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."

Comments

But does it make it right?

[kisielk]

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.''

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.

Opportunistic dick...

[Deluge]

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.

I'm in favor of this idea

[JoeShmoe]

...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

It worked great in Nazi Germany

[T1girl]

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.

Re:SSN

[spudnic]

Is that really so bad?

Your employer needing it is understood. He has to have your SSN to file forms and payments for you with the IRS. That was part of the original purpose, correct?

Now for the other people. They need some way of differentiating between you and anyone else. They need a Unique Identifier of some sort. How else are they supposed to make a decision on whether or not to extend credit to you? Getting a phone or other utility turned on is a type of credit.

Is it wrong for them to want to be able to go back and look at your history of paying other creditors? Getting a loan is not a right, it is earned by showing that you have fullfilled your obligations in the past and therefore, probably will this time.

If we didn't have some sort of unique identifier assigned to each of us, how would you propose they do this? "Ah, you're a white guy living in a good neighborhood. Here's the $250,000 you needed." If you can't profile people by their past actions, you have to find some other attribute to judge them by.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think this would be such a bad idea. As Ellison said in the article, all we would be giving up is the "illusion" that we can't be tracked.

National ID is Good, IF DONE PROPERLY...

[trims]

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

Re:National ID is Good, IF DONE PROPERLY...

[dragons_flight]

Fair enough, but what will the default settings be? I think it's obvious enough that most people won't concern themselves much with managing their information, or who learns what.

If it includes too much information then we worry that this information can be too easily exploited to harm people. If it includes too little, advertisers will still require some other monitoring system when you make purchases etc. Of course you could make other systems illegal but that has lots of other problems.

Putting in a bunch of personal controls is useful for you, but what about your grandma or neighbor or cousin? We still have to figure out what an appropriate level of privacy is in general, cause most people won't deviate much from what they are told they ought to have. Perhaps this means it should be totally opt-in. Or, maybe the National ID should only be tied to activities that legitimately require ID now, such as driving, bank records, military, credit cards, etc.

Given the complexity of modern life and the amount of goods and services we use for with others are responsible, where should the limits on privacy be? And what is the level of acceptable intrusion, if any?

Re:National ID is Good, IF DONE PROPERLY...

[EABinGA]

The god damn SSN isn't used properly (my fucking video store demanded I give them my SSN or I could walk out the door w/o a membership

I'll bet you did not have to show your SS card to the clerk. Few people ever ask to see an SSN card; they believe whatever you say.

If someone absolutely insists on getting your Social Security Number, you may want to give a fake number. There are legal penalties for providing a false number when you expect to gain some benefit from it. For example, a federal court of appeals ruled that using a false SSN to get a Driver's License violates federal law.

Making a 9-digit number up at random is a bad idea, as it may coincide with someone's real number and cause them some amount of grief. It's better to use a number like 078-05-1120, which was printed on "sample" cards inserted in thousands of new wallets sold in the 40's and 50's. It's been used so widely that both the IRS and SSA recognize it immediately as bogus, while most clerks haven't heard of it. There were at least 40 different people in the Selective Service database at one point who gave this number as their SSN. The Social Security Administration recommends that people showing Social Security cards in advertisements use numbers in the range 987-65-4320 through 987-65-4329.

There are several patterns that have never been assigned, and which therefore don't conflict with anyone's real number. They include numbers with any field all zeroes, and numbers with a first digit of 8 or 9.

Follow this link to see more details on the structure of SSNs and how they are assigned.

better idea

[ocie]

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..

And this is going to make us more secure...how?

[Robber Baron]

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.

What's worse is

[Sagarian]

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...

Bah!

[Greyfox]

There is no security anywhere. The best, and ultimately, only security is for each citizen to keep security in his mind at all times and question anything that seems out of place. No gimmick will buy you absolute 100 per-cent security. No silly little ID card, no amount of crypto backdoors, no amount of bank account back tracking will do as much to save you as one guy standing up and going "What the FUCK do you MEAN you want a million short options on American Airlines?!" Or one pilot holing up in the cockpit and landing the plane at the nearest airport.

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.