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Brill's Contentious ID Card
pwackerly writes "The New York Times (illegal kidney sale required) is running a story on a private venture funded by the man behind CourtTV to sell ID cards that let you bypass security, both national (airports) and private (your business's lobby). Outside of the standard national ID concerns, now we'd have to worry about a terrorist stealing our super-secret ID from our wallet. Don't these people learn anything from reading 'Mostly Harmless?'"
Don't Terrorize the Homeland without It!
Don't these people learn anything from reading 'Mostly Harmless?'
Of course they did, they learned how to bilk gullible people out of money...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
- 'cos these are the ID cards I'd vote for!
...that these aren't the sort of people who read Douglas Adams.
This way we don't have to worry about poor terrorist... just rich one's with the capital to buy bombs.
Boy does that take a load off my mind. Thanks card inventor guy!
is that Terrorist groups will start recruiting people who are not on a watch list and who have not convicted of a felony. If airlines use it for easy check-in, then you may as well call it the Shoe Bomb permit.
They can bypass the national security systems with a card but they can't get past the New York Times registration page.
Trolling is a art,
It seems those who are influential enough in government to fund quicker security at airports are the same ones who'd receive these ID cards.
So, you let all the influential people slide by quickly, and they'll never realize there's a real problem. I say let the influential people deal with the wait the same way we do, and then hopefully they'll do something about it.
How, though, do they intend to verify that those applying for these cards really have the "credentials" being given to them? Background searches on that kind of a scale would be an extremely intensive undertaking for any organization. Furthermore, there is no way this could be done for the $30 or $50 mentioned in the article. They could, I suppose, require the applicant to submit proof that they meet the requirements for obtaining one of these cards, but then that raises a new problem: falsified records/information. "He said that the system was probably unworkable." I'd say so.
"Aye, and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon!" -- Montgomery Scott, ST:III
"Ohhhh, I'm much to important to bother myself with following the behaviors needed to ensure a civil society." This guy probably talks on the cellphone while driving his SUV.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
coolest thing I could buy since that elevator pass in high school...oh, wait...
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
How naive. If it quacks like a national ID card, it's probably a duck trying to bypass security. Quick, increase to threat level fowl!
$30 to $50 dollars just to sign up and "a couple of dollars a month". It's could be a license to print money. Can you say "Monopoly", I knew you could.
This kind of card would only be "fair" if the modified free market is allowed to operate. You don't have to buy your server certificates from Verisign (of course the way that they bought other companies, it's hard not to), so why should all the card readers at public spots focus on one company's authenication system
Besides, as states tend to get more and more info on their id cards (aka drivers licences), the "need" for a separate system is becoming a moot point. Already some bars will "swipe" an ID rather than just look at the picture (also getting addresses, age and other data into their database).
Overall, I don't think that it will work, you might be able to get a couple of states to sign on but the cost is too high for the average person and it will be an "elite" privledge which will get lampooned in the public.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Heres an artcle on the same subject at Reuters but without the need to register to view it. http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=te chnologyNews&storyID=3678908§ion=news
This would open the door to other companies selling ID cards. Eventually there would be enough producers of these cards to allow disreputable produces to slip through. A few of these would be discovered thereby reducing the credability of them all. Causing the government to take over.
In short, this is just a step in the road to government issued ID cards.
The total lack of anyone willing to fly under this system is what's gonna cut down the lines at the airport.
But at least Mr. Brill will be able to tell the FBI exactly who blew up the airplane.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
A single identity card that would allow you to bypass invasive security screening. Because obviously, if you've never done anything wrong in the past, you clearly won't in the future.
I have to agree with all the people who are pointing out that this introduces a single point of failure into any system that honors it, but what's worse is that it seems to ignore the point of security checkpoints, which is not so much to merely identify people as it is to prevent the entry of weapons into a vulnerable area REGARDLESS of their identity.
We aren't looking for terrorist, so how will this card further increase our risk?
Until the government gets off its PC centric ass and starts looking for terrorist instead of weapons we might just as well mark airline tickets as shoe bomb permits.
It wasn't a shoe bomb or razor blade that flew airliners into buidlings.
