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National Biometric IDs
Jester998 writes "I just came across this article about how two U.S. congressmen want biometric identification. They're trying to avoid the controversial 'national ID' issue by creating what would be new drivers licenses with biometric information embedded. What does the Slashdot community think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card?"
Proudly Canadian.
i'd just like my retinas embedded on a smart card. then i could see if i have correct change before pulling out my wallet.
--
fight global cooling
On one hand, I agree with the idea. The state license system for discerning citizens from non-citizens is a joke. It doesn't work. Any joe can make a fake identity.
On the other hand, do you think they'll allow me to substitute my fingerprint for a scan of my ass on my license?
I'm just relieved that they no longer want our rectal pattern stamped on the license.
I'll gouge my eyes out first. ......
That'll teach 'em
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
They're trying to avoid the controversial 'national ID' issue by creating what would be new drivers licenses with biometric information embedded.
That's a great evasive tactic. After all, when people ask me for identification, they hardly expect to see a driver's license.
Much like the Social Security Number has become a de facto customer ID number, the driver's license is essentially the official ID card of the nation.
Try buying a case of beer with a "non-driver identification card" some time. Or god forbid, a passport.
--saint
A national ID card is a way to restrict freedom. Unlike searches at the airport, you don't gain security for the trade-off. Instead you get to be treated like a criminal when you've done nothing wrong. Would it have stopped any act of terrorism? No. Would it have ever stopped anything? I seriously doubt it. This only oppressed the law abiding citizens.
If they have to run my head through the same machine they use to get credit card imprints for receipts, I'm not looking forward to it.
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
What does the Slashdot community think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card?"
The same as ALL THE OTHER attempts to remove our privacy...NO! NO! How often does this need to be repeated before people finally understand that "NO" really does mean "NO"?
It's not the method of privacy removal that we find disgusting. It's the removal of the privacy in the first place.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
how easily can these smart cards be hacked? i've been looking for something other than directtv cards to use with the scr that came with my soyo dragon+
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
I worry that the info on the card will be used for other, more privacy invading things that they will claim we agreed to by getting a driver's license. Somthing like "By getting a license, you agree to have your data put in law inforcement data bases, market research, genetic screening databases "for organ donation if you are interested" etc... Scares me.
Chris
The do a scan of your hand and match it to info embedded in your passcard. You have to do this at 3 of the 7 security check points to access your servers.
Setting aside the privacy issues for a moment, how do these guys figure that $315 million will be enough money to create this system?
After all, with the current US population somewhere in the neighborhood of 270+ million (I'm too lazy to look up a more accurate estimate) they think they can create and implement this system for just over $1 per citizen?
Seems a little conservative to me.
Think For Yourself. Question Authority.
Why not just mark everybody's hand and forehead? If they don't have the mark, don't let them buy and sell. Easy as that.
Will that mean that they can make a true clone of you when they find you? Might be a way to get the official number of highway death go down...
However, I'd bet the rest of the country probably has a problem with it.
mailto:<?=implode("@", array("chris", implode(".", array("php", "net"))))?>
well, how would your identity be stolen? they are not stealing your eye, they are stealing a card with your retinal scan on the back. i imagine that what the retinal scan is for is that you present your card, then put your face to a retinal scanner to make sure that the card is not a fake and you say who you are. now i don't like this idea, but i do feel that getting ahold of somebody's card with a retianl scan stored on the chip is no more risky than getting thier traditional id card stolen.
Nobody is asking what the problem is that this is supposed to address. Step 1) of implementing a security measure is to ask "What is the problem it addresses?"
So, what is the problem? Terrorism? The 9/11 terrorists HAD legal id. Having their DNS sequence on the card would not have stopped them.
I haven't considered all of the ramifications, but I think it's a good idea. There may be privacy issues, but, really, who cares if your retinal pattern is in a database somewhere? It isn't as if your DNA is being sampled[1].
What makes this a GOOD idea is that identity theft would be much more difficult. Right now, if someone gets a hold of your SSN, they can screw you over. It's much more difficult to recreate a retinal pattern.
David Brin refers to this distinction in The Transparent Society. Your SSN maybe a good identification number, but in many cases it is also used as a password, which is just foolish, because you can't change it, and it can be stolen. On the other hand, a retinal scan, as I said above, makes an excellent ID/password, because it is so difficult to duplicate.
I'm still interested to hear other's arguments against this.
[1] The implication here is that insurance companies may be able to get a hold of your DNA and use the information within against you.
They will be asking to have this embedded into out skulls next...
Then the RI/MP AA will be asking for implants that will listen/watch what we see/hear, and turn our senses off when we see/hear something we don't have their permission for...
Just you wait, this will be coming. We won't be able to breathe without permission from the EPA next..
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
So the people making fake drivers licenses have to jump through some extra hoops...big deal. What problem is this solving? This smacks of gun control and Windows Product Activation...in that it just makes things more difficult for John Q. Public. Fake IDs will still be easily accessible.
Besides, don't we pretty much already have a national ID system? As in a Social Security Number?
I don't mind adding biometric information to my driver's license as long as its registered by my state rather than the Federal government. It should not be thought of as a national id card as long as the biometric information is used for verification rather than identification.
No data, no cry
Georgia already has this....
Actually the idea behind biometric identification is that you have something other than a piece of paper to vouchsafe your identity.
So, have your drivers license stolen - it's no longer identity theft. As soon as the retinal information on the license is cross-referenced with an actual retinal scan of the individual carrying the card, bingo the scanner knows they're in fraudulent posession.
"proudly canadian"
isn't that an oxymoron?
/me runs
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
The basic question is easily stated: do we apply the privacy desires of the majority, or the privacy desires of the individual? The majority may very well not have a problem with having megabytes of data in every corporate database that leads to loads of junk mail, spam, targeted ads, higher insurance, HMO profiling, your neighbor knowing about how depressed you got when your fiancee left you, if you are a women, the creepy guy down the street finding out when you shop and what tv shows you like so he can always "bump into you"... ad naseum. Once the data is open, it will get used in... creative... ways that we can't predict.
So... I am a mass of data. I know what I like, what I don't like, my favorite indulgences, my pet peeves, my moral boundaries. I don't want my neighbor knowing.
Biometric info on my ATM card? Sure! As long as it *remains tied* to that account. If you start cross correlating that with my purchasing and medical data, that starts to worry the hell out of me. Not for what will happen in the next few years - but for how my children's children will live.
Do we really all want to live on the set of the aptly named "Big Brother" with any corporation or neighbor with a wallet able to predict, profile and peer into our lives?
I am data, and I want to be able to control who knows me.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
That'd be fine, since retina prints change over time and are not a useable form of ID. Perhaps you mean IRIS print, or face or hand profile?
I think that's what this is trying to avoid. The whole problem with National Id cards is what you just described.
Biometric encoding would eliminate this because you could easily match a peron to an id card.
My problem with this kind of stuff is just the security involved. I'm a System Administrator and so I know first hand how lazy people can be when it comes to security. People always choose convenience over security. No matter what. And the U.S government is no exception.
A couple small examples:
In the gulf war a U.S Navy ship was compromised and e-mail was leaked.
