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Ellison's ID Card Plan Gets More Attention
fredbox writes: "A Mercury News article reports Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and John Ashcroft have been meeting to discuss creation of a national ID database including fingerprints, facial scans, etc. Other supporters include Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy. They claim these cards would be 'voluntary', much as the act of leaving your home or purchasing groceries are voluntary activities." Update: 10/18 01:48 GMT by M : Hah! btempleton writes: "Here is a prototype of Larry Ellison's new national ID card."
I'd rather just have a chip implanted in my neck. Or maybe a nice barcode tattoo.
I write trance music.
Voluntary? Whats the point then? A Drivers license is voluntary.
Yeah, it'll be really cute when you can't fly on a plane, ride a train, get a credit card, open a bank account, or get a job without one...
Not to mention have email...
If I'm really good and I turn in lots of bad, bad terrorists will the government bump me up to Platinum card status?
And if so, can I get mine with Pokemon or my favorite sport's team emblazoned across it?
Could someone in the press pleas at least ask the damn question? To wit: how exactly would these ID cards have prevented the events of 9/11? The terrorists didn't have to lie about their names to get on the airplanes, they just had to buy the tickets!
And the brethren went away edified.
The basic premise of 'National ID' systems is that if we build a database of all law-abiding trustworthy citizens, anybody who does not exist in this database must be a 'prohibited person'.
This premise is also one of the biggest dangers of a national ID, and the primary objection raised by civil libertarians and the ultra paranoid.
The 'Brady Bill' background check law was written with a safeguard- all records of 'successful' checks were to be deleted. In reality, the Clinton administration ignored this limitation, holding records indefinitely.
The same sort of behavior can be expected regarding any safeguards built into a 'National ID' system.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I know this may sound like a silly thing to quibble over in such an important plan, but I think we (like all special interest groups) have a right to be heard.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. I am quite relieved to see that they dropped the idea of trying to track mod-points real-time. That would have been a nightmare!
The cards also would be instantly checked against a new national database. That database would base would link existing criminal and immigration data to screen out potential terrorists.
But AFAIK, none of the terrorists HAD criminal records. They were perfectly good citizens as far as anyone knew up until getting on those planes. So criminal data's no good.
Ah, but they did just emigrate from Afghanistan, or Iraq. That would show up on the immigration data.
So what this suggests to me, is that if you've just immigrated from Iraq or Afghanistan, I'd be allowing another thirty minutes at the airport, to deal with all those 'are you a terrorist' questions. Because that's the only thing that separated all those terrorists from the rest of the travellers.
It'd be good to see a policy from the US that didn't assume that terrorists have a big flashing sign on their forehead that says "I AM A TERRORIST." Because that's how I think they're planning on telling Osama Bin Laden from all the other robed, bearded guys carrying AK47s in Afghanistan.
-- This post is about truth, beauty, freedom, and above all things, Karma
When was the last time you heard of any US citizen being able to do much without presenting their social security number?
How long before Feinstein sells (ahem, I mean, "legislates") access to this database to major publishers and media conglomerates? After all, with all the talk of encryption crippling and government-mandated copy-prevention lately, perhaps the mysterious terrorists are financing their operations by selling bootleg DVDs (perhaps even with secret terrorist messages steganographically embedded in the signal! Gasp!) and using hacked no-back-door versions of commercial encryption software, so, just in case, we should probably let MPAA and BSA use the database to correlate with any 'suspicious' activity they might notice...
You know, as recent as a year or so ago, the above would have sounded like paranoid ranting to me. It worries me that it no longer does...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
but what if something you say today, gets held against you in 5 years do to changing political climate?
What if something that you do now is legal, but becomes illegal, and the go after people retroactivly?(something ashcroft wants to do)
In America there was a period of time called Macarthism whre those very things happened.
The old, if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide adage has always led to abuse , and has given rise to dictorships.
