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?"

Comments

actually,

[eric6]

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.

Re:Two words.

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

Oh canada,
glorious and free,
god save our land,
from americans tyranny.

What a relief

[Jerp]

I'm just relieved that they no longer want our rectal pattern stamped on the license.

Not me

[BigGar']

I'll gouge my eyes out first.
That'll teach 'em ......

ID.

[saintlupus]

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

Re:ID.

[(H)elix1]

Try buying a case of beer with a "non-driver identification card" some time. Or god forbid, a passport.

No kidding. Last week I went to Taco Johns, paid with a check, and was asked for some ID. I had my passport, but they would not take it.... had to be a driver's license.

A week later I go to get a new drivers license -- moved states. The DMV would not take the others state's license since it only had my middle initial, not my full middle name. They did take the passport as ID, however.

No, no, no!

[NickRob]

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.

Re:No, no, no!

[edrugtrader]

so does a state drivers license.....

a national id card would ease a lot of the troubles i've had moving a few times between states. i don't mind it.

Re:No, no, no!

[j1mmy]

A national ID card is a way to restrict freedom.

No joke! My having an American passport has damn-near ruined my life!

Instead you get to be treated like a criminal when you've done nothing wrong.

The last time I used my passport, I was not treated like a criminal.

This only oppressed the law abiding citizens.

You're absolutely right, sub-genius. Any form of identification is completely uncalled for. I say we all ditch our social security cards, driver's licenses, student id's, employee id's, and any other form of picture id. We should all start wearing bags over our heads to preserve our anonymity, as well as dressing in drab grey robes.

Who's with me??

Re:No, no, no!

[aminorex]

It's not the law abiding citizens I
want to protect: It's the freedom fighters,
who are actually worthy of the air they breathe,
unlike said good Germans.

Re:No, no, no!

[banuaba]

Searches at the airport do not increase security, if you're referring to body searches. The baggage, as always, is the weak point.

Re:Two words.

[Wedman]

If it happens in the USA, it can happens in Canada 20 minutes later, eh.

As if you needed to ask...

[Kphrak]

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.

Re:As if you needed to ask...

[jridley]

I think you are confusing privacy and anonymity. A nationally unique form of ID doesn't remove privacy. In fact it does not necessarily remove anonymity. If it's abused, it could certainly remove anonymity. However, I'm not sure how an ID card removes your privacy, unless it's got a listening device built in.

Re:As if you needed to ask...

[symbolic]

As far as I'm concerned, it's all semantics, and it all sucks. The issue is that the more likely we are to have a national ID, anything about us will become more accessible- and completely out of our control. And what if the information is incorrect? I can say that I'm lucky I've never had my indentity stolen, nor have I ever had to have inaccurate credit information corrected. For the people that have had to endure either of these, it's hell. Do we need MORE of this?

The thing that puzzles me the most about this is that everyone (in the government) is so damn sure that a biometric ID is impervious to fraud. What happens when (not if) someone figures out how to get around it? We're stuck with just one more bureaucratic f/u, that's being imposed on our lives.

Re:As if you needed to ask...

[Sentry21]

Some of these so-called 'anti-privacy measures' can actually help privacy in some cases. For example, face recognition technology. A terrorist's face can be put into the computer and the computer can scan faces. This removes the need for police and airport security, etc. to grill every arab or asian or about who they are, what they're doing, where they're going, and why. A computer doesn't discriminate against race, religion, or nationality.

ID cards are similar. The problem, however, is WHEN you let the ID card be used. You shouldn't have police be able to demand to see your ID, but it should be required for some things (government services, employment, or as an option to prove your identity to anyone (Blockbuster, etc).

It can be done, and will probably be done eventually. People point to South Africa and the Soviet Union for how national ID cards are bad, but Israel has them, most EU countries have them. The issue is not do we do it, but how do we do it well.

--Dan

Re:As if you needed to ask...

[jridley]

You could extend that to your photo, which is also biometric information. Why should you be required to put your photo on your driver's license? I'm sorry, but this seems to me to be a continuum. Your photo is biometric information. People, and increasingly, machines can look at the photo and look at you, and make a judgement as to whether the person standing in front of them is the person the card claims. Fingerprints, iris scans, etc are just more certain (not 100%) forms of ID.
Note I don't personally like it. I won't get prints as long as there's an option not to, and I'll vote against people who try to get them instituted. But, I don't see how they're qualitatively different than photos.

Re:As if you needed to ask...

[plastik55]

ID cards that need to be electronically verified imply the possibility of a centralized database that tracks the usage of the ID card. If that database is not created by the government, it will be created by private interests.

I have a right (for example) to buy liquor, pay cash for it and not have that purchase recorded in a national database. That is a privacy issue. I also have a right to buy pornography, pay cash for it and not have the purchase recorded in a national database. That is also a privacy issue.

Anonymity in certain situations IS a prerequisite for privacy.

My ISP uses biometrics at 3 security points.

[Anonymous Crowhead]

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.

$315 Million?

[jweb]

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.

Re:$315 Million?

[totallygeek]

they can create and implement this system for just over $1 per citizen?

No, no. That $315 million was per citizen. The day the government can implement something decent Hell will have a slight chill.

Re:$315 Million?

[gambit3]

I think that this figure, as most other figures for proposed legislation, are woefully under-estimated, just to give it a chance to pass.
Once it's approved, well, Budget overruns, here we come!

Re:$315 Million?

[symbolic]

No, no...the $315 million is BEFORE all the cost overruns, delays, and other assorted screw-ups. Afterward, I'd be surprised if it came in at under $1.2 billion.

Hand and forehead

[Wedman]

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.

Re:Hand and forehead

[Iguanaphobic]

[16] And he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand, or on their foreheads.
[17] And that no man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Revelation 13:16-17

Re:Ummm.... NO.

[GutBomb]

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.

Why?

[wk633]

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.

Re:Why?

[rhost89]

Having their DNS sequence??? I think you've been behind a console too long :)

Re:Why?

[interiot]

The 9/11 terrorists HAD legal id. Having their DNS sequence on the card would not have stopped them.

Your argument is somewhat flawed.

What happened on September 11th was a first of its kind. It was the first time a plane had intentionally been flown into a building, and it was the first time that foreign terrorists had been so successful in the US (we were used to it only happening over there).

Being thinking humans, we can generalize a bit, and see that the US isn't as invulnerable as we thought. This wasn't the only way that terrorists could have attacked us, and in fact, they probably won't attack us in the same way again because they know we'll specifically be looking for those patterns. America was very suprised, and the logical reaction is to protect various avenues that terrorism could be carried out.

