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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."
If this happens, I'm moving to Afghanistan after we bomb it. No Taliban, and people who are already used to repressive regimes. My kindergarten teacher always said I'd make a great dictator.
--It's Pimptastic!--
At least I'd know who I was. Anytime I forgot I could look proudly down at my chest and point to my ID.
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.
We already have a national ID card, Social Security ones.
``We need a database behind that, so when you're walking into an airport and you say that you are Larry Ellison, you take that card and put it in a reader and you put your thumb down and that system confirms that this is Larry Ellison,'' he said.
People who talk about themselves in the third person are scary. It also makes him sound like Bob Dole.
And i'm still not convinced he really *IS* Larry Ellison.
First the Social Security Number which when proposed to the people of the US was promised to not be used as a unique identifier, but just a way of tracking your payments into your social security account. Try doing anything in the US now without that Unique Identification Number. Get a job, get a phone, open a bank account, get a loan.
So now this, at least they seem to be a little more up front about the purpose.
Yes, I'm outraged by the loss off life and destruction of property. But I'll be more outraged by the sheep that allow things like this to pass.
It seems clear to me that Larry Ellison is still smarting from his failed attempt to best Bill Gates in the "World's Richest Guy" competition. So now he's attempting to one-up Bill's whole Passport/Hailstorm initiative by being the gatekeeper for a much more pervasive system than Microsoft's MSN/Hotmail.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Well of course Ellison would shamelessly promote Oracle to create a National ID. If he doesn't make his money off selling the database software itself (which he claims he won't), he'll make it off consulting fees or upgrades.
we could just get passport to run over oracle with backdoor enabled encryption, all of our authentication problems would be solved! Plus we could more easily weed out those gnu hippies/terrorists !!!
We'd have the added bonus of the government supporting oracle as well as M$ leading to the grand vision of 2 monopolies, working together to rest our freedom from our possesion
Photos.
Subject says it all, big Brother is high on my list of enemies. We must be able to maintain liberty without giving up this much freedom.
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
So since we are already losing our privacy and our civil liberties, we should might as well give up the rest of them to Larry and Oracle.. good idea. This is just another prime example of how in this day and age people are willing to let their stand by as their rights vaporize before their eyes. Too many people are willing to simply succumb to the will of corporations like Oracle, that's how things like the DMCA get passed. Of course, the big corps know this and use it to their advantage.
I'd rather put up with endless "Big Brother" whining than face the consequences of no one bothering to complain.
Have a nice day to all the people in "the land of the free".
Anyone mentioning the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or the fourth crashed plane in an attempt to justify a change of law is not acting in the tradition of a free country. Using the terrorist attacks to finally get what Big Brothers always wanted should anger every free citizen.
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.
This is essentially a card which links your Social security number to your fingerprint, and sticks a picture of your face on the front for good measure. While I think having to use this in order to get into a resturaunt would be a bad thing, using it to get into airport shouldn't be bad. It would be fairly tough to forge. On the other hand, we can't legislate that the British and everyone else on the planet would have to have the same thing. Without that, any foriegner would be exempt from this sort of thing within US borders and the advantages of the added security would be minimal. This is worth taking a look at, but it better be a long, hard look that weighs the pros and cons very carefully.
Well I Want a National ID Card, Powered By MySQL.
Mr. Ellison just wants to expand his pocketbook.
Last I checked credit card numbers are not had by everyboday and are not used for foolproof id. Also, I do not thinh u need to show a social security number to get on a plane. DOB as an id, way too many people share those for it to be a useful ID.
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
...if it's optional.
One unique ID that can log me into my systems, allow people to contact me, allow me to make purchases and make the coffee machine brew exactly the way I like it? Sign me up!
This is no different than what we have now with Social Security Number, Driver's License, MasterCard, IP Address. The difference is that all these numbers aren't interchangable.
Security issues? Use PINs or biometrics. Big Brother issues? Allow users to control their database entried, or opt-out entirely.
I look forward to one card wallets.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Why wage a war to protect American freedom from terrorists, when the greatest threat to our freedom is our government itself?
Ellison states in the article:
``Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion,'' he said. ``All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy. Right now, you can go onto the Internet and get a credit report about your neighbor and find out where your neighbor works, how much they earn and if they had a late mortgage payment and tons of other information.''
The only reason this illusion still exists to the average Joe Citizen is because he/she for the most part hasn't been made aware of the fact that their privacy really is that thin. Like the "shopping cards" at Krogers that track your shopping habits and the browser cookies that track your browsing habits. If consumers were handed a sheaf of all the information that a no-name citizen can collect about them through legal means, the citizens would demand reform.
Furthermore, even if this level of invasion is justified, does Ellison really think that the terrorists' ID cards and figerprints would have denied them access to the flights that they boarded? It sounds so much like a corporate knee-jerk reaction, or an attempt to grab a share of a potentially lucrative opening market...
Need i say more? We've already got E-Z Pass, Acme Rent-A-Car's GPS systems and every "CRM" system devised in the last 5 years tracking our movements and purchases. I used to think people who claimed the government had implanted a chip in their brains to monitor their movements were crazy; maybe they were just prescient. This would be an instant challenge to hack. We already live in a country where the Pres' teenage daughters can drink on a fake ID, so there would be a big demand for faking these IDs.
Israel has a system where every person is assigned an ID number which, unlike your social security number, is a public record anyone can check. This isnt going to take away libterties from anyone It would just allow the government to do what theyre supposed to do anyway. Airplane hijackings arent the only place where this would be useful, identity fraud and underage drinking is another area (not that i think that setting the drinking age at 21 isnt counter productive and doesnt encourage bing drinking and unsafe behavior. but thats another argument entierly.) What good is a fake ID if you walk into a bar and they scan your number on your id and it comes back invalid or with someone else's information on it.
--aiee
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
42
no thank you.
exactly what I say when the grocery stores ask if I want their little tracking device.
we don't need it, we don't want it. no.
Calls for national ID cards traditionally have been met with fierce resistance from civil liberties groups, who say the cards would intrude on the privacy of Americans and allow the government to track people's movements. But Ellison said in the electronic age, little privacy is left anyway. ``Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion,'' he said. ``All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy. Right now, you can go onto the Internet and get a credit report about your neighbor and find out where your neighbor works, how much they earn and if they had a late mortgage payment and tons of other information.'' The bad thing is, he's right, of course. There's not much privacy left.
"Emacs is a great operating system -- it lacks a good editor, though" (Vi Lovers Home Page)
Agreed. I'm sure it will be free like commercial versions of Linux are free - give them the software and charge for support. There, of course, is nothing wrong with that, however, I doubt it will be completely "free" like he suggests. After all, Oracle support isn't exactly cheap either I'm sure.
I think you're right about Oracle - you might get the best performance out of Oracle, but most companioes can settle for "second best" just to save thousands of dollars. Besides, there development tools are trash. If you want good dev tools, go with SQL Server. If you want good performance at an more affordable price, how about DB2 or Postgres?
If there is any indication about their mentality, Oracle Developer is it. What a pile of donkey crap. I'd rather use Lotus Notes (okay, not really).
National ID cards (in the US, replacing the mishmash of Social Security, Driver's License, Military ID, blah blah) are actually a privacy enhancing thing, if backed up by the proper regulations.
Right now, in the US, we (ie the individual) have virtually no way of tracking who is tracing us, and identity theft is difficult to trace. There are a thousand and one different places to steal access to, any one of which can be used to forge access to another. And furthermore, there is almost no way to keep track of who accesses what information.
Even if the US put in reasonable privacy laws for the current system, keeping track of all accesses to your information is problematic, at best.
I'd be all for a National ID card, should they pass reasonable privacy laws with it. And my definition of privacy laws is this: I get to control who has access to what information, I decide what information can go in the system, I decide the granularity of info given to people, I own my information, nobody can collect information about me (unless as an unidentifiable part of an aggregate) unless I explicitly permit it, and no one can share any information about me with anyone else. There would be exceptions for court-ordered disclosures for law-enforcement, but that's it.
That system would be great: it would prevent a person with a suspended driver's license in one state from getting a new one in another, while at the same time prevent company A from discovering I like Mary Typer Moore shows by my viewing habits, then selling this info to company B.
Having a properly monitored and regulated central database of personal info is far better than the completely insecure mishmash of crap we have today.
But unless they put in those restrictions, Hell No!
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Well David Blunkett (British Home Secretary, blind at that too) can consider it all he wants. It's been considered many times before and nothing has ever happened - even in the news reports on the telly tonight the proviso "will be considered at some point but not in the near future" has always been added.
Como uno genio atrapado...
I've seen a whole slew of new commerciales trying to tie together patrotism with some silly product like a car or a bank. Now this? First off, we already have Social Security numbers. Talk about Big Brother. Having once been an MIS director in the mental health field I can tell you that the ramifications of just this unique identifier are amazing. Ever feel a little down and see a social worker? Well guess what? They have to diagnose you for the paper work nazi/bean pushers. That diagnosis will most likely be tied to your social security number (at least in some states). How nice, a unique identifier tying you to a record of mental illness. I can't imagine the consequences of Mr. Ellison's unique identifier tied in with biometrics.
And as if the ramifications of this weren't so bad the whole thing is really a sad, last ditch effort, to sell the most over-priced product (besides MS SQL Server) ever. At least Oracle has some features and a track record for stability. I think the logic behind raising the price of SQL Server was honestly to say, "if it costs as much it must be as good!" Of course, they have no proven track record of stability, features, and scalability but what the hell. I'm surprised Bill Gates and the Cisco guys haven't all piped up with outraged cries that had the WTC been properly networked with Cisco Catelysts and MSN internet access then more lives would have been saved because of better awareness of the gravity of the situation. Give me a break!
Just think of how much easier it will be to solve certain crimes in the future. Our faces will be tracked at book stores and other retail stores alike, our prints will be taken at air ports, and we'll be tracked by bloated databases.
Defense lawyers of the future will be fighting the results of SQL queries instead of forensic evidence.
Perhaps I'm in the wrong field...
Heh heh. Doubt it. :=)
------ Give a man a flame, keep him warm for a night. Set a man on fire, heat him up for life.
Their are already many countries that have identy cards. For example Palestines are not free to move without identy cards issued by Israel. Also I beleive that during the czars identy cards were required. I beleive that if identy cards are inforced here in the USA you can say that the terrorists have won. We would be creating some police state. That would not be good.
Diplomacy is the art of letting people have your way
As additional security, require the following: when you buy tickets, you must provide the number from some form of picture ID. The ID is verified, checking both that it was issued by a recognized authority, and that the name and other info match the information you provided. The picture associated with that ID would be available to the gate agent. So the picture on the ID would need to look like both the picture the gate agent had, and the id holder. Logical checks to make, outstanding warrants, wanted for questioning, linked with terrorist organizations, etc...Keep in mind that travelling on an airplane is not a right, it is a modern convenience. People without ID's (for instance small children) would travel on someone else's identification.
My other sig is extremely clever...
What this is:
A verifiable ID card.
It's just like any identification system (credit card, driver's licence, passport, etc.) except it has the ability to be instantly verified (scan bar code on ID card and you get a picture / name from the database). Yes, it has a great potential for abuse (it would be fairly simple to track usage of such a system and thus track a person's activities / whereabouts to some degree)). But this is not a NEW potential for a buse. And most heartening is that a government run system has ACCOUNTABILITY. Take out your wallet, now take a look at your credit / debit cards. Think about the fact that every purchase you've made with those is stored away in a database and accessable (and researchable!) by someone who is not directly accountable to you.
Now, think about other ways this could be used. Imagine being able to have a verifiable identification system for police, government agents and employees.
Let's not waste money on an expensive database system. Let's just find all the bad people and make them wear easily identified tags around their necks..