Presently there's a group of blackhat's calling themselves "The Deceptive Duo" who have succesfully hacked into government systems..
I don't want to trust every single piece of information that's very personal to an irresponsible government that doesn't take the security of it's network seriously. Because most likely everyone's information will be stored in a single database that government officials can use to lookup your information. It's already happening it's just not as centralized as they want it to be.
I guess the idea is that if you get pulled over the cop will take a hand or retinal scan, go to his cruiser and get every single piece of information he could possibly need to know about you from a central database.
That scares because of both security and privacy concerns that I have.
--
Garett
think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card?
Better than having rectal patterns on the card
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
"What does the Slashdot community think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card?"
C'mon . . do you really need to as this? Anything short of the govermnet not knowing a damn thing is goign to piss off 90 percent of the people here.
----
One of us needs to stick ones' head in a bucket of ice water.
- Hobbes
I dont want a national Biometric ID, but I dont see your point. If anything, this would make it harder to get your identity stolen. A retinal scan could verify wether or not the drivers lisence you are using is yours or not, thereby keeping people from using stolen ID's.
Fingerprints on the otherhand could be really bad, since they are much more easily reproduced. Plus, if someone had your fingerprints, they could leave them at the scene of a crime.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
The international drivers license features a 2D bar code than can hold 100 times more information than standard bar codes. This type of barcode would be a great feature to identify the individual with more detail.
http://tomgould.com/
Don't those goofs have anything better to do to compensate for their inferiority- or whatever complex/defect and trying to stand out to get what - liked, respected?
Contemplating - what's a good place these days?
I heard of some cities having it more together, one in Brazil, another in India.
Suggestions?
Your drivers license IS you national I.D. card. Think about it a moment.
It absolutely and uniquely identifies you. It's accepted in every court in the civilized world. It ties you in (thru the social security account, required for issue) to every financial transaction you ever made in the last twenty years. It indexes your actions into every medical, professional, legal, and political database on the planet.
And Slashdot readers are debating whether they should call it a national i.d., or what?
Oooo! He's a mean sucker. Mod him down!
Lose your card, get your identity stolen easily.
Not unless I accidentally drop my retinas on the ground too.
The idea of biometrics ( probably finger not retina ) for identity is one of the most trusted forms of identification. I am for a more faithful identification process. I for one would like to use technology for improvement. The situation is not biometrics, its need. Does the government NEED to take these steps to govern the people. I for one believe the world is ready for it, I will be pulled kicking and screaming but will be forced to conform. As some states already have my fingerprint on file, that is the same as having it on a smartcard. Authentication has three levels ( for beginners here ) something you have ( drivers license ) , something you know ( possibly drivers license PIN ) and something you are ( biometrics ) . If these steps are put to use, there would be highest of difficulty to fake this process. I am one to keep my opinion out of gossipy government. I do hope to see new toys. I feel sorry for the college kids and their fake id shops. ENJOY
.. 20 months .. remember biometrics are only as safe as the environment they are used in.
Also, I would like to note, I change my password every 30 days. If I keep this up for biometrics.... I am only secure for 10 months. Toes
-----------------
Monkey Angst
We all live under Monkey Law
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Harder?!? Like when Arnie used an employee's dismembered thumb to gain unauthorized access in The Sixth Day, or when Wesley used a employee's eyeball to escape from prison in Demolition Man??? Oh no, biometric technology will simply cause violent crimes to increase. Identity theft will come to signify the loss of a finger or eyeball! We must rely on movies to provide the rationalization our policy makers lack : )
Stuff like this makes me wonder about another factor. I have minor keratoconus (http://www.nkcf.org), which isn;t bad enough to keep me from driving, etc., but has made it pretty much impossible for any retinal scanner to get a proper image of my retina. Basically, unless EVERY factor is the same when it tries to take the image (and my eye doesn't twitch), no two scans end up looking the same. What would people with problems like this do if they passed crasp like this, instant second class citizen status?
Technically, isn't a photograph already a form of biometric data?
Its all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
so what happens when someone loses and eye?
It wouldn't be so bad if the card could be used for verification, and not identification. If the cards could answer specific questions, yes or no would be sufficient instead of divulging all sorts of other information that I would not necessarily want divulged.
For example, there are bars now that at the door have a magnetic strip reader which is used for verification purposes. This makes it easy for the bar to make sure a patron is 21 or over by swiping the person's driver's license. It does verify that the person is over 21, but also records their birth date, DL number, address, height, weight, eye color, and driver restrictions which the bar uses for marketing purposes.
In the same situation I would want a smart card to just answer two simple questions; Does this person belong to this card? (yes/no) and Is this person 21 years of age or over? (yes/no). And nothing else.
For airline checkpoints, does this person belong with this ticket, yes or no? Does this person belong with this baggage? This way everything is on the card and your personal information is not tracked all over the place. Of course the government doesn't want this because they can't track anyone this way.
-Matt
In spite of claims, biometric systems are vulnerable to attack. People can find ways to forge biometric information at automatic terminals, even at manned terminals. For example, some iris scanners can be fooled by contact lenses.
This presents a problem. Right now, if somebody steals my password, I can just cancel the old one and make up a new one.
However, I think it would be more difficult to get a new retina.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
if your license ever gets stolen and cloned: Once biometric data is compromised, i.e., the digital file titled leaves your immediate control, you can be impersonated for the rest of your life. It's not like a credit card number where they cancel it and issue you a new one. You can't get a new thumb. (cr. B. Schneier) And if technology ever gets to the point that you can clone a new thumb with a new print, or grow a new retinal pattern then biometric ID becomes meaningless.
I'm not saying that it should never be used, but you have to think long and hard before you start sending biometrics over the airways (e.g., police checks) or the phone lines (e.g., carding someone at the bar to verify their ID), or the internet (e.g., ebay, paypal)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Part of an article by Bruce Schneier:
Biometrics don't handle failure well. Imagine that Alice is using her thumbprint as a biometric, and someone steals the digital file. Now what? This isn't a digital certificate, where some trusted third party can issue her another one. This is her thumb. She has only two. Once someone steals your biometric, it remains stolen for life; there's no getting back to a secure situation.
And biometrics are necessarily common across different functions. Just as you should never use the same password on two different systems, the same encryption key should not be used for two different applications. If my fingerprint is used to start my car, unlock my medical records, and read my electronic mail, then it's not hard to imagine some very unsecure situations arising.
Biometrics are powerful and useful, but they are not keys. They are not useful when you need the characteristics of a key: secrecy, randomness, the ability to update or destroy. They are useful as a replacement for a PIN, or a replacement for a signature (which is also a biometric). They can sometimes be used as passwords: a user can't choose a weak biometric in the same way they choose a weak password.
Biometrics are useful in situations where the connection from the reader to the verifier is secure: a biometric unlocks a key stored locally on a PCM-CIA card, or unlocks a key used to secure a hard drive. In those cases, all you really need is a unique hard-to-forge identifier. But always keep in mind that biometrics are not secrets.
http://www.counterpane.com/insiderisks1.html
Many of you have probably already read this, but here is an excellent newsletter on security and ID cards.