However, we almost certainly are going to overreact and clamp down more than we need to because emotions are high right now. In time, it's possible that more logic and less emotion will be used to make these decisions. On the other hand, these are politicians we're talking about.

Re:Why?

[Iguanaphobic]

In time, it's possible that more logic and less emotion will be used to make these decisions.

Consider the logic. All 19 terrorists were Saudi. The US attacks Afghanistan.
Consider economics. The US buys large quantities of oil from Saudi Arabia. The US would like to buy large quantities of oil from Turkmenistan to lessen their dependence on the benevolence of Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, the Taliban were in control of the country that the needed pipeline would need to cross.

Solutions: Change the government in Afghanistan to get to the richest oilfields in the world. Don't invade Saudi Arabia to kick the terrorist governments butt and jeoprodize the US oil supply. Once you get by the hypocrisy of it all, it's really quite simple. It's all about maintaining the "American Way Of Life"tm at all costs. Everything else is window dressing.

Re:Why?

[Galvatron]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't some of them known terrorists, using their real names? I seem to recall that they were fairly certain within a day that it was foreign terrorists because the passenger manifests turned up matches in FBI/CIA databases.

Obviously, more reliable ID isn't going to help if you're letting known terrorists on the plane, but it might help if done in conjunction with checking names against lists of known terrorists.

Re:Why?

[Danse]

The point would be that if this new system wouldn't have been effective in preventing the WTC attacks, then the government should be made to explain why such a system would be effective use of our tax dollars. There are obvious downsides to such a system, and I think the government must make some very compelling arguments in favor of the system if we are going to spend a ton of money on it and accept the problems that it will create as well.

Re:Why?

[Pig Hogger]

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.

You mean that the solution to terrorism is to perform a reverse lookup on them???

Re:Why?

[Pig Hogger]

It's all about maintaining the "American Way Of Life"tm at all costs.

It ain't the "'merican Way of Life". It's just the fat oil companies bottom-line.

Re:Why?

[jeffy124]

i beleive you meant to say DNA, but anyways...

the motivation behind the cards: 1) the terrorists had false IDs when the attacks were carried out. 2) Identity theft is becoming a big problem.

(note that I said terrorism was the motivation, not what the system is trying to prevent)

The solution poroposed makes it difficult if not impossible for a person to obtain a falsified ID card. In doing that, it prevents one person the capability of getting an ID of somebody else and then using that person's identity.

Think about that. I have my driver's license in my home state (NJ). If I lose it, all I need to get a new one is my mother's maiden name. Ask yourself how difficult would it be for an ID thief to get a license in my name with his picture (unlike PA, NJ doesnt keep DL photos on record, the photo DLs are actually polaroid-like). Now under the proposed system, that ID thief would have to somehow forge my thumbprint or retina in order to get an ID in my name.

Better than SSN

[loosenut]

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.

Re:Better than SSN

[Hooya]

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.

you contradicted yourself. you said SSN as a password is bad because you can't change it. but in the next sentence you go on to say retina is good? if someone does figure out my retinal patterns in practical resolution. what options do i have? change my eye? and link 'pwd' to extract my eye, extract the eye of a coworker down the hall with a mechanical arm and then interchange 'em?

i suppose you've been getting retina implants on a daily basis huh? and what happens when you do donate you eye (i have to plead ignorance here as i don't know which eye-part is actually transplantable.)?

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.

in the process of implementing this type of IDs, we will have figured out a cost effictive way to work with retina-scans. effectively, figuring out reproducing and or manipulating the scans. what seems difficult technologically will become trivially easy tomorrow. so don't bank your entire identity on the fact that today's technology can't crack it. because tomorrow, you may cease to exist.

Re:Better than SSN

[Wise Dragon]

A retinal scan only makes a good identification when the scanner is secure, which cannot be guaranteed. The danger here is that you can't change your retinas like you can change your password, but if folks assume retinal scans are 100 precent secure, there's a very real security risk. Far better is a combination of a retinal scan (something you are), a password (shared secret), and secure hardware with public key encryption (something you have).

Re:Better than SSN

[dazed-n-confused]

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)

You're out by several orders of magnitude, and a couple of decades.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

Re:Better than SSN

[kcbrown]

Brin's idea of the transparent society has one huge flawed assumption behind it: that the people in power aren't going to exploit their power to give themselves some opacity.

But of course they will, just as they have and will exploit their power to give themselves other advantages over those who lack that power.

And once they do that, all of the advantages of the transparent society disappear, and we're left with "big brother".

This is why it's so important to oppose any incursion into our privacy. The transparent society simply cannot happen as long as humans behave like humans, so the only reasonable alternative is a reasonable amount of privacy.

Things are bad enough as it is. They don't need to get any worse. But I believe that they will, that the United States will transform itself into a police state the likes of which the world has never seen, and that it will take the rest of the world with it through its military power. And it will all happen because the large corporations (more precisely, those who own and run them) want cheap labor and a captive market simultaneously, and by their nature have no ethics (and yet are given almost all of the same rights as individuals are yet none of the responsibilities). And popular revolution won't happen either, not when the military has a millions to one advantage in firepower.

Enjoy your privacy and freedom now, while you still can. It probably won't be long before they're gone.

Re:Better than SSN

[Loundry]

It isn't as if your DNA is being sampled

Yet.

Right now, if someone gets a hold of your SSN, they can screw you over....Your SSN maybe a good identification number

It sounds like you damn the SSN in one sentence and then praise it in the other.

On the other hand, a retinal scan, as I said above, makes an excellent ID/password, because it is so difficult to duplicate.

With our currently technology, yes. Humans are ingenious creatures though. It's only a matter of time until that, too, becomes both theoretically and economically feasible.

What's the point?

[LunchingFriar]

Um...and what's this supposed to accomplish?

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?

Re:What's the point?

[jridley]

It's still theoretically possible to withhold your SSN from any agency except the SSA. (yeah, right, and income tax was just for a couple of years, until we paid off the world war one debts).

I'm not sure where the SSN refusal is protected in the law, but I'm assuming it must be pretty deep, since people are talking about building a new ID system rather than trying to change the law so we can use that one.

Re:What's the point?

[baka_boy]

First, while it's entirely within your rights to refuse to disclose your SSN, it's also entirely within the rights of most businesses, credit providers, etc., to simply refuse to offer you services without the information. People "sell" their privacy on a daily basis, and will probably continue to do so as long as credit and convenience are the top priorities of our society.

Second, Social Security Numbers are not, I repeat, not, a reasonable form of identification. They are a very low-order numeric designator, which is completely useless as proof of identity. Hell, the number is shorter than a phone number with area code, and phone numbers are designed to be easy to remember by the dozens.