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
President Bush is, although popular and very smart looking on TV last week, still a corporativist. As such, he is going to be passing a lot of dough to Microsoft (he already helped them with their 'little problem'), Oracle and every company that in his itty bitty mind looks like 'the very foundation of the american economy'.
So, me coming from an infamously corporativist governed country, can testify that when government start giving this easy deals to big companies (or small ones, for that matter), it just spoils them.
It is an uncouncios way to control their innovation as the companies include in their strategy the weight of this new...er...say.... "partner".
Now, this aint gonna do no good to the companies in the techonologicall way. Sure, it'll make them lots of cash, but their innovation will slow down as they give priority to the enormous requirements of this big ass systems that, in the end, wont do to much good either 'cause as soon as the U.S. can retake its normal way of life all this kind of bulshit systems will be thrown out the recycle bin.
So, I say someone has gotta pick up the ball for innovation, or at least take advantage of the small breath this companies will take. It will make them less competitive, it will slow their pace, they wont see the creation of new technology as important as satisfying big brother's cries for help.
So this is our time all over again, I think this companies grip in some markets will loosen because the contraction in the economy will make those markets smaller, and again, the government becomes a strong ally, but a strong client as well (and suits know thats never good). So, all geeks should be working twice as hard to make their stuff work and present it as a real option to the market, that will perceive by itself how techonology (for them) isnt moving as fast as it used to.
Alex
NO SIG
To be perfectly honest, Oracle does not scale well into that range of database. We are talking about 300 million people now, and it will grow to 500 million soon enough. That's the minimum number of records (it'll be much higher when other tables and relations are formed). So there are billions of records (maybe trillions within a few years of use as we would need audit trails on something like this), and the number of transactions it would need to support per second would be astounding. How many people are pulled over for just traffic offenses every second? Let us not forget reports, data mining (why else would you use a database rather than just a set of cards?), and other quesries.
Sorry, I don't think Oracle is upto the task of being Big Brother's best clerk.
First off we already have an ID card. Its called a Social Security (or Social Insurance for us Canuck's). Larry is simply suggesting we add a picture and some sort of biometric id. The big problem I see with this system is the dependance on biometics. Biometic ID's are flawed because your can't revoke your key. Someone steals your credit card number, you get a new one. Someone breaks into the 'Master' Oracle DB and steals your digital thumb print. What are your going to do? Grow a new thumb???
Exactly what is the problem with national id cards? Civil liberties people are complaining, here and in the article, but it all seems like vague complaints of "big brother". There one complaint I saw was that this could allow people to be tracked. Well, unless you live in a unabomber shack, you can be tracked through your credit cards, airplane tickets, car rentals, etc.
The key to this system is the fingerprint authentication, something that at the least should be done with passports.
We are in the stone ages when it comes to this stuff. This wouldn't stop the WTC tragedy, since the terrorists were using foreign passports, but I could easily concieve a system where authenticated people with national id cards would go through a routine security and people without the id cards could go through a stricter security examination. Better yet, give foreigners a temporary id card (once again authenticated by fingerprints).
Biometrics is the key though. It's the most practical way to authenticate your identity.
gutterface
He's taking advantage of a horrible terrorist attack in order to hawk his wares. Yes, he will supply the database for free but he was rather mum about the technical support costs...
I have a way for him to help the cause and spend some money instead. He could fund a counter-terrorist terrorist group. For some reason, he seems like the type of person to whom this kind of idea would appeal.
A herd, as everyone knows, is composed of creatures deprived of speech and with fairly weak sphincters. It is a proven fact, moreover, that in times of confusion, the herd prefers servitude to disorder. Which is why those who behave like crazed nanny goats do not have leaders but great goatish assholes at their head. Something in this species must be contagious, since it is so common in the human herd to find someone who can lead the masses to the edge of the reef and, once there, make them jump into the water. Unless he decides to destroy a civilization, which is something he does fairly frequently.
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Is that you do not even NEED identification to travel on airlines. It's acutally ILLEGAL for them to refuse to let you fly if you don't provide ID.
Now.. most clerks will at first say 'but you have to sir'. But if you check with their supervisor, you will find that's not the case. FAA regulations clearly state what to do if a person doesn't have state-given identification.. and the only differences are in how they handle your baggage (making sure you are on the plane before putting your bag on the plane, in some cases, inspecting the bag thoroughly)
I can see it now: mandatory ID for flying. So the government knows who and where you are at all times. Next you'll need ID to cross state lines... or board a bus, eventually to buy groceries.
John Walker, founder of Autodesk, has had an insightful, if perhaps dystopian, essay [fourmilab.ch] on this topic on his web site [fourmilab.ch] for some time.
He describes a hypothetical ``Unicard'' (universal ID card) that one might see as an advanced version of the card Ellison proposes and the future society that might result from its implementation.
Abstract:
Read the essay, then reconsider Ellison's proposal. Right now, yes, we have near-universal identification cards, but we have lots of near-univeral cards, so no one organization has the complete picture--and the resulting complete control.
Am I wrong, but weren't the people who hijacked the planes NOT citizens of the US? In any case, international flights are still a problem. Perhaps Oracle would like to do this on a worldwide level? What additional security does this provide? If this were expressed as a ratio of security gained against privacy lost, it'd be as close to zero as makes no odds....
http://angryee.blogspot.com
We will not charge for the software, however, there will be a 15 cent charge per user plus an additional 25 cent charge for deducting the 15 cent charge from your bank account. 15% of this will go to the make Lary Ellison richer than Bill gates fund.
It boggles the mind how somebody so obtuse could become so wealthy. Larry, pull your head out of your nether orfice and think:
We already have many forms of identification. ID's which can easily be counterfited. How many fake driver's licenses, Passports, and credit cards are there in circulation now? How in your wildest dreams do you think you will be able to prevent counterfitting your new "Big brother" ID?
Everyone's vitals presumably will be stored in a giant database. What happens when the database is hacked and Abdul's fingerprints are matched with his newly counterfitted ID? That's right, he breezes right through security and we're right back to square one again! A cool hack would be to replace Dubya's prints with ohhh say...Ted Kazinski's...
Besides, in any case you dumb shit, all the terrorists have to do is keep their noses clean! That's right, come to the country and apply for one of these silly ID's..."got any priors?...No?...here you are Mr Atta!" Make their first offense the big one and what good will the silly ID do? Absolutely Jack Shit! What about foreign nationals? Are they going to be issued temporary cards for the duration of their stay? Based on what? What they disclose at the point of entry? This is a non-starter.
You really want to do your bit to help prevent terrorism Larry? Why don't you take a couple of your billions and endow a few schools in third-world countries? Maybe through education the worlds desperate will learn how to escape from their desperate situations and they will be less likely to commit desperate acts.
You're using her as bait, Master!
``Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion,'' he said. ``All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy. Right now, you can go onto the Internet and get a credit report about your neighbor and find out where your neighbor works, how much they earn and if they had a late mortgage payment and tons of other information.''
Getting credit reports is a far cry from having a system in place to fingerprint every American and track all of their movements.
Yes, he's only talking about airports, but that would change VERY quickly once the system is in place.
to the fact that there are several thousand people who are without homes in the Battery Park City area. Perhaps you didn't realize that they were allowed 15 minutes to recover all their personal belongings, and most of them were covered with sooty sludge with the windows being long gone and all (no pun intended).
Enough with the anti-Microsoft rhetoric. At least in this case they were doing something meaningful (giving the temporarily homeless temporary clothing at little to no cost to them). Contrast this with Ellison and his ORACLE ROCKS! message, and National ID propaganda.
..no longer applies. Instead please use references to the WTC attacks.
It's not clear to me that it "would not have made any difference." It would be a lot harder for these people to purchase airline tickets if they had to show IDs that said their visas were expired. Two of them were, in fact, wanted for questioning by the FBI.
There is some potential for abuse with national ID cards, but we shouldn't exaggerate too much. I believe almost all western European countries already have them and they are not totalitarian regimes.
say on a sweater on their chests? Thanks Hawthorne!
But with larger societies it's hard to enforce so how about just permanently tattooing or disfiguring them? Maybe give them ID collars around their necks that explode if tampered with?
One strike and you're out!
we get frothing at the mouth from unbathed hippies
Fuck you and your pompous self-importance. Your generalizations do wonders for civil discourse.
Personally, I'm against 24/7 surveillance and tracking. I don't really see how anyone could want the government to have this much power, but if you're willing to live with it, go ahead and volunteer.
Forget Oracle- why doesn't Microsoft just expand Passport? I'm sure they'd be more than happy to take care of this for us.
"It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man."
How can you claim that ID cards would not have made a difference? Several terrorists in the recent events in New York and Washington seem to have made use of false ID's. Ask yourself what the use is of carrying an ID card. You have to show you are 21 to buy alcohol (in america). You have to show that the visum in your passport is valid. You have to verify that you are the person you claim to be for several types of money transactions (using your credit card, writing a check, etc).
Age verification is a simple one, the only thing you need to be sure of is that the ID card is valid (not falsified). The visas get to be trickier because you introduce new documents that themselves need to be checked if they are valid. With the money transactions I need to prove who I am so that a computer system can do a background check to see if my credit is ok.
The usefullness of an ID card is easy to see. Taking it one step further and making the card itself harder to falsify by adding thumbprints or retina scans (europe) seems to be a reasonable step. The problem lies with the database of information that is tapped into when I present my ID. I myself am actually in favor of such a system in theory. It could have easily prevented the recent terrorist attacks because the FBI (or whatever other appropriate inteligence agency) seemed to be aware that these people had some form of tie with a known terrorist organisation and that 'should' have triggerd the computer systems when they boarded the airplanes in groups.
What I really do NOT like is Larry E. turning this serious matter into a quick promo trip for his company. A company I would not trust with the design for a system that holds all the personal and private information that can be gathered about myself. This discussion should quickly lead to a feasability studie about such a database.
* Can it be designed safe and sound?
* Can we prevent it from being hacked?
* No really?
* Can we think of organizations that we trust to have access to this information?
* Is there a way to verify that only the things that should be stored are being stored?
...but I came up with this idea as well, after considering all the options. It's the only real way to insure security in America today. I considered it in the same light that ebay ranks sellers on their service. People get extra credit for being good merchants, and buyers are less reluctant to send a paypal check to them, relying on the credit to assure them they'll get their stuff.
In the same manner, we might be able to flash such a card in the airport and not have so much hassle getting on the plane. And someone who doesn't have one would be subject to more intense 'scrutiny'.
The downside, of course, is - as Ellison puts it - we would have to accept the limited measure of privacy we probably already have. But the positives might outweigh the negatives.
I would allow it if it were completely voluntary. I know, I know, it really wouldn't be voluntary if you couldn't get on a plane without one, but I don't know how to make this place safe, and there don't seem to be too many alternatives at this point.
We are truly being attacked from all sides, here, from within and without. If this tragedy has made hundreds more would-be martyrs and suicide bombers out of our enemy, then terrorism might become more commonplace in America. Is it not already a daily part of life in Israel, Northern Ireland, and England? It seems to me that we could see such mundane but equally terrifying events as maniacal suicidal guys in cars mowing down people at a park or a beach, running through shopping centers with guns, all sorts of exploitations of our complex and highly-technological society.
Of course, the concept of America as the shining beacon of Freedom, Justice, and Liberty would be gone. It would be a frank admission that such ideals can't work in this day and age.
I'm really torn on this subject, and I know that my 'devil's advocate' position supporting those cards is probably not popular, and certainly in opposition to the idealism I had in my younger days; but it's possible that I hadn't thought it out back then.
It's not so much fun being an American anymore...