This isn't theoretical, it has happened.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
On that note, does anybody know what kinds of legislative action really would be needed to put this together? It strikes me as requiring a pretty close-coupling of business and government interests, OR the federalization of a whole lot of currently private organizations.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
If Ashcroft and Fienstien both like it, it HAS to be a REALLY bad idea. Come on, I can't think of many people who have worse records when it comes to undermining the Bill of Rights than those two.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
It's a problem because I trust my own government only slightly more than I trust Phred Terrorist. Or, looking at it another way, I trust my own government less so -- with the terrorist, I know he's trying to kill me.
Basically, I don't trust my own government to do the right thing. Especially because as time passes the responsiveness of the U.S. government to Big Money increases, and the rights of the private citizen decrease. I most certainly don't trust Enron, Phillip Morris, CBS, and AOL to be interested in my well-being. Insofar as Corporate America cares about the individual citizen at all, it's as a revenue source.
There are also those among the quite wealthy and therefore influential who do not think that equal protection before the law should hold. At the very least, the rich should be more equal than others, they believe.
This proposed identification and tracking system does not actually solve any problems we currently face. What it does do is open the door to the abrogation of our every Constitutional right.
I am normally opposed to Libertarians (and libertarians), as I have problems with their philosophy. However, on this issue I believe all Americans can stand united. This is a frightening idea.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
i jerk off a lot, its not illegal, but i dont want george bush to watch either.
"i was saying gnu-rd"
The card would contain basic information about the holder, including Social Security number, and would be linked to a federal database containing detailed personal data, including digital records of the person's thumbprint, palm print, face or eyes.
Later of course we could expand it for more specific information like your health records, financial status, political slant, religious affiliations and employment history. Of course you would not have to provide this to anyone else, but then again they would not have to hire you, provide products or services, and extend credit to you.
To handle these issues I am certain we will be asked to trust them. And should it prove to be an issue You they will take it up in a future bill.
I am reminded of the principle of SAM (Specific, Attainable, and Measurable). I then ask the simple question (the same I posed for cryptography "back doors"), "If this was in place on 9/11, would it have stopped the terrorists?" Ding-ding-ding, I am sorry, but at last count something like 14 of the hijackers were unknown to anyone. They would have had cards that allowed them to get on without an issue.
"But what about the others? They would have been stopped." No, they would not have been on to begin with, or they would have paid someone to create or reprogram cards.
So what will work? With regards to planes, no one on a plane will believe a hijacker is anything but suicidal. Even if they are not, and really just want money. Sorry, we are going to be looking out for ourselves and each other. The best security you can ever hope to find.
From the Social Security Number FAQ:
"It's not a good idea to carry your SSN card with you (or other documents
that contain your SSN). If you should lose your wallet or purse, your SSN
would make it easier for a thief to apply for credit in your name or
otherwise fraudulently use your number."
Now imagine if said card also contained or linked to a database containing your fingerprints, facial scans, and DNA sequencing. Better hope you don't ever drop your wallet, or get it stolen.
You're going on the assumption that it's a good thing that they can laways track you. Some people would prefer not to have the government living with them 24 hours a day.
The question is, what benefit does this new card give us? We already have "voluntary" (bleh) id cards of several sorts. What does having this gigantic database accomplish that the current system doesn't? How would this have changed the events of September 11th, and even if it did alter them, was it worth the guy at the airport being able to print out a nice copy of my fingerprint for home use?
-Puk
- What is so wrong about the card? Let's check the parent post for some ideas:
- you have to register with the city you live in
- tell them where you live and, if you move, unregister with your old city and register in the new one
- They can always track you
- You have to have an ID card [...] And I even think there is a fine if you do not carry it with you.
I think that covers that question fairly well. Now, on to the second half of your question (which you forgot to ask):- What are the benefits of this system?
- A false sense of security when I board an airplane, because all of the nice people chose to register themselves with the government, so obviously there are no terrorists on board.
- Another piece of plastic to replace when I lose my wallet.
- Another token which links all of my data to each other and to me to make the theft of my identity easier.
- Umm...
I know us Americans are paranoid about our privacy, but honestly, don't you see any problem with the scenario outlined above?A "voluntary" ID card? Who is buying this idea? Do they have any idea what are they even talking about? Why would I "choose" to carry this? If I can just choose to not carry the card, when I am challenged, I can simply state that I don't have an ID, and they will have to accomodate me, because after all, this is voluntary, right?