This was really driven home for me recently, when my girlfriend and I were submitted a rental application, and found out that some woman in LA had used my girlfriend's SSN in a bankruptcy hearing two years ago, resulting in a nice, fat warning siren going up every time someone did a credit check on her.

We really, really need good PKI and trust metric systems, not more "secret" identifiers that can easily be stolen and mis-used. The technology exists, and it certainly can't be any worse than the current state of affairs, which is basically a case of security being totally based on random chance and a poorly-educated public.

I *am* an entry

[JabberWokky]

Look, I am a person. I can be identified. I don't care *how* precisely I am recorded - it's *who* gets those records and *what* is done with them.

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

Re:I *am* an entry

[JabberWokky]

(BTW - before some yutz points out that this is biometric info on a driver's license, not an ATM card, I knew that when I wrote that. This is a general statement on privacy, and I was using an ATM card, as that's a place where biometirc info seems like a Good Thing. I'm not sure why they would need such info on a DL, other than to tie into other databases.)

--
Evan

Re:I *am* an entry

[JabberWokky]

Right. It's not the data (your friends know quite a bit about you), but rather three key aspects to that data: Spread, correlation and mandatory collection. The first aspect is "okay, my employer needs my SSN, but better not give it to anybody else. My doctor needs my medical history, but I'd rather it not be available for a $7 reproduction fee at City Hall". Correlation is two data collectors getting together, so it's related to spread, but it also generates new, potentially incorrect in specifics data, like demographic profiling and statistical generation of missing information. Finally, mandatory collection prevents the first two from occuring by a government "trying to care for it's people". Even if this government is enlightened, the next generation of leaders might have different ideas.

Note that "opt-in" systems like the credit system or a criminal history might have certain negative aspects, but as long as they stay clearly "opt-in", there is nothing wrong with them. Unfortunantly, credit and banking is getting increasingly tied together, and criminal records often have rather extensive data on citizens that have never committed a crime.

There is a need for a clear, simple and effective set of guidelines for what is acceptable "without consent" data use, and under what conditions that consent can be given (i.e., without subtle coersion like tying that collection *and* consent of data sale to obtaining a drivers license).

--
Evan

Retina prints?

[jridley]

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?

Re:Ummm.... NO.

[garett_spencley]

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

Look at it this way

[ocie]

What does the Slashdot community
think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card?

Better than having rectal patterns on the card

Re:Ummm.... NO.

[WinstonSmith]

Lose your card, get your identity stolen easily.

Not unless I accidentally drop my retinas on the ground too.

Stop thief!

[bachelor3]

Using a biometric identifier in an encrypted chip would make it much harder for criminals to steal people's identities, Drummond said.

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 : )

Re:Stop thief!

[Fredge]

Any decent biometric reader out today has the ability to determine if the finger/hand or eyeball being scanned is alive or not.

Re:Stop thief!

[GospelHead821]

Exactly. Much harder! Stealing somebody's wallet or purse is not terribly difficult. It's easy enough that the person might not even notice. Stealing the wallet/purse while simultaneously severing their thumb and popping out their eyeball, so you can use their ID card may just make them take notice. Sure, maybe ID theft will be a more violent crime, but the fact that it is no longer EASY will make it a much rarer violent crime.

Re:Disturbing thought.

[jridley]

SSN is not required for issue. In many states (Michigan, for instance) it's not even asked for. In other states, such as Illinois, it's normally on the driver's license, but you can refuse and have them issue an alternate ID number. There may be some states that require it, but there shouldn't be, since by law only the SSA can absolutely require you to provide your SSN.

What about eye problems and retinal scans?

[Shadowell]

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?

already there

[naoursla]

Technically, isn't a photograph already a form of biometric data?

Re:already there

[GigsVT]

Hieght, weight, eye color, damn near everything on the license is biometric data.

This is still scary. Mix power and technology, and you have a recipe for opression.

all fun and games.

[BenTheDewpendent]

Its all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

so what happens when someone loses and eye?

Smart Cards Not Smart Enough

[CPIMatt]

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

Re:Smart Cards Not Smart Enough

[evilviper]

Right now, it's necessary for them to know you're approx. age, not just if you are over 18/21 or not. If it was a simple yes/no answer, a dead 90 year old's license could VERY EASILY be modified into a fake ID.

So, what you want is something that is tied to you uniquely and impossible to modify it to fit someone else (sounds good, but implimenting it is impossible) while not giving out any extra information. The problem is that the police need a unique number to ID you in case your license has been suspended, et al. As soon as there is a unique ID of any kind on an ID that you are willing to give to anyone upon request, the privacy issue is out, you have none.

The answer is simple... Stop giving everyone your drivers license, your Social Security number, etc.

The problem is technology. Even if you had an ID without a magnetic strip, and had only a picture of you, soon that picture is being recorded, and a database is full of records of who was where and when. That database gets to be a big problem when there are super-mergers that tie all the databases together.

There is no solution. And ID needs to uniquely identify you, and the better it gets, the easier it is to record data about you.

Hard to deal with failures

[btempleton]

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.

Just remember this . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

Re:mixed reactions

[Silver222]

That's because the driver's license is not a citizenship ID. That's what passports are for. Why do the police need to know what citizenship you possess? You either broke the law or you didn't. That isn't going to change if you are from another country.

Re:Just wait...

[Alzheimers]

Last I checked, I *DO* have my retinas embedded in my skull...

Biometric-ID is a pork-barrel boondoggle

[Seth Finkelstein]

In my view, the biometrics-mania is a pure boondoogle, created and driven by the companies which want to sell their particular gizmos as a national standard. Consider, biometrics? You mean such identity information as eye color, gender, weight? But that information can be encoded simply, by any vendor, nothing fancy. Aha, but if we use retinal patterns which require RetinaCorp's patented RetinEncoder, to be read by their RetinReader ... the money rolls in.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Re:Biometric-ID is a pork-barrel boondoggle

[wurp]

Excellent point. Name, picture, and thumbprints all digitally signed by multiple private keys held in separate places is much more secure than some bullshit retinal scan system.

Biometrics

[Wise Dragon]

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

Re:Biometrics

[Wise Dragon]

To relate the above to the article: the main difficulty with putting everyone's retinas on their drivers license is that their retinas are no longer a secret. Right now nobody on earth has my retinas scanned. I'd like it to stay that way, but I'm resigned to some loss of personal secrets in this post 9-11 day and age.

Re:Biometrics

[JimBobJoe]

replacement for a signature (which is also a biometric

I have a quick disagreement with that part of his article (which is otherwise very good.) Yes it is a biometric, but it is a changeable biometric. You may decide one day that you don't like your signature, and that you start signing documents with a completely different signature.