I truly welcome your opposing viewpoint here, but please, if you do respond to this, tell me 1) are there viable alternatives to this that will stop the terrorist threat (um, beyond 'threat', really...), and 2) what, in combination with reduced surveillance, would reduce terrorism? Besides having a 'non-corporativist' government, of course. We suspect that might work, if we could only get ourselves to try that.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
While I am whole heartedly against the idea of ID cards that hit a database with _ALL_ my information I wouldn't mind one for things only I wish to have public.
For instance say I am filling out paperwork at the DMV, College, or wherever. I want to be able to give them a number and have them fill out 90% of the paperwork for me from a central source. Then I would just fill in the sensitive information SS #, Name, Employer, etc.
If we could ever trust a system like this is debatable. You would have to pass serious legislation limiting it and doing so would be quite difficult considering the lobbying companies would do to get information added to it. But it is an idea.
Most Americans don't understand their rights with respect to their SSN. They freely give it when they don't have to. As for me, I almost always refuse to give it unless it's for a tax-related deal (like setting up a bank account that pays interest, brokerage account, etc.). I invariably get dumbfounded looks and a conversation with "the manager" who has to approve my opening an account / applying / whatever without giving it.
A separate system for ID (vs. tax) like you talk about the French having sounds more ideal, but the amount of education and administrative overhead would be high.
At least we could probably make it harder to forge than a Yemeni passport. But with our track record on currency...
The Government, as evil as it can be and usually is, with the DCMA and SSSCA and other such laws, actually might have a good point here. Make the records only available to law enforcement, and only for authentication and transportation records, and purchases of weapons and such, and you'd have a good system.
Because the government would be running it, there is a higher chanec that they wouldn't sell your personal information to another company, and because the government is accountable to the people they control (at least in our nation), it would be somewhat "user-controlled."
I think this could be used to actually enhance privacy. U.S. Federal ID card, bar code with vitals, linked to your bank account, and a photo ID. Make card updating mandatory every 12 months so the photo stays current, and you'd be good to go. The worst thing is a photo ID with a picture that is 4 years old when the person has changed their hair style and got contacts now in stead of glasses...It's almost not the same person any more.
Ok, help me out here. What's so bad about having a national ID card? As it stands now, there's no really good way to verify someone's identity. There are probably dozens of Aaron St.John's out there, and at least a couple Aaron Michael St.John's. Odds are that there is probably an Aaron St.John or two with my birthdate as well. If I had a unique ID number, it would be real easy to tell me apart from the other Aaron St.Johns, especially the criminals Aaron St.Johns, the Aaron St.Johns not elligible to work in America, and the wanted Aaron St.Johns.
Maybe I'm the only one who just doesn't see why having some sort of unique ID makes us into opressed citizens. Which freedom, exactly, would we be losing here?
Stupid like a fox!
Using SSN as a common identifier to link up who you are with your credit history, etc. is just a fast, low-cost way of using a common key to join the data. You can do this manually ("references"), but it just costs more due to the manual verification process involved.
Even if you automated it (like the credit agencies to do determine "who you are" in the absence of SSN), it would have some probability of being correct, and the remaining probability that it is incorrect is risk to the creditor, and would be priced into the good / service / credit you were attempting to access.
I think the idea is a good one, don't get me wrong, but I think realistically it would just COST more to implement. Just a consideration...
1> A "Bad Thing" (tm)
2> A "Good Thing" (tm)
3> Supposed to help us fight terrorism
4> Supposed to work?
5> any different from State IDs?
6> any different from passports?
Regarding #5 I know what a passport is used for, but in terms of identification... what's the difference?
You guys are a bunch of pansies! Grow some balls and fight your enemies instead of practicing even more isolationist ideas (which won't work, btw).
For real, you guys are talking about some serious end-of-time, mark-of-the-beast type shit. I'm going to canada, because there sure as hell won't be another revolution here in the U.S.A. anytime soon. Give up your freedom to a bunch of politicians? You guys should be shot.
Protector of Capitalist views,
Meorah
The USA is owned by us, its citizens. The USA is our property and our place of business. Of course, we need controls on our place of business. Just as many businesses require locks on their doors and even far more sophisticated security devices, such as smart cards, etc we too, need sophisticated security controls.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Perhaps you missed the line in the article about having to carry said ID cards at all times and present them to police on demand? In other words, leaving the house without your card could very well be grounds for imprisonment. It isn't the number that disturbs people, it's the presenting on demand and tracking in a database part. This brings to mind images of SS officers demanding "Let me see your papers." Preventing facsism isn't whining, it's being a good citizen.
Um.. they are.
I live in the UK, and the story above reads:-
The British Home Secretary is considering compulsory identity cards
I'm not actually frothing at the mouth about it though (well, not quite like you seem to be).
been ID'ed doing nothing wrong, out at night, not driving etc. The policeman wanted to see "my ID" and I had none on me. He informed me that I was required by law to have it on me (and I am not), and I (diplomatically) informed him of this. As a result I was basically detained and threatened a bit ("You want to go to jail, son?") before being let go.
Just because you have legal rights doesn't mean an ignorant fool with a badge and a gun can't essentially take them away from you. One problem with Ellison's types of proposals is that the rights to privacy require a large amount of education throughout the law enforcement community (think "Miranda").
``We need a database behind that, so when you're walking into an airport and you say that you are Larry Ellison, you take that card and put it in a reader and you put your thumb down and that system confirms that this is Larry Ellison,'' he said.
Ok, Larry, and what happens when someone steals your card and your thumbprint?
This is reactionary and stupid. A national ID card will only promote a police state, and if that happens, the terrorists have already won.
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
I say screw the database idea, why don't we just tattoo a unique number on our chests or hands?
Also book burning might be a good idea.
I for one am glad this mouth-frothing element is present. I would start worrying if it began to disappear, if we all felt so comfortable in our privacy that we never dripped saliva...
The coolest voice ever.
He really got the jump on Microsoft!
"Hey, baby, what's your GUID?"
It's complacency that burned us once and as much as we want to go back to our complacent little sheep lifestyles, that is no longer an option! These gimmicks are trying to restore a happy illusion that we're safe again and can go back to our complacent little lives, but even if they succeed for a few years, they will ultimately guarantee another tragedy like this down the road, when someone figures out how to defeat the measures.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...then it is guaranteed to work here. Every one knows that movies are make believe and that there is no way someone could bypass this method of authorization.
So... Do you have a drivers lisence?
If you're looking for more information, you can just go to aclu.org and search for "national id" you'll find plenty of information about why they are a very bad idea....
What?
Only a few months ago the Taliban proposed that non-Muslims wear some identification such as a colored scarf or some card ID, so the religious police knew not to brutally enforce their religious law. Western nations howled, pointing to the Nazis requiring pink symbols for homosexuals, star of David emblems for Jews.
Now conservatives as well as Ellison propose that a national ID system would be better than a racial profiling system that discriminates against Arab-Americans.
Of course, if it were to be effective then US would have to issue them to illegal aliens, as North Carolina and Tennessee do. Or send the aliens home and do the dirty work ourselves.
Yeah, but the more standardized instituions are on their ID system, the easier it is for Big Bro to look up personal information. Just think of a truely wired world where Family Video, the library, radio shack, etc. all used the same ID numbers. The FBI could get a search warrant for any database that had your ID in it. They could know everything you have done at any time... Right now, lots of places use their own ID. I know Family Video uses phone numbers as their ID number, and I bet Radio Shack does too. The phone company uses a composite key consisting of a combination of your phone number and some other numbers.
I value my privacy. I have no reason to be tracked down right now, but I like to think I could disappear if I wanted to.
If people have rights, and know about them, and can't be legally coerced to give them up, the situation would be different. If the video store had asked you "How many kids do you have? How much money do you make?" -- you'd tell them where to stick it. You'd need privacy statues that guaranteed you didn't have to give up your ID except in certain situations. Law enforcement would have to know what those are, as well (Think "Miranda").
I see a National ID as a potential good thing, but it would require lots of education of the US population, as well as of law enforcement. Otherwise (like the SSN is) it could be a bad thing.
Because a National ID would be a convenient key to link together your various accounts and dealings (as SSN is today), there would have to be specific legislation forbidding its use in almost all cases, and again extensive education of law enforcement, businesses, and the public about the public's privacy rights.
Unless legally forbidden, businesses would absolutely ask you for that National ID to tie your records together, since a more complete picture of you reduces their risk in extending you credit / trust (which the video store is doing). Even if it were legally forbidden for them to ask you to provide this National ID #, businesses woudl charge you slightly higher prices for things, to account for the business' increased risk in dealing with you.
In the video store case, their alternative would be to charge you more, or require you to put down a deposit on the video that you'd get back when you returned the video. Anyone else remember when the video stores used this form of secured credit (circa 1985)?
>> who think the government is out to tag 'n bag all of us
Governments throughout history have taged 'n bagged their citizens. Anyone who thinks the American government is any better is seriously deluding themselves.
The last thing I was is to give my valuable data to anyone else to hold. Put it on a RFI chip and inject it. It will hold more data than a tatto and look better to (I wonder what stretch makes wold do to a 3d barcode).
Then airlines would only need to install recievers in the seats (13a practices an unpopular faith, No plane ride for you).
If it's good enough for my dog its good enough for me. If you want the ultimate in security add DNA encoder so the chip wipes upon removal (dead or alive).
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Greg Himowitz, analyst / talking head on CNBC, was livid with Oracle for announcing earnings while people were lying dead in the rubble. The other charlatan talking heads seemed to concur.
Larry Ellison is a dick.
If there were a national card required for all plane/train/bus/boat tickets, that wouldn't be much different than the current situation where if you don't pay be credit card (in which case they presumably have ID'd you), it's supposed to be suspicious enough for them to check you out (it wasn't for two of the hijackers - you can bet it is now).
Also, require the card for all car purchases and rentals. Once you have a car, you can go where you like without having to flash the card at checkpoints - but then they can already scan your license plates....
Of course, the card would have to contain a retinal scan or somesuch. And you'd have to have safeguards about a great many situations where it would be illegal to require it. So you could still go shopping in stores or clubs some consider politically or religiously incorrect without your identity being compromised at all. You just couldn't travel any great distance without leaving a clear record of who you are when you obtain that seat to travel in.
This targeted transport identity card wouldn't take any freedom I care about, but would really restrict the capabilities of any plots that require travelling without leaving traces. It would also mean that of the 7 million foreigners who have overstayed their temporary visas (according to 60 Minutes tonight) there'd be some much better clues on where to track them to to get their visa situations resolved.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
National identification cards have nothing to do with fighting terrorism or crime. Like all other legislation, a national identification system, if passed, would only affect honest people. Criminals and terrorists would find ways around the system, such as counterfeiting or hacking the database. Government clerks could be tricked--or bribed--into placing false information in the database. Criminals could even stay clean long enough to get into government offices, only to help other criminals get false IDs and database records. There are workarounds to every law, and so anytime a new law is created, an infinite amount of new troubles are created as well.
Now let's talk about the Social Security Number mentioned by several folks. Before I say this, I am not a lawyer, but this information is the result of a LOT of reading. Ask an expert in this complicated field before believing anything I'm saying here...
The SSN was originally a simple account number, yet it is now used as a national identification number by federal and state government agencies and corporations. (Example: I think every state requires your SSN before they issue a drivers license.)
By the way, the issues mentioned here about SSN and employment are a big misunderstanding: Your employer has no business knowing your SSN, as they are not required to act as a free agent to the IRS or to Social Security. Nearly all companies do because they don't know this, or wish to avoid possible troubles with the IRS. There are companies out there that don't withhold payments to you.(See Arrow Custom Plastics' "Withholding Statement.") Also, check out the Yahoo! group: legality-of-income-tax at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/legality-of-income-t ax/.)
