Slashdot Mirror
Single Government ID Moves Closer to Reality
NewbieV writes "The Washington Post is reporting that "federal officials are developing government-wide identification card standards for federal employees and contractors to prevent terrorists, criminals and other unauthorized people from getting into government buildings and computer systems."
The project is known as the Personal Identity Verification Project, and is being managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)."
I suspect the government will continue floating these id schemes until its ready to introduce the real system its got waiting in the wings whatever that is.
It seems innocent the way it's being presented now. Yeah, this does run the risk of making it easier for terrorists to forge the ID because there's only one kind instead fo many, but I could see how it can be convienent. The only problem is that if this is suscessful, who's to say they aren't beyond a National ID for everyone, like some people were reading into it?
Given the recent articles today, do they put in a GPS transponder and a personal laser defense system on each of these?
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
As a government employee I have to say this would be kinda nice.
I work for the VA, and one of my duties is to make ID cards...Somehow I doubt this is gonna happen anytime soon. I mean, heck, IDs aren't even standardized throughout the VA, each medical center has its own format. About a year ago they told us we'd have a new system in place "soon." Still don't have it.
Having been involved in the process for the TWIC card, I can tell you that security experts are involved. I can also tell you that a well-designed smart card based ID system is much harder to crack than the exisiting government ID badges, since the smart card can have all the same security features that dumb plastic card has plus the cryptographic protections of a smart card. Also it will be much easier to train people to verify the cards since there will only be one type of card to verify and it can be done electronically in addition to visually.
Of course as you point out, it might become more worthwhile to find a way to obtain a legitimate through fake breeder docs or simply bribery. However in a well designed system the smart card will only have permissions for accessing the agency that issued it, so a card from one agency will verify your id at another, but won't let you do anything that you couldn't do with a fake dumb card currently.
In short, I fail to see the downside if the system is implemented by someone with the slightest of clues.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Oh, and this story is a duplicate.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Wow, similar IDs for government employees? This might prove as dangerous to our freedom as, say, Military IDs.
Exactly. This is not a federal ID for the masses, it is a combination ID card and access badge for secure facilities. It provides a single ID so checking IDs is easier.
Checking IDs at public places is retarded. Checking IDs at restricted access places like military bases, NASA, NSA, etc. makes a hell of a lot of sense. Joe Blow should not be allowed in the CIA headquarters. As it stands right now, each agency has its own ID card. Let's say the FBI is investigating a military member. The gate guard has to know what an FBI ID looks like if he is to provide effective entry control. By creating a common ID across the government, the gate guard knows where to look on the ID for the relevant information and what should be there.
I have one of the new military IDs. Military, civil service civilians, contractors, everyone uses the same damn ID but certain words are different, color coding is different (e.g. civil servants have a green stripe), etc. It has a microchip built in with RSA keys unlocked by a PIN. I can use it to log in to Windows NT and Solaris boxes with card readers. If this is the future of IDs for government workers, the government finally did something right for once.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
An identity card system is not the same as a security system; in fact, the governmental standards for single ID specifically preclude its use as a privilege system. The proposed ID's have the capability of identifying the individual as a government employee/contractor, and, combined with some other security systems, will grant or deny access to different assets (buildings, computer systems, etc.) But the card is not a magic golden ticket to let you do whatever you want. Just because I'm a fed and can walk into a Federal courthouse in Dallas doesn't mean I can walk into the Federal Reserve Building in New York.
That said, though, most government employees can enter most non-sensitive federal buildings with the ID's they already have. Federal employees from lots of different agencies need to do business with other agencies, and there's so much crossover that it's not practical for building access to be defined on an employee-by-employee basis. It's easier to say "no" to those few high-security buildings and areas than it is to say "yes" to the umpteen zillion buildings with minimal security concerns.
This is really a non-issue... for physical access this system is just a consolidated, unified approach to a system already in place. For electronic access (i.e., computers) this is just a varient of the secure smart card system already used by numerous private industries. The only real "universality" is that the ID's will look the same and the tech will come from a few contractors, instead of many. It will certainly save money as it replaces smaller, localized contracts that do the same thing. But it will not open the government to a single point of attack as many posters are implying. We will not be worse off than before, and will probably be better off.
Paranoia is fun, but this is not a big deal.
OK, apart from the fact that all of you who drive are already carrying a form of government-issued ID, the Department of Defense is already using something like this. It's called a CAC card. It's a combination identification and smartcard. It gets me onto the base, into the PX and helps decrypt my email. It's a straw-man argument to say that "the terrorists" are going to mass producing these and getting in and out of Ft. Meade at will. Just as it is not with my CAC card, I get get to every place on post. The level of effort is going to be far too difficult when there's so many other software targets to hit.
When will govts stop just saying that it will prevent terrorism and start saying how exactly?
Recently the UK government discussed returning motorbikes to having front number plates, which were removed because they were mounted on the front wheel sideways and in collisions with pedestrians the latter ended up with bits sliced off. The basis for the discussion was that it would stop terrorists and drug barons (and of course had nothing to do with the fact that front facing cash, er, safety cameras cannot identify motorbikes).
Now I don't know about anyone else but I really can't see how returning front number plates to motorbikes will do anything about drugs and terrorism. Perhaps they're hoping that drug barons and terrorists won't think to put front number plates on their motorbikes, and that therefore anyone without one must be one of these people?
It will of course make the whole policy completely ineffective when terrorists and drug barons start putting front plates back on their bikes. After all, it was a real bummer when they stopped going around in sandwich boards that had printed front and back I AM A DRUG DEALER, GET YOUR DRUGS HERE, and I HAVE A BOMB, PLEASE DON'T RUN AWAY.