To paraphrase, the following questions must be answered for each proposed security measure:
Perhaps I'm missing something here but what is the pupose of putting retna prints on a card? As I understand it retnal prints can be used for identification. To me this means they could be used for security by keeping them in a database. Then whenever someone wants acess to the secured building/materials/whatever they get their retna scanned to verify that they have clearance.
Wouldnt putting the prints on id's just make identity theft one step easier?
The one thing I like about this (I likely wont support it, however) is that it may protect against identity theft, specifically the kind where people use the identity to steal from the person whose identity they stole.
Also, right now the INS, IRS and other gov't organizations don't talk to each other much. A national id card would change that, it might remove some beaurocracy.
-Sean
Shouldn't biometrics remove the need for a physical card? Just scan your thumb, no swipe necessary and you can't lose it (easily at least).
Since I recently had two books of checks stolen from my mailbox. I now have a different perspective on biometric IDs.
The check thieves quickly produced at least six fake driver's licenses to go with their newly stolen checks, and proceeded to spend their way across metro Denver. At last count, they've run up over $5,000 in bad checks. Guess who gets all the collection notices?
Setting aside the fact that checks are evil and I plan to rarely if ever use them again, if we had biometric verified IDs, then the assholes who stole my checks wouldn't have been able to use them. At least, not as easily as they did.
I say bring on the national ID card!
- Necron69
I leave my dna all over most everything I touch right now anyways...
I'm worried (like other posters) that all this is going to end up in a massive, clustered relational database. I can see how all someone's habits, financial transactions, phone calls, etc., will be linked together and analyzed for patterns that fit certain "criminal/terrorist profiles".
Sorry, but last time I checked the United States was a FREE COUNTRY where the 4th Amendment (among others) protects us from heavy-handed government prying like this. I don't think we should allow our government to do this kind of BS. Otherwise, twenty or thirty years from now we may be seeing mind-search warrants.
A century ago phrenology was all the craze. Seems like things haven't changed all that much.
Are drivers licenses a bad thing? Is allowing easy forging of them a bad thing?
If you answered no to the first question and yes to the second, I don't see how you can have a problem with a biometric ID system. I accept the fact that for some purposes, it is valuable to be able to validate your identity. If it is valuable to do so, then it is more valuable to be able to do so reliably.
When the government (or corporations) start asking you to validate your identity unnecessarily, bitch about privacy by all means. But making validation more reliable when it's needed is a good thing.
Initially most people will resist the new technology because people are inherently averse to changes in general. But wait! What if we offer people something they couldn't possible pass up? Something so good they we be beating down our door to get these things. Think it's not possible? When a bank in South Africa (I will continue to try and identify the bank. Any help appreciated) decided to switch to Smart Cards over 10 years ago. They offered FREE transactions for the first month to anyone who adopted the cards. Needless to say the cards were enthusiastically adopted by the masses and the bank won over countless new customers in the process. If they did something like that here I'd get one. Then I would go get that new Ferrari I've got my eye on.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I dunno, if they used something along the lines of public/private key encryption, where your card was the equivalent of your public key and your actual retina pattern was the private key, this wouldn't be so bad.
Of coures, who would you trust as the CA? Verisign?
.. and this problem is directly related to any attempt by the government to use technology in something that all or must americans must take part in, is that it has to be secure.
:)
Now, this isnt a HUGE topic due to it being a drivers license, because as we all know, drivers licenses are quite easily faked anyways.
The problem is that if this happens, you know that Microsoft (as well as many other large companies, though Microsoft scares me the most) is going to go up for the bid on the server systems that hold the biometrics data.
This creates a large security issue. There's NO WAY to spread this data throughout the field to the people who need it, without letting those who dont want it at it also. Again, not drivers license specific.
To be honest, I dont think we are there yet. Biometrics is a big thing. Its not like a social security number, etc. As biometrics becomes more mainstream, we are talking about a GLOBAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM. Do you want the method, security, and 'secret key' to be the same for the government, your office network, your internet presence, and the one you use to start your car and enter your home? Remember, in this example its not like they authenticate against a centralized security system. The keys to the right answer has to be stored locally for a lot of these, and if one is crackable, there's your ID, running naked out in public, or even worse, private.
And do you want it stored on a computer system? Do you trust Microsoft systems with this? How about Sun? Oracle? (Hey, its Unbreakable
Hell, I wouldent want my biometrics information on a single machine inside a 9x9x9' room surrounded by three foot of solid concrete and a thousand military guards.
Before biometrics become mainstream, we must thoroughly review the why, as well as the consequences. Is it worth such a security risk to do whatever these congressman think needs to be done?
Call me crazy and paranoid, but this is NOT a good idea. It has far reaching implications i'm sure the folks in congress arent aware of yet.
From the story:According to a statement by Moran, at least eight of the 19 September 11 hijackers were able to easily obtain licenses.
And how many were wanted by the FBI and shouldn't have been let into the country to begin with? Most? All?
Jeez, these guys used their real names on these "easy-to-obtain licenses", and nobody bothered to check if they were wanted or not? It'd be nice if we didn't have to keep bending over for the government's failures.
A biometric ID won't make us less free. It probably won't make us more secure against terror, although reliable ID might have caught Ahmed Ressam, the guy who plotted to blow up LAX, then panicked at a routine border search. He had come and gone across the US border with different Canadian passports. Sure, half of his names were on watch lists, so he just switched identities. Had he not blown his cool, a lot of people could have died.
But that isn't what interests me.
Here is where a biometric ID can help:Identity Theft
It is trivially easy to impersonate someone and rack up credit card charges, commit crime with their identity, etc. Biometric IDs would put a stop to that.
A year ago, my wife's wallet was stolen from her gym locker. The usual credit card fraud ensued, which was stopped within a few hours.
Then the crook took her drivers license, somehow mangled it, and got the her picture on the front and my wife's name. Apparently, the Illinois DMV doesn't compare you to a file picture when you get an ID. This let them write checks on that identity, taking out loans (despite calls to every credit agency to put a watch on that sort of thing), culminating in the purchase (with a stolen check) and financing (naturally) of a used Ford Explorer at a sleazy car dealership too lazy to verify the bank balance or credit info.
Once the car check bounced, the dealer reported the theft, the cops came to us talking about grand theft auto. After some explaining, the license plate (in my wife's name, of course) was put into the police database. Amazingly, they actually caught this crook when she tried to pass one of the checks for a carton of smokes. The check came up bad (for once!), the store called the cops, who ran the plate of the SUV and got her. She naturally looks nothing like my wife, who is short, skinny, and white, not tall, obese, and black.
The moral of the story is that it is easy to impersonate someone, causing harm to that person because there is no biometric element at any point in the US ID system.
It doesn't make us more free because we have unreliable ID. Most of us never have a reason to fake an identity (save trivial stuff like faking your grocery club card). We don't get a privacy benefit from poor ID, we just have the risk of identity theft. How are you less free because your identity may be tied to your physical person? How are you more free because your identity is (at present) not 100% properly verified when you get a passport or drivers license?
We already leave data trails almost everywhere we go. These can be picked up by commercial concerns interested in selling you the exact type of extreme soda for your demographic. A biometric ID won't change that.
