

Immortals could also use this trick to self-perpetuate themselves, inventing their own children and gradually assuming their identity, then killing their parents off. They could even show up for their own driver's license photos, wearing a beard as the father and blue spiked hair as the son. I’m told this is a common idea in Highlander fan fiction.

The point isn't to create another movie plot threat, but to point out the central role that data has taken on in our lives. Previously, I've said that we all have a data shadow that follows us around, and that more and more institutions interact with our data shadows instead of with us. We only intersect with our data shadows once in a while -- when we apply for a driver's license or passport, for example -- and those interactions are authenticated by older, less-secure interactions. The rest of the world assumes that our photo IDs glue us to our data shadows, ignoring the rather flimsy connection between us and our plastic cards. (And, no, REAL-ID won't help.)

It seems to me that our data shadows are becoming increasingly distinct from us, almost with a life of their own. What's important now is our shadows; we're secondary. And as our society relies more and more on these shadows, we might even become unnecessary.

Our data shadows can live a perfectly normal life without us.

This essay previously appeared on Wired.com.

EDITED TO ADD (9/9): Interesting commentary.

It's a man-in-the-middle attack. "The Internet's Biggest Security Hole"  has been that interior relays have always been trusted even though they are not trustworthy.

That could apply word for word to how MQ Series and other enterprise messaging systems are deployed. Let's say you are a bank and have been happily running your business on a mainframe for decades. Life is good, come in at 9 leave at 5, count the cash. Then some dotcommer comes along and tells you that you need to get online. What are you gonna do? Rewrite your whole system from scratch? Hard to make that case.

Imagine you're in charge of infiltrating sleeper agents into the United States. The year is 1983, and the proliferation of identity databases is making it increasingly difficult to create fake credentials. Ten years ago, someone could have just shown up in the country and gotten a driver's license, Social Security card and bank account -- possibly using the identity of someone roughly the same age who died as a young child -- but it's getting harder. And you know that trend will only continue. So you decide to grow your own identities.

Call it "identity farming." You invent a handful of infants. You apply for Social Security numbers for them. Eventually, you open bank accounts for them, file tax returns for them, register them to vote, and apply for credit cards in their name. And now, 25 years later, you have a handful of identities ready and waiting for some real people to step into them.

There are some complications, of course. Maybe you need people to sign their name as parents -- or, at least, mothers. Maybe you need to doctors to fill out birth certificates. Maybe you need to fill out paperwork certifying that you're home-schooling these children. You'll certainly want to exercise their financial identity: depositing money into their bank accounts and withdrawing it from ATMs, using their credit cards and paying the bills, and so on. And you'll need to establish some sort of addresses for them, even if it is just a mail drop.

You won't be able to get driver's licenses or photo IDs on their name. That isn't critical, though; in the U.S., more than 20 million adult citizens don't have photo IDs. But other than that, I can't think of any reason why identity farming wouldn't work.

Here's the real question: Do you actually have to show up for any part of your life?

Again, I made this all up. I have no evidence that anyone is actually doing this. It's not something a criminal organization is likely to do; twenty-five years is too distant a payoff horizon. The same logic holds true for terrorist organizations; it's not worth it. It might have been worth it to the KGB -- although perhaps harder to justify after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 -- and might be an attractive option to existing intelligence adversaries like China.

Immortals could also use this trick to self-perpetuate themselves, inventing their own children and gradually assuming their identity, then killing their parents off. They could even show up for their own driver's license photos, wearing a beard as the father and blue spiked hair as the son. I’m told this is a common idea in Highlander fan fiction.

The point isn't to create another movie plot threat, but to point out the central role that data has taken on in our lives. Previously, I've said that we all have a data shadow that follows us around, and that more and more institutions interact with our data shadows instead of with us. We only intersect with our data shadows once in a while -- when we apply for a driver's license or passport, for example -- and those interactions are authenticated by older, less-secure interactions. The rest of the world assumes that our photo IDs glue us to our data shadows, ignoring the rather flimsy connection between us and our plastic cards. (And, no, REAL-ID won't help.)