Is this possible with retinal/iris scan or a fingerprint? Yes. Apparently retinal patterns change when someone takes a particular type of prescription for macular degeneration. And of course, if you were a bricklayer, the lime used in the stuff that connects the bricks will burn away your prints...however, it is significantly harder than just changing your signature.

Identity theft and secure id cards

[smoondog]

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

Re:Identity theft and secure id cards

[GigsVT]

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.

"I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 12/20/1787

Please check box if you are a terroist

[aero6dof]

According to a statement by Moran, at least eight of the 19 September 11 hijackers were able to easily obtain licenses.

What the Reps. Moran and Davis don't realize is that if biometric security measures were in place, that would just mean that we would have retinal measurements and fingerprints on eight dead hijackers.

Re:Please check box if you are a terroist

[Pig Hogger]

What the Reps. Moran and Davis don't realize is that if biometric security measures were in place, that would just mean that we would have retinal measurements and fingerprints on eight dead hijackers.

... and of thousands of their victims...

Who are you? What are you doing?

[Sean Clifford]

Okay, maybe I'm just a paranoid leftist, but I'm deeply suspicious any time the goverment wants more data on me. They've already got my fingerprints and DNA, a catalogue of my scars, photographs, background checks, and "interviews". WTF do they need my retina prints or other biometric data for? Damn.

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.

Knee jerk reaction

[wurp]

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.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[aminorex]

You can't travel without being tracked.
That's a violation of your privacy,
all sophistry and gerrymandering aside.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[edrugtrader]

you can't travel BY THE GOVERNMENT FUNDED AIRLINE SYSTEM without being tracked.

go buy a used car from the guy down the street, and fill up at chevron and you're good to go anonymously.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[wurp]

All attempts to change the subject aside, making ids more difficult to forge is a good thing. This is a discussion of whether or not biometric information in a national id is a good thing, not a discussion about how ids are used. I explicitely pointed out that we have to be cautious about in what circumstances we allow the government/corps to require id.

I do very much agree that ids are required far too often, but the solution to that is to fix the problem, not to make it easy to forge ids.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[aminorex]

Making IDs more difficult to forge is a *bad*
thing. It means that I have to blow your head off
to get through the door, instead of just flashing
my badge.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[curunir]

Are drivers licenses a bad thing?

In concept, no. In practice, yes. Current CA driver's licenses encode each piece of data printed on the front into the magnetic stripe on the back. Businesses have begun swiping licenses and ID cards for age verification and capturing the other data for demographic purposes.

Is it the DMV who's violating my privacy? No. Is it the DMV who's at fault for my privacy being violated? Yes. Do I want the same people who thought it was a good idea to encode my age, address, height and weight on the back of my driver's license to also have access to my retinal scan data? Hell No!

I can give a police officer my driver's license and he can see a picture of me and read my name. What further identification is necessary?

Is allowing easy forging of them a bad thing?

Yes, it is. Is encorporating biometric information into them the best way to make them hard to forge? No. It is expressly the *wrong* way to do it.

With current technology, forging a retinal scan would probably be quite difficult. But criminals will always be pushing the envelope of technology trying to get ahead of the technology that law enforcement uses. We need to make a system that utilizes the latest technology, but remains as flexible as possible should criminals catch up. By using something like a retinal scan (something that cannot be changed), you limit the system's flexibility 10 and 20 years down the road.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[Steveftoth]

The bad thing in my opinion is not that a COP can swipe your id and get your information. This is valuable in that it reduces both work for the cop and errors in validating your identity. What a larger problem in my opinion is that businesses can buy id readers and check your ids. Getting valuable information about you for next to nothing in cost. an example is the story on /. a couple of weeks ago about the bar in Boston (I think) that tracked all of it's customers.

It's bad enough that Vons, Ralphs, Price Chopper, etc all track our shopping habits, but if they made us swipe our ids then they could track us forever.

Also I don't think that forging a retinal scan would be difficult at all. Think about it, unless the data on the card is encrypted via some sort of public key system where the private key is in a central DB, anyone who knows how to read/write the data on a card can replace it with bogus information.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[singularity]

The last time I tried to register a used car I just bought I had to provide identification and proof of insurance.

Then they matched my named with the license plate number.

I was able to pay for my gas with cash, but by that time it was all over.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[Pig Hogger]

You can't travel without being tracked.

Oxdung.

Just ride the dog.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[Pig Hogger]

In concept, no. In practice, yes. Current CA driver's licenses encode each piece of data printed on the front into the magnetic stripe on the back. Businesses have begun swiping licenses and ID cards for age verification and capturing the other data for demographic purposes.

Just degauss the mag stripe. Voilà, problem solved.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[rark]

Have you traveled greyhound since 9/11?

My partner did, last week, due to a death in the family. Every hour or two, all night, they'd wake everyone up, check tickets, check IDs. ID best match your ticket. (They were looking at baggage as well)

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[Pig Hogger]

??? In bus terminals waiting room, I'd understand but your reply seems to imply that they do it on the bus, too... But asking for ID is illegal; only the cops can do it, and then only if you're arrested.

Re:Knee jerk reaction

[rark]

It was on the bus (they asked for ID at the terminals, too, but that's normal, in my experience).

I've never heard that it's illegal for them to ask for ID -- they've essentially always asked me for ID when buying tickets with cash (they've forgotten a few times, or maybe they knew me, since I was doing the short run every week or so, but for all the long runs I've done they've asked me for ID) for as long as I've been riding greyhound (five years or so) but I've always had some sort of appropriate ID so I don't know if they would have given me trouble if I refused. AFAIK greyhound busses (terminals, etc) are more-or-less private property, so they have the right to kick you off if you refuse to follow any of their rules, including refusing to show ID (they kicked a guy off while my partner was riding last week -- in the middle of nowhere! For having lost his ticket stub, apparently. I've seen them kick people off for drinking alcohol, in the middle of nowhere, even, but you'd think that if the guy had had the stub when they left hte last stop, they could have at least waited until the next stop!)

One of the new things they have implemented is some sort of bus police/security folks. I don't know the legal standing of these folks (security gaurds? police? something else?) but they search the busses and the lugguage and do metal scans. It's much more like airport security these days.

Biometric ID can fight identity theft.

[ednopantz]

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.

Re:Biometric ID can fight identity theft.

[Moonshadow]

DMV security is a joke. I have a friend who is 19. At 17, she went down to the DMV, told them that she was her 23 year-old cousin (Who looks nothing like her), and she got a nice 23-year old's license with her picture on it. The DMV essentially created her bar-hopping fake for her.

