As loyal readers might have noticed - I am training/running for something big. In November I will be running the NYC Marathon! And this means hard work. Currently, I am running about 4 to 5 times a week, as is my good friend Ernst, who I am running the marathon with.

I have actually set up something quite special that I would like to share with you. I have created a marathon sponsorship program to help raise money for the children of Khaengkajan, Thailand. In this remote area, the Chollaprathankhaengkarjan school, a governmental primary school, is located. This school is more than just an educational institution for children there. The young students come from poor families nearby the school and many of them sleep, eat and live at the school as well.

There are many things that need to be improved in order to ensure education. Heavily relying on funds from the Thai Education Ministry, the Chollaprathankhaengkarjan needs funds to make improvements. Each year the school receives limited funds and struggles to stay afloat. The school management considers improving the playground the number one priority. A proper, safe playground would be a huge step forward as the current playground is too dangerous to use. The school has already worked out the details of the playground repairs and improvement. The total cost will be around 200,000 Baht.

I am extremely happy with the generous sponsorship contributions I have already received from corporations, one of which is Accenture!
With the help of all of you, I hope to raise these approx. €4,000 and build a new playground for these children. I’ll do the running, bleeding, sweating and aching.
Please visit http://www.runforkhaengkajan.com/sponsor.htm to see how you can do your part >

Many, many thanks!

Jort

One of the recent innovations in RFID we commented on in this blog is the Memory Spot of HP.

Even more recent and very interesting is the news from Queen’s University in Belfast, UK. Molecules capable of basic logic operations have been developed that could serve as tiny ID tags for identifying individual cells or nano-devices.

The technique, called molecular computational identification (MCID), could produce tens of millions of unique tags. Molecular ID tags are analogous to “radio frequency identification” (RFID) tags based on silicon chips.

The idea comes from research on molecules that work like silicon logic gates. Created by researchers at Queen’s University in Belfast, UK, the molecules use the presence of a chemical, or a mix of chemicals, as inputs, and give off light as output. Simple ‘YES’ and ‘NOT’ gates either light up, or not, depending on the presence of a single chemical. A ‘NOR’ gate lights up if neither of two chemicals are present, while an ‘AND’ gate lights up only if two chemicals are present.

The researchers attached five different ‘logic molecules’ to polystyrene beads, treated them with chemicals, and showed they could be identified under a microscope. Eventually the process could be automated, and the combinations of molecules read off like numbers from a license plate. Tagging individual cells would allow each to be tracked as it passed through a ‘lab-on-a-chip’ for example.

Now this is not RFID, since these molecules don’t give off radio signals, but rather the molecular equivalent of radiofrequency identification. In any case, the idea of individually tagging living cells does seem quite freaky…

Waar ik ook ter wereld ben, zakelijk of privé, ik onderhoud altijd contact met de Accenture thuisbasis. Ik check en beantwoord mijn mail regelmatig en bel met mijn EA, Rinia Martopawiro. Ook deze vakantie nam ik met haar vanaf het strand van St. Tropez mijn agenda door. Die vervolgens rigoureus werd omgegooid door een telefoontje van onze hoogste baas. Bill Green bood me een nieuwe baan aan; of ik er wat voor voelde om Group Chief Executive van Resources te worden en te behoren tot het Global Executive Leadershipteam. Niet bepaald het telefoontje wat je verwacht luierend op het strand. Het is een geweldige uitdaging en kans, maar het betekent wel dat ik mijn rol als Country Managing Director van Nederland moet overdragen aan een collega. En dat heb ik dus gedaan. Per 1 september ben ik werkzaam in mijn nieuwe functie en vervult Anja Groenewoud de rol van CMD.

Nationaal en internationaal werd Anja direct gezien als een prima opvolger. De juiste vrouw, op de juiste plek. Dat ze zo de man-vrouw balans weer een stukje in de goede richting schuift, is natuurlijk mooi meegenomen en ik zal als enige Nederlander het internationale Leadershipteam verrijken met mijn culturele bagage. Daarmee dragen Anja en ik weer een stukje bij aan waar we naar streven; een divers samengesteld team. Waarom? Omdat ik ervan overtuigd ben dat je als divers team meer kans hebt op succes. Verschillende mensen weten meer en bereiken meer dan allemaal dezelfde mensen. Daarom staat bij ons de man-vrouw balans hoog op de agenda en daarom streven we qua etniciteit naar een meer divers personeelsbestand. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat je als organisatie meer kans hebt op succes als je een afspiegeling bent van onze samenleving. Wat dat betreft kunnen we leren van onze klanten. Daar zie ik meer diverse teams, inclusief de mogelijke consequenties zoals dames met een hoofddoekje. Bovendien doen we onszelf tekort wanneer we de pool van talent met een andere culturele achtergrond niet benutten. Over een aantal jaar heeft zo’n 30 tot 40% van de afgestudeerden een allochtone afkomst. Ons streven naar diversiteit is dan ook niet primair ingegeven door ons maatschappelijk bewustzijn. Ik beschouw het als een voorwaarde voor succes.’