Your SSN will still be in 1000 poorly secured databases, ripe for the taking. The only thing a biometric ID will do is make it harder to impersonate someone else.
I say it is high time we get ID that works.
http://www.totse.com/en/privacy/privacy/bioidcrd.
All you do is stop voting this Dianne Feinstein into office, and this will stop happening! She is intent on doing this and now has been doing it for over 7 years. Maybe its time to wake up and smell the roses those people in CA. I think people will ignore her, just like that have for the last 7 years
`find / -name "*your_base*" -exec chown us:us {} \;`
They need a way to identify everyone in the country uniquely, so a retinal scan seems like a fine idea. They already have all sorts of data on you. How will this change things? You're looking at fewer administrative costs due to things like duplicate SSNs (which I've heard of, but I'm not American, so I can't really verify or cite references of where I've heard such things.) Plus, identity theft, which is a big deal, isn't quite so straight forward.
What I REALLY don't understand is how everyone thinks this removes privacy. First of all: What privacy? Secondly: It's no different now, except maybe you won't have to give out your SSN for things that are ludicrous to give it out for. In Canada, we are within our legal rights to refuse giving out our SIN (the equivalent) to anyone except the government, our employer, and anyone that may have to pay money over to us (like a bank, if I'm making interest on money. It's all for tax purposes.) From what I hear, you basically have to give out your SSNs for EVERY little effing thing. Correct me if I'm wrong.
So, in short, what's changing? You'd move from a system that assigns a number to you, and is only tenuously unique (ie. it's possible to fabricate a card with the same SSN on it, despite the 'uniqueness' of the number) to a system that doesn't bother with the number business, and uses something that is ACTUALLY unique to you.
But hey, I'm just a Canuck. I don't really care how much info my government has on me, frankly. Despite my government making moronic decisions now and then about CDR tariffs, I basically trust them.
that's ALL I need, having my Adobe FingerPrint (tm) or MS Eyeball(c) hacked off the card after I hand it to my waitron to confirm the Domestic Security Agency has no objection to my having a beer with supper, and posted on a goons site at some religious retreat in the Afghani mountains.
read my lips: NO, GODDAMMIT! in fact, pass a law that my SSN be taken off every database in the country except the FBI and SS systems, and nobody can ever ask for it again who is not from SS. or I'll dump your tea off the dock!
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
All I have to say is "pork project." I only wish I had the free time to find out what company put them up to this so I could put the CEOs email on Slashdot.
It is not like they are asking for biometric information that can be left at a crime scene, unless I accidentally leave my retinas there. Therefore I don't really care.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Well, to have any semblance of control over the process of proving one's identity, I think smart cards are a better than just keeping all the retina patterns, fingerprints, DNA signatures in a database. If no one can positively identify me unless I carry the smart card that correlates the biometric data with all of the other information, then I have control. If the authorities can just transmit the scanned retinal image over the network to some big database to search, then a card is irrelevant.
You can see that the "card" is pretty much for off-line use.
Practically, face-recognition software will be used more and more, not just for "anti-terrorist" measures at the airport ticket counter, but for "targeted demographic profiling" at your Costco, Walmart, BestBuy, etc.
I'm just glad that I have a constitution with some provisions for my protection in it and for my ability to vote to change my government.
Imagine this technology being applied in Iraq, North Korea and China. Their "problems" of political dissent will be substantially reduced by the introduction of this kind of technology.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
...it's time to hunt me some scumbag congressmen.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I worked in the plastic card industry writing firmware for PVC card printers/encoders. Assume 100 DMVs per state (5000 DMVs total), comes to about $63,000 in equipment (biometrics + printer/encoder), and I think I'm being a little generous with the DMVs, especially with states like Delaware.
Consumables (cards, color ribbons) are another thing. (Smartcards are pretty cheap at about or less than $1 a card if memory serves me right)
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
It doesn't bother me: being English but living in America, they've already kindly attached my biometic info to my greencard.
I guess no one remembered to pay attention when they went for the immigrants as an easy first target. What's that poem about, "When they came for the Jews, I didn't stand up because I wasn't a Jew..... And when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up."?
On the positive side, it shouldn't bother you either: The INS has spent millions putting funky holographic strips on to greencards, border passes, etc..... and then ran out of money to buy the actual readers. Government spending being as intelligent as it is, you probably don't need to worry about them ever being able to actually use the information they spent so much gaining.
It need only be stolen from the vulnerable and highly enticing gov't system that holds it in a database.
One of the problems with the use of the Social Security Numbers is that they are intended for use with contributing to and collecting from Social Security, and thus have information attatched to them about Social Security. The problem is, they are used as a generic form of identification (or authentication). Any time someone asks for your SSN to verify who you are, they are that much closer to the private personal information associated with your SSN. This same problem will occur with the driver's licenses.
I am against a National ID Card, but I would PREFER it to a national driver's license that would be effectively used for the same purpose.
Sig free since 2/6/2002
Where to begin...
What makes this a GOOD idea is that identity theft would be much more difficult
So the reward for identity theft is that much higher. Sort of like keeping a lot of credit card numbers in one place.
On the other hand, a retinal scan, as I said above, makes an excellent ID/password, because it is so difficult to duplicate.
They don't have to duplicate it just sub in another retinal scan for yours and now they are for all intents and purposes you. What if they took your retinal scan record and subbed it for Charles Manson or some other nogoodnik? Can you prove whom you are if your retinal scan is linked to a criminal record?
Do yourself a favor and read _Secrets and Lies_. Schneier does a good job of explaining the dangers of biometric identification.
Admittedly, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I don't want people to steal my identity and ruin my life nor do I want the Government to give my personal convictions and actions to anyone with enough influence or money.
I live in Virginia. We already have a barcode imprinted on the back of our Driver's License. I am only thankful that it doesn't seem to be a system in wide use (as far as I know).
While I am supportive to find a way to protect our identity and interests, this type of proprosal will ultimately infringe be our doom as it seems of late that we're giving up more and more of our freedoms.
The Government doesn't seem to be ruled by the people but the Corporations. I am not the first to make this connection, and it isn't an epiphany. This situation just stinks.
Like others have stated, I don't want my neighbor to know what medications I am on. They don't need to know that me and my husband (if I were married) are in marriage counseling nor what I had for dinner last night. I also don't want anyone to reveal my spiritual beliefs, medical history, or financial status to anyone else.
I don't think this is an adequate resolution to our crisis with Identity Theft. Unfortunately, I have thought of a solution to counteract ideas like this personally.
I don't want to see a future like Gattaca nor a world where we are marked like the Jews & other prisoners taken by Nazis in WWII. Perhaps, these are some harsh examples, but I think they are necessary to illustrate the threat to our civil liberty and freedom.
With this type of marking, it truly voids the statement that Thomas Jefferson made in the Declaration of Independence that "we are all created equal.." We won't be equals anymore but our differences will be heavily prominated in front of face. Is military rule in our future?
Truth like surgery, may hurt, but it cures. - Han Suyin, Chinese Physician and Writer
They'll just do like California does with its driver license: Charge $10 every four years for a new card, and $10 any time you lose your card. After all, if it's levied as a new fee, and doesn't come out of existing taxes, it isn't new spending, right? Right??