This card just falls under the current "safety" situation. We want to feel safe, we just aren't willing to do what is needed to be safe.
Let them have their quick checkin card, its not like their time is more important than their safety anyway.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
is going to be blowing up the White House you can get red carpet treatment for $50 (plus a few).
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!
KFG
If someone bypasses security in the lobby with this card and then goes on a shooting spree, could the company issuing the card be liable? What if they missed prior felony convictions in their background check?
-- Stanislav Shalunov
Who monitors this company who doles out these ID cards? Since this is Mr. Steven Brill's baby, does he essentially have the power to give himself and his friends (and perhaps those with a little too much cash on their hands) clean IDs?
Admittedly, I don't know how the public system works with regards to internal checks to the ID distribution system. However, if these companies were to become popular, this strikes me as an excellent opportunity to perceive each company as a weak link in an ever-weakening great chain.
Just because a person with one of these cards isn't a terrorist at the time the card is issued, doesn't mean they won't become one in the future. There would have to be a way to invalidate the card, which means that these card readers would have to be updated on some semi-frequent basis. (Not to mention that when the terrorist first gets denied at the gate, he will know that the government is on to him.)
Seems pretty unworkable to me.
Your mileage may vary, but mine is constant.
And how long before this is required by airlines and such?
"Sir, you cannot fly Delta Airlines if you do not have your privatized National ID card. What's that? You don't have one? Well, you must be a terrorist, because only terrorists wouldn't have one. Please remain calm, as authority figures have already been alerted and are en route as we speak."
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
If I pay my money and fill out the application with completely fake information, is it a crime? Why?
If I miss my flight because the card and/or reader fails at the airport, will I be refunded? Why not?
Will the company indemnify me from losses if my fingerprint and card are stolen?
Once stolen, how long until all points in the system relying on this information are closed to my card?
Can an employer lawfully require me to get this card as a condition of employment?
Screw the ID cards, let's just skip right to microchip implants in the back of your neck. Think of all the time you could save!! You don't have to remember your ATM pin, just walk up to machine and you have access to your money. No waiting to pay at the store. It'd be great.. because no one who fits the security profile would ever turn out to be a terrorist. And of course, like all new technologies, it's sure to be infallible.
I hope we don't have to wait until 2060 for the next big counterculture movement.
And not for the tinfoil hat security reasons, but because it undermines the ideals of equal justice under the law for all. Rich people should NOT be able to buy preferential security treatment. If the law is "everyone gets their anus searched for bombs", then we all get in the same line and have the same kind of search. Simply having the money to buy an ID card that "proves" you've got a clean anus isn't equal protection under the law, it's preferential treatment for sale.
And the same goes for people who claim that they should have it because they're frequent fliers -- that's just a way of abstracting the fact that you have a lot of money.
Any law should be applied as equally as possible, ESPECIALLY if the law is some national security measure that happens to be a major invasion of your privacy and a general pain in the ass like airport security.
NO special rights for the rich, ESPECIALLY no special security rights for the rich.
Personally I'd fly on Jihad airlines where they put a Koran in the seat back pocket, so you could clutch it too your heart as you stormed the cockpit and gave complimentary box cutters to you upon entry to the plane. There are so many flights, the odds of me being on one that goes down are so slim, its not worth worrying about.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
And terrorism is not like inner-city gang crime, terrorists won't have a string of prior convictions. Most suicide bombers are not repeat offenders.
Ah, but they will be prevented from entering
by a large "No Terrorists Past This Point" sign.
Well, then let's just put up the signs and forget this ID card, eh?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
It's just like a national ID card, except we have to pay for them!
2) Frequent waiters buy cards to shorten their wait too.
3) The majority of waiters now have cards
4) Not enough people get screened
5) Screeners no longer alllow card holders a "free ride"
but hey, at least Brill and his investors get rich.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Are you a communist or something? You have to encourage private enterprise.
So, the group of have's get to bypass the security checkpoints while the have-not's must endure hours of security checks. If the have's population is very small and limited to 'influential' people, and the have-not's represent a large percentage of the total population then I would be forced to call it class warfare.
