A Friendly Reminder

 

Don't forget to watch the Tim Horton's Brier every day from now until next Sunday. Check your local TV listings. In my area you can catch the draws at 2:30 PM, and 7:00 PM every day. Each game only lasts three hours so that leaves you plenty of time to do other things, like run out to Tim Horton's to get a coffee.

More on Reverse PIN Numbers

 
Last January 5th I posted a article about an urban legend claiming you could reverse your PIN number at an ATM to summon police [Reverse PIN at ATM Summons Police]. The idea is that whenever you are being held hostage and forced to withdraw money from your ATM account all you have to do is key in the reverse of your PIN number. The money will be dispensed but police will be called to rescue you. This is, of course, an urban legend. No such system exists at any ATM's.

Today I get a comment on that thread from a man named Joe Zinger who claims to have invented the reverse PIN number. If you follow the link given by Joe Zingher to ATM Safety PIN you will be re-directed to Zi Cubed Inc. where you learn that Joe Zingher is located in Gurnee, Illinois. I assume that he wants to make money from his "invention" but I can't imagine how he's going to do that even if it were desirable.

Here's Joe's comment (in yellow).

I’m Joe Zingher, the inventor of the ReversePIN system referred to on this website. There’s a great deal of disinformation about the system and it’s usefulness put out by magazines, official government agencies and banking industry. For instance, Forbes magazine claims that IBM holds an emergency PIN patent of its own. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4086277/ and I’m somehow trapped in a life and death struggle with them. Contact Forbes and ask them what the IBM patent number is. They refuse to tell me.

Nobody cares whether IBM has a patent on reversing your PIN number. Nobody cares whether you do—unless you're going to be taking money from us in the form of royalties. The important point is the "disinformation" that's out there (and below) and the "usefullness" of the scheme.

The Illinois Office of Banks and Real Estate issued an official report claiming that the system requires some kind of “physical reconfiguration” of the ATM or “hardware changes” http://www.obre.state.il.us/Agency/news/atmrpt.htm The author of the report claims that it was a lawyer who told him this. He claims that at the time he wrote it, he was under the impression that it needs “new data transmission lines to handle the more intelligent communications.” I guess if you discuss the Chicago Cubs on the telephone, you use one type of telephone line, but if you’re discussing quantum physics, you have to use a different, special kind of telephone line. This is obviously incorrect to anyone who has had even a single course in computer programming.

Yes, it it so obviously incorrect that one wonders why you even bother to mention it. But that doesn't mean that the cost is negligible. As the study you referenced [ATM Report] pointed out, the system requires a complex interaction of several databases.

ATM card issuers typically issue one PIN to a customer. Under the Zi Cubed system, customers are assigned an emergency second PIN which is usually the reverse of their original number. For example, if 1234 were an individual’s PIN, then the emergency PIN would be 4321. If the PIN were 2442, then the emergency could be 4224. If the emergency PIN is entered, presumably during a robbery, the ATM processing main computer sends a distress message to the local police department. In addition to the location of the ATM, police could find out who the customer was with information taken from the customer’s bank account records. Police could also access a description of the customer from the Secretary of State’s Drivers’ Services Division. By the time police reach the ATM they would know who the customer is, what s/he looks like, and where s/he lives.

... conversion to this system requires a significant commitment in resources to writing new computer software programs that recognize the reverse PIN and then make multiple complex decisions. Currently, ATMs communicate with banks and make what are termed "binary" (i.e., simple "yes/no") decisions concerning the account and transaction information. Under the reverse PIN system, the main computer must: (a) determine and communicate with the police station closest to the ATM; (b) the computer must communicate with the bank account of the cardholder and obtain account information that is usually confidential and protected (this process is more complicated if the ATM is not from the accountholder’s bank); and, (c) the main computer must then also communicate with the Secretary of State’s office for driver license information.

I can see a number of problems here but they aren't really of much concern for the moment because the main problem is that the whole idea is just plain stupid.

So why isn’t the system in place then? The vast majority of the public seems to like it a lot.

The main reason why it's not in place is mentioned in the opening section of the Illinois State report. Here it is, in case you missed it ...

