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Driver's Licenses with Digital Watermarks
ForceQuit writes "MIT Technology Review reports that Minnesota will begin issuing a unique driver's license designed to combat counterfeiting. It includes a reflective image (of a loon) that appears to float above and below the card when the license is tilted. It also includes an invisible, digital watermark capable of carrying security data such as date of birth. The information would be readable only through a computerized scanner, which law enforcement officers could carry."
This sounds like a good idea. Identity fraud is a serious problem. I work at an insurance office in Saskatchewan (Canada) that does license issuing among other things. We get all sorts of efforts to acquire fake ID, it's rather pathetic. Almost all of the efforts involve trying to drink under age, but these days the reality is that people will try to get fake identities for less savoury purposes. It's hard to criticize this move by Minnesota.
Don't see any possible problems with this move, apart from the immigration part. Sounds like the information encoded in the chip contains no sensitive information, so that's a bonus, and a more secure identification system makes the entire system more reliable. However, from the article:
There will also be a "status check" notation on the front and back of licenses showing when an immigrant's visa expires, something the state already had begun to put on licenses despite opposition from civil liberties groups.
This is a bit of a sticky point, IMHO. This isn't really necessary, and will probably achieve nothing but undue stress for immigrants, and prompt deportation if an illegal gets caught at a traffic stop (presuming that these IDs can not be forged). I don't know what Minnesota's illegal immigrant problem is, but this is a disturbing development. It's a drivers license, not a citizenship card. First step in a bad direction?
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
None of this encoding my life history on the card, or letting my card broadcast my identification to everyone sitting on the bus with me. This state has it right. If the cop wants my information, he can stop me and ask me for it. The things on the computer readable portion are on the card anyway, so it lets the cop scan me in and let me go on my merry way faster, without the hassle of having my DL number mistyped and coming up as some wanted murderer.
Maybe I should look into moving.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Holography and RFID make the document harder to counterfeit. Some biometric information, like the color of the person's eyes, height, weight, etc., is useful in establishing that the bearer is the person belonging to the ID.
Nonetheless, none of this is worth a whit if the ID is issued fraudulently. Here in Virginia, we had a problem with DMV clerks issuing driver's licenses to anyone for the price of a bribe, as well as notaries public who would vouch for anyone for a fee. The licenses themselves were machine-readable, with some kind of special seal on them that would be difficult to counterfeit, and included the information I mentioned above. A policeman could be reasonably sure the driver is the person in the photo. But, at bottom, because the controls on the license issuing process were bad, and the identification accepted by DMV was so weak, it was possible for anyone to get a real Virginia license or ID card that would be acceptable as genuine anywhere.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Sure, 20 years ago I <cough> knew some people who might have made fake Pennsylvania driver's licenses in order to purchase liquor. Back in those days the license was nothing but a Polaroid, very easy to clone. But when the states started going to those funny reflective laminations then cloning became a losing proposition (not that it was particularly hard to duplicate those, either, but it was even harder to make them look bad enough to be real).
Even when it was really easy to fake a license it was more or less a toss-up as to whether to make the license itself or the supporting documentation. For more than a decade now the easiest way to get a fake license (so I hear) is to print up the supporting docs and go get a real one. Way easier. They give out driver's licenses like candy on Halloween, after all.
This kind of fraud is certainly commonplace around colleges, but I find it hard to get worked up over some kids getting hold of alcohol. (It's pathetic that our drinking age is 21 yet the driver's license age is 16 -- that is a recipe for disaster. If anything, the two should be switched.) In a traffic stop the police call it in, in which case the computer wouldn't know about a false ID and it'd be obvious what's going on -- no matter if the ID is a fancy thing or just a slip of paper. Heck, they don't even need the physical driver's license anymore in most places.
So I figure the theory here is that it's for preventing identity theft (eg cashing checks in someone else's name -- although the reliance on driver's licenses, obtained via privilege rather than right, for that process is a rant in and of itself) and that doesn't seem like it's worth a lot of ID technology investment either.
I suspect that many pour misguided souls think that harder-to-fake driver's licenses would stop something like 9/11, in which case I would point out that the 9/11 hijackers had fraudulently obtained real driver's licenses, just like the college kids do. They were legitimate so far as the system knew.
Until they get around to fixing the lack of any real identity check during the process of applying for a license, not an easy or inexpensive thing to do, all these technologies are worthless.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
I am involved in a project to install new ID systems in the Sec. of State offices here, and I have personally scanned my licence into a text editor and looked at the information on there. It's something like 45 characters or so.
If you are worried about someone getting all that iformation, it would be much more effective and much easier to have a cheap camera installed at teh point of sale (cashier register, self checkout lane, in the black light of the door bouncer types of bars) and grab medium resolution 5 fps video of everything that goes by. All that info that you are paranoid about giving up through an electronic reader is actually on the front of your license.
Blockpoth the quoster:
There's a simpler way -- introduce the magstrip on your license to Mr. Bulk Magtape Eraser. Then they can swipe away, and when their reader doesn't work, you say "Yeah, that happens to my credit cards, too, sometimes -- I occasionally work around high magnetic fields." Then they have to look at the front of the license anyway. If they don't accept it, it's not like you're out anything -- you weren't going to frequent their establishment anyway, right?Need a UNIX/Linux/network guru in the Boulde