Unbeknownst to most Americans, the IRS is a voluntary system--enforced only because of contract law! Nearly all Americans have no clue what their signature means on the social security form, or on the IRS forms they mail to the government every year. These forms are contracts, and by signing them, you are voluntarily agreeing to abide by various sections of government code which, as far as I understand are not positive law. (The constitutional amendment was never ratified!) The whole system operates on smoke and mirrors, as most Americans simply aren't aware of what's going on. Do you honestly want to give the government more power to track you around? My suggestion: the various government agencies should start doing their current jobs, before inventing new ways to bury themselves in work.
Don't misunderstand me: I love this country. I pay my taxes. I'm pissed off about what happened on the 11th and I certainly hope the government gets the "folks" who committed these atrocities, but when it comes to big-brother type things that won't help prevent another disaster, I say go back and reread 1984 before you take these matters so lightly.
Just my $.02.
ever since I saw 'Larry Ellison piloting MIG-21', the diagnose was clear.
I bet 'religion' should be part of the mandatory ID card. The appropriate points will be given to each religion. Atheists will get 0 points. The less points the more security risk.
"Excuss me Mr. Terrorist, do you have your ID card with you?"
.45 Semi-auto.
"Oh, you aren't from the U.S., ok then you don't need an ID card, come on in!"
Yeah, this is going to work. They can come to my house to issue my ID card and they'll meet the business end of my Glock
Didn't IBM sell ID carding systems to the Nazis? It's one of the reasons the Nazi's were so effectuve at tracking down Jews, IIRC. I wonder how a National ID is any different.
There is no way that a National ID would have prevented 18 *foreigners* from boarding planes and whacking them into buildings. Sorry Larry.
Oohh yeah, can I have mine imprinted with 666 too? Maybe the end really is near?
pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
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.
Larry says
`Let me ask you. There are two different airlines. Airline A says before you board that airplane you prove you are who you say you are. Airline B, no problem. Anyone who wants the price of a ticket, they can go on that airline. Which airplane do you get on?''
I know Larry thinks this is a rhetorical question to which A is the obvious answer, but personally, if it would make things faster and less bureaucratic, I'd go with B myself. The simple fact is that hijacking is a really, really, really, infrequent occassion. There are far more probable ways to get yourself killed that merit more worry.
I for one think that this is a bad idea. I think that such a federally mandated ID card would really hurt the alcohol industry. After all, all the under age college students will no longer be able to purchase alcohol with horribly faked out of state ID's. Ellison is the devil.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
http://www.drudgereport.com/id.htm at The DrudgeReport says that the Whitehouse is reluctant to make such a move, although the Brits are all for Blair's voluntary (read compulsory) cards.
If I could get rid of my SS card, Passport, Driver's License, Birth Certificate, Student ID, etc. and only need 1 card w/ no thumbprint and no DNA, then I suppose it's alright.
Oh well. As far as Ellison's concerned, I know what company I won't be buying from. Hell, I won't even work for a company that uses Oracle software...if I can find one.
Hmmm...perhaps they could embed this number into a transponder that could be inserted into my forehead or arm, so that I can be easily identified simply by walking by a sensor. Wouldn't that be grand? MAC machines would know who you are the moment you walk up to them...universal computer access...no more library cards. What a candy coated poison apple...
And now for something completely different...a man with three buttocks.
come on guys think about it we already have on...
you have a social security card and a drivers license.... and newer drivers liciences have magantetic strips that store data...
If not Oracle, then Microsoft. I'm sure you will be happy trusting your identification to SQL Server and passport.com
well i think its like this.
Johnny American: "Im scared!"
US Govmt: "Here, hold this card - it says you're american!"
Johnny: "Will this make me safe, and allow me to retain my illusions of life so that I can go on with my meaningless existance?"
US Govmt: "Of course!"
Johnny: "Schweet. Safety."
Yeah, it's getting old to say it... but hot damn... you'd think people would start, you know, checking against that book at least...
-Elendale
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
it's a thumbprint scanner. it comes up on the display. no idea what they use it for.
-
14 And it misleads those who dwell on the earth, because of the signs that were granted it to perform in the sight of the wild beast, while it tells those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the wild beast that had the sword-stroke and yet revived. 15 And there was granted it to give breath to the image of the wild beast, so that the image of the wild beast should both speak and cause to be killed all those who would not in any way worship the image of the wild beast.
16 And it puts under compulsion all persons, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the slaves, that they should give these a mark in their right hand or upon their forehead, 17 and that nobody might be able to buy or sell except a person having the mark, the name of the wild beast or the number of its name. 18 Here is where wisdom comes in: Let the one that has intelligence calculate the number of the wild beast, for it is a man's number; and its number is six hundred and sixty-six.
REV 13:14-18
people from smuggling knives onto planes, kicking in the door to the cockpit and taking over the controls after killing the pilots.
Or maybe I'm missing something.
What we really need now, to stop any counterfeit ID's, is to have an implantable ID chip (mark of the beast), so that you can neither buy or sell with it.
</sarcasm>
NOTICE: In case this actually does happen, I will cease to exist.
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
The man said it: When they start handing out compulsory, national IDs, it's time to leave.
meh.
Where I live, we have had a card like that for years, but I fail to see how that would prevent terrorists from doing their thing. Normally these ID cards are not given to people before they become a citizen of the country. But still in this case, it is clear that someone need to merge their databases to get the full picture of what is going on.
barcode our foreheads and implant the tracking chips and get the whole thing over with
Now bare with me a bit before selecting "Offtopic"...
There's an old story about a man and a woman hanging out in a really cool garden where they were well fed and completely protected 24/7. Their landlord was doing all the work keeping the bad guys out and making sure there's always enough food and fun things for the lucky couple to indulge in. The only rule was that they could not try to find out what their landlord was doing. Eventually, one of the happy animals in the garden started getting the woman all worked up wondering what the landlord did when he was away. Soon he made her so curious about her landlord's modous operandi, she grabbed her man and together they read their landlord's "how-to" book. quickly their awareness of their world grew. When the landlord found this out he was furious, and a bit hurt that his beloved tenants we're not enjoying what he had made for them but rather they wanted to know how he was doing it. "Maybe", he thought, "they're trying to get rid of me and do it all themselves." So, the landlord kicked the two pariahs out of his garden forever. The couple, now cold and hungry but completely aware stood awestruck outside of the garden gates. The first thing they realized with their new awareness was that they had it so much better inside and lamented their curiosity. Alas, no remorse or longing would open the gates and they lived sorrowfully ever after.
Could it be that this age-old story can be reapplied to us today? Were we happier (as a society, not as individuals) before we (US i.e. most of the people who read slashdot) put up the Internet and gave hundreds of millions of people various how-to books? Are today's events partially our doing? And are did we give everyone front row seats to help realize what's going on?
<disclaimer>this is not bible thumping. the writer suggests only reading the bible for pure entertainment from some pretty cool stories. the writer suggests to never take the stories themselves seriously. </disclaimer>
"Wherever you go, Oracle will be there."
Haunting, isn't it?
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
We've got at least two thousand years of prior art on this one. Well, this just fits in with the times now doesn't it. LOL. :P
Revelation 13/17
so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
"Thou shalt not read Revelation unless thou art truly convinced that this is the time of Jesus gettin' jiggy wit it, for it shall scare the p-waddin' out of you. (Empahsis ALL MINE, EVERYWHERE)" LOL. Or maybe not LOL. Who knows. IT just ain't cool.
Maybe someone should take that information which Larry thinks the government should have, and pretend to be Larry Ellison. Oh, wait, it's already been done...
Sure, we'll provide the server software. Oh? GMAC wants to jack into it? Guess you'll be client software, huh?
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
I think this a great idea ! First we can introduce OracleID 2001 which will be free to all US Citizens. After a suitable period has elapsed - say 12 months - everybody will be asked toi upgrade to OracleID 2002. This will have additional features that 80% of the opulation will never use but it will require a larger wallet or purse to store it in. Periodically, 250 million people will get letters or e-mails from Oracle and it's partners asking them if they wish to purchase other Oracle products. This will cause both the Internet to come under stress and the US Postal Service, not to mention traffic to call centres, etc, etc. Occasionally, say every 3 months, 250 million people will be forced to reboot their cards. Upon power up they will find all manner of details will have changed including their date of birth, address, mother's maiden name. Yes all in all, Larry has to be congratulated in giving us all a good belly laugh in these truly testing times.
Nedster. There's nothing wrong with being vulgar so long as you know you are being vulgar.
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it to tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge 1778
Today, my son's friend paid us a visit and told us a story that chilled me to the bone. He was driving on a road adjacent to the local Airforce base, playing his stereo loudly, when he was pulled over by the base MPs. He was immediately surrounded by four men in fatigues carrying M-16s, and told to open his trunk "because it was rattling". The kid is a teenager, a real whitebread, all-american looking kid driving the car that his daddy bought him. Needless to say, he was terrified, and did everything he was asked to do, submitting to a full search, apparently because he was playing his music loudly.
I say, why bother with a national ID card, why not just tattoo an ID number on everyone's arm and get it over with. Unless we start taking to the streets real soon, stick a fork in us, we're done.
Wasn't there a part in that movie where a Soviet is in awe over how he can move to montana without asking for aproval or being tracked? I hope we don't become a Stallinized Republic.
We know where your going today.
This is not BS, i am pretty sure Ellison went and bought himself a MIG.(!)
he flys in a MIG... no wonder he wants to get authentication pushed through a national database... 'acause... you know... it's life during wartime... and what if someone was to hack his trasnponder... not that anyone should... no.
Passport is an online service that makes it possible for you to use your e-mail address and a single password to sign in--securely--to any Passport participating Web site or service.
Welcome to the United Socialist States of America.
Bit I say in the electronic age, little security is left anyway. This security we're concerned about is largely an illusion. All we have to give up is the illusion of privacy to gain the illusion of security.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
You slashdotters hate the 'monopoly' microsoft formed, but I bet a lot of you will salivate over the monopoly that will be created and enforced by the federal government if this comes true.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
And thank goodness there are those who believe everything they see.
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.
Without discussing the morality of this here just what would be the best technical solution and what benifits would it achieve.
Store DNA profile, fingerprints, photos etc of all people in your country.
Implant id tags in all citizens so they can be tracked, like the electronic dog tags.
Place monitors everywhere so everyones every movement and purchase is monitored and tag vs biometrics are checked to make identity theft difficult.
First off this will not prevent crime, it will allow you to find the culprit however very rapidly which is kinda pointless if they are a suicide bomber.
It will allow tracking of associates quickly of an attacker and arrest of criminals with great rapidity. eg: Id vs number dont match, no identity, wanted identity are all crimes resulting in arrest.
Having the national Big Brother database running on Oracle would be a huge bee in Microsoft's bonnet. Perhaps they should go for it just on that basis.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Nifty Pic
That pic had the caption:
'Police held two men at gun point in New Jersey after a bus driver reported they spoke, "little English," and seemed "suspicious."'
The read this quote from MSNBC
DAILY LIFE IS CHANGING
Daily life in America is likely to change as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks -- with the newly created Office of Homeland Security likely to play a role in those changes, current and former government officials said.
"I think in order to defend the homeland, we're going to need more information about virtually every citizen. So we're going to have more databanks and databases that have information about us,"
INCREASED SURVEILLANCE
Even as Americans returned to their normal pursuits, surveillance was increased. For example, there were car inspections at the Mets-Braves baseball game at Shea Stadium Friday night -- the first major outdoor sporting event in the New York area since the attacks.
Here is a copy of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 second draft.
As well as the "Mobilization Against Terrorism Act".
