Hi John
On Monday 08 March 2004 22:12, John J. Lu wrote:
> I found the Swedish National Registration number quite simple and easy
> to use. It is constructed as:
>
> <date of birth: yyyymmdd> <male/female: 1/0> <a serial number: {regions
> and municipalities} + {a sequence number}>
Yes, this is quite easy to remember indeed since the person most often than
not knows his birthdate, sex, and area of birth. We might look into this
format some more. The arrangement seems haphazard to me though.
Usually if we follow object oriented practices, we start with the most general
part and break down to details. So, we might do it this way:
ISO-country + (state,region,city,municipality,etc.) + < date of birth:
yyyymmdd> +<male/female: 1/0> + <UTF code of Family name's initial.> + <UTF
code of first name's initial> + control nr.
That would give us something like this:
1124 093034 19660103 1 0233 2345 6
That looks complex and difficult to remember. But wait, just start
systematically from left to right. Heres a probable scenario:
######################################
Nurse: Name please...
John D.: John
Nurse: Family name?
John D.: D
Nurse: Only "D" ????
John D.: Yes, only "D".
Nurse: where were you born?
John D.: uhh, Canada ( => Canada)
Nurse: which state?
John D.: ahh, dunno ( => ??)
Nurse: which city?
John D.: Toronto, yeah! ( => Toronto)
Nurse: Your birthday?
John D.: January 3, 1966 ( => 19660103)
Nurse: City division?
John D.: cant remember, sorry. ( => ??)
Nurse: (looking at John => male => 1)
######################################
Nurse clicks the "search" button and the system creates some kind of search
keyword that looks like this:
?124??01??19660103102332345?
From somewhere in this world, the system gets a list of matching PIDs with few
basic details (with hopefully the missing state and city division info) and
clicks on the most probable PID. The system asks for a PIN number (or
password). John D enters the PIN and if correct the system retrieves the
complete data. BTW: the act of entering the PIN must be legally considered as
giving the organization the permission to retrieve the data. One can also
require John D. to sign a document for this purpose.
Oh, if Johh D. had a card that has a code on it (printed PID, barcode, digital
code, magnet strip, chip, RFID, etc) it would be much easier.
Now comes a barrage of questions and ifs and whens from you. Please post them
here.
Now, lets analyse the level of ease of remembering the parts:
ISO-country = quite easy to remember for one's own country (analogous to
telephone country code) or at least easy to find out in the internet, or the
system can easily map it like the above nurse-john scenario
(state,region,etc) = this is quite difficult to remember and to find out, but
the system can probably map it like above.
date of birth = easy
male/female = well, who does not know his own sex?
UTF code of initials = very difficult to know or remember but let the machine
do the work
> Adding that with the ISO country code at the front, there will be an
> easy to construct and easy to remember global PID. Now the question is,
> whether it is a good or bad thing for PID to be so simply constructed
> and remembered.
IMO: difficult to remember PID does not make the data more secure. This is
analogous to the concept of modern cryptography that the secrecy of the
algorithm does not make the encryption more secure. So, making the PID
difficult to remember does not offer any advantage.
On the other hand, the advantages of an easy to remember PID are quite
obvious.
Please notice:
Most of the above are based on the psychological aspects of the unique global
PID (easiness, friendliness, human efficiency) but not on the technical
aspects and questions on how to design the PID to make it the actual locator
of the database where the data is located. Any information about this aspect
is highly welcome.
Thanks,
elpidio
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