Lets take an almost totally unique biometric pattern, and put it on a card! Now thieves and terrorists don't have to remove your skull to have access to your identity.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
My Condolences
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
There are two parts to this problem. The first is somebody else impersonating you, something biometrics can address.
The second is your right to remain anonymous. Or, at least, to avoid having information from one transaction being brought into an unrelated one. We're seeing this now (e.g., many insurance companies now raise rates for drivers with bad credit ratings, but you can get a "bad" rating if you're a careful shopper and visit many local car dealerships who (technically illegal, but common practice) run a credit check on everyone who seems to be a serious buyer.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I've said it before and I'll say it again: a far better authentication system would be to have your biometric information, picture, and name on the card, but have it digitally signed by multiple private keys held by the government in different places. Duplication would be virtually impossible, since you would have to get access to the biometry (not that hard), then get it signed by all of the keys (very hard).
Anyone could validate that you are you by verifying the digital signatures and checking the picture or biometry. Since the name, picture and biometry are signed as a unit, there's no way to create a card with your biometry and another person's name and picture without cracking all of the keys.
Already, they ask for thumbprints as a part of getting/renewing a license in Texas. You put your thumb on a red laser thing and it scans it. I don't think that it actually keeps in on the card, but it does have a magnetic strip. Among other things, the magnetic strip keeps your real age on the card. For example, people who try and forge their license will have the original age on the strip. The cops, especially the ones that commonly patrol the nightclub areas, have devices that scan them and display the age. If the displayed age does not match the printed age, they'll ticket them or some such.
I'm not sure that I'd mind something unique to the individual as opposed to something arbitrarily chosen such as the SSN which, for all intents and proposes as far as colleges go, is your national ID. After all, a driver's license is statewide. Currently, if need be an out of state cop can run out of state check on a license. The only thing that keeping it at the state level does is.... keep it at the state level (in turn keeping more people off the national payroll, because we all know that bureaucracies are perfect).
and yes, I sometimes ramble
Is there any risk to the eyes?
all the people get the DNI (National identification document, but in spanish :) ), and there is a photo and one finger and a sign (they keep in a building the all ten fingers, don't know how to say it, the image of the finger, actualy, some policeman argentino invented that)
In case the police want to know if you are you, they send the image to the capital and in 24 hs, they said yes, and they let you out of the police deparment.
it's rare now, but in the past years It was a common practice here.
It's no a good idea to live here, but in one way or other we will change that.
I'm from Argentina: Tango, Asado, Mate, Gaucho, Maradona, YPF
Don't laugh... what happens when the database that houses all this biomentric database gets hacked (because it's using passport for authentication, perhaps)? Anyone can spoof my retinal data (or whatever), and I can't ask the admin in charge to reset my password, can I?
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
And what about people that don't have eyes??
If someone steals my credit card number, I can get a new number.
If someone steals my biometric information, where can I get new fingers and eyes?
Most people cannot understand that using biometric information for validation is like holding up photographs to a camera. When you can explain it to them like that, they immediately understand the failures in the system and how to defeat such defective technology.
Alas, it will take years for the mentally crippled to get cleaned out of political office. Until then, we have nonsense like this to deal with.
Of which biometric data goes on this card?
What happens if I'm in a car accident and loose my eye or hand?
When it's all said and done I really don't like the idea of anyone knowing my movements around the country, but this just seems too much like one way for the Govn't to keep tabs on you.
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Presently: The identity thief (after discovering your name, address, etc.) makes a driver's license but places his/her photo instead of yours on it.
Biometrics: The identity thief does the same as above but places his/her biometric information on/in the card.
Results are the same either way. The solution to the above problem is to distribute your biometric information to everyone on the planet who may need to identify you. That's a great idea - not. This biometric solves no old problems but does create many new ones.
This is either political pork, or a clumsy attempt at doing an "endrun" around the national id issue. I wish I could bitchslap congressmen and senators when they come up with dumb shit like this.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
How do I change my id number? Do I get new retinas? What about thumbprints? I like my thumbs the way they are. I don't want to have re-burn new prints every time someone hacks the Windows XP++ bio-server...
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
Oh btw, just like 640k was sooo enough for everyone; and the world market only had demand for about a thousand (or a hundred, i forget which) computers (some IBM head-huncho back in the 60s) retinal scans are very difficult to replicate.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
funny stuff.
fnord
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but...
I can't help but wonder what exactly you think you're giving up by having a biometric print on your driver's license, instead of a 9-digit number. Do you honestly think that by having the (assumed) Encrypted Permutation of the measurements of the veins in your eye on the DMV computer system, that you'll suddenly be some Arnold Schwarzenegger'd character fleeing the Borg Uberpolice in some post-armageddon techno-dictatorship?
Lets face it...there are some areas where privacy is important (medical records, for example)...but we already have LAWS against unauthorized access to said materials. Isn't this the whole debate with the SSSCA or whatever it's called now? That we're looking to legislate things that are ALREADY ILLEGAL? If an insurance company can't get your info now, they won't be able to if you're records are locked biometrically! It's a different key for the same lock.
And, to be honest, there are things that SHOULD NOT BE PRIVATE. Convicted sex offenders should be branded across the forehead -- but we live in a civilized society, where a "DO NOT TRUST WITH YOUR 6-YEAR OLDS!" mark on their record, available to law enforcement and grade school HR departments, would do the trick. Likewise, "Known Terrorist" or "Most Wanted" notices are GOOD THINGS for airport checkin personel to see.
That you have AIDS, or that you're secretly dressing in women's panties, are secrets best kept to yourself. That you have served twenty years for deflowering an Alterboy or have trained in an Al Qaida camp should be open to the world. And I, for one, don't have a problem with that.
What happens if, after I get my retina-encoded license, I lose both my eyes and my fingertips in an accicent?
Will I be able to get a new license with something else on it, like my toe prints?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
We would need a secure enough protocol to transfer the data over networks, for voting online and such.
There could be a password based on a combination of finger prints (left thumb, right index, right thumb, left pinky)...
I dunno, I think it could work... It would be harder to steal identities. As long as you show up in person and they keep the data secure and backed up.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
I love the idea. Let's start by embedding the eyes of all the members of Congress and the Senate on such cards. Not the scans, the actual eyes.
I'll help.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Identical twins.
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
No it's not an oxymoron--running dog. dink
really? wow...
ya learn something new every day
ugh
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
Why is it that there's such tremendous opposition to standardizing voting methods, which has obvious practical advantages and almost no potential for abuse, and yet there's always another proposal to make my personal identification nationally "transparent", which has few really practical advantages but huge potential for abuse?
Well, you're right, we have less privacy and fewer privacy rights in the US than in Canada.
...
We sold out our rights.
And as a Canuck, you tend to trust government. Here, only rubes trust government.
But what do I know, I'm a dual citizen of both countries
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
What does the Slashdot community think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card?
Sounds good. Let's have our entire identity based on one card. And while we're at it, let's build in some kind of wireless transmitter into this smart card as well...yea, there we go. But let's not make it encrypted...that would only make it more difficult for people to steal our only form of identity.