All I can say is, be careful what you wish for and what saying "Oh whats a little ID card."
It won't stop there.
Don't you mean "as we peek!"?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Say what you will about evil corporate bosses, but at least Billy G had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
Here's a survey. We're about to elect ruler of the world. The three candidates are 1) Bill Gates, 2) Larry Ellison, or 3) Scott McNealy. Who do you pick?
Personally, I would pick Gates. Microsoft notwithstanding, he seems like the most "down-to-earth" guy who seems like a genuine real guy and family man. Ellison is a known asshole who only cares about himself, although clearly a smart guy. Ellison looks like what I would expect Satan to look like. McNealy is too snide and I've never been impressed that he actually has a clue about anything. :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
When asked for your card, ask the person behind you in line if they would like to have the 'points' or whatever motivates people to give up their freedom. You get the discount, the other person loses their privacy.
It's a win-win situation.
:-)
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison is calling for the United States to create a national identification card system -- and cautioned, "Bill Gates is the Antichrist. I admonish you, my brothers and sisters, in JayEEzuhsizah NAYMAHhh, to let me into your life and so I can provide Oracular Salvation from his diabolical plans for your immortal soul. Amen! Let me hear you say AMEN! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!"
Seastead this.
Ellison is a total socialist. He is so far out of touch from the common citizen. His analogy of airline A and airline B is such a load of BS. For starters, he flys on his own private jet, so none of this is of concern to him. Further more, you know his offer for a free database will come with strings attached...like who is going to do all of the development work? Oracle? And are they going to do the development for free? Doubtful.
Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses.
Oracle has 6 letters...Larry Has 5...Ellison has 7. Ad them up and you get 18, which is thrice times 6.
Beware!
Nationalize Oracle without paying a dime to Larryboy and give away Oracle for free
Want to eliminate griefers over-night from the Web?
All you need is a way for sites to recognize someone they've seen before so a boot becomes permenant. Note that thid does NOT mean knowing wh oyo uare in the real world or anything about your real world identity. What it DOES require is an ID which is permenantly boudn to a user and of whicha suer can never have mroe then one.
Soiund familair? You already have oit-- iuts called your SSN. But what is needed is a way to authenticate yourslef remotely as the one and onlky leigitimate holder of the SSN. A national SmartCard would sovle that.
It would ALSO make identity theaft impossible. Identity theaft is a quickly balooning real world problem that has stung thousands so far with bills for products they didn't purchase aand screwed up their credit reports in wast hat takle huge amounst of time and energy 9and ocassionally legal action to fix.
So it coems down to what do you want? A vauge undefiend "danger to your privacy" or a real and rpesent danger to your economic well being today?
Read any Federal United States form that is covered under the Privacy Act. Much of the information on those forms is considered "optional." Your social security number, address etc., can be left off many forms, and said forms would still be considered complete.
However, without said information, your eligibilty for aid, employment, etc., quickly becomes hard to prove or the government will refuse to process your request. Guess you should have filled out those "optional" fields.
Many stores ask for your ZIP Code or phone number. Just like many federal forms you don't have to provide this, but almost everyone does. While a ZIP code tends to provide semi-random demographics, your phone number provides stores with your address. Of course, you can be asked not to be listed in the phone book, if you pay the "optional" fee of $1.50 a month and ensure that businesses you deal with do not "optionally" tell your phone number to their partners as well...
Remember that an airport has a pretty good notion of who's going to show up tomorrow. You could probably get 99% hits by preloading it with 'morrows passengers (and crew/staff/etc., but those would be there anyway).
That assumes that you don't allow others in the party to pass as well, but given the system, you can probably predict with high likelihood who is likely to come with various people (Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smi...er, Ms. Jones).
Of course, caching has it's own set of problems, as callbacks would be very important, but it's not clear how stable the entries would be. If half your cache is marked bad every day, it ain't gonna help much.
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
I'm sorry, the entire country will be down for four hours while Mitrosoft `upgrades' the system. We appologize for any inconvience with your cars, doors, televisions, computers, or refridgerators while we work on this problem. But, really, you'll find that your life grinding to a halt is really a feature in the system, more than a `bug' per se.
You may notice minor data glitches after this upgrade, due to cosmic rays. You can rest assure that you probably won't be executed for any murdering sprees that may show up on your ID (*cough* Stallman *cough*).
Please remember that by living in the US, you accept the EULA, which specifically exempts us from any problems that may result as use of Mitrosoft Pastport(TM).
And yes, I consider anything which facilitates a police state to be harm. A true national ID will be used to tie you to EVERYTHING, just like other near national IDs are now. That level of tracking is simply not justifiable.
I think it usually happens on the weekends.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Oracle Software Corporation"is working on the Network Computer. This will be a marriage of your home TV with the worldwide web ... In this setup, your TV will become the computer and your remote control will give you the means to work the system. Of course, you will not be able to gain access or get your TV to operate at all until you insert into the Network Computer's accessory device your personal Universal Biometrics I.D. Card."
.... to require every man, woman, and child on Earth to soon be issued the Universal Biometrics I.D. Card."
"Oracle's founder, billionaire Larry Ellison, is the present darling of the Illuminati crowd. When President Clinton traveled to California last October, news reporters obsdrved Ellison climbing into the back seat of Clinton's presidential limo. 'I was explaining to him how the Network Computer will operate', said Ellison."
"Oracle was the company chosen two years ago by the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the U.S. State Department to develop a national I.D. card control system in Mexico. Every citizen of Mexico was issued a high tech I.D. Card, ostensibly for voter registration purposes. Actually, this was part of the Illuminati's campaign
Remember that one of the key points about the Masters of the Illuminati: they never implement anything on a global scale that they have not first tested out on a limited scale.
Many people have questioned as to whether the people involved in the New World Order Plan know that they are involved in fulfilling Biblical prophecy. In most cases, I say, "no" , I think they are just puppets dancing on the end of the string being manipulated by Satan. But, in the case of this company, the Oracle, I am not so sure that Larry Ellison is ignorant of the fact that he is helping fulfill Bible prophecy, on the side of Antichrist. When Ellison chose the name, "Oracle" for his company, surely he was aware that the meaning of the word signifies his knowledge of what he is doing. "Oracle" means, "something that is foretold by, or as if by supernatural means", or simply "prophecy"! Certainly, the developmental work which Oracle is performing does fulfill Biblical prophecy!
More at: http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1063.html
These 'sleepers' that were planted lived ordinary lives, fitted in to their communities, and would have carried perfectly valid ID cards if national ID had existed. Don't get this siege mentality. There has been one massive devastating attack but this doesn't mean you have to permanently live under this fear. Take sensible measures to minimise the same thing happening again. US funded terrorists have been bombing British citizens for decades yet we haven't resorted yet to ID cards so I see no reason why it should be imposed on yourselves. Our current government is less democracy and more dictatorship but we will fight for our freedom. On the other hand, it will be useful to identify Jews so that we can round them up and ship them to concentration camps.. oh, isn't that the reason we got rid of these schemes in the first place?
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Been there done that ?
/rant I whole heartedly belive that the vast majority of the people in this world would more than gladly give up bits pieces or all of their freedom in order to feel safe and protected. These are the types of people that will help facilitate the downfall of democracy. What is security if you aren't allowed to do as you please. I mean sure if I dug a giant hole and lived in a bunker with rations I'd be safe from the vast majority of threats but what type of life would I be living? I belive life is not just about surviving but experienceing and when the opportunity for experience and self exploration is removed that what do we really have left? /end rant
Surely you see the problem. Very strict guidelines? We have privacy violations that are outright illegal which happen anyway. For example, IRS agents can't look up celebrity tax info for fun, yet apparently they do anyway. You should start worrying whenever you say "If it's not abused, it shouldn't be a problem." Look around. It will be abused. Then we'll be told "Hey, we're tracking you anyway, and its for your own good, so just go about your business." Sound familiar?
It will be free, including the support. Oracle
will run the system for the Government. They
stand to make far more by selling information
about your movements and purchases to marketers
than they ever could from government contracts,
which usually have fixed and fairly low
profit margins anyway. Get ready for more and
better targeted junk mail, email, and telephone
calls.
If you want starships, you have to live with the bomb
1) The Irrational
OHMIGOD NOOOOOOOO!
2) The Emotional
You can have my fingerprints when you rip them from my fingers, you fucking fascist pig.
3) The Logical
A National ID card system would not have stopped what happend. A national ID card system really doesn't do much except help you keep tabs on law abiding citizens. Not criminals. Oh, and are you going to send me to jail if I refuse to carry it? If I refuse to get one?
4) The Patriotic
This whole scheme would greatly facility control and pacification of the population by a future would-be dictator, would it not? I'm definitely against this idea from word one. And Ellison can suck my farts out of my rectum. Fuck him and fuck Oracle. It's a matter of principle now, I'd rather not give money to him or his organization.
But of course the sheeple favor it. Oh, wait, the sheeple APPEAR to favor it, beacuse of how the survey is presented. Go back to sleep America, Big Brother is watching and is firmly in control.
"I will not be filed, briefed, debriefed, indexed or numbered!" -- The Prisoner
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
How is the validation of an individual's identity ensuring his sanity on a flight? If I carry this card, and prove that I am indeed the holder of the thumb and body which the card indicates, what is stopping me from running into the cabin of the plane with a fork, and declaring the plane in the name of Homer Simpson? Nothing.
Stop trying to fill your pockets, Larry, at the expense of the very same freedoms which made you rich.
We have Microsoft trying to pull everyone's personal credit information into Passport and .NET, so they can control where you go, when, and how you get there, and we have Oracle, trying to capture and store and "manage" your
very identity. I don't think so.
We also have the DMCA, the SSSCA, backdoored "encryption" (anything with more than one keyholder is not encryption), the RIAA, MPAA, gps tracking devices in rental cars, cameras at every intersection, Dmitry Sklyarov vs. US/Adobe, and traffic tickets being sent in the mail for infractions you were never stopped for.
How is this giving me liberty again?
What people in our government fail to see is that the collection of these events, coupled with those who are trying to restrict stem cell research, our encryption, our liberties, and now, in a very delicate potential time of war, issuing lethal foreign policies. People are leaving this country, and taking off for other places where the opportunities may not be as vast, but the freedoms certainly are.
I'm very close to taking off as well, before the borders are closed, and I have to show my passport, fingerprint, and biometric validation, along with government approval to leave this country, and I'm taking all of my loved ones with me.
I think it would be a good idea to have one id, instead of a divers lic., s.s.n., and other numbers. Why not any easy system to remember? a 8 digit number for the birth date, a 5 digit zip code for your place of birth, a 5 digit zip code for where you live, a 5 digit personal number, and a 3 digit national security risk number.
A nice 26 digit number that changes everytime you move!! he he he
I think the easiest solution is to require all foreigners to have to have fully biometric id card, and require full background checks for them. I know the easiest way to cheat a background check is to never do anything wrong, but those that bombed the WTC did have criminal records. I think it easiest if we just ban foreigners from getting on domestic flights. Then we have to wait for more timothys...
I think I saw one of these things around the neck of my boss. Looks like corporate america's already tracking the "bad people" for us. Just look for this thin, flat, noose like thing around peoples necks... :)
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
Well, guess what? Mohammed Atta and his gang were NOT traveling under aliases.
The JBT's keep pushing this asinine idea that nobody will commit a crime if they've been positively identified.
What this ID shell game is for, is just another pretext for training people to be docile and do whatever they're told, and if we learned anything at all last week, we learned that you don't increase your safety on iota by following orders.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm for a national id system because I value my privacy; the current situation is worse than any reasonable national id system could be. Rather than having legislation that clearly defines what can and cannot be done, together with a decent, rational, and secure id system, the US muddles through with social security numbers and drivers license numbers. The result? People who merely need a unique identifier get a hold of all sorts of personal information, like phone numbers, retirement information, and driving records. Insecure identifications that are easy to forge, widespread identity theft, and a lack of reliable at locations where it is in everybody's interest that people identify themselves.
