Slashdot Mirror
A Look Into National ID Cards
mr.buddylee writes "Last month Slashdot reported a Popular Science story on your privacy. This month the magazine has a couple different articles about the future of security after the attacks on 9/11. Included is a very interesting read on National ID Cards which looks at possible technologies integrated into the card. For instance, how would you like a memory strip containing a digitized image of your fingerprints, your photo, your medical history and flight history stored in your wallet? All secured with what could be a less than secure Smart Card."
as there is a federal law that states I dn't have to use it if I don't want to and that its illegal for any non medical person to see any more then my photo, and that anybody who wnats to get my fingure prints needs a search warrant, and there are no repercusions for not using it, and I don't have to use to move around the country, I have no problem with it.
oh yeah, I also want a pony.
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I can sign you up.
Please email me your name address ssn bank acount numbers, mothers maiden name, a copy of your finger prints.
Not only will sending me this info get you signed up, it will also increase your penis size.
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Your papers please.
The background was California had a law requiring ID. A man was stopped by police while walking down the street and for no reason ordered to produce ID. He had none and was arrested. The subtext was that he was black and the neighborhood he was in was a rich white area.
I strongly suspect that its nearing the time to invoke our moral right to alter or abolish a government when it has become destructive to the end for which it was created, a la the Declaration of Independence.
the problem is, why do you need to show your ID to a police officer?
But what happens when you have to show it everyplace you go? what happens if you change a pattern of behaviour and it sets of a red flag and suddenly your being investigated?
This sort of stuff happens in russia. Back during the cold war, the USSR would do this, and that was w/o computers.
eyeballs change with time. Plus the same way you would fake an eyeball, is the sameway you would fake a thumb print, by changing the data on the card.
We, are a country of Independent states, with, what is supposed to be, very specific guidlines on what the feder government can do. Are fore-fathers knew that a central government that controls everything is bad for personal freedom.
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Why do we need to have a national ID? Why not just a federal minimum standard for ID cards, like data field locations, orientation, picture type, etc?
funny munging
Whether the information is on the physical card makes no difference. In fact, most likely you would not want to store much information on the card. Only the basic: name, address, physical characteristics, digitized picture, and that sort should be stored on the card. Just enough to make it roughly equivalent to a current ID, but a bit stronger.
For any effective system, the DB should be centrally managed. Both for revocation of ID's, and for security of the sensitive content.
The card has the person's private key, stored in a physically secure chip. That key can be authenticated against the government's issuing authority (as can the validity of the data on the card).
Then, data can be accessed from the central DB, according to the privileges allowed the requestor of the data, on the authority of the cardholder.
There are obvious security / privacy concerns. Particularly if the entity you fear abuse from the most is the government. But, it has the potential to offer a lot more privacy and security than current completely insecure systems.
I remember the brian washing that went along with the "duck and cover" program that was going on until the early '70s in southern Florida. One of the reasons that the Russians were so evil was they convinced kids to turn in their parents. A line in a move made about that time (The Presidents Analyst) had a line from a Russian spy to the American spy "Ever year you become more like us, every year we become more like you. Soon there will be no difference". This is a very good movie and I expect anyone that is reading this topic is likely to enjoy it.