Why not save us all the trouble and just have everyone write their SS# in permanent marker on their foreheads?
I don't see how a retinal scan would be a problem. You already have your photo on the driver's license. It's the same thing - only really close up.
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
c'mon, this has got to be a red-meat article thrown out to get everyone angry, posting, and using up pageviews!
sulli
RTFJ.
Apparently the bill "directs that the chip [on the license] be capable of accepting software for other applications, including those of private companies".
This isn't about security, it's a taxpayer-funded giveaway of your privacy to big corporations. It'll save them a few bucks lost to fraud and make this even more of an electronic nanny state.
Luckily the EFF spokesman pointed out that "The real thrust... is so that the ID card or driver's license will be even more useful to commercial entities in terms of tracking consumers, doing consumer profiling, telemarketing -- all those kinds of things that people currently consider to be an invasion of privacy."
And the Center for Democracy and Technology calls it a "honeypot".
This has to be fought on the retail level. Hopefully Joe and Jane Public have enough love of freedom left to be skeptical of the government fingerprinting them at the DMV. If it turns out they don't, I'm ashamed of-- and afraid for-- my country.
I like the idea of a more secure version of my social security card. The danger always lies in how the card is used. If it is the same as a SS card fine. But here is the problem and it was actually brought up in the movie Dracula 2000. If I encode the biometric data into the card and the card is stolen it is possible at the rate technology is moving to create say.. a glass eye that would satisfy a retinal scanner (as presented in the movie). A thumb print can be faked (Take elmer's glue on your thumb. Let dry clear. Peel off and place on a thumb scanner. I fooled two cheap scanning units during a presentation on my NOT to but cheap scanning units). And with the rate of technology moving so fast whar guarantee do we have that the biometic data we encode today can't be exploited in the near future? How about a latex mask with pinpoint thermal units embedded to defeat the facial thermal rec. units people are so high and might about these days in hardened security? Not possible today? Fine. What about tomorrow? My 2 bits. later
Ken
P.S Yes I know I spell like a butter knife cut oak.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Biometrics in general has a number of well-known problems, of which the most alarming (to me, anyway) is the question of what happens when, as is inevitable, somebody manages to steal your credentials (not by taking your finger or eye themselves, but hacking the Oracle database that will surely be at the heart of this thing.) From then on you may never be able to use your biometrics again, because now there's two of you out there. When your credit card number is stolen, you can get another one pretty easily. But, unfortunately, there is no easy way to get a new biometric ID -- it's your thumb, right?
Bruce Schneier has some smart remarks about this here.
Bad Idea!
Welcome to the United Fascist States of America.
I'm not sure why everybody's getting all excited about invasion of privacy issues. I can't think of anything more benign than a retinal scan for identification. What's so private about your eyes? My only issue would be making sure the data isn't easily accessable through a magstrip (like a credit card) and then having the ability to make a retinal copy. Is that what everyone's all hyped up about? I'm honest when I say I don't understand what the big deal is.
The ID card will carry a check-box and date: "Elegibility to vote in Federal elections demonstrated on [date]." Proving elegibility (i.e. citizenship, non-convicted-felon status where applicable) is not required to obtain the ID, but is required to get the box checked.
The ID, or its number, WITH the box checked, will be required to vote, or obtain an absentee ballot to vote, in any election where a federal office is on the ballot.
The ID number will be collected during the registration process. It will be checked for uniqueness of registration and for disqualifications since the certification date. (For states that allow at-poll registration the voter's ballot will be sequestered and not counted until the number has been checked.)
If implemented this would go a long way toward eliminating certain classes of (rampant!) voter fraud. So putting the rider on the bill will create significant opposition to the bill by politicians who currently benefit from the fraud.
Thus the rider would make the bill more likely to fail, and if it DOES pass at least it gives us SOME benefit to mitigate the damage to our privacy.
Just think: If the politicians actually had to get REAL votes from REAL voters, one each, they might be a bit more responsive to those voters' concerns. Like privacy, for instance. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This may be the final impetus to prompt widespread adoption of mass transportation.
Die Antwort ist "Kiss my grits!". :-)
But really, how is asking for papers any different than asking for a driver's license?
BTW, in Georgia, it's not a retinal scan; rather, you place the pad of each index finger on a biometric scanner, in the order specified. The information is combined into a barcode-like pattern on the back of the license.
And no, I don't know what happens if you are missing one or more index fingers.
Enough said, I hope.
-- p06 "On religious wars: They're essentially wars over whoo's imaginary friend is better"
No reliable statistics are available regarding the Failure to Enroll rate, or the number of users who are simply unable to perform an acceptable enrollment. Based on experience, it is fair to conclude that a statistically significant number of people, perhaps 5-10%, may be unable to perform a satisfactory enrollment.
, but you can get a "bad" rating if you're a careful shopper and visit many local car dealerships who (technically illegal, but common practice) run a credit check on everyone who seems to be a serious buyer
How can they run a credit check if you don't give them any financial info? If you're still comparison shopping, why are you giving them enough info to run a credit check?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Over my COLD DEAD hands!!!
Biometric encoding would eliminate this because you could easily match a peron to an id card.
And how is this different from a photo i.d? If you had a picture of everyone on your guestlist it would be more secure than this. The proposed system is like coming to the party with a picture of yourself and saying "See here, it's me!". My prediction is that somewhere during the implementation of this latest scheme, the federal database will be built/linked.
This is a bad idea
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
where i work we need to put our thumbs on a small scanner to enter the office.
i could get no assurance from the PHBs that this info would be kept under lock and key...
The only thing a person would lose with a firmer attachment of legal identity to oneself would be the freedom to easily do things anonymously AND in person. If that.
Not that it isn't enough to fear the government, but the real threat is from the capitalist kleptocracy that really runs the country.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Ill figure out some way to fake every single biometrical piece of info they tried to get of me heh, theres somethings I dont ever want the government to have heh.
(This Space For Rent)
having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card
i doubt that they would let retinal patterns be used. your retinal patterns change when you get pregnant. and it's considered an invasion of privacy for women if they have to tell people that they need to change their retinal pattern 'imprint/image' or whatever b/c they're pregnant. IIRC the navy and most of the gov't has stopped using this technology for this reason.
-1: flamebait should really be -1: inciteful
Except that biometric data is more easily compared to a central database because it can be done completely automatically. If they swap the biometrics, the card won't match the database and if they don't swap the biometrics the card won't match them.
The same could be done with photos, but it's not as easy because people can grow beards, dye their hair, lose/gain weight etc. Last I checked I couldn't rip out my retinas and get them replaced. Checking the biometrics is easy. "Excuse me sir, please look into this while I scan your ID..."
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
In case the police want to know if you are you, they send the image to the capital and in 24 hs, they said yes, and they let you out of the police deparment.
Countries with national ID cards look at the whole idea of innocence very differently that those without.
See, in the US, Canada, UK, NZ, et cetera, if you're being arrested, and the only reason you get arrested is for a crime, or because the belief is you would be perpetrating a serious crime if you weren't arrested...then you are identified in a complex manner.