So the whole system is worthless. Hence, this is just a smooth way to introduce the concept. Anyone who believes this is going to be voluntary is looney.
not living in a police state where any petty official may demand "Zeigen Sie Ihre Papiere, Kameraden!".
Yes, systems can be abused,and in the long run, all systems will be abused. If we create the necessary infrastructure for the government and corporations to track us today, they may not use it for less noble purposes now. But under a more conservative administration, after a more distressing terrorist event, they will use the database we build today to empower the big brother of tomorrow.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. What's in it for him is a death-grip on the identities of the entire country. What's in it for him is becoming as important as a public utility, but having all the benefits of a for-profit corporation. What's in it for him is that this is the only way he'll ever get richer and more important than Bill Gates, and he's got a woody the size of Florida.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
For your first l33t hacking job on this onerous and invasive abortion of an idea, I recommend cloning Larry Ellison's ID card.
Imagine the ease with which we can catch all terrorists and thugs since they'll all be named "Larry". What a great concept! Thanks for your assistance in this matter.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Sure,
It may make you *feel* safe, but when it comes down to it, anyone with a card or a good eBay rating can really screw you over.
By all accounts, many of the terrorists were quiet, neighborly people. An ID card will only allow for these people to be registered. Secuirty is not something that exists. This card is just something to make us think that it does.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Do I get a Yellow Card as a warning, and a Red Card when I'm about to be thrown out of the country?
sulli
RTFJ.
...unless you, the people, fight like grim death against it.
Here in Australia we had a proposal for the `Australia Card' -- basically the same as this proposal, only not as technologically sophisticated. It was put to the people's vote (referendum or an election issue? I don't remember) and the people's response was to tell the proposers how to fold it into sharp corners, and where to stick it afterwards. That's Ok, though, because then they introduced the Tax File Number, which is a wannabe SSN -- you need it to earn an income (failure to provide a TFN is not illegal, but automatically results in you being taxed at 49.5%), to open a bank account, or just about anywhere else where you are using money in a non-trivial way.
The TFN was possible because we (the Australian population) had just fought furiously and won against a more draconian scheme, and were tired. Also, this almost slipped under the radar without comment, as the parliament rushed it through with very little debate, in the house or in public.
This may turn out to be another High Aim Tactic. Ask for something which is absolutely ridiculous, and let yourself be beaten back to what you wanted in the first place. Even if Ellison is serious (surely not...?) his overtures can -- and probably will -- be used by others with the same barrow to push.
The question is where to draw the line. How much freedom from surveillance do you want? Once you have figured that out, don't settle for one jot less! As soon as you rationalise that `I don't really need to be able to X' and bargain away the right to be able to do so, then you have just lost something precious which you will never get back.
Of course, things are rarely that simple, and some things are obviously stupid. (Such as, eg, `I demand the right to stockpile Anthrax spores'.) But the apparatchiks will use these examples to persuade you that the right to freely assemble, for example, is just too dangerous for you to have. It will not be put to you like that. It will be that some travel may have to be restricted, or that restrictions based on profiling [Hmm, you have travelled in the middle east, your family name is arabic, and you talk funny...] will be instituted `for the time being'.
If history teaches us anything, it is that `for the time being' can be translated `for the foreseeable future', and that just means `until it is no longer profitable to do so'.
Wasn't it a Founding Father who said `the Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance'?
"This is a Hollywood movie: when it comes to the Laws of Physics, they're lucky if they get Gravity!" --- my wife
``Wouldn't you feel better if everyone who walked into an airport showed their ID card and put their thumb in the scanner and you knew they were who they said they were?''
Where in the hell did this asinine premise that perps will behave as long as they've been positively identified come about?
Well, no. As it happens, the perps who attacked the WTC were NOT travelling incognito. As it happens, I *have* travelled under someone else's name in order to use a return ticket that they didn't need, which was no skin off anyone's nose, and certainly didn't present a danger to my fellow passengers.