Since last week, the Dutch passport has an RFID chip. Dutch Minister Atzo Nicolaï received the first one.

The chip in the passport contains the following information (you can even have a look at the data yourself!):
- Photo as displayed on the passport, in color
- Full Name
- Document number
- Nationality
- Date of birth
- Sex
- Valid-until date
- Country of issue
- Personal number (’SOFI-nummer’, ‘BurgerServiceNummer’)
- Document type (e.g. passport or identity card)

There’s a lot of fuzz going on about this passport. Is it because of the RIFD chip?

No, it’s not about the RFID chip! It’s about the photo. The new guidelines are quite strict, and many people are told that their photo doesn’t meet the criteria.

Well, I think the photo lobby has been quite strong. Why do you need to bring your own photo in the first place? It can cost you loads of time (you have to go to a photographer, you can’t use the booth at the station), especially when you have to go twice before they accept your photo! Why don’t they install a digital camera at the city hall, so that they can make the picture just as they like? And not having to bring your own photo also compensates the € 8,06 higher price of the new passport.

But anyway. Is there no fuzz about the chip then?

Of course there is some fuzz about the chip, as well as confusion. Dutch newspaper Het Parool mentions that the chip is constantly (all the time? I can’t imagine) sending signals around that can be read from meters away (on tv they said that the passport can only be read from a short distance). But (and here it comes…:) to prevent unauthorized persons reading these signals, there’s also a ’strip’ on the passport that has to be machine-read first. I don’t get it, but if you do, please explain this to me.
Melanie Reback, famous since her publication on RFID viruses, says: “The chip will only stop stupid criminals. Duplicating a passport does get a bit more difficult, but you can count on the real terrorists to do their homework.”.
And according to Bart Jacobs, Professor of Software Security and Correctness, the current chip is a step forward, but security will be really take one step forward when finger prints will be included in the documents in about 3 years from now. Photo’s have an error margin of about 25%, and finger prints only 2-3%. This will reduce the so called ‘look-alike’ fraud.

And some people have their concerns regarding privacy - also a standard topic related to (RFID) chips. Currently, the data is only stored on the chip itself, not in a central database or on the reading points (e.g. Customs). It can be compared with the Privium card at Schiphol Airport. They put a digital read of your eye’s iris only on your card, not in a database.

Speaking of which - why don’t they put a digital read of you eye’s iris on the passport? This will overcome the error margins of photo’s and (fake) finger prints. This will definitely kill ‘look-alike’ fraud.

And some disappointing news to finish this post: I haven’t found any information regarding the encryption of the data on the chip. So I can’t tell you if it’s still as easy as it was in January to hack the new passport. But a German security expert recently managed to copy data from an RFID chip during the ‘hackers conference’ in Las Vegas.

Time to say goodbye once again. This time the project ended quite suddenly, but I guess that’s how it works in the consultancy world.
So I said my goodbyes and back to the office it is!

Being back in the country on weekdays is actually exactly what I needed since I still needed to go to the dentist. Yes, the simple things in life…

Luckily, I’ve spend some time in the UK before the project ended and got to see some more of London than just the airport, office and hotel.
I spend one of the summer weekends seeing the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Portobello Market (the market from the movie Notting Hill), St. Paul Cathedral, The Millennium Bridge and the Globe Theater. The most memorable of these has to be the Globe Theater where I went to see a Shakespeare’s play STANDING for 3 whole hours! Of course, I remembered that… my feet do!

The Millennium Bridge & St. Paul Cathedral

Another thing that you have to see in London has to be the musicals! I got addicted to musicals! Ask any of my colleagues and they will agree. I’ve seen about 8 musicals in 8 months?

And my next project? Let’s say that I have to start practising my German again, because… Next stop: Hamburg!

“Where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

These days my home away from home is…? Well, guess! See the picture below for the clue.

Notting Hill

Yes, I’m back in the UK! Find me in London fom Monday to Friday… This time around I got the chance to see a bit more of London than I used to on my previous project.
The thing that I was bugging my coworkers the most about was the fact that I wanted to see Notting Hill. Why? Because of the movie, of course! I wanted to see the park and the bench…

What a disappointment! When I got there it… there was a park, but I couldn’t enter it! It was a private park! No wonder they had to climb over the fence in the movie … or perhaps I had the wrong park?
Anyways, I wasn’t as brave as Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts to climb over that fence and violate the park rules. Instead I settled with walking past it and if I still have the desire to see the park I’ll just go and watch the movie again.