What's scary is how little checking the DMV does on who you really are. Biometrics would definately prevent this kind of thing. What scares me is that anyone could, upon procuring my SSN, walk into the DMV, say they're me, get a license, proceed to get points on said license, and get me arrested next time I get pulled over because according to my record, I have 4 DUIs, a slew of speeding tickets, etc.

And then there's the issue of using said ID for loans, cars, various purchases, etc. Scary.

Yeah, it makes you more identifiable. This is a Good Thing (tm) as far as I can see. It's not like the card is transmitting your stats to anyone within 15 feet - it just provides an extra layer of security.

So what's the big deal?

[Dixie_Flatline]

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.

Re:So what's the big deal?

[aminorex]

In the U.S. you are not obligated to have an SSN,
or to give it out to anyone under any circumstances,
with the exception of a court order,
if you do have one.

Re:So what's the big deal?

[Dixie_Flatline]

You aren't TECHNICALLY required to, but what's the reality? I mean, people give out their SINs here for no reason, too. How many places 'require' you to give over an SSN? When my parents moved to the states, I seem to recall the bank 'requiring' an SSN to open an account.

Re:So what's the big deal?

[JimBobJoe]

They need a way to identify everyone in the country uniquely, so a retinal scan seems like a fine idea.

If you already are of this opinion...then I could see why you would say that there is no privacy. There are a lot of people who believe that there is no need to identify everyone uniquely--the only time that is required is when someone is arrested, and when they are, there are systems in place to identify them at that time. Otherwise, as has been established in the common law countries, like the US, NZ and Canada, you are not required to *document* yourself simply by existing.

Canada does take that a bit more seriously...for instance, photo driver's licenses are much newer there and were fought much harder (and, at least two provinces I can think of, Quebec and New Brunswick, leave the photo as being optional. The yearly report of the Societe de l'assurance from Quebec says that about 11-13% of Quebecois decline to have the photo on their license. Clearly not a majority, but those are people who clearly value the idea that they do not want nor need a photographic identifier.)In fact, no Canadian provincial legislature has ever mandated that a photo be on a license (even in Ontario, it's the minister or transportation that has ordered the photo license, and the minister of health that has ordered the photo health insurance plan card.)

The SSN and SIN are related...but there are indeed duplicate SIN's as well as duplicate SSNs. And people do get new SSN's occasionally. This proposal is not meant as a replacement for the SSN, or even to augment the SSN...it is actually meant to add security to the driver's license, which may or may not be linked to the SSN in a verifiable way. (While SSN's are commonly collected for driver's licensing, they are not necessarily confirmed--at least, not in all states.)

Do you give your SSN out for every little thing? That depends...the SSN has, regrettably, become the lookup key to a person's credit history. If the credit history can be looked up by name and address, than the SSN lookup is not necessary.

Funny, I've always been convinced that retinal/iris scan will be the least likely biometric they would move to. Why? Because the damn retina changes with time. In particular, those with cataracts and macular degeneration also have changing retinal/iris patterns. Furthermore, there are prescription medications, designed to help those suffering from macular degeneration, which cause very quick and complex changes in the retinal structure.

Re:So what's the big deal?

[Vegeta99]

Government agencies can require it if they give reason. NOT giving it then is a crime. Banks need it because they must tell the IRS how much you've made.

I smell... bacon.

[supabeast!]

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.

Re:I smell... bacon.

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Probably Oracle.

Viewpoint

[4of12]

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.

I think...

[aminorex]

...it's time to hunt me some scumbag congressmen.

Equipment Only - No consumables

[JohnDenver]

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)

Doesn't bother me...

[nick_davison]

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.

Re:Easy to replicate..

[evilpaul13]

It need only be stolen from the vulnerable and highly enticing gov't system that holds it in a database.

The Costs of Security

[seinethinker]

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?

Great idea! (sarcasm)

[Renraku]

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.

Another two words

[gambit3]

My Condolences

Two parts to this problem

[coyote-san]

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.

Yup

[wurp]

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.

Re:Yup

[realdpk]

Sure, it's easy once the card is created - but how do you get the data to create the card? How do you ensure that it is valid? Is this something we'd have to subject our kids to upon birth so we know they are who they are? (then again, what do you do about births outside of official facilities)

Re:Yup

[hey!]

Well, nothing is perfect, but once detected you would have to have some means to revoke the credential. Perhaps a database of bad IDs. It wouldn't be any different in principle than declining an invalid credit card.

What you get with any id (with or without biometrics) is the assertion that somebody showed up at a government office claiming to be you and providing a couple of minor bits of corroborating evidence. Cards with digitally signed biometrics wouldn't be that different, except they'd be harder to counterfeit.

Personally, I think the novel idea is signing the biometric. The picture on your license is, after all, a primitive biometric. A cryptographic signature on the other hand would make counterfeiting or tampering harder. The other way for someone to steal your identity would be to misrepresent himself as you to the entity that issues the cards. This is where the revocation mechanism is important; if there is only one possible id for you in existence at a time, it means you will detect the imposture quickly (your ID will stop working) and can report it. The faulty ID can then be revoked and a new credential issued to you. Not a perfect system, but somewhat better than what we have now.

Re:Yup

[wurp]

It's worth noting that, as pointed out by numerous other posters, using retinal scan is really pretty stupid. Thumbprint is a much better biometric. There's no reason I can think of not to put both on the card, though.

And, in response to the "that looks like too much of a pain in the ass" response... all of this would be automated, of course. It wouldn't be any harder for the DMV folks to push the button and have the machine spit out a signed card than it would be to push the button and have it spit out an unsigned card. Likewise for validation.

They "eyes" have it.....

[subsolar2]

What does the Slashdot community think about having your retinal pattern embedded on a smart card?

And what about people that don't have eyes??

Re:They "eyes" have it.....

[thelexx]

"And what about people that don't have eyes??"

They don't drive much anyway, I hope. Oh, this isn't just about licenses... :)

LEXX

Re:They "eyes" have it.....

[subsolar2]

Yep :^) I know many people that don't or can't drive that have state photo IDs ... gotten from the DOT.

Re:Biometric ID canNOT fight identity theft.

[visualight]

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.

And if the system is hacked...

[A.Soze]

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...

the Alarmists worry me more than the GOVT!

[Alzheimers]

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.

Re:the Alarmists worry me more than the GOVT!

[Todd Knarr]

Only one problem: it'd only flag what's on the record. The ex-priest who got nailed in San Diego for child abuse back on the East Coast had no record. The guys who flew the planes into the WTC had no records. A national ID card, biometric or otherwise, wouldn't have done a damned thing to identify or stop any of them.

