HP Announces National Id System Built on .NET

Anonymous Coward writes "Yahoo is running a story about HP's national ID plan, 'The need to securely identify people moving across national and international borders has never been more important than it is today,' said Jim Ganthier, worldwide leader, Defense, Intelligence and Public Safety, HP. 'HP and Microsoft are working together to provide government agencies the ability to access the integrated data streams needed to securely identify people both in the physical and virtual worlds.'"

Comments

I'm pretty torn about this

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't decide if I'm upset because it's a National ID, because it's made by HP or because it's being built on .NET.

Re:I'm pretty torn about this

[BrynM]

I can't decide if I'm upset because it's a National ID, because it's made by HP or because it's being built on .NET.

The answer you seek is "Yes".

Re:I'm pretty torn about this

[PakProtector]

Oh, that's okay. You won't have to worry about that.

With a /. UID that low, your hand's gonna start flashing red any second now.

Microsoft:

[Anonymous Coward]

Where would you like your identity to go today?

Re:Microsoft:

[Anonymous Coward]

You may mean that in jest (or maybe not) but seriously, with microsoft's absolutely WOEFUL security record, a record of being constantly INsecure, of constantly avoiding fixing problems when they're raised, time after time after time... I have to ask

Are HP completely braindead?

If HP were farmers: "HP announces alliance with Lions, Jackals and Wolves to mind sheep & lambs".

They clearly want a piece of the pie.

[Colin Smith]

The UK ID card system is now estimated at £18 billion (30 billion dollars or so). That's up from £3 billion and £6 billion previous estimates.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4590817.stm

Re:They clearly want a piece of the pie.

[rpozz]

Thanks for the link.

The LSE study also raised the issue of people who are against ID cards, called "refuseniks". It said: "The costs of handling this group will be substantial".

Looks like it's possible for the general public to do something about this one. Enough noise about it and it'll be too expensive and political suicide. The use of the word 'handling' is quite disturbing though.

Given our government's total incompetence at handling things like this, I'd imagine it will end up costing even more if implemented.

Oh, well then...

[Matilda the Hun]

Microsoft is helping to make it. That makes me feel SO safe.

.NET + HP + National ID

[yotto]

What could possibly go wrong?

dumb question but...

[blackcoot]

they intend to build a secure national id system out of technologies which have proven themselves to be insecure at each turn?

god forbid there ever be something like code red or equivalent that hits this system, because the resulting sound will be that of 280 odd million people being simultaneously sodomized by very large cacti.

No need to worry

[SupremeTaco]

I'm trying out the beta version, and it includes an option for anonymous posting on Slashdot. See, it works just fine!!
-----
Name: Richard Kniefle
Citizen Location: San Francisco, CA
Occupation: Hospital Records Manager
SSN: 123-12-1234
DOB: 04-23-59
Political Affiliation: Liberal Democrat
Status: Citizen of Concern
Church Affiliation: None

Re:No need to worry

[LiquidCoooled]

Dear Me Kniefle,

It appears as though your .Net National ID software is suffering from some teething troubles.
Please update to the latest version immediately to rectify this issue.

I have attached the changelog for your information.

Sincerely

HP Dev labs

--------- Attachment: changelog.txt
v1.02 : gb : 192.168.0.3 : Missed off extra info fields, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Credit Card Number and Car Reg #. Update for fix

What happened to privacy?

[xmundt]

Greetings and Salutations...
I would feel far better about this if;
a) the bad guys would play by the rules and register for their identity cards just like us law-abiding citizens and...
b) We did not have such a long history of government abusing power that it takes.

It may be a more complex world now, but, because of that, privacy should be even more valuable and preserved...rather than being stripped away.
While there is no current indications that this ID card will become a required, internal passport, there is a VERY good chance it will be...which undercuts one of the mainstays of American life - that of unfettered travel throughout the country. It could, alas, lead to a totalitarian state on a VERY easy road. Read Lewis Sinclair's "It Can't Happen Here", and see if you see any parallels between HIS thesis and OUR reality today!
On top of that, I have little confidence in the government or large organizations to keep accurate enough records to make this workable. So far, the track record is not great.

Regards
Dave Mundt

In this system...

[Roofus]

HP provides the hardware, and Microsoft provides the software. It's like the worst of both worlds!

fuck off

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Simplely put, the government can fuck off. I will downright refuse to use ANYTHING built on microsoft technology which is this important. If all my personal data is being kept on it then I DEMAND security above and beyond anything MS has ever done.

I don't care if I get arrested 100 times over for refusing to carry an ID card, it'll be worth it.