Although there is no precise data on ATM crime, violent crime against ATM users is relatively rare. Over the decade of the 1990s, ATM crime has actually decreased from approximately one crime per one million ATM transactions to one crime per 3.5 million transactions. At the same time, the use of ATMs has significantly increased. Nevertheless, public perception of significant crime at ATMs exists.

That's a polite way of saying that the crime you're trying to prevent isn't significant enough to warrant preventative action. Implementing a code to summon police on the remote chance that it could help in the extremely rare situations where it arose is just not worth it. It's about as silly as making everyone take off their shoes in an airport or requiring passports at the Canadian border.

An analysis of the reverse PIN warning system is specifically requested by Resolution No. 134. The reverse PIN system attempts to utilize current technology to provide law enforcement with the immediate location and background information concerning a potential victim. However, a consumer may be under too much emotional stress to properly utilize the system, the system would be tremendously costly to implement both as to hardware and software requirements, quick response by police is not guaranteed, and no evidence exists that the reverse PIN system would actually reduce crime.

In order for the system to be effective an awful lot of things have to happen in a timely manner. One of these is compliance by the victim. That means the victim has to be convinced that summoning police won't cause them harm.

Given that the disease for which you are proposing a cure is extremely rare and that your cure probably won't work, I suggest you look for another way to make money from the general public.

Well, I am not the authorized spokesman for the US banking industry, but here’s a short list of the claims I’ve heard about my system and why it’s not being used.

1) “An international treaty forbids it from being adopted. This treaty sets the technical standards for ATM transactions.” Actually, there’s no such treaty. It sounds like a great explanation though and one that the layman might buy.

2) “You’d have to issue all new ATM cards, costing $5 each to put the system in place. The system is terribly expensive and not worth it.” This is false too. You don’t change the card at all. All that is done is a small change in the PIN verification section of the code. This can be either at the ATM as part of the normal software upgrades or at the main link where the PIN verification software is. The invention is “transparent” to the existing software.

3) “Who could remember their ReversePIN with a gun at their neck at the ATM? It won’t work.” This is misleading because it defines a DIFFERENT crime than the one intended to be deterred. The crime pattern begins as a hostage taking in a carjacking from a parking lot or during a home invasion; the victim is then taken to an ATM and forced to make a withdrawal; then the victim is taken elsewhere, executed and the body hidden so that no one will cancel the card. There’s a LOT of lag time between the initial assault and the first withdrawal for the victim to get their wits about them. Further, EVEN PEOPLE WHO CANNOT USE THE SYSTEM BENEFIT from it. The criminal cannot know what is going on until it is too late. The goal is to get him to grab the money and run, and leave the hostage behind and hopefully unhurt. Moreover, there will be some people who can always use the system and that means they generate an umbrella of deterrence for the rest of society. Since the criminal can’t know for sure before the attack begins, does the attack ever begin?

Number 3 is the only one of these that's worth discussing. You make two claims here. They are typical examples of irrational thinking. The first is standard hype whenever you are trying to scare people into parting with their money. You construct a hypothetical scenario that serves your purpose then you hope that people won't notice how rare it is. In this case, the number of times when hostages are forced to withdraw money is so infrequent that it barely counts in crime statistics. The second claim is that when banks buy your system, crime will be deterred. What crime? Are you talking about the case where a criminal has taken someone hostage and intends to kill them when they have withdrawn a few hundred dollars from their ATM? Do you really think that a criminal like that is going to be deterred on the off chance that a cop car might show up at the ATM before they get away?

4) “If our state makes it mandatory, that means some customer from out of state won’t be able to use the ATM at all.” Why on earth would you program the computer that way? That’s just stupid.

5) “What if your PIN in reverse is someone else’s regular PIN? It would shut down the system.” Excuse me, but your PIN is already being used by at least tens of thousands of other people already. The PIN is connected to the bank account number and the bank identification number. Think about it. From “0000” to “9999” there are only 10,000 possible variations on a four-digit PIN. There are over two hundred million ATM cards in the US alone. (A PIN like 2442 is handled by the “Inside-OutPIN 4224 and a PIN like 7777 is handled by the “Plus-1PIN” 8888. Get the idea here?)