I'm not saying the proposal has a malicious agenda, instead I'm trying to imagine what an ID card type system such as this one could evolve into given time.
Shh.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I fly a couple of times a month and I am always "randomly selected". Every single time. And the reason is that I fly:
This is the profile. Everyone knows this is the profile. Which is why the 9/11 highjackers flew:
...and this is the really nasty bit...First Class. Even fllowing the airlines current policy, there is no way the 9/11 highjackers would be subject to extra searches currently. Because they don't fit the "highjacker profile".
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Okay, fine. What if you don't have a printable finger?
No, I'm not attempting to be facetious. There is a small, yet statistically signifigant percentage of the world's population (IIRC, around 2%) whose fingers just don't produce the patterns of whorls and loops in any usable form. Usually, the skin doesn't form deep enough ridges (result: a blurry, useless smudge.) There was an article carried in the local news a couple of years ago about a woman who was having troubles with the INS because she couldn't be fingerprinted, for just this reason. Also, there are those who have suffered severe burns. Scar tissue doesn't give a usable result, either. Or, what if an applicant is an amputee? I can see a potential loophole here that an ADA lawyer would give his/her left arm to exploit.
Much as I've come to dislike airport security (think you've been embarrassed by the screening process? Try having the underwire in your bra trip the metal detector), I've come to the conclusion that it really is one of the last few great equalizing experiences. Everybody suffers through it, regardless of who you (think you) are, and everybody should. IMN-S-G-D-HO.
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
I love reading these stories about how everyone wants to make a national id card, Oracke wants to run the database, IBM wants to provide the hardware etc...
As long as there is a centralized database of any kind, the potential for abuse is there. The only way that I would get a national ID card of some kind is if it were similar to the following:
The card would have to be a smart card, and store the following:
-An MD5 of my PIN number
-A "fingerprint" of my fingerprint (i.e. the datapoints that are stored instead of fingerprints themselves)
-A picture of myself (stored digitaly)
-I may or may not want info like eye color, hair color, weight, height etc.. I hesitate because I don't think they are particularly usefull in identification. I've never had anyone actually check my eye color when I present ID.. and I know women who change thier hair color more often than thier desktop background.
-Although I really dislike the idea of including it, my SSN will probably be necessaraly included. I'd prefer a MD5 of my ssn, and be required to key it in when necessary, but like income taxes the genie is out of the bottle and I don't see any act of congress to repeal SSN's coming soon.
This should cover the standard security pillars.. Something you have (the card), something you know (your pin) and something you are (fingerprint). Any one is easy enough to fake. Any two require some serious nastyness to get from you, and all three require some form of intimidation to get from you.
Now, all that info should be cryptographaly signed by some government agency. Preferably each location (or maybe each operator) that provides registration/card creation service would have its own private key to sign the information. That way, fradulent cards can be traced back to whomever signed them and they can be appropriately beaten and charged as a terrorist w/o due process.
Now, the most important thing is that.. this information must not be stored anywhere aside from on the card! If there is a uber database of everyones name, photo, ssn and fingerprint that just screams to be abused. This would still allow interoperatability with the watch list du jour via ssn's, and I believe it would even be approved by most privacy advocates.
Any improvement ideas? Post 'em!
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
If they actually manage to employ something like this, we should know if there is anyone on the plane we board that has bypassed security. I don't mind going through security and the hassel, but I do NOT want to fly on a plane that has anyone carrying one of these cards that has bypassed security. It's our right to know.
There will be good honest folks, true-blue Americans all, raised from the dead to provide verifiable identity, because no agency knows for sure who's dead yet.
....
... many ... many others. Politicians and CEOs will help build the future of America.
Then again in a few years they will get a big database going that identifies all the verified dead. The contract for the database will go to the Database American Future Technical (DAFT) Company who's parent company is "Patriotic Alliance" Halliburton Brown & Root
Anyway, DAFT subcontracts to small businesses in Pakistan and China will perform data entry as it is received from the US Deaths Agency that received the data from the FBI who verified the death from local municipal records.