And their weasel doesn't fly. 50 cross-linked and cross-checkable databases are equivalent to a Federal database, and saying they aren't doesn't make it so. I see no compelling reason to give the government a one-stop record of everyone who isn't a threat but may be inconvenient or "undesirable", when doing so won't serve any of the purposes it's being put forward for.

Re:the Alarmists worry me more than the GOVT!

[Vegeta99]

That you have AIDS? No way! I would QUITE like my partner to be informed of the risk, especially when some states consider it murder for transmitting the disease when you KNEW you had it.

Re:the Alarmists worry me more than the GOVT!

[Loundry]

Over 190 Million people have been killed by their own governments in the past 150 years. How many have been killed by "the alarmists"?

Re:the Alarmists worry me more than the GOVT!

[Loki_1929]

Of all the things I'd like to say in an infinitesimally small period of time as I sit here shaking my head, the best I can come up with is... wow.

Ok, now let's try and take this slowly here, one by one; deep breaths. Stand back folks, this comment is about to be disassembled, burned, stomped on, crumpled up, and tossed into a fiery trashcan-hell which our tiny human minds cannot begin to fathom.

"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."

Well first of all, I'd like to mention that the Social Security Act of 1935, which was the act under which the social security number was created, never gave any authority for this number to ever be used for identification. Secondly, on each social security card for the first few decades they were issued, there were two things printed that have since been removed. Specifically, it was printed that the number was "Not for Identification Purposes" and that you should never give the number out to anyone except an official from the Social Security Administration. Why? Because the lawmakers of the time recognized the value in not having each person reduced to a number. I have a problem with the number being used anywhere except where it is specifically needed for the SSA, especially on a license. Here is why: suppose you are stopped for a traffic offense, or at a police checkpoint (meaning you've done nothing wrong, yet are still stopped). Now, the officer is going to ask you for your license. Assuming the license has your SSN (social security number), this violates the 1974 Privacy Act. This act "states that no person will be denied service by a government agency for failure to disclose their SSN, except for some exceptions. In addition, it states that a government agency which does request the SSN must disclose whether it be voluntary or obligatory, and if it is obligatory, what law requires it, and what use will be made of it." Therefore, if the officer wants my SSN, he best begin by answering some of my questions. Such as, "Is it really necessary?", and "Exactly which law and/or statue gives you the authority to request my SSN?", and "What exactly will you be doing with my SSN officer?" As (s)he is an official of the federal, state, or local law enforcement agency, he is bound by the law, yet if I were to ask for the information to which I am, under the law, entitled, I doubt I'd get an answer I'd like, if any at all. But I digress.

So your question was what do we lose? Well, we are reduced to nothing more than an entry in a database. (ie. I'm no longer John Smith, I'm now Citizen #192,114,983) What is the problem with this you ask? It's dehumanizing. I, for one, am not a 'zombie'. I am a human being, and expect and demand to be treated as such; especially by my government. To have myself and my life reduced to a small pile of information is both degrading and insulting. Since that idea doesn't bother you, why not submit to having a barcode tattood on your forehead? If the idea of a barcode on your forehead bothers you, perhaps you should ask yourself why.

"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? "

Suddenly? No. But I think that even the most totalitarian regime had to start somewhere, and reducing all citizens to numbers, then tracking their every move seems like a good start. Legitimizing the practice by legislating it keeps the revolution at bay until everyone gets a bit more used to the idea. Uberpolice you ask? Well, when the police can tell me where I was on the morning of April 3, 2001, what I had for breakfast, where I went, what I did, if I bought a paper of withdrew money from an ATM, bounced a check, paid my bills, etc, then I say to you, I live in a police state from which there is no escape. Do I care if the DMV of NJ knows what my eye looks like? Not in the least bit. But when they want to tie in every database from every federal and state agency to compile a list of everything I do every minute of every day, then I say the DMV gets my retinal scan when they autopsy my cold dead body. To hell with any nation or government which actively polices it's own citizens. Motto of the great State of New Hampshire: Live Free or Die.

"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. "

Let's be clear about one thing: Privacy is important in ALL areas. Let's ask a simple question, would you have a problem with your name, telephone number, address, children's names and ages, your past sexual history, your purchasing habits, daily life, reading habits, religion, and other such information being collected and stored by corporations and the government for whatever use they see fit? (From marketing by companies, to searches by police of your house and property because you fit the profile of someone 'likely to commit a crime'. (See also: racial profiling) The list of possibilities for use of information that you're willing to give up is staggering. What worries me isn't so much what I can think of in terms of misuse, it's all the things I can't think of right now. Do you think that the authors of the DMCA ever imagined a scientific research paper wouldn't be published because of legal threats stemming from the DMCA?

"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?"

Boy, that's just funny; that's what that is. The CBDTPA (formerly the SSSCA) would force every single piece of software or hardware produced after the bill is enacted into law to have embedded technologies that conform to government-mandated standards to eliminate unauthorized copying of copyrighted materials. That's what it does on it's face, now let's look at the consequences. All open source software would then need to be pretty much re-written. Everything from the Windows Media Player to the 'cp' command in future editions of *nix's/Linux would have to have standards-compliant code (with all its bugs and bloat) making many perfectly legal activities impossible. Forget making backups of your computers at that point. Assuming they contain software with the 'dont copy' bit, it isn't going to work. Forget making a mix CD from the CD's you bought last week, it's not going to work. These are all 'fair use' activities and perfectly legal. They'll still be legal, they just won't be possible, as you'd have to circumvent the copy-protection technology (which is illegal) to do it.

Think of it this way: right now, it's perfectly legal for you to walk to the house facing yours. It's a right recognized by everyone, and you do so frequently. Last week, a paved road (ie. 'street') was put in between your house and the one facing yours. It's still legal to go there, but now you must cross this street, so you do. Now, Senator Hollings wants to pass a bill saying it's perfectly legal to visit the house facing yours, but you may not cross the street to get there. (no jokes about flying above, tunneling under, etc please). So let's think about this for a moment, it's legal to visit the house, it's just that the only way to get there is illegal. The street isn't necessary, travel was fine before it was paved, but you cannot cross it just the same.

For those who think "hey, the cp command was around before this bill, it's grandfathered, right?" Right, until you want to release the next version of the software. FreeBSD 5.0 would probably be ok, but FreeBSD 6.0 would probably be legally forced to re-write anything capable of copying or displaying any digital content with standards-compliant code added. Then you get to re-write just about every application in existence when you want to release the next version, and now your hardware will cost a bit more thanks to the R&D for the embedded technology and added cost of making the product work right with it. Those who develop software in their free time should be screaming about this. Anyone who's ever written even a simple text editor should realize that if they wrote it post CBDTPA, it would have to comply with government standards on copy protection. (Those who don't write software, please don't chime in here, you don't know what you're talking about.)