The list of ridiculous claims is just too long. And they keep changing. What does it tell you when “experts” keep coming up with different false claims about the system?

It tells me that those "experts" are stupid. On the other hand, your claims aren't much better.

By the way, to be an ACTUAL expert in the technical aspects of it, you need to have some background in computer programming, say an associate’s degree.

Hmmm ... I'm just taking a wild guess here; do you happen to have an "associate's degree" in computer programing (whatever that is)?

So what’s the real reason it’s not being used? All their answers are different. That in itself should tell you something. Here’s a thought. If you’re the head of marketing at a bank, how many of these murders per year involving your ATMs makes you jump up and down yelling “HOORAY!!! We only had “X” murders this year that involved our customers being kidnapped and forced to make ATM withdrawals”? I think that is where the root of the problem lies.

BINGO! I think you've hit upon the answer. The Bank will have lost a customer but they make up for it by not having to repay the forced withdrawal. I imagine the entire corporate headquarters celebrates with champagne all around whenever an ATM customer is murdered. If it's a big bank, you wonder how they ever get any work done at the headquarters.

Gene Genie #2

 
The second issue of Gene Genie is now available at Sciencesque. Lots of cool stuff about human genes.

The Evolution of the HSP70 Gene Family

Here's a picture of my three second year project students in front of their poster. Blerta Kolaj, Milu Jauregui, and Zarna Shah collaborated on this project to study the evolution of various members of the HSP70 gene family.

Eukaryotes contain at at least five or six versions of HSP70 genes. Two of them are present in single copies (mostly) and they were present in the common ancestor of all eukaryotes. One of these is the mitochondrial version, which is derived from the proteobacterium ancestor of mitochondria. The other is a version found in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The ER member of the HSP70 gene family (=BiP) arose very early in eukaryotic evolution.

A phylogenetic tree of either the mitochondrial gene or the ER gene should reveal the evolution of all eukaryotic species. The two trees should be identical provided the genes evolve independently and there has been no horizontal gene transfer. Furthermore, the two trees will root each other since they join at a common ancestral node representing the split between eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The purpose of the experiment is to test this hypothesis and see if we have enough examples of ER and mitochondrial genes to make duplicate trees. The problem is that we need an example of each gene in every species we test. The fact that we now have quite a few genome sequences means that this has become more feasible than in the past.

Blerta, Milu, and Zarna were able to add in one more set of sequences; the chloroplast members of the HSP70 gene family. These genes are derived from the cyanobacteria ancestor of chloroplasts so they provide independent confirmation of the eukaryotic tree for plants and algae. Unfortunately, there aren't very many examples of species that have sequenced versions of the chloroplast gene, the mitochondrial gene, and the ER gene.

Here's the tree.

As you can see, the relationship of most species (actually genes) in the mitochondrial and ER branches is very similar. This confirms that the two family members are evolving independently. Differences occur with the protists such as trypanosomes, Leishmania, plasmodia, and cryptosporidium. This is unfortunate since analysis of HSP70 genes could have helped resolve the relationship of protists, which is very controversial. At least we're sure of the roots of each major branch—that's a big step forward.

The chloroplast and mitochondrial clades are closer together than either is to the eukaryotic ER versions of the HSP70 family. This is not unexpected since both organelle genes are prokaryotic in origin. It suggests that the universal root is along the branch leading to the ER clade.

Now my students have to turn their attention to their individual projects. They have about six weeks to finish up. I'll post summaries of their work in May. I'm pretty excited about all three projects, we could end up answering some pretty important questions using the HSP70 database.

Sandwalk DNA Fingerprint

 


Here's the Sandwalk DNA fingerprint from web2dna.

[Hat Tip: ScienceRoll]

Not Banned in China

 


My blog is not (yet) banned in China! Test your own site at Great Firewall of China.

[Hat Tip: ScienceRoll]

Me and Steve

 
Here's a picture of me and Steve Steve in North Carolina. That Steve sure gets around. At times he seems to be in two or three places at once.

