A special Belgian e-ID for foreigners? Bad Idea!

This last week-end, a Dutch-written Belgian newspaper wrote that the Minister of the Interior, Patrick Dewael, is planning a special electronic ID card for foreigners in Belgium. If this become reality, every foreigner in Belgium will have an e-ID with his/her biometric data inside, even if he/she is officially living in Belgium, with a regular permit to live, work, etc. Of course, this project is aimed at illegal foreigners (btw, have a look at his other “brilliant” idea: heavily punish those who are helping illegal foreigners to obtain asylum, regular papers, etc.). Thus it seems there will be two versions of this card. Their official reason is “better control”.

I first think it’s a very bad idea because no one will be equal in front of the law, police forces, etc. You can keep you “special foreigner e-ID” in your pocket but once you show it to someone (to identify yourself in a bank, in a car rental office, …), it will be humiliating. And there is a risk that some people will refuse to interact with you because of this card.

This e-ID is only a tool, I agree. But it will be created with a bad intention in mind. In a previous post, I didn’t dare to say that the “regular” e-ID was created in order to control Belgians. This “foreigner e-ID” is created expressly to control foreigners in Belgium. The technical questions about who will be able to read information on the regular e-ID and how it will be done, within which legal frame ; these questions are not yet solved. Now that it’s technically possible, nauseous ideas are appearing …

If you know French, you can read some reactions in La Libre Belgique (there is a video but I cannot see it (obscure MS format unreadable with free software)).

A step further "simple" Open Access to scientific litterature

Combining a trend from the free software world and a reaction to increasing subscription costs, the last decade saw the emergence of the “Open Access” movement in the scientific litterature. Instead of transfering all your rights (and copyrights) to an editor that will sell your work to other scientists, you can choose to publish your work in Open Access journals. In this case, you retain your rights (and copyrights) on the article you wrote. Moreover, your work is freely available to other scientists (at least in electronic format) while still being of some quality since the reviewing process is still there. As an article writer, you only risk to be cited more often (since your article is freely available). As an article reader, you only risk to gain more knowledge (since more and more interesting articles are published with various Open Access publishers like BioMed Central, the Public Library of Science, etc.).

Now, I recently discovered Science Commons, a kind of extension of Creative Commons for sciences. Most Open Acces publishers chose one of the Creative Commons licences for the articles and additional material they offer. I’ve not yet read everything on their website. But this initiative seems to be a nice “enhancement” of giving access to the scientific litterature since they go a step further by focusing also on material licensing and the accessibility to raw data.

Of course, one of their projects deals with publishing scientific litterature. For me, this project can bring a bit more “independent” discussion in the field (by “indenpendent”, I mean that they don’t seem related to any publisher although they promote Open Access, of course). What’s more interesting is their two other projects because they can bring some fresh air and new ideas in their respective fields.

Science Commons second project deals with licencing material (hardware). It will explore standard licensing models to facilitate wider access to scientific materials. Without material, we cannot do science (it’s not Philosophy, working on ideas, concepts, etc.). Sometimes, material is so specific that it’s not sold by any big pharmacological / biotech companies but only produced on demand by another lab, in another corner of the earth. For the moment, nearly every material transfer between two labs is associated with a specific transfer agreement. Some standardisation will allow scientists to focus on their work rather than on legal and administrative annoyances while still giving rights and credits to the right group / people.

Finally, the third Science Commons project explores ways to assure broad access to scientific data. If you are lucky to publish your findings, maybe someone will find other effects or give you hints to find other relevant facts by simply looking at your raw data. This will allow a quickly evolving science and, for example, it will avoid the unneccessary use of many more laboratory animals, just to reproduce an experiment and trying to find other or more effects than those already published. Now if your experiments did not worked, for any reasons, publishing those unsuccessfull results will also prevent other people from performing the same unnecessary experiments. In biological sciences, it’s often difficult to publish a paper on, e.g., the fact that iron has no effect on a some metabolism. But I think it’s worth publishing data from this experiment since it can give clues on other substance effects on some biochemical pathways.

I know this post is rather biological sciences oriented (I am sorry, it’s my field ; and I didn’t even wrote about the NeuroCommons project, part the Science Commons Data project). I suggest you to have a look at the Sciences Commons website and to see by yourself how it can help your science field.

And I thought I had stress before my presentations …

There is a story on how Steve Jobs prepares his talks for Apple’s keynotes in the Guardian Unlimited. Well, it doesn’t say much about the preparation in itself. But I can feel the stress Mike Evangelist is experiencing: he had to talk in front of hundreds of people, in front of his boss and present software not yet finished. And I thought I had stress before my presentations …

Of course, there is another reading of this article. OK, Apple is a small technology company. But it developped a good sense of communication. When you are buying an ipod, your are not only buying a portable music player (btw including imprisoning DRM): you are also buying a feeling (of hype, of having the last gadget, …). When you are buying a Mac computer, it’s also a feeling of being part of “another” community, … Apple cultivated this feeling since the beginning with slogans like “Think Different”. And, of course, this article, the book Mr Evangelist is trying to write, … even this post on this blog, they all participate in the “buzz” around Apple keynotes. Finally, if this noise (*) wasn’t there, Apple will only be another computer-selling company.

