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Ellison Wants National ID Card, Powered By Oracle
cplater writes: "This article discusses Larry Ellison's call for a U.S. national ID card, and his offer to provide the software for such an initiative." There's an advertising slogan to be proud of: 'Oracle, the Big Database behind Big Brother'. Or 'Oracle, the All-Seeing Eye'. Or 'If it's good enough for Orwell, it's good enough for your company'. Update: 09/23 23:22 GMT by M : Richard Jones writes "The British Home Secretary is considering compulsory identity cards, despite the fact that such
cards would not have made any difference in the recent
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The British
have generally opposed their reintroduction since the wartime
system of identity cards was abolished in 1952."
Sounds like a fancy passport. Gee wiz, nobody will ever be able to forge that! What a complete waste of time. Why anybody listens to that Jack Ass is beyond me. He's just panicing because nobody wants to pay $8,000/cpu for his shitty database anymore.
Someone you trust is one of us.
If Larry Ellison were a lawyer, he'd be the epitome of ambulance chasers. I saw this guy on TV a day or two after the attack (or possibly even the very same day), on a news program no less, and what he had to say amounted to "I feel sorry for all those people, this is terrible, blah blah, ORACLE ROCKS!, this is such a national tragedy."
Now, I can understand that there's some unsavory individuals who, for example, looted stores near ground zero in the midst of all the chaos. But to have one of the richest men on earth hawking his warez under the guise of offering insightful commentary on how the WTC attacks affected the tech sector is just sick beyond belief.
Say what you will about evil corporate bosses, but at least Billy G had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
And now, of course, he is further attempting to turn the situation to his advantage. The man has no shame.
Here in .be(elgium we have national ID cards, from age 12, you have to have them always on you from age 16 i think.
It contains the usual stuff (name adress birthdate) and as an opt-out our version of what would be SSN#, only police and other officials can demand you to show it other people can ask it but you dont have to show it. I dont see the difference with having a driving licence on you or any other form of ID they use in the US
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It all makes sense. Just read Crisis and Leviathan. The state (aka Leviathan) has always used crisis as a way to expand. So, you can ask yourself in a time of crisis, "How will Leviathan take advantage of _this_ one?" Somehow, if you're opposed, you're unpatriotic.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I'll bet you did not have to show your SS card to the clerk. Few people ever ask to see an SSN card; they believe whatever you say.
If someone absolutely insists on getting your Social Security Number, you may want to give a fake number. There are legal penalties for providing a false number when you expect to gain some benefit from it. For example, a federal court of appeals ruled that using a false SSN to get a Driver's License violates federal law.
Making a 9-digit number up at random is a bad idea, as it may coincide with someone's real number and cause them some amount of grief. It's better to use a number like 078-05-1120, which was printed on "sample" cards inserted in thousands of new wallets sold in the 40's and 50's. It's been used so widely that both the IRS and SSA recognize it immediately as bogus, while most clerks haven't heard of it. There were at least 40 different people in the Selective Service database at one point who gave this number as their SSN. The Social Security Administration recommends that people showing Social Security cards in advertisements use numbers in the range 987-65-4320 through 987-65-4329.
There are several patterns that have never been assigned, and which therefore don't conflict with anyone's real number. They include numbers with any field all zeroes, and numbers with a first digit of 8 or 9.
Follow this link to see more details on the structure of SSNs and how they are assigned.
This is the system most likely to be expanded into a national identity check system. At the very least, we'll probably see that level of physical identification at all INS-controlled entry points.
People who know me, know that I am a techie, who is very skeptical about what he reads. People also know me as a Christian, albeit one who is not very devout. However, after reading this article I think that's going to change. It's going to change completely. This is one step closer to having, verbatim, what Revelations predicted would happen. I never, ever thought I'd bring religion into a discussion like this. I've always kept my religious views to myself, but I cannot do so any longer. This is just too creepy. I never thought, that anytime soon this would occur. I wasn't even sure if it was symbolic or if it was literal, but now that it is being seriously considered I can no longer afford to assume that it is purely symbolic. I promise you this though. I will NEVER accept such a thing. Even if I die. My soul is worth far more to me than even my life, and as it is written in Revelations, those that accept the mark are numbered as one of the beast's and will be cast away. I'm sorry if this makes me appear ignorant, but I think the time has come for me to cease my total pursuit of worldly things and start looking at what is most certainly going to come, and soon.
Maybe Ellison is the Antichrist and he's a major proponent of the mark of the beast for all transactions. Oh wait, i'm not Christian...well in that case maybe it's time to move from the US, where there are so many people that act like sheep, to New Zealand where there are more sheep than people.
A different kind of animal
This is a big topic for me...I specialize in driver's license privacy...one thing that always fascinated me was, how did it come to pass that driver's licenses got to have pictures (mandatory in all states except NJ and VT)--if people were always so against mandatory photo identification documents.
My home state of Ohio added the mandatory photograph in legislation passed in September 1967 (at the same time requiring collection of SSN's as well.) On both issues, Ohio was a little early, but a lot of states did it in the same time period (new licenses issued after Jan 1 1969 had the photo.)
In the Ohio House and Senate, the legislation for collection of SSN's passed unanimously. In the Senate, the photo requirement passed unanimously, and passed 96-4 in the House. I was intrigued--only 22 years earlier, people were booing in theatres when Nazi's would demand "the papers" of some innocent European. What changed?
Furthermore, when I looked at the committee hearing records, the state highway patrol and the department of public safety had no opinion on the legislation--it has been said over and over again, the photo was not added for any reason related to operating a motor vehicle. The non-photo license is fine as a document simply to drive a car (and NJ and VT continue to confirm that.)
The best answer is the Vietnam war--somehow there is some relation between the draft and the photo driver's license. It appears that no state had a photo license prior to Gulf of Tomkin resolution, and at least 25 did after 1972 (in fact, legislation to repeal the photo requirement in Ohio appeared only after 1973.)
So, if history can be a lesson on this issue, there is a need to be concerned. A biometrically based national photo ID will be disastrous. It has been a bad solution which may have finally found a problem.