Bill Gates Talks about Belgian eID Card

Brainsur writes "Today Bill Gates visited Belgium to talk about the Electronic ID card introduced last year in Belgium as experiment. Microsoft announced that they will integrate the electronic identification into the Windows Software so they can deliver more security and privacy on the internet. The register has more news."

Comments

Privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

How should I expect privacy when my computer has my ID card? I want my ID card in my pocket, so i know when it is readable by anyone.

vajk

Re:Privacy?

[lucabrasi999]

ow should I expect privacy when my computer has my ID card?

Take it a step further: I would consider the terms "ID Card" and "Privacy" to be contradictory.

Re:Privacy?

[PornMaster]

In this sense, yes, the ID card and privacy may very well be contradictory. But you could theoretically have an ID card which was anonymous, but presented to you as some sort of credential.

Think of it as a standard door lock. The lock provides security, they key provides access, with the assumption that anyone presented with a key should have access. Unlike a scheme which requires biometric or identifiable authentication - non-anonymous keycard/biometrics/doorman - a metal key, in a sense, protects your privacy.

If you were given an ID card which identified you based upon some other kind of characteristic, such as having completed some form of task, separate from your name, age, DNA, etc... you could have an ID card which protected your anonymity. I guess it's all about how you think of ID as identifying you.

If you don't think of the passbook of a Swiss numbered bank account as being a form of ID, then I'm sure you'll disagree with me.

Re:Privacy?

[laurensv]

eID card is physical object, if you don't want in your computer, pull it out of the cardreader, see here

hmmm

[Lusa]

Might be me but whenever I see Microsoft talking about new features adding "security and privacy" I keep thinking there is a word missing.. like exploit, or hole...

Which is worse?

[BeerCat]

Don't know which is worse - a country going full tilt down the electronic ID route (when even the perceived benefits are less than the cost), just because, you know, it's technology. Or Bill G saying it will make things more "secure"

For those countries that require ID, just why is the manual system that has been in place suddenly no good any more?

More privacy???

[Loke]

Am I the only one wondering how a state-guaranteed ID card used for authentication will provide more _privacy_???

Before attempting anything criminal, better report your eID card stolen. /c

Wonderfully secure I just bet.

[stephenisu]

How long do you think it will take some bored script kiddie to end up tracking everyone and watching the results like a bad game of the sims.

Is it really all that beneficial to have this securing mechanisms?

Either way I am not gonna complain unless this effects Belgian Beer production.

trusted computing

[necrognome]

$5 says this kind of thing (computer credentials linked to your "papers") finds its way into the various trusted computing initiatives...

What About When...

[SpottedKuh]

...you don't want all that information following you? From TFA:

Just like the classical ID, the eID contains your photo, surname and first names, sex, nationality, place and date of birth, signature, national number as well as the validity period of the card.

Quite frankly, there are times I would like to use the Internet without all of that information following me around. There are sometimes online I just don't want to be identified! Even when I do want to be identified (using Canada as an example) the idea of even giving my SIN number to Microsoft sounds insane! I ccertainly wouldn't want that sort of sensitive information identifying me online. I'll stick to using my name...

The new phishing schemes

[Ironsides]

Today I recieved an e-mail from my bank saying that they wanted to verify my new government ID with my bank acount information. All I had to do was to go to this site and have my reader scan my ID card. Gee, I'm sure glad my bank is tough on security.

New Publisist?

[erwin]

Did Bill get a new PR firm? I've seem more Gates stories in the last week than most of last year? Is he trying to make a shift from IT Industrialist to High-Tech Cultural Pundit?

Looking at it from a marketing point of view, its like money in the bank for MS. Nothing like having your founder out there framing the next technological debate in terms of what you have coming out of the R&D lab.

Manual vs. Electronic

[morzel]

For those countries that require ID, just why is the manual system that has been in place suddenly no good any more?

Horse and carriage were also good in their days, but cars are much more convenient nowadays.

There are a couple of reasons why electronic IDs are being introduced:

• Counterfeiting IDs will be (nearly) impossible, due to the fact that all IDs have to be signed by the central government. No more reproducing/stealing blanks to get a fake ID.
• Currently your address data is printed on the ID card, which means getting a new ID whenever you move. Also the refresh rate for IDs is lower due to the fact that all data (including your picture) is on the chip and can be renewed.
• You will have a way to identify yourself online and use the internet for things you currently can only do in meatspace (government papers, official mails, taxes, ...); with a limited risk for identity theft (one would require access to the physical ID + a pass phrase)

I don't see why this is such a bad thing. Yes, we (I'm Belgian) will be on the cutting (bleeding?) edge w.r.t. the electronic ID technology, but there are actual benefits for us as well (not just the government).

