5/8: Robert Blake's Wife/Calif DMV

Undertoad · 05-18-2001, 10:47 AM

<i>We'd rather take other steps protecting "identity theft" and take our chances with the risk that remains. (Correct me if I am wrong, Tony)</i>

No, that's exactly right.

I don't think anything else can be done. Government doesn't have a very good track record of solving problems by throwing infrastructure at them.

Most of the time, government doesn't SOLVE problems, it just MANAGES them, which half the time is worse. Look at every other major Problem and see what the government response is. Housing? Drugs? Education? Poverty? Energy? All major Problems, for which visionary "solutions" were developed, multi-billion-dollar bureaucracies set up to work the "solutions", which then either worked only part way or failed outright.

Human activity is very complex indeed. Try to rigidly control it and most of the time you either just move the problem elsewhere or actually make the problem worse. The cheapest way to address the Identity problem is probably with fingerprints. I'm not an expert but already I see trouble. With finger molds I could recreate enough of anyone's finger to get past a scanning system. Now, instead of a system that doesn't work well, we have a highly *trusted* system that doesn't work perfectly. This raises a whole new set of issues.

Look at the OJ trial. We have DNA matching that proves identity to beyond the shadow of a doubt. We have blood at the scene containing that DNA. Here is an identity system that works 100% perfectly... right? So why is OJ playing golf?

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05-18-2001, 10:47 AM	#26
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	<i>We'd rather take other steps protecting "identity theft" and take our chances with the risk that remains. (Correct me if I am wrong, Tony)</i> No, that's exactly right. I don't think anything else can be done. Government doesn't have a very good track record of solving problems by throwing infrastructure at them. Most of the time, government doesn't SOLVE problems, it just MANAGES them, which half the time is worse. Look at every other major Problem and see what the government response is. Housing? Drugs? Education? Poverty? Energy? All major Problems, for which visionary "solutions" were developed, multi-billion-dollar bureaucracies set up to work the "solutions", which then either worked only part way or failed outright. Human activity is very complex indeed. Try to rigidly control it and most of the time you either just move the problem elsewhere or actually make the problem worse. The cheapest way to address the Identity problem is probably with fingerprints. I'm not an expert but already I see trouble. With finger molds I could recreate enough of anyone's finger to get past a scanning system. Now, instead of a system that doesn't work well, we have a highly trusted system that doesn't work perfectly. This raises a whole new set of issues. Look at the OJ trial. We have DNA matching that proves identity to beyond the shadow of a doubt. We have blood at the scene containing that DNA. Here is an identity system that works 100% perfectly... right? So why is OJ playing golf?

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