Germany has had ID cards for decades, and it's accepted as normal by most everyone. Germany has also had some of the worst problems with terrorists of any european nation, and these two things are connected.
In Germany, you can buy an ID very easily, one's identification is all based on one or two pieces of paper (or plastic rather) that are easily forged or stolen.
In the UK, on the other hand, there is no ID card and creating a fake ID is (paradoxically) more difficult. There are no cultural or social reasons to assume that someone is what the piece of paper says they are, and therefore other, less obvious, forms of identification are expected. Letters to your address, bank references, signature of a local professional person and so on.
When Blunkett (in the UK) talks about imposing ID cards, its not because he believes it achieves anything, but because he gets some political mileage out of it.
People here in Germany are amazed when I tell them that in UK to change your name involves nothing more than deciding what name you want to be called. And then telling all your banks etc.... In Germany it is close to impossible to legally change your name.
My 0.2c
.sig available on 'Need To Know' basis only!
The thumbprints are sent to the alien mother ship where they're decoded (fingerprints are actually an alien encryption device) and correlated against your vehicle VIN transponder (VIN plates are also alien technology) for possible future abduction and thorough anal probing. If you match a certain batch that they're working with at the moment, you get an anal probe. Colorado has the same system. Quite a lot of the probing that goes on happens in these two states, which have been on the forefront of this technology.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
or perhaps you didn't read the linked article. so larry is someone to pass over the inevitable huge profits his company could potentially make if the US decided to go forward with this plan. (sorry, they won't be using mysql on linux to do something like this) doesn't sound terribly opportunistic to me. being the smart guy that he is, he's loaded, and doesn't mind donating money (or nix his profits) to further ideas he's behind. i'd do the same. whether you like it or not, this happens -all- the time. too bad most of the kids here at slashot simply reguritage the views of slashot editors (corporation X is evil, linux can handle anything, legislation to protect anything is evil, etc.) rather than -really think- about the risks vs. benefits in any particular topic before posting. having a good nationwide identification system would sort out tons of issues and problems that -we as americans- deal with -every day-. but noooo, not on slashdot. a system like this is instantly 'orwellian', not 'oh cool, i could ditch all this crap in my wallet for one card' or 'great, with this system, i'd substantially safer on an airliner or at a ball game'. besides, you have a driver's license? do you pay taxes? ever had the cops come talk to you? you're in a half dozen federal and state databases anyway, probably fingerprints and all. let's hook those databases up and sort out some -national- problems and enjoy daily some of the benefits it would bring. larry's buying.
I believe the red light is just some part of the scanner. Interestingly enough, I have heard that Texas is the only state whose fingerprint scanner lights up (it doesn't in the other states, CA, HI, WV (opt.), GA and CO.) The reason is that people sincerely feel like its big brother who is scanning them (which, technically, it is) when the light lights up.
As for what they do with it...I can't figure that out. I know that they have used the thumbprint database to confirm that someone is dead when they have the corpse--but that seems like hardly a good enough reason to scan everyone's fingerprint.
I do know however that Texas DPS is not using it with relation to identity checking--I think only Georgia does that.
Having a national id card that allows for one to say you're you through a picture on a card and fingerprints is not a bad thing at all. At least it can make everyone certain you're who you pretend to be.
I've been living with an ID card for my whole life now (in belgium), there are no fingerprints on it, but there are my pictures, address, etc... and I don't have any problem with that. I have to show my ID card only to governement people, I can show it to anyone though, but am not legally bound to do so. tons of people have already seen my id card, address etc, do you think I get a pizza van in accross the street with 15 cops xraying my house? There are few things I need to use my ID card for: dealing with the administration, banking, crossing boundaries of Europe, when a cop wants to verify that I have everything all right with my car (taxes paid, car passed the yearly security test, ...) among others. What's bad with that? Do you think they enter everything I do in a database?
To go on with the privacy stuff, if you guys (and ladies) don't trust your goverment with your personal information then ELECT PEOPLE YOU TRUST. If you're tired of corrupted congressman/president/parties then vote for someone else!.
I don't see a single reason you'd want to hide things from your government, if you're a lawful citizen, then the cops/fbi/cia/nsa/whatever have absolutely no reason to get [extra] data about you, right? If that's not the case, then it's a sign you don't have the right people in the key positions in your governement.
I'm not saying there's no corrupted people in my country government, far from that, but if they decided to go for an electronic version of my ID card with more data on it that allows for tracking things I do with that card, then I say "no problem, go ahead", if it can simplify things when dealing with day-to-day matters, then they get a high five from me.
I think that those who want to hide things are those who should not be allowed to hide them. Yuo want to hide you have an affair with your secretary, fine with me, the governement is not interested in that anyway. You want to hide you're growing marijuana in your garden then you have a problem... If you want to be allowed to smoke pot, then make it lawful to do so instead of hide it. it seems like you're doing thinks backward. Make things legal instead of hiding the fact you're doing these things. If the people you have elected don't want to vote these laws, then vote for other people.
Big companies give money to politicians to get the laws they want, that's called 'corruption' and is illegal. Corruption has always been there but it seems to me that USA got it to a point where people have absolutely no control over how things work now. Politicians will vote laws that favour big companies anyway, because having flourishing businesses in your country is good for the people, but with corruption/bribes/lobbies as they are, politicians don't vote these laws for the people but for THEM. Solution: make parties open their finance books, enforce anti-corruption laws, ban lobbying, make politicians have to say what they own when they enter a function and have they declare what they own when the leave that function and create something to control that. Sue the corrupted guys, ....
So next time you have to vote again, vote for people you trust, I think it's high time the USA have a decent uncorrupted government and remember also that whatever government is in place in your country also has an influence on my country, whether I want it or not.
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
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.
>Which freedom, exactly, would we be losing here?
Anonymity.
Anonymity is a protected freedom, part of free speech.
Now, tell me what's so good about the idea of having a national ID card. In the US we all have social security numbers already which can differentiate us when absolutely necessary. It's also not going to do *anything* for security - you may note that the terrorists of the other week operated under their own names and used apparently legitimate ID. As far as I can tell, the only thing it would be useful for is for companies and government agencies to demand it so they can exercise ever more facistic control over our lives.
And don't give me any mealy mouthed bull about it being "voluntary" or "optional" - that will last about two seconds flat, until AOL, the phone company, the electric company, etc all calmly refuse to do business with anyone who doesn't "voluntarily" get a national ID card and show it to them.
Larry ain't buying. He already has the software. All he needs to do is copy it up, and "donating" it would surely be accompanied by an EULA stating that the state can't use anything but Oracle software for the task of NID. At the end of the year, the state will have to refund 1/3 of the "value" of his software that he "donated", through taxes. So who's really buying, and who's really earning? Then, guess who's going to be paying for running the DBs? It's a win-big situation for Larry if he can pull this scam off.
But of course, I doubt you even have read 1984. If you have, couple it with all the political struggle of the past, and you should understand that there is a big reason power is divided within democratic countries. Basically, it boils down to, the more power you give a position, the worse bastards it attracts. So it's better to spread it out.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I think a national ID card system is a good idea.
I consider myself a staunch libertarian when it comes to the Bill of Rights, and to personal freedoms in general. So I can hardly believe I'm saying this! But hear me out. I propose a few rules for a national identity card system that would provide us with all the benefits of nearly unforgeable proof-of-identity without compromising our right to privacy or any other right which we currently enjoy.
1) Central to the identity card system is a suite of protocols for digital signature operations; key signing, verification and exchange; and key revocation. The principals of public-key cryptography form the basis of the system and can be used to implement rest of the features, which I outline below. The system is designed to facilitate cryptographically secure communication between private citizens, thereby giving us rights that we practically don't have today!
2) Nobody can ever be compelled (forced) to show his card. Similarly to the right of a business to refuse service if you don't wish to furnish your social security number, organizations may choose not to talk to you if you won't furnish some proof of identity, but proof of identity can never be required by a government agency, or in relation to the fulfillment of certain human needs (food, water, air, clothing, shelter, communication).
3) Every individual can create new, anonymous identities at will. These pseudonyms can be nothing more than a keypair and a globally unique identifier (and perhaps some optional contact information). The private key of each pseudonym is only stored in encrypted form, having been encrypted with the public key of the person who uses the pseudonym. Thus, the owner of the pseudonym can prove that he "is" the pseudonym, but only with his consent, and only under circumstances that he controls.
4) When a citizen's keypair is created, the private key is split using a keysharing algorithm into a large number of shares (~10,000 should do, or fewer for pseudonymous keypairs). The keyshares are distributed (in secret) to randomly chosen individuals. We perform the keyshare operation such that 60% of the shares must be recovered in order to recover the key. In a situation where some person, organization or government needs to crack the identity, he can appeal to these 10,000 people as a sort of "jury of peers" to see if he can convince them to divulge their keyshares. Once an identity has been cracked, private communications to that identity can be decrypted.
5) In order to protect against algorithmic attacks, a number of various symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic algorithms are supported by the system. Communications between agents in the system take place using algorithms and keylengths agreed upon by the participants.
One caveat: This all assumes that the identity cards are perfectly secure automomous computer systems. That is: the identity card is solely responsible for performing all the cryptographic operations, and information can never be read from an identity card without the consent of its owner. This daydream is probably the biggest flaw in my plan.
The UK in fact are not simply considering introducing a mandatory National ID card, but are in fact considering weakening the Human Rights Act to allow them to do it. It took the UK many years to implement the European Statute of Human Rights (against lots of petty minded protest) and now it seems like at the first scapegoat opportunity they are going to destroy it! I am extremely happy that I no longer live in the UK with their Big Brother attitudes (CCTV, encryption key hand-over laws etc.) and I sincerely hope that if they do ruin the Human Rights Act the EU finally tells them where to go and gets rid of it's rubbish.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
According to this article in the online version of New Scientist, Malaysia is about to introduce a compulsory national id card system, using smart cards with biometric information on them (fingerprints).
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
if your are willing to die for your cause do you really need to smuggle anything in biological weapons why not just infect your self and what good is this system going to do again ?
De sig boss de sig
Now if assuming a terrorist is a citizen and get's challenged by a cop, all they have to do is produce a forged or stolen passport and claim to be a visitor from another country; the same applies to terrorists who come from abroad. If they get found out, they claim to be an illeagle migrant and the worst that happens to them is deportation.
This of course assumes that the claims made that the ID cars will have neat technology to make them forgery-proof are true. I suspect there'd be decent fakes available within months. After all, the snake-heads that run the world wide illeagle immigrants/people smuggling rackets would have a huge financianl interest in defeating this technology.
At worst, this will introduce a false sense of security. A terrorist who has a good fake card will find it even easier to walk onto an aircraft without question.
just had a thought- once we get these cards in place, and monkey boy starts ww3, am I going to get flagged and arrested trying to cross into canada? A little anonymity can be a good thing in the face of a sufficiently messed up govt.
Such a card would simply be too convenient for way to many tasks, so everybody would require it.
Nonetheless, I want it in my country. Fuck privacy, I want convenience.
Why not just a tattoo on our wrists? you know, one of the "Dark Angel" variety. Or maybe a microchip embedded in our assessesesss at birth?
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
How soon before this is required to do almost anything? I never bought all that revelations stuff, but "Mark of the Beast" anyone?
Cheap storage VM.
One thing has always puzzelled me about Americans. Perhaps someone would care to enlighten me...
