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White House Frowns on National ID Card
sonic writes "'One security measure that [Homeland Defense Chief] Clarke didn't put much store in, however, was a proposal by some industry leaders, including Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, to create a national ID card.
Clarke said he could not name one official who supports the idea as proposed, though he said the administration does not yet have a formal position on the concept.
"Everyone I've talked to doesn't think it's a good idea," Clarke said. "
Your social security number is already a national id card. Link it with a driver's license and you're set.
Regardless, this is a good sign. I also think one of the reasons that politicians are backing down on earlier proposals is because the public isn't as furious anymore. Wait about 3-6 months and few will care; wait a year and it'll be thrown in the back of society's minds. (Note: I don't mean to downplay the attacks by any means; all I'm saying is that it's human nature to get over things in about 3-6 months, of course, not including the people who were directly affected by it.)
Anyways, now that society's not as angry anymore, people are becoming relatively sane again. And in another year, we'll be back where we started.
In 1992 the state of California brought out the new digitized driver's license. The DMV had this big pr campaign saying that it was impossible to counterfeit. That lasted for about two months until perfect fraudulent licenses were being found. How did it happen?
Because DMV employees were being bribed--as much as $5000 per license.
See, the thing is, if such a card is so powerful, then there will be a justification in getting a fraudulent one. Before photos were added to licenses (not all states require the photo incidentally) no one faked a license...because it couldn't do crap. No one bribed a DMV official for a license--they just drove the car. After the photo was added, then the license became a powerful document--now I can cash out someone's bank account, or write bad checks...et cetera.
And in the instance in California above--the criminals didn't even mess about trying to fake the card--they just bribed a DMV official. A biometric card wouldn't prevent this...because clearly the card would be made correctly--it's just representing the wrong identity. And if this were a national card, then there would be millions of cards made per year by thousands of government officials--all you have to do is find one to bribe (and it's easy...they don't make that much money ya know.)
In computers, they say that your security is as good as your biggest weakness. Consider the California driver's license--it's got microprinting and holograms and all that silly stuff. That's not the weakness of the card--the weakness is that it's issued to 30 million people by thousands of DMV employees and is verified at tens of thousands of different places. I don't care if you required DNA to issue such a card, the numbers just don't make it that secure.
What really blows my mind is this strange addiction to smart cards... digital ID? smartcard smartcard!!!!!!
smartcards suck. The readers are overpriced, the cards are delicate and cannot be worn on the person without clothing or in the shower.
I have an Ibutton ring, I shower with it on, If I'm buck naked (Ok all of you can stop going Ewwwwww!) I still have my ibuton on me. It stores more, can do more(Java VM built in) is pretty much indestructable (stainless steel) and is super secure/tamper proof. (Open the ibutton can and it releases the inert gas inside and causes the silicon inside to quickly erase/destruct)
I log in my computer, unlock my home's doors, and open the garage door with it. I also store my bank accountnumbers inside and when in my reader that cost a paltry $15.00, it also stores my login/password for websites and automagically logs me in.
granted the java ring is expensive ($75.00) bit the ibuton in single price quantity with 32K of flash storage is around $5.00 and about $2.00 if you are only interested in a ID.
smartcards are $5.00 each in lots of 100, the reader is horribly overpriced, and durability is not there by any means.
A national id is a horribe idea, but thinking of using a smartcard for it is plain stupidity.
About as stupid as thinking that Oracle was being nice and generous by offering to design the database.... Geee, what humanitarians.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Robert Heinlen is a VERY well-known science fiction writer. I would guess that at least 90% of Slashdotters have read at least one of his books.
Probably the best known of his books is "Stranger in a Strange Land", a book about a human being who was raised by Martians and later brought back to Earth. Martians (in the book) had an activity called "grokking" which was to understand deeply (deeper than the average human being ever does or will do). This is where the term "grok" (as you have probably seen it used here) comes from.
Another one of his books mentioned a lot on Slashdot is "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", which is about a prison colony on the moon (it's actually mainly inhabited by the descendants of the original inhabitants of the prison colony, but they're still treated like prisoners) that revolts to form its own nation, with the help of a self-aware computer.
Heinlen is also known for being rather vocal about his Libertarian views, and this sometimes comes across in his books, such as in "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls".
Whether or not you agree with his political views, you can still enjoy his works, and I strongly suggest that you try them.
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Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I...
I think I am more comfortable with this than with my data sitting unencrypted, on some doctor's PC somewhere. Otoh, can you imagine teaching a whole nation how to create and use pincodes longer than four digits? Scary.
I recently moved from the UK to the US. In the UK, you can pretty much live happily with no ID.
Here in California ID is required for everything. For example, I just (20 minutes ago) requested some info about cable modems. I needed to provide an ID number before getting any info!
Okay, so I don't have a Californian driving license. I don't have a social security card. If I didn't have a UK passport I would be pretty stuffed. That would mean: no bank account, no apartment, no TV, and (most importantly) no Beer.
So I have to carry my passport everywhere (and risk losing it - which would be a real bummer). I figure it is okay to leave it with my clothes whilst surfing off pacific beach, but technically that's against the INS rules.
Presumably all Americans need to carry their driving license nearly always. That sucks.
So, overall, I don't think a national ID would make any difference to anybody's privacy, and it would make going out considerably easier. (Gesh, half the doormen at bars/clubs don't know where to find my photo in my passport).
The issue here is not JUST privacy. Just think about how this would be handled... if there is a legislative mandate that requires law abiding citizens to always carry ID just in order to partake in normal life processes, then that should frighten most people. I should be able to use cash to go buy something and NEVER have to be ID'd. If the company wishes to ID me, fine... but that is not the role of the government, especially not the federal government. And if it is a law, then that means it must be enforced. Now, we will suddenly have a wide spread criminal pandemic of evil people that didn't have their ID's on them.
I am sure many others have already made the Brown Shirts comparison, but just like repetativeness and majority does not make something right, neither does it make it wrong.
Your statement:
is self contradictory. Rational is a word to describe a state of mind that would quickly enable one to quickly notice that your method of thought is the EXACT same justification used to create, coverup and forget the largest atrocities of humanities history. That is exactly what tyrants want the public to parrot, and that is exactly what our Founding Fathers warned us to be vigilant against.No, on second thought, I am absolutely SURE you are not a libertarian.