Re:Belgium Population Explains eID

[mmkkbb]

xenophobia moderated insightful and informative. NICE.

The problem runs deeper

[Anonymous Coward]

"Here in Belgium we are obligated to carry normal ID cards with us".

Does "obligated" mean it is illegal to be without identification, or just inconvenient (maybe extremely inconvenient)? If it is the former, that should already have you upset. In the US, we are progressively losing the right to public anonymity. For one thing, the right to free political assembly and expression depends on being able to remain anonymous if so desired.

The US public has surrendered the ability to fly anonymously in the name of "security", as though being anonymous would somehow facilitate bringing weapons on board. The "security" involved is nothing other than tracking people's movements - it has nothing to do with making flying safer. It is equivalent to setting up road blocks and checkpoints that cannot be passed without identification.

Re:Belgium Population Explains eID

[MoobY]

I must say the parent post is very inflammatory, partisan, based on interpretations of plausible scenarios and very off topic. This type of discussion belongs in political fora, I don't think it has anything to do with "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters".

Oh, I'm a Belgian citizen too.

Re:With one major caveat of course

[IBitOBear]

Yes, and the government will get all that straight, never link your old ID to you new ID once the old one is stolen, and _absolutely_ _never_ think of coordinating your data and charging you with arson because someone used your phone number to by an accelerant at Safeway on the same day that you bought a book on fire-safety using your computer.

Imagine the time you could save when the asshat that just punched you in the face and took your wallet uses your ID, withouth standing in line, to painlessly rent a car and cut it up for parts and then forward all your mail to the Costa Rica. You can land straight in debit all without having to fill in a single form!

Oh wait! There's a PIN. Nobody could get a PIN out of someone by shoulder-surfing or the threat of physical violence, if they could they'd have come up with a special name for shoulder-surfing instead of just the generic term.

The happy friendly government workers would be more than happy to cancel your ID and issue you a new one, without waiting in line (because we don't need lines any more) and it would happen so fast and reliably that nobody would ever have a chance to mis-use the stolen card or get your current one canceled by calling in a false fraud report. And all you have to do is pop out of your hospital bed, scamper down to the instant-service government ID office, prove who you are wihtout any ID, and you'll be back out on the street. A happy consumer, ready to figure out where the chop-shop has parked your shiny new Mercedies.

And of course biometrics would solve those pesky problems. If someone _did_ hack your card, you only have to change your retnia, or grow a new thumb with a new an dunique thumbprint to replace the one they cut off.

===

These simple model ideas people bandy about have no basis in the way the world works when things go wrong. To paraphrase from motorcycle safety: "dress for the crash, not the ride." The quesiton is _NEVER_ really about how to make the smooth-running things run smoother. It's supposed to be about how the problems get resolved.

"Loss Prevention" is aobut compartmentalization. We back up the data we don't want to lose. (we do don't we?) and we don't hang our drivers license from our car/house keyring. We have our birth certificate and copies of important papers, and a photo-copy of our drivers license safely stowed away in case we are mugged. etc.

Piling all that stuff into one easily lost device is FARGING STOOOPID.

If you have never tried to get your drivers license re-issued after being mugged then you have *no* *clue* how bad an idea this one-card-does-it-all nonsense really is.

Step one: get home without any money
Step two: get into your onw house with no keys and no ID
(etc.)

===

See, it's great that you have this public key crypto thing happening with your card and your pin and maybe your biometrics. But when your unique (anonymous?) ID is lost, stolen, run through the washer, or eaten by your 14-month-old how are you gong to get *back* everything that was "safe" and is now "lost"?

How do you then prevent an identity thief from doing to your live card the exact same thing you just proposed doign to replace your dead one?

If you have to use your card and a PIN or a biometric reader, what makes you think you won't be standing in lines to access the interface just like you never stand in line today while the bufoon in front of you is trying to figure out how to use the Club Card and their Check Card at the same time down at the supermarket? (look only two PINs to get your groceries! [because your banking and your shopping functions are compartmentalized remember?])

And if the same device is used to do all this private and government stuff, the government is going to want to control the private-stuff technology to prevent the private-stuff applications from working to cross purposes with the government-stuff.

Then the average clod user is going to have to know how to activ