At the same time that the US is telling the world it will keep a military presence indefinately in Iraq, it has backed demands for the withdrawl of Russian forces from Georgia. In 2005, after three years of US military presence in the region, Bush gave an optimistic prediction:

Mr Bush said he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about Georgia’s demand for the closure of two Russian bases on its territory, expressing confidence that the two sides could agree a timetable.

Things have not quite worked out that way, of course (has anything that Bush has been confident about ever come true?) and sabres are starting to rattle just as the US has scaled up its military training and armament of Georgia under the pretense of preparing them for joining American forces in Iraq:

Russia cut transport and postal links with Georgia and expelled hundreds of Georgians after the authorities in Tbilisi briefly detained four Russian officers last month, accusing them of spying.

[…]

Mr Putin on Wednesday accused the Georgian leadership of preparing to retake the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by force.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili says his country has been punished by Moscow for its efforts to forge closer ties with the West and Nato.

So while the US is trying to embrace Georgia and provide essential military “assistance” (to help with the “international” presence in Iraq, to hunt for al Qaeda rebels in/around Chechnya, and perhaps even to secure access to Causcasus oilfields), the Russians are showing signs of wanting to maintain their influence over the region as well. Why did Bush think a timetable would be so agreeable to the Russians when he and his administration have expressed their opposition to the very concept of timetables?

Leading the charge for a timetable is Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, who complained Sunday that Rumsfeld “indicated that they really didn’t have a plan to win the peace after winning the war.”

Kennedy told reporters he believes the Bush administration should be in a position to set a timetable after last Sunday’s elections.

But Cheney reiterated the administration’s position against setting deadlines.

Actually, that should read “against setting deadlines for themselves”. In other words the Bush administration holds strong a position against being accountable, although they are pro-accountability for everyone else, especially people they disagree with. Makes sense, no?

Oh, and when will the US troops be allowed to leave Georgia? The policy of indefinite presence of US troops was explained back in 2003:

Of even more importance to GTEP’s long-term success, the Georgian Ministry of Defense has yet to develop a blueprint to govern military training following the departure of US military advisers. Thus, a schedule of training exercises, the maintenance of existing facilities, and ensuring timely pay for GTEP troops remain uncertain. At the same time, senior Defense Ministry officials continue to request additional equipment. US military officials in Tbilisi stated that, although discussions on these issues are ongoing, they are reluctant to fulfill these requests until Tbilisi develops plans for sustaining the equipment and training it already has.

Sounds all too familiar…

In discussions about how to secure information assets, the mobile phone is often an elegant solution. If you can tie the phone into the authentication process, as something you must physically have in your possession before you will be granted access, then you have an advantage over just using a PIN or password (something you know) alone.

However, at least two problems jump to mind with the mobile phone approach of using “something you have”. First, since many phones are valuable enough on their own that they are likely to be stolen. Second, many people seem to have a nasty habit of losing or damaging their cell-phones — they tend to toss them around a fair bit and the expensive devices are often, well, cheap.

A new phone in Japan has been announced by NTTDoCoMo that attempts to deal with the former issue, by introducing…another “something you have”. I’m not just talking about a battery that lasts more than a few hours, users are told to carry a separate chip that has to be near their phone for it to work. This would be a clever approach except the second issue mentioned above is still unsolved.

Anyone want to bet some users will tape the extra access device to the cell phone to make sure it is always there when they need it? I have seen so many RSA tokens glued and taped to laptops I stopped counting, so I won’t be surprised if someone releases a case for the P903i that allows you to put your token and phone together for convenience.

After all, can you imagine grabbing your phone and a new pair of pants in an emergency and then realizing that your access token is lost somewhere behind in an old pair? And if you put the token in an important place like your purse or wallet, or if you make the token desireable enough to be worn like jewelry, you have just increased the chances for the first problem (being stolen).

Where would you hide the token that would be both safe from loss, and yet easy to keep with you? Implanted under your skin? Maybe retina scans, or ear canal scans, to unlock a cell phone aren’t far away…especially considering that these phones are increasingly carrying identity/biometric and financial data.

And we have not even begun to look at the issue of securing the signal between the token and phone to prevent replay attacks…