Finally, corporate America will be able to issue ID cards to whoever walks through the door. This is not a job that politicians would want to have civil servants perform, because America Businesses do everything better then government employees. Examples: Global-Cross/Double-Cross, Enrun/AnRun with the money, Diebald/Scalped,
Hell, maybe Mexico (in 50 to 100 years) will eventually be able to invade and save US.
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
From the New York Times registration page:
Get your facts straight, michael.
In fact, why don't we just forget this whole 9/11 thing, since it only affected about 3000 people and their families, and drop security alltogether?
Sounds good to me. Sure, 9/11 was a tragedy, but this security bullshit isn't going to help anything - by tunring a plane into a bomb, Osama and friends changed the rules of engagement. If you tried that today, the passengers would kill you before you touched down. 9/11 was a one-shot deal - the next attack will be something that we aren't protecting, like the power grid.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Like I need another card, between the Civilian CDL, the doctors exam certifacation, the army drivers lic, the military ID card, the Amature Radio lic., the Concealed weapons permit, the 2 gun club cards and 5 library cards... this will prove I am the person all these cards say I am...
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
So, upper class white people need special cards to be indentified? I mean I thought that being an old white dude was supposed to be like a special pass in and of itself, I mean, you have to be born into being a rich white dude, or have lots of expensive surgery? Why would these people need an ID to allow them to bypass security that they've already been bypassing?
Seriously, as others have said before the point of a security checkpoint is to check people, a lot of these radical elements use agents that have totally clean records. If a checkpoint is just letting people past because they have some stupid little card then the whole point of having the thing has just gone out the door, I mean it isn't like the checkpoint is some line rfor a ride at Disney World where you can pay an extra $200 (I have no idea how much) to get into a special fast lane thing. The security is there to prevent very bad things from happening.
I say that we label these people as terrorists, raid their corporate offices and send them off to Guantanamo, because this idea compromises national security more than any peace demonstrator or person who calls a spade a spade and a Dubya an idiot.
power grid...
highway bridges...
railroads...
inland fuel delivery...
Probably countless others as well. Remember that barge/I-80 collision not too long ago? Imagine if that happened on a particularly busy holiday weekend. It wouldn't have the live coverage of an urban attack, but coordinated attacks on major interstate bridges would have quite an effect, since we rely on these bridges to get around. It would certainly affect trucking, which moves a good chunk of the goods that we use daily.
The recent problems with the fuel delivery pipeline to Phoenix proved that fuel delivery is very vulnerable to problems. People were panicking over it. They were attempting to fill every container they had with extra fuel, and if people had just kept buying gas like they normally had it probably wouldn't have been a problem. The populace itself caused the problem.
Railroads also do a lot of our long haul goods delivery, and I would imagine that it wouldn't be hard for that to be a problem. Heck, one person could probably drive around with the right tools, yanking spikes out of railroad ties, and cause a large scale catastrophie. We do send sensor cars over the railroad lines from time to time, but how long would it take for this to be a problem?
Much of our society is built on the honor system, assuming that people won't engage in civil disobedience. Also, we have rather severe penalties for those who break these pieces of infrastructure. Trouble is, terrorists have shown that they aren't concerned about personal ramifications. We'll just have to wait and see.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I seem to remember someone saying that the terrorists that participated in 9/11 received their tickets using their real names and all legitimate information. What's stopping this from happening with the ID cards? How many terrorists are in this country legally and not on any watch list?
They didn't have to smuggle them. Pre-9/11, boxcutters were legal on aircraft, as were penknives, screwdrivers, etc.
They simply used the max allowable weapon they could get onboard.
Um, DBT/Choicepoint was hired before Katherine Harris took office, and they were hired by a Democrat named Ethel Baxtor.
Oh- and although the list was pretty inaccurate, the Florida law accounted for this and required each individual county election supervisor to verify the names on the felon list (many of them are democrats too!). Many counties ignored the list completely. In fact, when the USCCR held hearings on the Florida elections, they were unable to interview a single person that was incorrectly prevented from voting because of the felon list (A link of the dissenting opinion that supports this claim)
Since you seem to want people to back up their information with links, where were your links to back up your claims? Please use something better than a Greg Palast op-ed or a link to democrats.com.
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
`I'll do the jokes,' snarled Ford.