Now that I think of it, this Steve doesn't look the same as the one I met in San Francisco. You don't suppose there's two of them, do you?

Could it be that the Steve Creator has learned how to clone?

Lunar Eclipse

 
Looks like we're going to miss the total lunar eclipse because of the clouds. Oh well, they're not that rare so another will come along in a few months.

Lunar eclipses come in bunches with periods of drought in between. The last one was on October 28, 2004 so it seems like a long time has passed for those who have been waiting. The good news is that there will be two more in the next year.

When they occur, a lunar eclipse can be viewed by more than half the planet. One of the unusual things about this one is that it can be seen by people on every continent. That's just a question of timing.

Some newspaper reports are saying that lunar eclipses are "rare." I suppose it depends on your perspective. To me "rare" means once or twice in a lifetime so I wouldn't say that lunar eclipses are "rare." Total solar eclipses, on the other hand are rare for any individual place on the planet.

For more information on lunar eclipses see the Sky and Telescope website [March 3rd's Total Lunar Eclipse]. I'm including a copy of their diagram to show you how lunar eclipses work. Pay attention if you're a university student 'cause it may be on the University Exit Exam.

This What Happens to your Brain on Religion

 
See this man? His name is Nathan Bradfield. He is associated with Gateway Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama.

That makes him an expert on evolution. He has a blog. He has posted an article called Hypocrisy of Evolution. He quotes many experts, like Ann Coulter. She is an IDiot. So is Nathan.

Kevin Beck says this is Easily the worst anti-evolution blogging any of us have seen. Maybe it is. Kevin invites you to pick a sentence, any sentence, and show why it's wrong. Not much of a challenge.


I didn't like this when it was an anti-drug commercial but it seems appropriate for what (some) religion can do to your brain.

Atheists and Agnostics

 
Here's a list of various countries with the percentage of atheists + agnostics. In most cases the total comes from the number who self-identify as people who do not believe in God. The number who feel comfortable labeling themselves as atheists is usually about 1/4 of the total.

The data is mostly from ...

Zuckerman, P. (2005) "Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns ", chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK

Greeley, A. (2003) Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millennium. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers

It is summarized on the Adherent Statistics website.

Australia Canada Czech Republic France Germany Israel Italy Netherlands Norway Poland Russia Saudi Arabia Spain Sweden United Kingdom United States

25% 19% 54% 48% 35% 37% 18% 43% 41% 8% 35% 0% 18% 46% 44% 4%

Norris and Inglehart (2004) Bibby (2002) Greeley (2003) Greeley (2003) Greeley (2003) Kedem (1995) Greeley (2003) Greeley (2003) Greeley (2003) Greeley (2003) Froese (2004) Zuckerman (2005) Greeley (2003) Greeley (2003) Zuckerman (2005) Encyclopedia Britannica

Sound the Alarm! Liechtenstein Invaded!

 
FOXNews reports on the invasion of Liechtenstein.

ZURICH, Switzerland — What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers from the neutral country wandered more than a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story, but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press on Friday.

Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.

Interior Ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.

Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington, D.C., does not have an army.

Read this carefully. Liechtenstein doesn't have an army. The border wasn't marked. The Swiss soldiers had assault rifles but no ammunition. Only in Europe .... that's what a lack of religion leads to.

Be Like PZ

 
Just in case there are one or two people out there who don't read Pharyngula every day, here's the latest from PZ Myers: Get meaner, angrier, louder, fiercer. He has little use for appeasers and fencesitters.

Aspartame Is Poisonous

Friday's Urban Legend: FALSE

The idea that aspartame is poison is widespread—much more common than most rational people would care to admit. You can hear people whispering about the dangers of aspartame in the coffee shops and on the commuter trains. If you believe what they're saying then aspartame is one of the most poisonous products that has ever been foisted on the public by unscrupulous international corporations. It's part of a vast conspiracy to murder innocent citizens in the name of corporate profit. This sort of thing is just a small part of a growing belief in all kinds of irrational, superstitious nonsense that threatens to make a mockery of science.

Here's a typical claim from a site called "Ethical Investing" (sic).

