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Stupid Security
Buck Mulligan writes "The folks at Privacy International are holding a stupid security contest to discover the "world's most pointless, intrusive, annoying and self-serving security measures." Nominations can be submitted by email: stupidsecurity@privacy.org.
My vote goes to the Ronald Reagan 'Free Trade' Center in Washington, where you have to show your driver's license to visit the food court. (Having a driver's license proves that you aren't dangerous!)"
How about...
Using a one million bit key and claiming it's uncrackable on Slashdot?
I guess they've stopped doing this, but the airline ticket agents asking if you're a terrorist always seemed pretty stupid to me.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Some years ago I went to a branch of my bank in the middle of nowhere. I didn't have my card for some reason so they got me to sign something and faxed it to my 'home' branch for verification.
Seems close enough to safe to me.
Rik
The early 90's are calling. THey want their phrase back.
Sorry, couldn't help it
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
you have to show your driver's license to visit the food court.
Heh
Being blind this _really_ anoys me. The number of places that won't accept anything other than a drivers licence as a form of identity.
Before now I've had to explain to people _why_ I don't have a drivers licence!
the password prompt that pops up on system startup, which can be safely ignored.
My friend (who is Australian but of Indian decent) recently re-entered the country from a vacation Down Under. At the airport, the guards put him through all sorts of questions. Among them was "How did you get your Green Card?". When my friend, a professor of Mathematics, replied that he got it through an Outstanding Researcher program, the guard asked him "So, are you an outstanding researcher in mathematics?". My buddy, groggy from a double-digit-hour flight, replied "Well, I guess I am." The guard then asked him "What's the Pythagorean Theorem?" to test him. My friend couldn't believe his ears. This question was supposed to determine whether my friend really was a mathematics professor? Every kid who went through high school math knows that one!
I feel safer already knowing we've got such intelligent guards monitoring our borders...
GMD
watch this
This was a few years ago, back in 1999,so may well have changed (probably got stupider). Here in the UK we still don't need to show ID when checking in for domestic flights (a couple of airlines require it since 9/11, but it's not required by the government). However when me and my girlfriend flew from Cardiff to Belfast in June 1999, after having gone through the gate, before boarding the plane we had to show our boarding passes to a plain-clothes policeman who wrote down our names. No doubt this was because of the ongoing unpleasantnesses in Northern Ireland, and the police were taking it seriously enough that when the guy in front of us objected he was pulled from the line and eventually was last onto the plane bearing a very pissed-off expression.
The thing is though, is that the *only* ID they asked for was the boarding passes, with no corroboration that the names on them were our real names. Presumably the South Wales Police have come to an understanding with the IRA and UVF who've agreed that their guys would never dream of buying airline tickets cash and supplying a false name, or with a fake/stolen card.
Patriot Act?
No sig for you!!