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No ID Cards in the Future
dmf writes "Throw away your identification cards! CNet is running a commentary piece on what the author perceives to be contradictions of privacy as technology continues to evolve our future. What boggles the mind is how social forecasters can so easily bypass longstanding privacy concerns by simply ignoring the horrific examples of abusive governments throughout history. How can a responsible thinker so easily shrug off the need to protect oneself from the unknown abuses of the future just because one may think things are relatively agreeable at present?"
that would make cards uneeded! woohoo!
I would like to know what is really going on here. Does anyone really have any idea? One day we hear that everything is going 1984-esque with personal ID cards and Microsoft personel watching our every move. Then the next day we hear this. Whats happening?
Does anyone know what company he may be referring to here?
Did anyone else notice that the author of this nearly content-free article referred to Bruce Schneier's complaint about hotels requiring a driver's license, then completely ignored the REST OF THE SENTENCE where Bruce explained why that is a bad thing?
It's a good thing the article was short, or I'd be bummed about wasting the time to read it.
Does the government have right to invade our lives? I think not. Life (military and police protect us from murder and such) Liberty (protect our right to freedom, to say what we want when we want to say it) and persuit of happiness (They feel the need to make us happy, not just allow us the ability to be happy. Social welfare... Ha! Let us govern ourselves!) Who are they to tell us what to do and what not to do, as long as it doesnt violate the basic human rights of another person? Seatbelt laws? HA! Drug laws are just killing more people than the actual drugs are... It's getting way too out of hand. In soviet russia, the government runs you. In Soviet America, apparently the same thing happens. Libility laws, too. Noone's responsible. Privacy... i think the issue isn't with our privacy, but with those compromising it. Advertising agencies and govermental agencies... IT people stop the massacre, you have the power! Anyone who'se anyone in the IT world reads this page, and they design these systems... have a backbone. And all you crazy geeks like me out there, check out libertarian policy, it's definately something to consider...
Give us our freedoms back!
Vote for who?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Actually it scares me *not* to need an ID card. With face recognition, fingerprinting, and other biometric measures in place. I don't recall being asked for permission about any of these.
"The makers of the Constitution conferred the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized men--the right to be let alone."
- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis
Consider the Patriot Act and new changes being pushed by the neoconservative administration, I can't help but think the Bill of Rights is turning in to what happened to the rights list in Animal Farm.
Proud to post (this one) Anonymously!
Remember that this is corporate America and the U.S. government with which we are dealing. The chance of their gathering data correctly, let alone devising a way to use it to their advantage, is remote. "
I agree with this statement, but. . .
The more more important point is how much the government and corporations *think* they are gathering data correctly, and *think* they can use it to their advantage.
We are entering an age of false assumptions and spurious conclusions drawn on anecdotal data that supposedly has "validity" because it was retreived using a SQL query.
I think there is going to be a need for another edition of Carl Sagan's a "The Demon-Haunted World," that deals directly with peoples' (governments', corporations') willingness to add ill-conceived "reading tea leaves" type conclusions to otherwise opinion-less data sets.
Congratulations, we've graduated. It used to be that you had to know a little science to keep from being ripped off. Now we're moving into an age where you'll need to know computer science and statistics to keep from being arrested or discriminated against.
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Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
Of course, they can refuse service if you don't give them the number.
When I worked at Intel, we all had WWID's (World-Wide ID). I thought, "great, then my health insurance can use the WWID." Nope. They still used the SSN. Gotta love it when my SSN is on every card I have as a "subscriber number". Makes it that much easier to hijack my identity if my wallet is stolen.
Several months ago I read a post here that got me thinking about my SSN. According to the post, the SSN was not intended to be an ID number, but has gradually evolved into one. (Anyone who can post a reference to confirm this would be appreciated. I Googled around for a while but could only find references that equated SSN with ID). So I started noticing how often people ask me for it. I've been quite surprised at how often it is asked for. Exam registration, scholarship application, research conference registration, volunteer application, etc. I've started writing "available upon request" when it asked for my SSN, and no one has complained. But it makes me wonder how many times I've given it out without thinking twice about it?
There was a really good discussion about privacy issues in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace by Lawrence Lessig. It gave a clear description of the problem and proposed some alternative solutions. One of his points was that privacy was formerly the default simply because no one was capable of maintaining a practical and useable database of the size that would be necessary. Because of this former impossibility, there was no need for legislation or other guidelines to address it. That makes the problem unique to our day and age because only recently have we had the technology to do these sorts of things. Lessig argues that in such cases we have two options:
- Interpret the Constitution as literally as possible. If the costitution says it's okay (or fails to say that it's not), then go for it.
- Determine a solution based upon the same principles that the founding fathers used.
Lessig tends to lean toward the second option, and he's very persuasive in arguing his viewpoint. One possible solution that he proposed was for database owners to blind themselves to personal information and to only use the data for statistical analyses. From the article: "IBM, for instance, is tinkering with "randomizing" data, which involves fatally altering data in a database. Number-crunchers can subsequently use the randomized data to study trends in the numbers, but can never reconstruct the original data--an improvement over using encrypted data." That sounds like a good solution to some of the problems. Companies can use their database to improve marketing research but can't use them to invade your privacy.Anyway, just some things to think about...
Consider the Patriot Act
Ok, I'm considering it.
I can't help but think the Bill of Rights is turning in to what happened to the rights list in Animal Farm.
How?
There's a ton of mention of the Patriot act in every single slashdot article, and how it's so damaging to everyones rights, etc, etc... And slashbot mods always give it a +5 insightful.
But how? Show me an example. Quote the parts of the act that is unconstitutional or denies you your rights.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The thing that infuriates me is that if this were a Democratic administration pursuing these legislative goals, we would see the neocon propaganda machine going balls-to-the-wall with apocalyptic wrath. Limbaugh and his lesser clones would daily be spewing out crap about how this is yet another example of how the Democrats are in cahoots with the commies and blah blah blah. But since we have Republicans in office there is next to nothing coming from these mindless sycophants who are responsible for propping up this administration.
I oppose any measures which lessen civil liberties no matter who is in office. Democrat, Republican, Green, don't care, doesn't matter. The "PATRIOT" Act was a complete load of shit, and kudos to the lone Senator who voted against it. (I think it was Feingold.)
Meanwhile, this so-called conservative administration is doing everything in its power to roll back civil liberties, and is succeeding in doing so on a daily basis. Congress is compliant, and the courts are becoming packed with judges friendly to the administration's views.
"Gotta give the cops MORE power! MORE! MORE! MORE, I SAY!" And if you complain about it, you are slandered as being unpatriotic or (worse!) a liberal.
Fuck all. These guys are power hungry goons the likes of which the Clinton administration never even got close to pursuing. Vote em all out, war success be goddamned!
Surely you know that the EU is in the process of passing DMCA-like laws.
Some information benefits the overall public; some doesn't.
If you liberate a work of literature, you can study it and produce better literature or gain a deeper understanding of the human experience.
If you liberate a previously forbidden document, you may reveal a scam or dangerous situation and inform the public.
If you liberate "Bob Smith purchased a box of Froot Loops on 01/07/02 at 21:06 for $3.27", you can write better advertising. As a society, we don't want better advertising. We want advertising to fail so miserably that they stop doing it!
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!