However, if you're just stopped, then you are let go...and what should happen is the officer will believe you when you claim to be. Remember...to not believe who you claim to be is essentially them convicting you of the crime of misrepresentation...before you even had the chance to misrepresent yourself. But here, innocence before guilt prevails. We believe who you claim to be.
But the Argentines, or the Greeks, or the Belgians, or the Indonesians, are not happy with that. Not only must you prove who you are, but sometimes, you'll be dragged in, with or without a crime under suspicion, and the government has the ability to hold you under arrest, for a certain amount of time, so that they can prove, to their satisfaction, that you are whom you claim to be.
Countries with ID cards are simply, ID happy. They ask for it wherever you go, for no good reason. Does it prove who you are...well, in context, it proves that you have a name and an address. What exactly does that prove? I think the officer coulda figured out that you had a name and an address before he saw you. I'm starting to see more ID happiness here in the US...and I'm getting pretty bothered by it.
No but had the airline captains and copilots been armed all we would have had were a small number of dead arab hijackers and perhaps a few in federal custody after the planes landed instead of what we have now.
I'm not sure it is such a good idea to have bullets compromising your hull at 30 000 feet.
Chanses are you go down anyway (though not hitting a major target)
And if the initially unarmed hijackers manage to overpower one of the armed crewmembers. (not too hard if one acts as a decoy and three other jumps the crewmember when he is focused on the distraction) You now have hijackers with guns, in a firefight they will probably win, since they don't care who they hit or if the plane go down, and the remaining crewmembers certainly does.
And this time there is no way for passagers to stop the hijackers, holding a cockpit with one or more guns is easy. They would probably average more than one attacking passager per shot in their "killing zone"...
I actually think an armed crew makes you an easier target for suicidal hijackers.
Not for "normal" hijackings though. But on the other hand those seldom have a high bodycount. Probably not worth risking the the entire plane in the afforementioned firefight.
Just my 0.02 kr.
You are welcome to rebutt if you like.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Because it's a lot easier to forge/counterfeit/phake/steal a picture than it is a retinal scan or a finger print.
I never said I agreed with the technology (actually I stated the contrary) but that's the idea anyway.
--
Garett
Once my biometric data is stored as my credentials, how do I revoke it if it gets compromised? That seems to be a problem with using biometrics in general.
Unless you can get a new set of eyeballs.
In AZ you have the option of getting a "lifetime" drivers license. Of course it is not really a "lifetime" license but I have had mine for several years now and it expires in 2019. When I am 60.
They have gone through three design changes since I got mine. So I have no bar code.
How can they force me to get scanned if my license has not expired?
Actually it is a bit of a lie,[by the state] I have to go in in a couple of years and get a new picture and pay a small fee if I want to continue to drive in Arizona. But the date on the card is 2019!
This was a silly law passed mostly to appeal to the stupid. When the people need to come in and get a new photo there will be no way for the aveRage user to realize they have reached the limit! Will be a big stink when they realize it is a problem.
You've got to be kidding, that even more invasive than a national id with your picture and SSN. What the hell is going on? Really, when is this going to stop? A revolution? Is that what its going to take?
quod me nutrit me destruit
Rubber bullets isn't half as nice as they sound!
They consist of a steel core surrounded by a rubber jacket (propelled by a weaker than usual charge).
They leave nasty wounds, kill or maim at close distances and would most certainly break a plane window.
There are indeed however wheapons capable of disabling people without breaching the hull, they are often refered to as "remote batons" or "sandbag guns" but they are to cumbersome to be practical in a crowded plane.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
The same thing I thought last time, Pinky: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=29575&cid=3176 281.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
I don't follow these biometics threads too often. Is there some kind of risk involved, in having some bit of information on a driver's license, that proves you are the person to whom it was issued? As far as I'm concerned, this is bad if its not your license, and good if it is. I for one, have had my license turned down because I cut my hair; denied services because my apperance changed enough over the course of five years, for people to be unsure that I was who I calmed to be.
Yes, people will forge this stuff, and there will still be theft of information, and this stuff getting sold, but is there any NEW danger to having this sort of information included with your picture, height, and weight?
I will, unless somebody can show me a downside to this, welcome it. I will never be anonymous, but I still manage to lead a private life, and I think that a large amount of this overreaction, is due to people not realising that these are two very different concepts.
I will never wear gloves in public because I am affraid somebody might know what my fingerprints look like.
Why does the US govt. think that technology will reduce forgeries?? Several local BurgerKings and McDonalds (Portland, Maine) will only take fifty or hundred dollar bills with a drivers license because of all the counterfits showing up? I thought all those high tech gimmicks in the 50s and 100s were supposed to make counterfiting impossible?
Anti-forgery measures are only as good as the buffons that have to validate them. How many times has a clerk validated your signature against your credit card?? If it is anything like mine, the two rarely even match, yet they still accept the card.
Is every mom-and-pop store in country going to install retinal scanners? Doubtful.
So take comfort. When you go to the airport, they can verify who you are. But what about the other 99.9% of the places you go? Terrorists are very good at finding new ways to kill people.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
I like your post, but how would the notion of stolen identities play into this? what really happened has links to stories that a number of the supposed "saudi suicide terrorists" were turning up still living - i.e., they'd had their identity usurped. Specifically, why would someone want to implicate saudi arabians in the attacks? (genuine question, i'm just thinking out loud here)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
As long as the National ID card doubles as a permit to carry a firearm, I've got no problems with it at all.
doesn't get hold of my Identiteez (sp?) I'm fine with it. Maybe they should put the biometrics on my American Express card instead.
Why is it that the stupidest work in DC? Believe it or not, we only knew that 2 of the 19 9-11 hijackers were terrorists. What we need to fix is the INS(if that's possible), our intelligience(THAT won't happen in Washington anytime soon!), and our airport security. Your only as safe as your most insecure link, strengthening an already strong link does nothing except waste taxpayer's money.
Sorry, but last time I checked the United States was a FREE COUNTRY
You apparently haven't checked lately. We had a coup in November and the country is now run by the Bush Organized Crime Family.
You apparently are not a paranoid leftist. You are not even "paranoid" enough to be a realist in today's world.
Not that this'll really get read (it's too late in the story really), but what about people like me with retinal problems. I can still hold a valid driver's license, and drive safely. As time goes on however, my retina will degrade, and that will change. In the intum, my retinal print will look different all the time. In my case, I have large pigmented areas on my retina. The same will be true of other people with simular diseases.
The people behind the desks at places like the DMV are rather feckless. They won't understand what that is. I will never scan out to be me, I'll always be an "unknown user." Oh, unknown user would probably be constude as not a citizen or, oh say, enemy of the state.
Blah!
--Josh
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
In other words, they think that the issues magically go away if they use a different name.
Evidently, they think the public is as dumb as a bag of rocks. (Hey, we elected them -- what more proof do they need?)
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
...for a Big Brother Award bestowed during this year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference.
The antidote for misuse of freedom of speech is more freedom of speech.
-- Molly Ivins
What does the Slashdot community think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card? Well, I'm not too crazy about it but I will have to say that it's better than having a smart card embedded in your retinal pattern.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
What does the Slashdot community think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card?