I think it's fairly true to say that American's are fairly obsessed with the concept of 'freedom' and convinced that America is 'Land of the free'. But what essential liberties does an American have that people in most other 'first world' countries don't have? How is an American more free than someone from Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, New Zealand, France, Spain, etc??
The only additional freedom which Americans have which other countries don't is the right to carry firearms, but that's a freedom that nearly 100% of the populations of these countries don't want.
Having lived and travelled in many countries I felt no more free in the US than many other places. In fact, in many ways the US feels much more restricted, for instance, to most Europeans and Australians it is increadible that in many states under 21's can't drink in bars. And the maximum speed limits for cars are really sloooowww... and the police their are very strict when people go over the limit. These are basic, day to day things in which America's seem to be far less free than many of their friends overseas.
So, back to my original question. What essential liberties does an American have than an European Australian, Canadian or New Zealander doesn't have? If there aren't any, can you please all shut up about America being 'land of the free'.
In Ellison's case, his hammer is Oracle. Is he opportunistic? Sure, but he's probably trying to help. No doubt, he too knew some of the people working in the WTC or the Pentagon. Eric Raymond also suggested a preventive measure to deter hijackers: arming the citizenry. Unfortunately, threatening to kill suicide bombers won't stop them, but firing guns in a highly pressurized tube is very likely to stop the plane.
Of course, the problem with ID cards, FAA regulations and crypto laws is that criminals aren't bounded by law. I don't know why this is a hard concept for our leaders to understand, but apparently it's a real coconut-scratcher.
I haven't heard of a solution that will prevent a future attack like the one that happened on 9/11. This problem has a lot more to do with human nature than technology or politics.
I love it so much that I'm going to get 2 or 3!
Not to mention the credibility you get if you are (successfully) running the National ID Card system. That's better than any commercial you could ever run on the Superbowl.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
that the hijackers were [insert 20 names, cities of residence]. They all passed the id checkpoints at the airports. Of course, there's still 6000 dead."
Having a positive id at the airport means very little, unless we're willing to ban people suspected of crimes from travelling.
-"I talked to God and here's the deal/ He said to floss between each meal" -- Uninvited
... i have to say it's very usefull.
Even more now that i'm living outside my country of birth - instead carrying a big cluncky passport, i carry my ID card (somewhat bigger than a credit card, fits neatly in my wallet) which i use anywhere i need to prove my identity (banks, airports, picking up packages in the post office).
Beter yet, it works anywhere in the EU (i've even used it in Ireland and England which are outside the Shengen Area) so i can travel all over europe without a passport.
On the other hand, and since i come from a smallish european country, i had to insist with the bank people to "check their little book of valid ID cards" before the would accept my ID card (now they don't even blink an eye when they see it)
larry needs a barcode across his forehead and "property of pimp daddy" tatooed across his right glutius.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The system should include an auxiliary set of physical measures - for example Penis or Breast geometry.
I bet it would be a huge success in airports!!!
Alright, I can understand all the arguments that going to one universal ID won't necessarily make us more secure than we are now. But do you think it would make us LESS secure? At the very least, you'd only have ONE card in your wallet to worry about losing. You're just allowing your stupid paranoia to reject any ideas that sound even remotely like they might make it easier for SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE to find out about you. Why? Who cares? Privacy is a myth, and a stupid one at that. This desire to keep all information about yourself private... why? What's wrong with you all? What are you afraid of? That your nextdoor neighbor will find out your credit history? He can do that and more already! And so what? It doesn't matter. YOU don't matter, and neither do your imagined "rights." Idiots. /.ers are paranoid leftist morons. I think I'm going to stick to the stories for a while.
Besides, you could look at this as one step closer to a simple, biometric system; when we've advanced the technology to a level sufficient for consistent identification, we'll already have a unified database to link it to, reducing the time required to implement it. (But then, you're probably all afraid of THAT too...)
The more I read the comment threads, the more I'm convinced that most other
>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."
I'm British are there is *no way* that I will carry an ID card. Compulsory cards reverse the burden of guilt. If we allow this incident to remove our freedoms the terrorist have scored a victory, I urge all other [Brits] to oppose them.
Woudn't the obvious solution be: lower drinking age to 18? That's when they go to College and go to keg parties, isn't it?
Where does that 21years old drinking rule comes from anyway? You're 18, you're adult, you can marry someone, and you can vote but you cannot have a beer with friends? You americans can drive from 16 year old on, that's even before being considered adult... sometimes the logic is difficult to grasp.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Robert Heinlein had something to say about national ID cards: "When the local governments expect you to start carrying identification,it's time to get off the planet."
Unfortunately, getting off the planet doesn't seem to be an option for the forseeable future.
+5 INFORMATIVE?!?!?!?!
At LEAST see that the poster uses an actual quote rather than an obviously embellished fragment from memory.
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
Larry can have his DB, he just can't put any indexes on the tables. By the time queries come back I'll be retired.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Given the asymmetry of power between businesses and consumers, businesses should not be able to compel production of said card as a condition of doing business, either. Markets can't take care of everything, and an introduction of a national ID while at the same time saying "the market" will prevent abuses is sheer insanity.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
First, we already have the Right To Travel
:)
Secondly, there are other options, such as an International Driver's Permit. (Remember it's not valid in the place of issue, but there is nothing stopping a person from getting one in a foreign country
Cheers
~~
"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." - Thomas Jefferson
Alright... so now we're talking not just a global ID permitting tracking of our movements, but the tracking and ANTICIPATION of not only our movements but those of our friends and family? I can see it now -- Police show up at my door. "I'm sorry, sir, but our records show that you were 80% likely to have accompanied your brother to the airport today, and your ID didn't get registered. Can you account for your wherebouts when you should have been at the airport?"
He doesn't want a national I.D. He probably doesn't think it would help this nation security. None of that matters to him one bit. All that matters is he would make a shitload of money. He would sell his own mother into prostitution if it would make him fractionally richer.
How much is a enough Larry? Aren't you fucking rich enough? What next? Will you sell the Bill of Rights to the highest bidder, with an Oracle database conducting the auction?
-- Will program for bandwidth
An ID-Card has a lot of advantages if used in the right way. e.g. in Germany your ID-Card is unique, there's no database representing all ID-Cards. The data of each ID-card is deleted after printing the Card.
Anyway Germany is quite different. We have much more privacy than people in the States on the one hand but this is connected with a very strict organized handling of ids on the other hand.
So if you are pushed to having id-cards also try to get more privacy, if possible or you will get very transparent. And take care of your id-no. etc.
--- A hard rain's a-gonna fall (Bob Dylan) ---
"shoppers have to disclose more information at malls to buy a watch than they do to get on an airplane."
Where the #@!! does this guy shop? If I want to buy a watch, the only information a HAVE to give the store is "I want to buy this watch" and that I have enough cash to pay for it. Sure, some people choose to use a credit card and give more information, but they don't "have to." Just because privacy is a little more inconvinient these days, doesn't mean it is impossible or illegal.
A person worth $15B makes all their decisions based upon money. Larry has proposed donating the software, so what's in it for Oracle?
I can just see it in the future: Well all new databases are being created in [insert favorite OS database here], but the federal government must bale out Oracle, because that is what runs the federal ID database.
Last week we created one new government department. Next week we'll create another. This brought to you by the people who give tax breaks because "...if Washington keeps it they'll spend it."
When VPNs are outlawed, only outlaws have VPNs.
We could just have the ID number tattooed on our wrists!
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Larry Ellison may seem crazy, but the truth is far stranger; he is actually a time-travelling cave-man! Haven't you ever wondered why Larry looks like a fury refuge from the planet of the apes? Or maybe why he says crazy things in public over and over again? Those of you who have been by the Oracle building in Reston, Virginia may have seen Larry's UFO on top of the building (I tried to find pictures, but larry uses his cave-man powers to block them out!). Whenever he needs to do his crazed lobbying in DC, he first enters his UFO and travels to his own time where he gets instructions from his alien superiors (They gave him the time machine!).
Anyway, you should all mirror this post, because Larry's conspiracy to stop people from knowing the truth will have used scientology lawyers to make Taco remove this post within hours!!!
In any case, you really have no privacy right now. Bitching about it isn't going to get it back.
In the USA, we already have national ID cards. It's called a Social Security card... What are the chances that Oracle might possibly already be used to keep track of the Social Security system??
I consider myself a staunch libertarian when it comes to the Bill of Rights, and to personal freedoms in general. So I can hardly believe I'm saying this! But hear me out.
Famous last words - of the sellout!
I propose a few rules for a national identity card system that would provide us with all the benefits of nearly unforgeable proof-of-identity without compromising our right to privacy or any other right which we currently enjoy.
Why not first explain what these benefits are? How will a national ID card prevent what happened on 9/11? How will it make us more secure? Explain that before you go off on a tangent about how to make it less objectionable.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Wouldn't that be
ultimate_answer_t deep_thought( int ) { sleep( years2secs( 7500000 ) ); return 42; }
Howdoya return 42 if it's declared void?
Based on the WTC tragedy, it is apparent that Airplane-Users can't be trusted, they are evil.
...
So, we *need* this ID card, so that everyone's background can be checked before boarding an airplane. Of course, one must have this ID card with them if possessing an Airplane Ticket when outside of one's home.
We could do an Instant Background Check, but to be really safe, we need a 10 day Waiting Period, where you won't be able to board an Airplane until at least 10 days after purchasing a ticket. Just in case someone decides to use an Airplane in a crime of passion.
Airplanes must be kept locked up, until time for take-off. We wouldn't want some child to accidentally use an Airplane. It doesn't matter that airplane safety has gotten better over the years, this incident shows that Airplane-Users can't be trusted.
And no more of those Saturday Night Layover Specials! If you can't afford a decent ticket, then you don't deserve to fly! With the proliferation of these Saturday Night Specials, *anyone* could use an Airplane!
Did you know you could buy Airplane Tickets over the Internet?! It's shocking, but true! We need to cut down on the availability of these Tickets, and one must get a Federal License in order to sell them.
New York should take the lead, as they have in anti-gun legislation, and make Airplane Tickets illegal! After all, if there weren't any Airplane Tickets available, then no Airplanes could be used to harm people.
Oh sure, so the people with money and power will still have their Airplanes, but we all know from experience that these kind of rules don't apply to them.
And don't tell me about all the good uses of Airplane Tickets, I don't want to hear them. After all, if we can save only one child
There are at least two issues that bother me about ID cards that I find intractable. The first is the question that they are really necessary at all in the first place. How could they possibly be used to avert problems in a meaningful way? They can surely do no more to inhibit determined individuals than the Pledge of Allegiance can prevent Billy from pulling Suzy's hair in class. As I am generally a fan of need-based legislation, the compelling reason for this idea escapes me. The UK apparently came to the same decision years ago on this count alone.
The second issue that bothers me is the fact that the government is not very good about managing these kinds of initiatives. For one, the effort involved in developing accountability for the use and scripting of this kind of information has been seriously neglected in the past. Without this key element, there will be lives, careers, families, and reputations carelessly,casually, and wrongfully impacted, and as before, there will be no accountability.
Larry is simply being classically manic in front of a reporter again. Most people will wake up in a few months and feel rather embarrassed they felt compelled to needlessly and pointlessly relinquish the uniquely rare civil liberties they possessed, codified or not, in the name of some vague media-driven sense of patiotism or security.