The artificial sweetener aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal, NatraTaste, Canderel) is without question the most toxic and health-destroying "food" sold to consumers. The number of people who have recognized toxicity reactions or damage from chronic aspartame ingestion is well over one million people in the U.S. (based on the reported toxicity reactions divided by the estimated reporting rate). While many people's health has already been destroyed by this product, the more serious concern is the long-term nervous system damage, immune system damage, and irreversible genetic damage known to be caused by aspartame's metabolite, formaldehyde. Formaldehyde can cause severe health problems at exceptionally low levels of exposure.

Here's another, from a website called "The Light Party."

Diet Coke is poison. And it's addictive, some victims drink several liters a day and keep it on their nightstands. If Coke changes the formula to remove aspartame the world will heal and the surge of hatred and vengeance by the disabled and bereaved shall certainly destroy Coca Cola.

The poison in Diet Coke is aspartame. As a member of the National Soft Drink Association Coke opposed FDA approval of aspartame for beverages. their objections, running to several pages published in the Congressional Record of 5/7/85, said aspartame is uniquely and inherently unstable and breaks down in the can. It decomposes into formaldehyde, methyl alcohol, formic acid, diketopiperazine and other toxins. In a study on 7 monkeys 5 had grand mal seizures and one died, a casualty rate of 86%.

This is all nonsense. The false claims are countered by dozens of scientific studies that show no adverse effects of aspartame. Snopes.com has a summary at Kiss My Aspartame.

[In a sop to the superstitious, you can also buy Diet Coke sweetened with SPLENDA®]

A Sophisticated Christian Philosopher Critiques The God Delusion

 
Richard Dawkins is often accused of being naive. Some of his fiercest critics are moderate Christians who claim that the religion Dawkins attacks is not their religion. The claim is that Dawkins is attacking a strawman version of Christianity and not the real intellectually sophisticated version that they believe in.

This form of criticism is called the Courtier's Reply an amazingly apt response invented by PZ Myers.

Now, one of the "really sophisticated" Christians has posted a review of The God Delusion. Alvin Plantinga is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. It will be interesting to see how a believer in modern sophisticated Christianity performs. Jason Rosenhouse dissects the review at Evolutionblog (Plantinga on Dawkins: Part One). It doesn't look good. Superstition is superstition no matter how you dress it up.

Jerry Falwell Promotes Superstition

 
In the ongoing battle against superstition it helps from time to time to point out the greatest offenders. I'm not exactly sure how the Neville Chamberlain Atheists approach this issue but for me it's very clear. Stupid, superstitious, idiots like Jerry Falwell need to be exposed and opposed. The fact that they are Christian fundamentalists is a bonus.

Here's the latest from Falwells' sermon last week (THE MYTH OF GLOBAL WARMING).

In recent years, since Al Gore invented the internet and helped invent global warming, our world has been in turmoil. The internet turned out to be “a very good thing” and, when used properly, is a great asset to humanity.

The endless hysteria and alarmism over alleged global warming has increasingly become a national and international nuisance and loses credibility with every passing day. The entire myth has little to do with science and much to do with politics.

Its greatest proponents are the United Nations (no friends of America), liberal politicians, radical environmentalists, liberal clergymen, Hollywood and pseudo-scientists.

Didn't he forget gays? Was that a delberate oversight?

It should be expected that liberal clergymen and theologians would join in concert with Hollywood and liberal politicians on every radical and hurtful issue that arises. But, sadly, some evangelical pastors and leaders have recently jumped aboard this brand new bandwagon. This bandwagon is not abortion, school prayer or gay marriage… rather, it’s a cause that former VP Al Gore is championing in his film, “An Inconvenient Truth” (better named “a Convenient Untruth”: namely global warming.

Whew! That's a relief. He managed to slip gays into the next paragraph. For a minute I thought he was losing it.

What does the Bible say about a global warming catastrophe that will melt the glaciers, raise the sea levels to horrific destructive heights and eliminate the four seasons beyond any recognizable difference.

Psalm 24:1-2, “The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. 2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”

Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

I'm not sure what this means. Does it mean that the coming rise in sea level will be God's fault because He did it once before?