Annotated Bibliography

Firstly I must say the amount of information I discovered using cross search is amazing, the vast amount of documents available online certainly surprised me. I found this both useful as I could find helpful information but also irritating, as I had to sort out everything I did find and continuously narrow down my search. Overall with a little practice Cross Search and the university library in general is a very useful resource. I have had two problems with compiling this bibliography firstly the books I was most keen to read ‘Wearable electronics & phototonics’ by Xiaoming Tao and ‘Fashionable technology: The intersection of design, fashion, science and technology’ by Sabine Seymour were out on loan from the Duncan of Jordanstone library and are not due back until December, however I have since looked at the online version of Xiaoming Tao’s book. I then went to the main library and I encountered the same problem ‘Playing the identity card: surveillance, security and identification in global perspective’ by C Bennet is also out on loan! The second problem I encountered was that one of the electronic journals I found said that the full text was available but then when I opted to view the full text it couldn’t be found, despite this I did discover a lot of potentially very useful information. Below are some of the many resources I have looked at in relation to identity theft, I have looked at electronic sources such as online journals, articles and conference notes as well as books and magazines in order to put together this bibliography. I chose to steer away from websites as I have already done quite a lot of online research and documented this previously using mindmaps etc.

Bolton, R, Hand, D (2002) Statistical fraud detection: A review, Institute of mathematical statistics

This journal goes in to depth about fraud detection, which is not necessarily the angle from which I intended to tackle the problem. My ideas were to prevent identity theft rather than detect it so this article may not be as useful as others I have looked at. This journal has a lot of figures and statistics in it this is likely to be because the journal was published by the Institute of mathematical statistics. This many statistics rather than a few key figures could over complicate my research.

Baulch, K (1994) Textiles and Technology, Cambridge; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press

This title of this book sounded promising although I found it to be very simplistic and outdated, it was of no use to me.

Braddock Clark, S, O’Mahony, M (2005) Techno textiles 2, London: Thames & Hudson

I find this book really interesting, it gives an insight in to the possibility of technological textiles for example in order to protect the wearer or store data. I was particularly interested in the electronic textiles chapter and how computers/GPS/identification etc could potentially be incorporated in to textiles. I came across a potentially interesting idea when skimming through the chapter. The idea is for a prototype of a garment to protect the wearer from high levels of pollution and also to warn them of dangerous levels of pollution. The garment is called ‘Chameleon Jacket’ and is designed by Daniel Cooper. This sparked an idea that perhaps we could get an item of our own clothing such as a jacket fitted with two panels one that glowed red when money was being removed from your bank account and one that glowed blue when money was going in to your account perhaps this could help detect identity theft?

Carleton, U (2008) Identity theft and the care of the virtual self, EBSCO Publishing

This journal article investigates what the individual can do to reduce the likelihood that they will be affected by identity theft as well as what major institutions are doing to help individuals. Unfortunately when I requested the full text for this journal it could not be found, the abstract alone will be of little use to me.

Jain, A (1999) Biometrics : personal identification in networked society, Kluwer

This is one of the earlier electronic sources I came across but after reading the abstract decided to look at some of the more up to date sources instead as in terms of technology I imagine a lot can change in 10 years also any data included would be out of date and so irrelevant now.

Jayaraman, S (2006) Intelligent textiles for personal protection and safety, IOS Press

This is an electronic book, some of which could be useful although from briefly looking at the paper much of the information seems to be looking at protecting people from terrorism. Conventional, nuclear, biological and chemical threats are all investigated and there is very little mention of identification. Overall this information is mostly irrelevant.

Sivy, M (2005) Toddler Fraud The fastest-growing group of ID theft victims is children, EBSCO Publishing

This journal particularly interested me as I had never heard of toddler fraud theft until now! It is a very short article (500 words) and not very useful to me it is basic and simply outlines the dangers of social security numbers being given to newborn babies.

Sullivan, R (2008) Can smart cards reduce payments fraud and identity theft?, EBSCO Publishing

This journal is about reducing the likelihood of criminals being able to make a payment etc with the cardholder’s personal details by means of using a ‘smart card’ in America. The card has already been introduced in some countries. The smart card would have an in-built programmed computer chip to improve security. This source looks over a range of ideas quite quickly but nothing seems to solve all security issues, but perhaps the card could improve security rather than stop identity theft. Positives and negatives of the smart card as well as the cost and other methods of improving security are mentioned. Facts and figures are included and the reliability of the figures are discussed which could be particularly useful. This source is easy to read and understand although goes in to some detail and considers a number of problems and solutions, it is likely to be quite useful to me.

Tao, X (2005) Wearable electronics & phototonics, Woodhead Publishing, Limited

This book seems to be very optimistic about the future advancement of technology although thinking about it technology does seem to develop rapidly. I think the contents of this book will be very interesting and useful to my studies. This book to me suggests anything is possible. Some of the things mentioned are electronic clothing with computer systems that act like personal assistants, clothing with sensors that can read environmental and biometric data and clothing that assist us with monitoring our health and navigation. I think the most useful chapter of the book is likely to be chapter 9 entitled ‘Wearable computing systems-electronic textiles’.

Woodward, J, Orlans, N, Higgins, P (2003) Biometrics, Osborne, McGraw-Hill

This electronic resource goes in to great detail and much of it will not be necessary, however part 2 called ‘types of biometrics’ and chapters 3-5 within part 2 could be very useful. Chapter 5 I skimmed over as it is likely to be the most valuable to me, the chapter is entitled ‘Eye biometrics and retina scanning’. Iris scanning is discussed in detail but the information is easy to understand and very useful. How iris scanning works and the technology behind it is discussed as well as the positives and negatives of iris scanning as a means of identification.

I was also interested by an advertisement I saw in the latest issue of WIRED UK for the LG watch phone (pictured below). The LG watch phone not only tells the time makes phone calls and sends texts but has Bluetooth, a camera, voice-recognition and many other features. If a phone with this much technology can be incorporated in to a watch now in years to come could an iris scanner be incorporated in to a watch so that you could access you online banking via your watch? Perhaps a far-fetched and unrealistic idea but would it increase security?