The most commonly used form of ID in this country seems to be the driver's license. People ask to see it at a lot of places that have nothing to do with driving. My local video store won't rent you a movie unless you have one. What is the connection between being able to drive a car and operate a VCR? The reason it is used like that is that most people already have one, and so they are a convenient form of ID that also has your photograph to allow the clerk to verify that it is actually you. I know people who have a driver's license even though they don't drive, just to use as an ID. A lot of states (maybe all) offer the option of getting a generic driver's license style ID that is only valid for identification purposes. That way people who cannot pass the requirements to get a driver's license can still conveniently purchase beer, cash checks, rent a rug cleaner, etc. Still, I have known a few adults that don't have either a driver's license or a state photo ID. They weren't anarchists, they just didn't need it. They used public transportation to get to work and they paid for almost everything in cash, so they never felt motivated to spend an afternoon standing in line at the DMV to get something they didn't need. Such people very much are the exception these days, but it isn't illegal to not have a photo ID. The driver's license seems to be an excellent example of an optional license that is nonetheless almost universal because of its usefulness.
What can we learn from this that could be applied to a Federal ID? Perhaps the ID could be purely optional. People could get one if they wanted a secure ID. To make it popular, the government should also make it so that the ID grants the user permission to do something useful or fun, so that way a lot of people would sign up for one. Even combining all current Federal IDs (like pilot's licenses) into one would probably not have enough users to make the ID popular for identification. Another permit (or permits) need to be invented and added in to increase the IDs popularity further. A federal driver's license wouldn't work unless it was easier to get than a state one, and I don't like that idea because we have enough people who can't drive on the roads already. Making it so you need an ID to do anything that you currently don't need an ID for (like air travel) is going to meet political resistance (perhaps deservedly) from whatever lobbying group engages in that activity, so for the Federal ID to make it into law the activity should be something that you can't do now, but that a large enough group of people might want to do to kick start the use of the ID as a form of identification.
But the whole point of doing this exercise is to reduce terrorism (isn't it?). And many people here have rightly pointed out that a better ID system would not have prevented this recent act of terrorism. The passengers were not wanted felons. The FBI was suspicious of some of them, but we don't restrict people's air travel whenever they are under suspicion by some federal agency of maybe being associated nefarious activities. Even the knives they used on the plane were, from all accounts, small enough that they were not restricted items, and could have been carried onto the plane in plain sight of the security guards (I used to legally fly with my pocket knife all the time, I would just put it in the little tray as I went through the detector and no security guard even hesitated to hand it back to me on the other side because it was small enough to be permitted on the plane). Is it possible to have a federal ID that is optional, provides the user with permission to engage in some new activity, and would also somehow reduce the likelihood of terrorism? Yes. Make it a federal concealed carry weapons permit. I still wouldn't let anyone carry a gun on a plane unless they had taken the FAA's (supposedly very difficult) course on the use of firearms in an aircraft, but that could be an option like having a commercial or motorcycle rating on your driver's license. Who would want to go through the time and expense of training for and passing the FAA course just so they could carry a pistol* on an airliner? Well, after recent events, I think a lot of pilots and commercial aircrew would like to have that option. Don't forget the first thing the terrorists did was apparently to slit a stewardess's throat, so a lot of flight attendants are no doubt feeling very nervous and unlike the rest of us aircrews spend a lot of time in the air so their chances of being hijacked are much better. A lot of people would still get the regular (non airplane rated) version of the permit to allow them to carry a pistol in any state. Body guards (or "executive protection specialists") are an example of a profession that could greatly benefit from such a permit (so much so that it is amazing that one does not exist already) and whose presence deters terrorism. Salesmen or other business travelers who have to travel between multiple states, and may have to travel through dangerous neighborhoods or carry valuable items would likely flock to such a permit. Former police officers**, DA's, and other people who may make dangerous enemies would want one, as would people who have been victims of violent crimes and/or rape before and now feel the need to be able to protect themselves, and a lot of the normal everyday citizens who now get state carry permits because for whatever reason they want to be able to defend themselves from attack. Of course the permit would be in addition to, not in replacement of, the current state concealed carry licenses, otherwise the proposal would be plagued by state vs. federal jurisdiction turf wars (and rightly so) and would never get out of the courts.
Of course the permit should require a thorough FBI background check in order to limit the chances of a terrorist or criminal being able to get one. As long as the FBI had the attention of such a proactive chunk of the population, they could even take that opportunity to provide a little education on what unusual or suspicious behavior might indicate a terrorist cell or impending terrorist activity, give them the appropriate contact information (maybe a federal crime hotline printed on the card somewhere?), and ask people to give the Bureau a call if they notice anything. Sure that doesn't technically have a lot to do with carrying a gun, but that would be a good opportunity for the FBI to increase its chances of getting a useful tip; and, hey, what does donating organs have to do with driving a car? Even if a terrorist did get a federal carry permit, it is likely that a LOT more upstanding citizens would have one as well. Without such a license, the terrorist would still carry his weapon (a terrorist who won't break the law is not very effective), but the odds of a law abiding citizen that could offer resistance to the terrorist having one is much smaller.
Before anyone starts a gun-control argument over this, I would like to point out that this is not something that most states don't already have. The problem is that different states have different reciprocosity agreements with other states so that most state concealed carry permits are valid in some, but not all, other states and will accept some, but not all, permits form other states... resulting in a confusing hodge-podge of conditions. A federal permit would clear up the red tape by providing a universal standard simplifying the bureaucratic mess that currently exists. Also, the background check and qualifications could be made more difficult (at the risk of making the ID less universal) to further reduce the chances of criminals or irresponsible people from getting one. Surely only the most extreme gun control proponent would want to prevent even someone like a bodyguard, or an ex-DA who has prosecuted organized criminals, or the administrator of a medical facility that has received death threats from anti-abortion groups from being permitted to carry a weapon for self defense. The gun control politicking could be saved for when it came time to figure out how tough the standards should be for getting one. If you can think of a different optional federal permit or license that a Federal ID could be based on (espeically if it would actually reduce terrorism), then by all means suggest away. I admit, after all, that even if you combine a federal carry permit, pilot's license, and other federal ID's together, it still may not have the "critical mass" of users to replace the ubiquitous driver's license.
* Before this restarts the "what does a bullet do to a pressurized aircraft?" argument, the FAA obviously covers what type of ammunition can be used in an aircraft and what areas of the plane are vulnerable to gunfire.
** I'm sure that the police in a lot of areas would show turn a blind eye to an ex-cop who was illegally carrying a weapon because he was worried about being recognized by criminals but a such favoritism might not be universal, like the license would be.
The CIA has several partnerships with private companies, and in some cases is an investor in some private companies. The point is to attract the best people via all the perks that working in the private sector provides, and in return the CIA gets the latest tech. The companies can even release 'civilian' versions of some of the products they develop.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
Hey lamer...
I didn't John Ashcroft was a Democrat...
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
Isn't it at least _possible_ that all crazy Larry's trying to do is make a buck by selling some enormously expensive software (and the obligatory ga-jillions of dollars in support) to the Government?
I don't know that there's something sinister afoot here. If it's not him, it'll be IBM or SAP or someone else trying to sell Uncle Sam on it.
He's a salesman, not a spook. Sheesh.
"Don't matter how New Age you get, old age is gonna kick your ass." - Utah Phillips
Debates of the obvious privacy issues aside, I suppose Oracle will be happy to donate the billions of dollars a program like this will cost and all of the DBA's neccisary to maintain what would likely be the worlds largest database. Oh, and I'm sure Oracle would help to secure this database against all the people that would just love to get thier hands on all that juicy data.
Larry Ellison, Humani-fricken-tarian of the year.
~raum (wretching over the side of the boat of democracy)
Everyone knows that if you're going to create a large scale database you should use DB/2. Anyway, IBM is far better equiped to monitor your activites than Oracle.
Why not combine the Universal ID with a cell phone, radio, credit card and PDA. It would be incredibly useful. You could even put one of those Personal Area Networks into it so that you could exchange business cards with people when you shook hands, every car you sat in could know exactly how to adjust your seat, and advertisers could know whether to show you beer commercials with scantily clad women or advertisements for feminine hygiene products.
The only problem I see is that we would likely have another intelligence failure like the recent attacks, which were made easier by an over reliance by the intel community on spy satellites and not having enough on human agents who can do traditional spying. The gov't would get so used to just tracking people's activities, communications, and money trail from the little spy chips built into the Universal ID that any terrorist who thought to communicate through snail mail or dead drops, aquire critical items through barter or theft, and write his "to do list" on a pad of paper could build up a considerable network and still remain "under the radar" of a Law Enforcement/Intelligence community that got too lazy to do traditional detective and intelligence work.
Your pathetic sense of security would be merely a psychological ploy, you wouldn't be any safer. This sort of thing is merely a boon for Government agencies to spy on those critical of them. People would forge these just like everything else. Maybe you like the idea of a Nazi Germany type police state presence where everybody has to show their papers or get arrested. Great, I'm so glad that unlike the kids on Slashdot who don't think for themselves that you have this all figured out. However your poor spelling, lack of capitalization and vague pointing to ideas without any specific details shows what a great thinker you are.
Remember the old Ben Franklin saw that "those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security". It's on these sorts of principles that this nation was founded.
Larry Ellison is a shameless self promoter who realizes that if Oracle were the product of "Big Brother" that there would be other business coming down the pike from corporate and security interests. He disgusts me by using this tragedy to promote himself.
Of course as the cartoon philosopher Ren once said,"Stimpy, they are all ideeee-iiits!"
Hey, you think your house is cool?
The "freedoms" we enjoy also facilitate terrorism and crime. I have nothing against national id cards so long as they are secure enough to prevent counterfeiting. The vast majority of US residents have nothing to fear from them. Only a few really need total encryption, and no law abiding person really needs anonymity, which is not, by the way, a constitutional right.
Privacy is not mentioned in the Constitution. It says "unreasonable searches and seizures." This means that we have the protection of judicial review of search warrants. No wiretapping or decryption can or should occur without a finding by a magistrate that there is probable cause for the intrusion.
This is not Big Brother. Not even close. Big Brother is a bogeyman used to argue for "rights" that don't really exist. Despite the lapses of law enforcement, they are still our defenders against the likes of bin Laden, and they should have our support as they try to smoke out the murderers among us.
Remember, life is the most important civil right. I has been taken from over 6,000 people in one fell swoop by people who were living in our midst.
If I have to choose between relinquishing some privacy and allowing these creeps to continue to lurk among us (and I do), I choose the former.
Ah Yes - Woman at your side, qind in your face - and fluttering overhead, the flag of the Federation. Charming.
Station!
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
int ultimate_answer_t deep_thought( void) { sleep( years2secs( 7500000 ) ); return 42; }
seems like what you're looking for
And, the ID card actually has real benefits. No silly games with SSN numbers. No Identity theft. More security at daily transaction stuff (your bank can and occasioanlly will ask for it; as does the post office when you pick up a parcel). All that makes life worse for little thieves, imposters and the like. A good thing, IMO. No, of course it doesn't stop terrorists per se. But an ID card, together with a uniform citizen registration system, makes law enforcement work easier with the simple tasks.
Another nice thing about that ID card, btw, is that it serves as passport to numerous European countries; basically weherever we can go without a visum, we can thake the ID card.
Of course we combine that ID card with strong privacy laws. And - against numerous whishes of our US friends - we still stick to it.
Ellison is right, IMO. Despite no ID card, privacy in the US is in much worse shape than in most parts of Europe. The Privacy a nonexisting ID card gives you is mostly an illusion.
As for him giving the software away, that's actually a no-brainer. Aside from priceless propaganda, he will get rich from maintanance contracts.
f.
No, that's not it either. The return value of the function is type ultimate_answer_t, which from the context of the story, turns out to be typedef'ed to an integer (although technically they didn't know that when they created Deep Thought). Since Deep Thought was created for one sole purpose, there is no input needed to the function.
The function is "correct" as stated.
If think we all need to get out and talk to normal people more.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
so haw are you equating this card to either freedom or liberty??
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.