Oh man...

[kryogen1x]

Now I'm going to have to get a hotmail passport account!

Lets review

[John Seminal]

The USA starts wars all over the globe.

Libraries are now requiring finger prints.

Chicago installed 3000 camera's.

And now this...

I just have one question. Did ANYONE read the patriot act?

What if I want to read a book by Lenin, and not let anyone know that I have read his book? It seems that will be more difficult to do in the future. If I read it at the library, they have my fingerprint scan. If I buy it from the downtown borders, the police camera can look inside to see what books I have. If I somehow sneak the book home, and read it, then want to discuss it on the internet, they can find me.

This reminds me of Ray Bradbury, only far more sinister, with a splash of Orwell tossed in. My dear God, how dumb is the american populace? Has the smartest 5%, the ones that run the entertainment industries, the news, the companies, has the smartest 5% of the people sold their souls for more money?

We have all been enslaved.

Re:Lets review

[Anonymous Coward]

...Has the smartest 5%, the ones that run the entertainment industries, the news, the companies, has the smartest 5% of the people sold their souls for more money?...

Of course. The degradation of Western society is led by greed, not morals. And the US leads the charge. Freedom? Just a buzzword now. The hippies had it right in the 60s-70s, the corporations are taking over, they saw it for what it was. Every ill Western society suffers is due to greed and avarice.

Family values? Nonexistant. Why? Western society (read greed) dictates both parents must work, JUST TO PAY THE BILLS. So who's at home with junior, nurturing him/her? No one, or the local day care center, who's responsibility is to make sure these kids behave, but not nurture. Parents have abdicated their responsibility to their children because our greedy society dictates it must be so.

When are Westerners going to realize that people, and family, are far more important than The Bottom Line? Hope its soon, or humanity on the whole is doomed.

What could possibly go wrong?

[John Seminal]

They make a system just secure enough to track 90% of the users, the avarage mom and pop. They use that data to figure out how much they can get away with... how much patriotic swell there is in redneck america.

They make the system just insecure enough to let hackers get in, to let disasters strike. They use that as justification for more intrusive forms of government control.

Is it possible that governments aim here is not to make a system that is unhackable? Maybe they want it to fail, as a prelude to enslavement?

This is why computers suck. They will no longer be an aide to your life, no longer making life simpler and easier. Computers will now be used to track you, identify you. You are already probably in some government index with a score of how much of a threat you are. Check out Lenin from the library, your score goes up. Join the wrong chats, your score goes up.

Remember, this is the same government that tapped the phones of the Black Panthers in the 1960's, arrested innocent people, killed innocent people, overthrew the democratically elected president of Chile. Our government stinks with evil.

Yes, and worse, they can have you killed

[John Seminal]

So if someone exploits a security hole in .NET they can take my identity?

If we have a system where everyone is tracked, through databases, camera's, RFID in cars, fingerprints in libraries, and a future dna database, think about the abuse?

Someone hacks the government servers, and puts in data, data that says you are a terrorist, a dangerous terrorist with knowledge of how to build bombs.

You, of course, are just an avarage joe who is walking to the local park to read Invisible Man. Next thing you know, a van hits you on the sidewalk, and you're dead. The driver is not just some old man who lost control. He is an old man who appears to have lost control.

I can't help but wonder, if Joe Mccarthy was alive, if Bush would nominate him to be Director of Homeland Security? The technology we have today is what he was missing to acomplish his goals. If he had todays technology, he could have killed the people who complained, before they got organized. Just find out who is reading the "banned" books, and execute them. Of course, the USA will never pull a book off a library shelf. They will just monitor who reads it.

Re:Yes, and worse, they can have you killed

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Someone hacks the government servers, and puts in data, data that says you are a terrorist, a dangerous terrorist with knowledge of how to build bombs.

You, of course, are just an avarage joe...

The danger is not to the average Joe (maybe the average Joe for whom a hacker has a grudge perhaps) but the real danger is to those people who are considered a threat by those who officially/legally control the database.

It is far more likely that we will see such a database used to harass the political opposition (we've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence of that with the no-fly list already). We are also likely to see it used to benefit the "friends" (aka campaign contributors) of the database controllers - corporate whistleblowers for example.

A national ID system is one of the most un-American things to arise from the 9-11 kneejerkers. The only possible benefit is that it will catch stupid terrorists - the ones not smart enough to buy a counterfeit ID or bribe the right underpaid clerk. Meanwhile it is a huge sacrifice of freedom (you know, one of those principles this country was founded on) that will lead to further centralization of power, increased corruption and of course a huge tax bill to pay for the boondoggle.