(*) in signal processing, noise is what intefere with the signal. Only the signal (Apple products) might be important. Noise is there to disturb, enhance, distord, … the signal.

How to test the speed of an internet connection?

I was experiencing frequent disconnections of my internet link at home. These were very short but long enough to disturb one service I am using. So I decided to check if my internet provider was correct and doing his job correctly.

My first idea was that there must exists free (as in free speech) and simple command-line tools to test the connection speed under GNU/Linux. As I am not a specialist, I tried to find such tools on the internet but didn’t find any (if you have one, please feel free to share it with me). So I decided to write my own set of scripts in Perl.

For the moment, results are somewhat convincing (but the “ping” command does not reflect exactly the connection speed) but they can already be used 🙂

Example of results (image is reduced)

You can find scripts, how to do it and work in progress here.

Quaero and the quest for alternatives

An article in the French newspaper Le Monde presents Quaero (to seek, in Latin) as the future “European Google”. Comments on this article are divided between supporters of this alternative and denigrors that predict another bureaucratic, bloated, ineffective project. My point here is not to argue pro or against this project. But I would like to dwell on American databases and search engines that serve the entire world.

When you need to look at some information on the internet (mainly, the web), I am sure you are using (American) tools like Google, Yahoo! or Altavista. In the life sciences domain, we have a wonderful database, PubMed, a service of the (American) National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations of biomedical articles. When you are preparing a presentation or an experiment on a subject, it’s a great tool to do the bibliography.

I am insisting on the fact that these tools are coming from American companies or government agencies because I am wondering what we are going to do if, one day, for whatever reason, the U.S.A. will decide to stop providing these tools to the entire rest of the world. Or what if they simply decide to filter content delivered outside their country? Are you sure they are not already doing it? It’s the same problem with the satellite positioning system (GPS ; that’s why Europeans are launching the Galileo project), the root of internet domain name servers, the Microsoft Windows operating system, etc.

So, if the goal of Quaero is to achieve a relative independance, I agree with it (I have still some fears it will become a costly and ineffective tool). But I am wondering why isn’t there any free (at least as in “free beer”) alternative to PubMed. For the moment, I only see an alternative in the cooperation, interoperability between Open Access repositories with projects like the Open Archives Initiative, OpenDOAR, GNU Eprints and other software. But, until Open Access journals are widely used by scientists, it won’t be a PubMed replacement. And there is still no alternative for scientific litterature already published in Closed Access journals.

Identification -vs- authentication

I was reading a presentation on the Belgian electronic identity card (PDF 150 kb, in French, by a friend). Compared to the old, analogic card, this new card has an electronic chip on it. This chip contains some information that are already visible to any human eye on the surface of this card and more information (like a photo, your address, digital certificates, …). I stopped on the 5th slide where it’s said that this new “e-ID” will allow someone to be identified, to authenticate (what?) and to fill in on-line administrative papers.

Being in the “general culture” of privacy-related subjects, I often heard these two words (identification and authentication). But I never paid too much attention to their meaning. So, once and for all, I decided to have a look in a dictionary.

Identification is the act or process of identifying somebody or something or of being identified. So, it’s an act or process of showing or proving who somebody is. The identity card (ID card) is a card bearing the holder’s name, signature, etc. and often a photograph, carried or worn by somebody to show who he/she is.

Authentication is the act or process of proving something to be valid, genuine or true (act of authentication). You even have the word authenticity, the quality of being authentic.

So, why put identification and authentication means in the same card? Aren’t they redundant? The old, analogic ID card was sufficient to prove who I am to a policeman and to retrieve administrative documents. I think the idea behind this new e-ID card is to adapt this identification process to the electronic world (internet being the most obvious one). It seems it’s far more easy to forge another identity based only on character strings and bits than on a real, physical human being. When paying on the internet with a credit card, you need your card number, your name and a “validation number” that is on the back of your card. Now, with the e-ID, you’ll have digital certificates to electronically identify yourself and authenticate this identification.

As I use to say, this is only a tool (like a hammer, a knife, a RFID tag, a video camera, etc.). But now, I often add that it depends on the goals behind the creation of the tool.

A knife was first created to cut meat, branches, etc. A hammer was first created to hit on a nail. A video camera was first designed to add motion to photographs. Now some people use knives to take control of planes, they use video camera to film their children playing around or British cars registration numbers. This diversion of usage, combined with an increasing “Western comfort” lead some people (in governments or not) to the need of preserving this comfort, this security. They now not only created new tools (DRM, RFID, …), they created tools in order to keep and further increase their profits, to control identities, …

I am not saying that the Belgian government is intentionally imposing the e-ID card in order to control Belgians. But, apparently, some points are not clear … Who will control who (or what application) will have access to the information stored on the chip? And who will control if the restrictions on information access are respected (and how)? Who will control data mining done with information retrieved from the chip (and how)? For the moment, only information already available from different sources are now grouped on the chip, making them easier to retrieve. Who knows what kind of information could be added on the chip, later? If you want more information on this topic, I suggest you to follow the news on the AEL website.

