tw, get real, the NY Times is not the only publication from which to get your information. It is a very liberal newspaper which will favor the left. Nothing wrong with that,however you should expand your horizons and read other views, more to the point, papers that have a different view then yours. But your liberal and you feel ok with All The News Fit To Print. Good luck.

waiting for an answer...

This Is an interesting practical example of arguements agains't a naional ID system (stolen off lsashdot)

heh.

this comment is seriously asked in a good nature, so don't take offense :)

jag, how do you manage to make so many typos? :) you make some of the weirdest damn typos too... maybe you've covered this before... "Professional Typoist"... but yeah... man, you've created probably 70 new words just from when i started reading :)

The example only demonstrates what would happen when ID verification is distributed to so many, insecure, ID verification agencies. Currently, the driver's license is not a secure database and never was intended. We don't have a identification database anywhere that is secure or reliable - especially when a driver's license is considered the best form of ID. This example only demonstrates how porous the current ID verification system is - in part because it was not designed nor intended to be be an ID verification system nor an ID protection system.

Currently, in a nation where ID theft is most profitable, we have no National ID verification system nor any ID protection system. Currently, the nation that most requires such a system is the United States. Currently that system is often compromised (even by college kids) simply by counterfeiting a birth certificate in order to attack that person. Currently, that victim has no defense unless he accidentally stumbles upon the crime or is prosecuted for something he did not do. Currently the only system we count on to verify a person's identity has also been sold to private mailing lists. Currently, we have no ID verification and protection system as demonstrated by a cited article entitled "Alleged ID Theft Could Affect Thousands In Oregon".

tw - i'm still waiting for an answer to the other post..

But surely teh smae weaknesses that plague something liek a licence system would no dissipear in a naitonal ID system - its jsut another database after all, overall its MORE profitable to sell.

No offense taken - i get asked alot *laughz. Don't ask me! I've never had any real typing lessons, jsut learnt as i go along (stil look at the keyboard if i want to be slightly readable. I guess things like "ot""teh""liek" etc are simply because my fingers reach that key first. Or hit the key next to it. SOme are jsut plain *wierd* One day ill learn to type....and save myself hours debugging stuff i write coz i missspelt something.

The license system is not a secure system. It is an open system accessed by any cop any time no matter the circumstances. Only recently have some jurisdictions put more restrictions on access to that database. But still all data is available for any authorized person anywhere in the nation - even now in most every cop car.

A National ID system however must be a secure database, relatively, because of its function. Not any jurisdiction, or anyone else for that matter, would have access to an NID database - since such access would compromise the purpose of such a system. Unlike driver's licenses, access by authorities should require your cooperation.

Currently any cop anywhere in the nation can access all information on your driver's license because, unlike a National ID, the database is for access by everyone in law enforcement. However a National ID verification and protection system is intended to let you prove who you is to anyone (not just a cop) AND to verify that others have not 'counterfeited' or stolen your identity.

A driver's license database and a National ID database have different security because they have different purposes. Poor security on driver's license databases is what makes this 'so called' reliable identity system so unreliable.

Currently the many who require a National ID have no viable alternative because a driver's license security is not intended to make a secure Identity system. Currently the crime of identity theft is serious and will grow like the Internet because we have no secure identity protection and verification system.

As for that other question, I don't know what it was.

..........Explain how this stops me stealing you national ID card and fucking you as badly at a national level as i could at a state level with a DriverID?

OR conterfit it? Mabyeits harder tosteal your detaisl but hte card is equally vunerable.

"are" not "is"

I guess what is massively obvious really isn't. But then friends who have so much to lose surprise me as to what they might do to protect their name and the excess costs incurred to execute that protection. IOW maybe I see now what so many here have not yet understood.

First examine a driver's license.

1) It is considered the most reliable identification verification method available even though it was never designed for that purpose. It can be counterfeited even by a college kid with some cash - as a President's daugther even proved. (BTW, what she did was a violation of a MD girl's liberties, security, and privacy. But according to Federal law, that MD has no protection from the identity theft. The MD girl cannot even sue the Bush daughter if an arrest warrant was falsely issued in TX - because like all of us, identity theft is not a crime.)

2) What proves that a license is authentic? A separate database. That separate database is only helpful to law enforcement while also being woefully and pathetically not reliable. In short, that database cannot immediately prove, even to a cop, that you really are who you say you are.

3) Identification data is easily obtained by anyone with access to just one shady cop. It is that much easier for another to counterfeit your ID or to sell your identification.