"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed.
The U.S. government will lead the American people in -- and the West in general --
into an unbearable hell and a choking life." -- Osama bin Laden, Oct 21, 2001.

Re:If 9/11 happens again...

[LiquidCoooled]

Be thankful for small mercies.

The bid from Real to host the system was rejected.

Please wait, connecting to ident server.

Husgaard(858362) is a confirmed ..buffering(5%).. ..buffering(12%).. ..buffering(27%).. ..buffering(46%).. ..buffering(68%).. ..buffering(89%).. ..buffering(95%)..

valid citizen

What's so bad about this?

[DigitlDud]

The article cites several countries where the .NET identity solution by HP is already in use. Obviously there has been no news about any security problems with these systems. You should be far more worried about simply losing your wallet than this system getting hacked.

Re:What's so bad about this?

[CHR1S]

I'm not surprised to hear this coming from DigtlDug since he is now working for Microsoft according to his blog.

Seriously, just because you work for a company does not mean that you have to be blind to the security issues that do and may exist in a particular product.

The minority rules OK!

[Colin Smith]

In the UK, the Labour party just got reelected with only 36% of the vote. Yup. That's a minority. Almost 2/3 of the population didn't want them in power.

Step 1: So, the first thing you do in a "democracy" to reduce individual liberty *and* get them to pay for it is take advantage of a medieval electoral system which gives a 1/3 minority an absolute majority in the parliament.

Step 2: Then you use that parliamentary majority to push just about any legislation you like through the house.

Step 3: Profit!

Good eh?

Re:Like it ot not,

[analog_line]

.NET is the most advanced RAD environment on the market today.

What kind of complete moron uses "Rapid Application Development" to implement something as dangerous as a national ID system?

Re:Who pays?

[MillionthMonkey]

Explain to me exactly how they got me to fund a system that is detrimental to my freedom?

The Real ID Act was cleverly attached by its author, Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI), as a rider to a completely unrelated appropriations measure for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since voting against appropriations for troops is unAmerican, the bill along with its Orwellian rider passed easily (House 368-58, Senate 100-0).

Note that the rider specifies no funding. The federal ID card is left as an unfunded mandate for states to implement on their own budgets, with the usual extraconstitutional trick of threatening to withhold federal highway funds from states that fail to enact supporting state legislation. In practical terms, aside from being a fascistic federal power grab, this is a really expensive measure for the states. Unfortunately Real ID enjoys some myopic political support because it will stick it to illegal aliens. (And anyone seeking asylum, political or otherwise.) People don't realize the larger implications of a national ID card that one is forced to carry, and we just got them with hardly any public debate at all:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) originally introduced the bill as part of the House's intelligence community reform package in late 2004. When opposition to the provisions in the Senate threatened to kill that bill, the provisions were dropped, but the House leadership agreed to reattach them "to the first piece of legislation this session that both chambers were expected to pass" [Los Angeles Times, 1/27/05]. The Real ID Act was reintroduced in 2005 and passed the House, but apparently recognizing that the stand-alone bill lacked support in the Senate, the House leadership attached the legislation to the House version of the emergency funding bill. The Senate version did not include the measure. With bipartisan support, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced an amendment expressing the sense of the Senate that the provisions should not be in the final bill, but the amendment was ruled "non-germane" and denied a vote. Most of the Real ID provisions in the House's version survived the House-Senate conference committee and were part of the conference report that passed the House and Senate.

During the Senate debate on the final version of the bill, several senators voiced opposition to the inclusion of the Real ID provisions in the conference report, but this opposition was not reflected in the final vote of 100-0. Here are some excerpts from the debate:

* Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN): "That does not stop me from objecting and expressing my disappointment to two provisions in the bill. One is the so-called Real ID Act. Actually, unlike a lot of legislation we pass here, this is well named. This really is a national identification card for the United States of America for the first time in our history. We have never done this before, and we should not be doing it without a full debate. This Real ID provision turns 190 million driver's licenses, which are now ineffective ID cards, into more effective national identification cards. To add insult to injury, we have also slapped state governments with the bill for them. I strongly object to this. When I was governor of Tennessee, I vetoed our state ID card twice because I thought it was an infringement on civil liberties. I thought that driver's licenses are for driving. If we need an ID card, we should have an ID card."
* Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI): There are many concerns I have with Real ID in addition to the process used to bring it to the floor. First, the measure is an unfunded mandate to the states. Furthermore, unless every state complies, the federal government will have to mandate the creation of a national ID. Between the creation of a new database and approval system, training for DMV workers, and struggling state budgets, Real