"It's a different key for the same lock."

It's a universal key. Someone cracks it, they have everything. Right now, they need some luck along with your SSN, etc. Using a single key for everything is no different than using one password for everything. Think about it, if you use a 17 character password with numbers, upper/lower-case letters, symbols, (a really good password) for everything, then you're in trouble if anyone gets ahold of it. Doesn't matter how good it is, someone will break it. If it takes 20 years for someone to break it, they will, and when they do, your entire life belongs to them. You can say there's no way, and I'll just smile and nod and point you to the MPAA, who said CSS would never be cracked. It's not the biometrics that's a problem, it's the authentication that can be cracked, the databases that can be cracked, etc.

"Convicted sex offenders should be branded across the forehead"

What a great idea. Let's take a human being and burn their head with a hot plate of iron so they'll be ridiculed and beaten the rest of their lives. But you know what? I seem to remember some crazy guys a while back who wrote something to the effect that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Gee, those silly creators of our country, what were they thinking?

Ok, now that we're done with the sarcasm, let's think about this for a moment. first off, go read a book called The Scarlet Letter. Secondly, this most certainly qualifies as "cruel and unusual punishment". I'm one who's all for the rights of the victims. TRUST ME when I say I know first hand exactly what it feels like to have someone you love fall victim to a 'sex offender'. Your first instinct is to kill them; at least mine was. Unfortunately, we don't have the tools necessary to ensure this type of thing never happens in our society, but what we do have is a fairly good criminal justice system, which, while not perfect, is constantly being reviewed and changed to better serve the public. Branding someone's forehead does nothing to ensure that they're able to become productive citizens. Megan's law, while nice on paper and hard to argue with ("you don't want a law that protects people?") does nothing to get a person the help they need. Instead, putting someone out like that makes them feel isolated and hated. Indeed, it has brought ruin to many convicted offenders' lives. When someone is unable to live a normal life, they eventually start looking for the next best thing, which might put your wife or kids in danger. I have no problem with a sex offender being fairly heavily monitored by law enforcement, but once they've served their time, they ought be allowed to live some sort of life.

""DO NOT TRUST WITH YOUR 6-YEAR OLDS!" mark on their record, available to law enforcement and grade school HR departments"

We have this, it is known as a criminal record. Criminal records are (with the exception of children) a matter of public record. If a school does not do a criminal record check on its employees, they have a problem in their administration.

"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."

This is the way things are, and if you're happy, why did you post? AIDS positive tests are a matter of medical records, which are regulated by law. That you dress in women's panties is not tracked by anyone (well, maybe spam companies) and is also usually private. If you had sex with a child, you have a criminal record, which can be checked. If you are a well-known terrorist, you are on the State Department's terrorist watch list.

Alternative data sources?

[pmz]

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?

Two words

[Eryq]

Identical twins.

PIN me down, but not my vote?

[DoctorFrog]

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?

Sounds like a plan...

[Pollux]

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?

Re:Ummm.... NO. - No.

[The Original Bobski]

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.

Not just biometrics-- corporations too

[mdecerbo]

There's a better article from UPI with more juicy tidbits on the new licenses they want to saddle us with.

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.

Re:Not just biometrics-- corporations too

[Nautilus]

California already requires a thumbprint when getting a driver's license. Driving is a privilege, not a right, so if you don't want to give them your thumb print, you don't get your driver's license.

It may be too late in some ways in some places.

Voter ID.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

A rider I want to see on the bill:

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-)

Re:Voter ID.

[JimBobJoe]

Thankfully, the evidence does not seem to support that idea--unless the evidence is being read by the few people out there who wanna see photo voter ID cards. (They are out there...though your post appears to be tongue in cheek.)

If anything, fraudulent voter registrations (but not necessarily people fraudulently voting) went up when "motor voter" passed...because some state DMV's...never known for competence...started willy nilly registering any bloody person to vote when they have a driver's license. (I've got an acquitaince in Georgia who was registered to vote when he got his license, even though he has EU citizenship. Morever, it proved to be a bitch to get off the voting rolls.)

Oath based/addressed based voter registration works very well in this country...and there is no need to change it. The idea of needing a photo ID to vote is deeply offensive to liberty.

Incidentally, I have been a pollworker (which is an outstanding way to serve your community, and make a little bit of money on the side) and I will be a pollworker in the election coming up this next Tuesday.

What we do on my state is when a person comes up to vote, they sign the poll book next to the signature from when they registered. If the signatures match, we let them vote. Sometimes they wanna show ID...and we refuse it. I've had this conversation before:

"don't you wanna see my ID?"

"No...we are not permitted to do so by law, and furthermore, I have no idea if it's fake or not. How do I know if the license is fake?"

"well you don't know if the license is fake...all you can do is believe me when I say it isn't, and I present it to you."

"then in that instance, instead of arguing about some cheap plastic card, I'll just believe you when you claim to be who you are the first time around, and you can enter the polling booth."

Re:Voter ID.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Thankfully, the evidence does not seem to support that idea--unless the evidence is being read by the few people out there who wanna see photo voter ID cards.

I'm sorry, but at least the part of California I'm in has so much voter fraud (and other screwups) that it's not funny. Examples:

My next-door neighbor's mother died a few years ago. She keeps getting voter info, and keeps going to the clerk to get her mother removed from the rolls. After mommy popped back a couple times the registrar flat out refused to take her off again because "she was still voting".

On election day vans full of people show up at the polls to register-and-vote. The neighbors have never seen these people before. Then the van goes to another polling place, and another...

Over four thousand absentee ballots were addressed to the same house in Berkeley.

and I could go on.

Fake voters and multiple voting are not the only forms of of election fraud. But they're currently the easiest. Anyone who has ever hacked or defended a system can understand the effect of the following combination:

You can register by mail without showing I.D. or any other proof of elegibility, citizenship, or even existence.

You can request an absentee ballot at any time - including first time and every time - for no reason and showing no hardship. By mail.

Your ballot can be sent to any mailing address. It will not be checked against the boundaries of your district or against other absentee ballots' addresses.

(I've twice found myself double-registered because I changed party affiliation and the clerk typoed my name and the computer entered it as a new voter.)

I DON'T want voter photo I.D. - or any national I.D. card. But by damn, if they're going to force a national I.D. card down our throats, I want to see it used to insure that non-citizens, zombies, crooks, and computer-generated pseudo-people aren't selecting our legislators and other government officials and amending our state constitutions.

And I want to put the people pushing such an I.D. card (whom I perceive to be the same ones benefiting from voter fraud) to have to think twice before they finally vote on it.