P.S. I really like dictionary: you are looking for one word and you finally read definitions of 2 or 3 words. And if you have an illustrated dictionary, you’ll also look at the pictures. For example, in my Oxford dictionary, “identification” is on the same page than an illustration of an iceberg. An iceberg is just “a huge mass of ice floating in the sea”. But, because it’s related to the idiom “the tip of the iceberg”, nearly 80% of the illustration is showing iceberg part below the see level. By the way, while I was there, I also checked the word idiom: “a phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit” (of course, I also read the other definitions of idiom …).

GNU/Linux installation and usage: prejudices are hard to fight

Regarding GNU/Linux installation and usage, prejudices are still hard to fight (at least in my environment). Yesterday, we had the usual Christmas dinner with some friends and family. At one moment, talks went on technology, computers, peer-to-peer, etc. One of the boys just bought an Apple Powerbook and his wife got a laptop PC from her work (MS-Windows only, of course). We ask them to put GNU/Linux or, at least to try free software. For their general usage, OpenOffice.org (writer, calc and impress), The Gimp, FireFox, Thunderbird, … are sufficient. They don’t need more: specific applications they might use are already on dedicated computers in the laboratory.

The three main prejudices, reserves about GNU/Linux are:

  • It will be difficult to install
  • It will be difficult to use and they don’t want to type 1000 lines of commands
  • They won’t be able to communicate and share documents with other people

First of all, GNU/Linux is not difficult to install. Free software are related to freedom and choice. You have to the choice. You can choose a GNU/Linux “flavor” (aka. distribution) that is very easy to install and yet powerfull enough (e.g. Fedora Core, Mandriva, SuSE, …). I personally installed the Fedora Core on two computers of mine and my wife’s laptop. The only thing that I needed to know is to click on the left button of my mouse and to enter my name and password at the right moment (that is: when the computer asked to do it). Of course, you can choose to have a more difficult installation. Just choose the “advanced installation” option while installing the distribution cited before or you can also choose a distribution often considered less easy to install like Debian.

And GNU/Linux isn’t difficult to use and you have the choice for the 1000 lines of commands. Everything you can do with a mouse with MS-Windows, you can also do it with a mouse with GNU/Linux. In my opinion, you can even do more with GNU/Linux since there are a lot of free software available. I am sure that at least one of them will fit your needs.

Finally, why an operating system will deprive you from sharing your documents with other people? If you think that MS-Word documents are a “standard”, you are wrong. But if you still want to open .doc files other people sent you, just open them! OpenOffice.org writer can do it, Abiword can do it, antiword can do it, …

Just try GNU/Linux (Ubuntu and Knoppix are GNU/Linux flavors that doesn’t need to be installed on you computer). Try it for at least one month (I am not saying to use it 24hours a day, 7 days a week, go progressively if you want or if you don’t have time). And then choose. And whatever you choose, please give Microsoft or the GNU/Linux community your feedback. I don’t know if Microsoft will listen to you. But I know that the GNU/Linux community will hear your well constructed arguments against or pro GNU/Linux and try to improve it.

P.S. Oh, yes: Merry Christmas to you all! 🙂

Scientists find a "sweet tooth" in the (rat) brain

Researchers at the University of Michigan have found a “pleasure spot” in the brains of rats that may shed light on how food translates into pleasure for humans. The spot in rats’ brains makes sweet tastes more “liked” than other tastes. So now I know what’s going on when I am eating sweet Indian pastries :-p

Reference: Peciña, S. and Berridge, K.C. “Hedonic hot spot in nucleus accumbens shell: where do mu-opioids cause increased hedonic impact of sweetness?” in J. Neurosci., 25: 11777-11786 (2005). On Berridge’s web page, you can also view a cool video illustrating this subject.

Where am I? – Où suis-je ?

If you used to see me on MSN or Yahoo!, there is a risk I won’t be there anymore. I’ll now try to only use the free Jabber protocol. If you want to know more about jabber, please have a look at the Jabber overview. Clients (software) are available for MS-Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc. ; see here for a list of software (with some of them, you will even still be able to chat with your MSN and Yahoo! contacts). My Jabber ID is jepoirrier at jabber.org.

Si vous aviez l’habitude de me voir sur MSN ou Yahoo!, il y a un risque que je n’y sois plus jamais. Je vais maintenant essayer d’utiliser seulement le protocole libre Jabber. Si vous voulez en savoir plus sur Jabber, jetez un coup d’oeil à cette introduction (et les premiers pas associés). Des clients (logiciels) sont disponibles pour MS-Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc. ; voyez ici pour une liste de ces logiciels (avec certains d’entre eux, vous pourrez même continuer à communiquer avec vos contacts MSN et Yahoo!). Mon identifiant Jabber est jepoirrier chez jabber.org.