`No,' said [Vann Harl, editor-in-chief]. `You will do the restaurant column.'
He tossed a piece of plastic onto the desk in front of him. Ford did not move to pick it up.
`You what?' said Ford.
[...]
.
[Harl] `Every possible position of every possible electron balloons out into billions of probabilities! Billions and billions of shining, gleaming futures! You know what that means?'
[Ford Prefect] `You're dribbling down your chin.'
[...]
[Harl]`Excuse me,' he said, `but this gets me so excited.' Ford handed him his towel. `This is the most radical, dynamic and thrusting business venture in the entire multidimensional infinity of space/time/probability ever.'
`And you want me to be its restaurant critic,' said Ford.
`We would value your input.'
`Kill!' shouted Ford. He shouted it at his towel.
The towel leapt up out of Harl's hands.
This was not because it had any motive force of its own, but because Harl was so startled at the idea that it might. The next thing that startled him was the sight of Ford Prefect hurtling across the desk at him fists first. In fact Ford was just lunging for the credit card, but you don't get to occupy the sort of position that Harl occupied in the sort of organisation in which Harl occupied it without developing a healthily paranoid view of life. He took the sensible precaution of hurling himself backwards, and striking his head a sharp blow on the rocket-proof glass, then subsided into a series of worrying and highly personal dreams.
Ford lay on the desk, surprised at how swimmingly everything had gone. He glanced quickly at the piece of plastic he now held in his hand -- it was a Dine-O-Charge credit card with his name already embossed on it, and an expiry date two years from now, and was possibly the single most exciting thing Ford had ever seen in his life -- then he clambered over the desk to see to Harl.
He was breathing fairly easily. It occurred to Ford that he might breathe more easily yet without the weight of his wallet bearing down on his chest, so he slipped it out of Harl's breast pocket and flipped through it. Fair amount of cash. Credit tokens. Ultragolf club membership. Other club memberships. Photos of someone's wife and family -- presumably Harl's, but it was hard to be sure these days. Busy executives often didn't have time for a full-time wife and family and would just rent them for weekends.
Ha!
He couldn't believe what he'd just found.
He slowly drew out from the wallet a single and insanely exciting piece of plastic that was nestling amongst a bunch of receipts.
It wasn't insanely exciting to look at. It was rather dull in fact. It was smaller and a little thicker than a credit card and semi-transparent. If you held it up to the light you could see a lot of holographically encoded information and images buried pseudo-inches deep beneath its surface
It was an Ident-i-Eeze, and was a very naughty and silly thing for Harl to have lying around in his wallet, though it was perfectly understandable. There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe. Just look at cash point machines, for instance. Queues of people standing around waiting to have their fingerprints read, their retinas scanned, bits of skin scraped from the nape of the neck and undergoing instant (or nearly instant -- a good six or seven seconds in tedious reality) genetic analysis, then having to answer trick questions about members of their family they didn't even remember they had, and about their recorded preferences for tablecloth colours. And that was just to get a bit of spare cash for the w
Until the government...starts looking for terrorist instead of weapons...
What difference would that make? Apparently a college sophmore with no terrorist training (apart, I suppose, from what you pick up naturally by being a college freshman) was able to smuggle exactly the sort of items they are looking for through "security" not once, but several times.
So what does it matter what they look for, if they aren't able to find it?
-- MarkusQ
Wonderful. And only one document to lose or have stolen to deprive you of the right to drive, right to earn wages, right to be in the country, and right to travel. And probably also loss of your right to access to your money.
Oh, and proving who you are to get a replacement ID card becomes next to impossible, since all forms of corroborative identifaction have been supplanted by the One True ID.
Whether the government does it or private industry, it's a bad idea.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
History repeats?
.40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun into the council chamber undetected, along with an extra four bullets in his socks.
A NYC councilman was shot and killed inside City Hall. How did the "perp" sneak a gun into the seat of city government?
Well, he was himself a councilman...
The two [the shooter and his victim] did not pass through a metal detector, which is not unusual for elected officials, apparently allowing Askew to slip his silver
Why do we keep making the same farking mistakes OVER AND OVER again!?