Elections are why a Republic is stable: The losing side of the election won't try to reverse the result by civil war, because they know they'd lose. This holds true even if the election is close and there was SOME fraud - because the winners would be joined by the people who don't like sore losers. But if the election process becomes SO corrupt that people stop believing it predicts a Civil War's outcome, some people will be willing to take the chance.

Re:Voter ID.

[JimBobJoe]

Actually...I shall defer to you on this issue...because I have to admit, I have heard of weird situations in the California Republic that have caught my attention.

I do also admit that states aren't doing as good of a job as they should be with correlating death certificates to voter registration.

And I also agree that, in the case of California, voter fraud perpetuates the current government, so there is little interest in changing it.

Re:Voter ID.

[Pig Hogger]

I'm sorry, but at least the part of California I'm in has so much voter fraud (and other screwups) that it's not funny. Examples:

• My next-door neighbor's mother died a few years ago. She keeps getting voter info, and keeps going to the clerk to get her mother removed from the rolls.
• On election day vans full of people show up at the polls to register-and-vote.
• Then the van goes to another polling place, and another...
• Over four thousand absentee ballots were addressed to the same house in Berkeley.

Sounds just like the elections in Québec! Last time, the (big-money loving) liberals got nailed for big time election fraud. So, in return, the (socialist) government passes a law to make compulsory the production of ID prior to vote, if there is the slightest doubt about the voter's identity. The only ones bitching about it are the liberals and big-business...

Re:Voter ID.

[ProfMoriarty]

Ok .. this is on a serious note ... can a smartcard be "shorted out"?

Meaning that the data on it is no longer valid? ...

If it can't the aformentioned article gets scary.

Re:Ummm.... NO.

[visualight]

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

Re:What's wrong with National ID's?

[acceleriter]

No infringement at all. So long as there's law prohibiting the presentation of such an ID being required for commerce of any kind (e.g. cashing a check, checking into a hotel, renting a car, borrowing a book) and that it carries sufficient civil penalties (7 figures) to be an effective deterrent.

Not that it isn't enough to fear the government, but the real threat is from the capitalist kleptocracy that really runs the country.

mod this up! universal identifiers explained

[JimBobJoe]

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.

Re:Armed Pilots

[danro]

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.

Re:Ummm.... NO.

[garett_spencley]

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

Re:Armed Pilots

[danro]

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.

Re:mixed reactions

[Random Feature]

Because if you are a US citizen and you break the law you are entitled to certain rights.

If you break the law and you are not a US citizen, you have no rights and you can (and usually should) be deported.

Re:mixed reactions

[mgv]

Because if you are a US citizen and you break the law you are entitled to certain rights.

If you break the law and you are not a US citizen, you have no rights and you can (and usually should) be deported.

What, so if a tourist hires a car while on holiday in the US and speeds, they should be deported?

Actually, I think you will find that if you break the law as a non US citizen, you go to a US jail, the same as anyone else. Or are you suggesting that if come to the US, buy a gun and shoot someone, my punishment should be deportation?

I don't think it works that way.

Michael

Retinal problems...

[Kirkoff]

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

The Public Servant's Contempt For His Master

[Steve B]

They're trying to avoid the controversial 'national ID' issue by creating what would be new drivers licenses with biometric information embedded.

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?)

Re:I have to admit...

[SecurityGuy]

We would need a secure enough protocol ...

You'd need a secure enough a lot of things, and that's where it always falls apart. You'd need readers that can't be compromised, a central database that can't be compromised, development staff who can't be compromised and won't backdoor the thing, maintainers who can't be compromised. In the end, the question becomes not can it be compromised, but when will it be. More likely, was it ever NOT compromised. Actually when you factor in things like the witness protection program, it becomes a given that there's a backdoor. I guess we're back to the old security dilemma. There is no secure, there's only secure from who, using what tools, in what timeframe, etc.

Association of data

[MikeBabcock]

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).

Degradation ...

[ProfMoriarty]

Ok ... I've worked with smart cards and biometrics (moreso biometrics ...) ... and the problem with this is that over time, the fingerprint gets degraded, simply due to wear and tear on the fingerprint.

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.

Re:Driving is a privilege

[bobv-pillars-net]

Tongue-in-cheek summary of the parent post:

Travelling is a privilege; it may be extended or revoked by any official representative of the government.

"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."

Re:mixed reactions

[mgv]

Just DON'T try to claim protection under the Constitution. As a non-citizen, you don't have the right to it. That's the point that was being made.

Point taken. However the original comment was a bit of overkill. To quote again:

If you break the law and you are not a US citizen, you have no rights and you can (and usually should) be deported.

There probably isn't a citizen in the first world that hasn't broken the law somewhere. Like making a video tape of a movie on TV. There are lots of laws, and most tourists end up breaking some just because they aren't aware of minor differences between two countries. I don't suppose that you read the law books of every country that you have visited now?

Just DON'T try to claim protection under the Constitution. As a non-citizen, you don't have the right to it.

Now, think about what you have said about my lack of rights under the US constitution. If I visit the US, do the police there have the right to beat me up because I am a "non-citizen", or shoot or kill me? If they do not, then I have rights under the US laws. I believe that I do. I just don't have the right to remain in the US - which is fair enough.

As I understand it, the US are keeping most of the Taliban fighters in Cuba because they would have alot more rights to lawyers in the US. No, I'm not saying I like what happened on 9/11/01 - many of my fellow nationals were fighting alongside US troops in Afganistan. But ask yourself why the US refuses to bring these people into the country? I believe its partly because they would have access a whole lot of legal rights, and if they were funded by Bin Laden they probably have access to enough money to use those rights to the fullest.

So I ask you again, are you sure I would have no rights in the US? Not even (for example) the right to a fair trial if I did break the law? Because thats the point I am arguing here.

This isn't said as flamebait. I'm interested in knowing the answer to these questions. I have enjoyed the times I've visited the US, but I guess I'd like to know that US citizens can't just take pot shots at me the moment they hear my accent. Which is how I interpreted the first post.

Michael

Re:I have to admit...

[SecurityGuy]

Sure, why not. It doesn't address any of the vulnerabilities, but knock yourself out.

Re:Who are you? What are you doing?

[Sean Clifford]

You apparently are not a paranoid leftist. You are not even "paranoid" enough to be a realist in today's world.

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'.

Re:mixed reactions

[mgv]

The fact that they can be expelled has no relation to to whether or not US laws might protect them. Your argument is not valid.

So are you saying that a visitor in the US has all the obligations under the law but no rights? That is my question here. (Including such things as a fair trial, the right to a lawyer to defend themselves, etc).

Michael