One word: Fucking Terrified
Oh, wait, that's two words.
How about: Really Fucking Terrified
Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
If it's privacy you want, that's why you have locks on your door or (hopefully) a really obscure password. If it's anonymity you want, change your name.
This sig no verb.
There's a difference between a physical signature on a document, and a well-made digital one; the digital one shows that the digital key in question was used to sign _that_ document (assuming a lack of hash collisions). A paper signature doesn't do that, although multiple signators, etc. usually helps.
With an ID card, there's a difference between embedding both retinal data on the card to associate me with the card, and using that data somehow to prove that it is associated with the other data on the card. Just as 'anyone' can put a new photo ID on a card, 'anyone' can put their retinal data on a card. The real question is what kind of math they're going to use to inter-associate the other data on the card with the retinal scan information (which should be aquired real-time, not embedded on the card).
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Storing this on a smartcard is not what we want, but a "history" of the fingerprint.
This way, over time, the print will be "refreshed" on the card, and reject the oldest, lowest scoring print.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
What does the Slashdot community think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card?
How about embedding the taste of my ass on the card so Congress can be sure it's mine they're kissing?
"Papers, citizen?"
Seriously, though, you seem to think that the government is authorized to regulate any potentially dangerous activity, simply because there is potential for wrongdoing. This viewpoint is called "marital law", or "maritime law", or "the law of the sea." There was a time in the history of this country when such a mindset was considered perfectly suitable for the administration of a seagoing vessel (hence the name, "maritime law") but outrageously inappropriate for governing a free people on their own lands.
You also seem to be confused about the difference between "rights" with "privileges." Allow me to step on my soapbox for a moment:
-
Rights are inherently yours, by virtue of
your existence as a human being with independent
volition (a.k.a. self-will, or freedom). Some rights
are alienable. You have the right to procreate.
You can give up that right by getting an operation, such
as a vasectomy or a hysterectomy. But people who have done
so can remain independent, self-willed, self-directed
people. That is, they can remain free. Other rights are inalienable.
You have the right to travel. If you are refused
that right (by being placed under house arrest, for instance)
it changes the nature of your being. You would no longer
be an independent, self-willed, self-directed (free) person.
You would then become a prisoner or a slave.
-
Privileges, on the other hand, are granted (usually selectively)
by an authoritative body. They are gifts from that
authority which you could not have acquired on your own.
For instance, you have the right to learn, (by virtue
of being a thinking human being), but if you live in certain
states, you have the privilege of attending a state
college, free of charge, funded by state taxes.
Some people argue that since roads are (usually) built by a government, and driving (on those roads) would not be possible without that government, therefore driving is a privilege extended by that government.Others counter that any roadways paid for by public funds belong to the common trust, and no government has the right to selectively refuse access to them.
Whatever the viewpoint, there are certainly many places in the United States where, if you limit yourself to walking, you won't be able to travel very far without either trespassing or violating some ordinance. Most highways, bridges, and tunnels have signs specifically forbidding pedestrians.
Realistically, if you can't legally drive, (or hire somebody to drive for you), then you are effectively forbidden to travel beyond a certain range. In that sense, you would arguably become a prisoner of the state, under a limited form of "house arrest."
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
I hope I'm not the only one who sufficiently comprehends the English language to appreciate how oxymoronic that was.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
We in Germany have the same discussion at the moment, with one difference: We allready have a national ID-card. There where privacy issues in the eigthies when the government introduced the first fully machine-readable id-card, but it was introduced anyway.
There is also a nation-wide register of places of birth and current residence, so the whole id-card issue is nonsense. The ID-card is just a thing that proves your identity.
By the way, they (the government of Germany) want to introduce bio as well, but consultants told them, that the false positive/negative and real positive ratio is to bad at the moment. I hope they listen to them...
Cheers, Alex.
You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.
In sweden we have had computer registered ID #:s for decades, it is simply your birth day plus four digits. Before that all churches registered births, marriages, deaths and such matters for many hundred years. The problem is not the information itself but the authentication of persons causing and using it. Unless one have something to hide privacy is not the problem.
People are always looking for the end of the world. Trust me (or actually Revelations, Daniel, etc) it will be pretty obvious.
No, it's time for people to actually *use* the ID system we currently have.
I too had some checks stolen over a year ago. The people who were racking up the thousands of dollars with my checks were apparently never even *asked* for ID from the merchants.
This is increadible. Someone writes a check for a thousand bucks at Audio King or Best Buy, and the forged check is accepted without being requested to present ID. Then, of course, *I* get nasty letters from these merchants asking to me submit a notarized affidavit attesting to the claim that these checks were fraudulent.
I sympathise to an extent with the merchants who were defrauded, but then again, had they bothered to verify someone's ID using our *current* system, they (and I) would not have suffered any loss.
The people who were using my checks were eventually caught, and by golly, none of them had gone through the trouble to forge a Driver's Licence in my name. Go figure.
Our current system is good enough. We just need to start actually using it.
BTW, I take the blame for not securing my own checks well enough, though I believe that they were inadvertantly thrown out by my girlfriend (long story).
All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. - Johann Sebastian Bach
The state of California has for years been collecting fingerprint data when issuing licenses. Lets just hope that these congress men have found a solution to the problems facing retinal scanning in anything but a controlled environment. Several years ago retinal scanners were installed in the capitan's lounge of an international airport with two way security (scans on entry and exit). The pilots would have a couple of drinks in the lounge and their retina would change enough to no longer be recognised as the same eye by the sanner and they were locked in! As a biometric solution the retinal scan was never reliable. Hopefully they have fixed the problems or too many people will not be able to reenter the country after international flights and cruise's that are already a hastle.
Welcome to 1984 - please submit fingerprint, retinal, stool, urine and blood. All your freedom belong to us!!!!
Everyone is Ignorant, just in different subjects.
I think that you are right about trusting a goverment that does not take security seriously. This concerns me because goverment will have more power that can be miss used by part of a goverment or system invaders (Cracker / Hackers etc..) . This IS something that I know they all ready (Not Centrly based) can do but puts all of the eggs in the same basket. Does not sound good to me...
Damn, you're right. Time to boost my paranoia to straight-jacket levels! I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of the Bush gang and the coup in December of 2000 (fraudulent 'election' in November, Supreme Court supported coup in December).
I'm so incredibly tired of this bullshit 'War on Terrorism' where the definition of a terrorist gets expanded on a daily basis to include anyone who disagrees with the Bush administration. To paraphrase Ari Fleicher says 'Americans better watch what they do and what they say' and Ashcroft 'Either you're with us, or with the terrorists'.
I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of the Bush gang and the coup in December of 2000 (fraudulent 'election' in November, Supreme Court supported coup in December).
In point of fact, the real dirty work happened several months before the election.
Good old Jeb stripped 100,000 democratic voters of their right to vote. This was actually published in the mainstream media in The Washington Post. The sad thing is that even though this is probably the biggest story in the history of the country they decided to print the story months after it was submitted on page 8.
Look it up.
While you're at it, do a search on the phrase, "Accept this carpet of gold or we will bury you under a carpet of bombs", for the reasons behind the war.
nothing here.