If someone is willing to commit suicide, what in the world makes Ellison imagine that he can be deterred by having his name in a database?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
What is the point in this proposal? Is it to make the country more secure against illegal aliens that might be dormant terrorists? Is it to prevent criminals from usurping other people's ID?
If these are indeed the goals, then I'd suggest to take a look at developed countries that already have implemented nation-wide ID cards. Namely, Europe. Why, it's fascinating.
Because you see, illegal immigration is totally out of control in Europe. As for terrorism, Spain (Basque Separatist movements), France (Corsican Separatists, Basques, Muslims), UK (IRA), as well as Greece, Italy and Germany have had severe terrorist attacks in the 1990s in spite of strict ID card policies.
How come these countries can harbor terrorists in spite of mandatory ID cards, you ask? It's because ID cards are not a silver bullet against crime. First, they can be forged. Always. France recently replaced its obsolete ID card with an embossed, hologramed, specially printed ID card, the deployment of which was a very expensive program. All this achieved was to raise the cost of a fake ID to about 5000FF ($600-700) on the black market. The best forgeries come of course from corrupt officials who fabricated cards with fake IDs using the state-approved machines.
So unless you have totally non-corrupt officials, all you're going to achieve is put terrorism out of reach of poor students. That's a tempting solution considering what is said in some literature circles after a few vodkas. But I don't think it will be the best one.
Look at Europe, for Heaven's sake, because they already did all the stupid things before us!
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Uh-huh, right after the war on drugs.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
All this achieved was to raise the cost of a fake ID to about 5000FF ($600-700) on the black market. The best forgeries come of course from corrupt officials who fabricated cards with fake IDs using the state-approved machines.
My goodness... physical security is not a good means of preventing copying. A well run ID system with enough memory on the card to do real cryptographic signatures would provide both security and tracability making forgeries nearly impossible to do.
A good ID card would contain a very small memory chip on it which contained a cryptographically signed message including the person who issued the ID, expiry time, issue time, distinguishing characteristics and possibly a photograph that was directly linked to a read-only id number embedded on every card to prevent the transfer of the information and signature to another card.
Information about each applicant would be captured on a machine which generated it's own cryptographic signature to ensure tracability. If in the case of a falsified record being entered into the system, you could expire every single ID card on the back-end and require each applicant to come back in.
You of course make providing false records a felony in federal courts punishable by a hefty amount of jail time.
These kinds of cards could eliminate drivers licenses and social security cards and as long as there was no physical printed number on the card itself and the readers for such cards were only issued to specific areas (aiports, police cars, etc), corporate interests would not be able to ask you for the information.
The only way to forge this particular type of cards requires either cracking the key, social engineering or some level of corruption.
Cracking the key is unlikely, but the nice thing about a realtime lookup system is you can do things like revoke CA keys and make IDs invalid. You then proceed to stagger the issue of cards with different signing keys so that the number of cards you'd invalidate if worst came to worst would be kept to a minimum.
Social engineering is a problem, but again, with a nice lookup system you could not ever get two IDs with different names. Once you registered, your biometic information would be checked against a master database to insure you haven't registered before. Obviously, registering under the wrong information the first time would lead to some rather nasty concequences down the road in case you actually wanted to have a life.
Corruption is a harder problem to deal with, but as stated before, revoking cards is not a problem with this type of system. You also have a nice paper trail which would make corruption very risky. Obviously paying the people who have control over the system well would help immensely.
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
What's wrong isn't the card, exactly. It's more a mismatch between the culture and the card concept.
I don't have any trouble registering with my Gemeinde here in Switzerland because I know that this information is respected and secured by the government and the people. Swiss people don't think "hey, how can I exploit this for money or power?" It's not part of the culture. And, as such, I feel that I have essentially nothing to worry about.
In America, however, the first thing that pops into anyones head is "hey, how can I exploit this for money or power?" It's the American mindset that grew out of the Wild West and is still strong. There is no way in hell I'd want to register with the my local police department in the US. Because I know what would come later.
The card itself is a tool. It can be used for good or bad. The culture determines which.
Devon