It seems to me that our data shadows are becoming increasingly distinct from us, almost with a life of their own. What's important now is our shadows; we're secondary. And as our society relies more and more on these shadows, we might even become unnecessary.

Our data shadows can live a perfectly normal life without us.

---

Bruce Schneier is Chief Security Technology Officer of BT, and author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.

A few folks have tried to tie “maturity” to “if the code is robust” or “if the product has certain product features.” The way we have addressed this emerging controversy over at The CEP blog is to center the discussion around the Gartner Hype Cycle, which is a pretty good model for representing the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies.

On CEP Maturity and the Gartner Hype Cycle

Since many folks work very closely with Gartner, I expect they are keenly aware of Gartner’s view on technology adoption maturity models and their definitions. Just for our readers who might not be as familar, I quote Gartner’s definitions below to be complete from here:

A hype cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. The term was coined by Gartner[citation needed], an analyst/research house, based in the United States, that provides opinions, advice and data on the global information technology industry.

Since 1995, Gartner has used hype cycles to characterize the over-enthusiasm or “hype” and subsequent disappointment that typically happens with the introduction of new technologies. Hype cycles also show how and when technologies move beyond the hype, offer practical benefits and become widely accepted. According to Gartner, hype cycles aim to separate the hype from the reality, and enable CIOs and CEOs to decide whether or not a particular technology is ready for adoption. A longer-term historical perspective on such cycles can be found in the research of the economist Carlota Perez.

A hype cycle in Gartner’s interpretation comprises 5 steps:

“Technology Trigger” — The first phase of a hype cycle is the “technology trigger” or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.

“Peak of Inflated Expectations” — In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.

“Trough of Disillusionment” — Technologies enter the “trough of disillusionment” because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.

“Slope of Enlightenment” — Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the “slope of enlightenment” and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.

“Plateau of Productivity” — A technology reaches the “plateau of productivity” as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

The term is now used more broadly in the marketing of new technologies.

We used the Gartner Hype Cycle in Two-Thirds of Our Readers Say CEP is Still Immature as a basis for having interested readers vote, and in a unscientific straw poll, the readers indicated that, in their view, CEP is still immature.

At the CEP Blog we ground our discussions and terminology on maturity in Gartner’s models on maturity, and we ground our discussions on event processing in the art-and-science of a long standing domain in event processing - multisensor data fusion (MSDF).

When I discussed this openly with Waters in Muddy Waters comments they kindly replied that “customers are loath to be a reference client for a vendor,”  like this fact somehow justifies having 600 people, most who have never actually used the software in practice, vote on how great it is.  

Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

Or, as Mark Adler pointed out in his well written blog post The First Annual Fluffies for CEP , a secretive “panel of renowned judge” is going to tell us, via Jolt, who has the better solution?  Holy Cow Batman!   Let me buy a nice layout in your magazine  or web site,  please, so “my software company” will be on the short list for the “the awards”.  

Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

All this smoke-and-mirrors. share-the-love, marketing reminds me of The Matrix a bit, where the world as we observe it, is a complete artificial construction, where most people in the Matrix believe they are “real” because they do not know that they really just a computer generated program designed to keep humans happy as they sleep in some cold goop with electrodes stuck up their you-know-what, really just bio-batteries insuring the light bill is paid.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

Or better yet, these fluffies are similar to most of the Webinars we see where there are questions from “the audience” but we know that most of these questions did not come from the “audience” - yet we all seem to continue ”the  audience” myth just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny! 

Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Fluffy Awards are real, if you want them to be real.  Just close your eyes and click your heels three times….

Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow the Yellow Brick Road.
Follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow the Yellow Brick Road.
Follow the Yellow Brick, Follow the Yellow Brick,
Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

We’re off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
You’ll find he is a whiz of a Wiz! If ever a Wiz! there was.
If ever oh ever a Wiz! there was The Wizard of Oz is one because,
Because, because, because, because, because.
Because of the wonderful things he does.
We’re off to see the Wizard. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz