photo id ?!?!

[Skip Montanaro]

    Andrew> ... at the O'Reilly Bioinformatics conference ...  I didn't need
    Andrew> to present ID ....  During registration we talked about those
    Andrew> emails, which gave us another way to verify identity much more
    Andrew> than a piece of plastic or paper could.  I was also at the
    Andrew> biohackathon beforehand (where I knew almost everyone), which
    Andrew> provided yet another way to verify identity.

While I'm sure there were much less than the standard "six degrees of
separation" between any one of us and all the attendees at the conference,
that doesn't make it a reasonable way to confirm identity at registration.
I'm not trying to justify Foretec's use of photos to identify people, just
suggesting that web of trust may not be the best replacement.

I wonder if it had something to do with all those generals in the next room?

Skip