4) When you must prove who you are most - in situations that don't involve law enforcement - the license is basically useless without a confirmation database. There is no confirmation database, none planned, and according to the many here will never exist.


A National ID card:
1) It is unique only to you in that, unlike the purpose of a license, it should only identify you - no one else - using an identification system unique to you and maybe even unique to personal knowledge.

2) The card's authenticity can be immediately verified to a master database meaning that a counterfeit card is not possible. BTW, this part of the technology is so old that it was even used to protect commerical satellites.

3) Attempts to counterfeit the card or to use a duplicate, as even in that satellite security system, causes immediate denial of verification AND notifies authorities immediately of those attempts. This security is absolutely necessary for ID protection and cannot exist in a system of many independent databases.

4) Being in a master database, those features that make you unique cannot be used by anyone else without creating more security flags.

5) Unlike other identication methods, those features that make you unique - the information - must be secure - cannot be obtained from the database by others. That not only includes unique information but may also include which security features you chose to use - simply adding additional layers of security. Remember a National ID verification and protection system is something unique and never before existed in the world - because its purpose is to serve you.

Tell me of any identification that does these things. This is the framework of security that an individual requires to protect his ID. As we continue changing from an industrial based society to an information society - IOW as we continue down the innovation highway - a driver's license will never suffice. Driver's licenses are already a compromised identification system - in part because they were never intended for such functions.

In an information society, without ID verification and protection, we are all sitting ducks just waiting for a criminal to harvest our good names. As society becomes more information dominated, a need for ID verification and protection increases.

Now where in this system is there a threat to citizen's liberties, security, or privacy. The system works for the individual - not for any big corporation, big government, big crime family, etc. We don't have any identification system that works for the citizen - only systems that work for government, big business, and everyone else. What do you have to verify who you are and to protect your ID? Currently nothing. Zero. Zilch. Knot. Nada. Currently threats to your privacy, security, liberties, and rights increase every year, probably exponentially, and without any solution in sight.

So why are those threats not obvious? And why does anyone think a reliable ID verification system currently exists?

I lvoe it. Talk about doublethink. So who WIL lhave access to this database becuase you seem to be vaguely pointing that law enforcement won't. INtersting, not what I heard. If it is the case, then who does? A bunch of sysadmins and noone else? If that is not the case re the arguements i've previously stated, itsmerely selling out all vague notions of the slighest with of privicy for a system that has questionable purpose.

So you establish some massive infrastructure to authenticatre cards - again'st what? The bovious is some unique id point on the card, good luck finding a tech that can't be cracked. What stops someone doing what they do with creditcards now, hack up the reader a bit and copy the data off the card - then onto a new card, how can the database tell the differnece unless both are verified at the same time or a very different lcoations. So while it would be possible to catch someone, it would probably take a little time and data analysis with the person involved. Makes it all a bit harder but not impossible. SO in exchange for a little more security your comprimising your every action to someone - brilliant.

Imagine this:

A National ID card has a thumbprint and your signature. To use it, you sign, and your thumbprint is taken on a digital scanner. This information is compared with what's on the card. If the thumbprint is the same and the signature matches, a hash of the information on the card is sent back to the big NID database, which either says back "yep, this card is valid" or "nope, it's not." Then, access is granted. Of course, if either of the checkpoints failed at first, access would be denied, as it would if the NID database returned a "nay".

They'd also have pictures on them, I'm sure.

Not that I'm arguing for/against a National ID card. But I can see how they could be, properly implemented, a very strong safeguard against identity theft.

And the reason that this sort of thing could NOT be done with driver's licences or something similar on a local level is what?

IOW, I think all the things being asked for could be accomplished without FEDERALIZING it.

I think that Barney the purple dinosaur could do it.

Doesn't mean he could.

IOW, please back up your assertion with some suggestion of *how* we might accomplish that.

Ok - mabye it could, not that a smart enough hacker coun't crack it one way or the other, particuarly bioid is still in its infancy. Either way the arguements again'st it are as stong as ever - see abouta apge back for the long post that tw oddly chose to ignore..

I read it. I read everything in this thread.

Fact of the matter is, without it being defined, people can't attack it. It's like me having "a thing" and you saying "your thing sucks". Your argument is baseless simply because you lack the facts to back it up. You lack something to attack. It's a non-argument right now. "Properly implemented, it can work." "No, it can't."

It hasn't been defined. It's been given a name, and that's it.

Let's wait and see what the hell they come up with. And then we can support it or shoot it down.