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ID Tech May Mean an End to Anonymous Drinking
Anonymous Howard writes "If you visit a lot of bars and restaurants, you've likely crossed paths with driver's license scanners — machines that supposedly verify that your license is valid. In actuality, many of these scanners are designed to record your license information in addition to verifying them, and those that authenticate against a remote database are creating a record of when and where you buy alcohol. Not only that, but they're not even particularly effective — the bar code on your license uses an open, documented standard and can be rewritten to change your age or picture. Collecting our driver's license information is one thing, but collecting data about our personal drinking habits is not only a violation of, according to the ACLU representative quoted in the article, privacy and civil liberties, but this 'drinking record' could also create problems for people in civil and criminal lawsuits as proof of alcohol purchases in DUI cases or evidence of alcoholism in divorce lawsuits."
Due to mounting pressure, purchases of all Frosty Piss, including steaming mug varieties, are now subject to mandatory ID recording. Our apologies for the inconvenience and we hope you enjoy your beverage.
Let me be the firth to shay that I welcome our (Hic!).... waitaminute...what was I shaying?
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
With this information employers could decide not to hire you if they felt you drank too much, in their opinion, or at all. Companies owned by fundamentalist christians, mormans or even muslims may decide to do this.
Additionally, insurance companies could drop you if they found out, for exaple, you were out drinking 3 nights a week.
If this info gets out it could have a huge impact on people.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I'm of legal drinking age already and I haven't yet seen one of these machines in my area. But if I ever do, I'd like to have a false bar graph taped on the back of my license. Who will be the first to make a web site to generate these at will? And how long until that web site is labeled a terrorist act?
Not a typewriter
That's why I just keep a still running and do all of my drinking alone in the dark. I even use a tin cup to match my hat.
This is easy to work around -- just mark the bar code with a sharpie. The machine won't be able to read it, and they'll be forced to check your ID the old fashioned way.
But websites using tracking cookies have little way of correlating your particular cookie with who you actually are unless you provide them with that info by choice. At the very most they can track an IP address, which in the era of dynamic IPs and TOR is largely useless unless you have access to ISP records. Here they have a nice little database including name, soc, and home address. Why would they even need to collect anything like that in the first place? Smacks of big brother to me.
My fraternity brothers are all married and I STILL NEED DRINKING BUDDIES!!!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
A good majority of websites also do that, and who knows what they are doing with the data?
Really? Web sites track my behavior and correlate it with my name, address, date of birth, and (last I checked in some states) my social security number?
Doesn't sound too kosher to me.
Wouldn't the driver's BAC be the "smoking gun" in most DUI cases?
The evidence of an alcohol purchase isn't going to be remotely sufficient to convict without a BAC test, and the presence of a BAC test alone should be more than sufficient to produce a conviction. I honestly don't see where the purhcahse record could hypothetically fit into the equation.
If there's an argument for or against ID scanning, this isn't it. Even from the cops' perspective, this isn't even going to help them 'nab the bad guys' any more than they're already equipped to do.
Papers, please?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Don't go to those 'high tech' places. Go to the real gin joint down the street. Besides once you are a regular at a place they don't card you. I went to a place that rhymes with Drasy Conky on rte 110 in amityville, NY that had one of those machines. Next thing I know I'm getting all these advertisments for night clubs and bars sent to my home. Then my wife starts asking me all these questions about where I'm going. not cool.
1) Why is it assumed that entering a bar automatically implies that you were drinking?
2) I find it really dubious that employers would ever get access to this sort of information and I think that it is unlikely that they would be allowed to use it without being sued.
While the potential exists for all sorts of "big brother" type applications, I find most of these scenarios to be somewhat far-fetched.
Don't make me use my other sig!!
What's the point anymore? What with insane DUI penalties and rabid 'enforcement' bordering on entrapment, not to mention the publicity campaigns (posters all over town here saying, in big letters, "TWO DRINKS could MAKE YOU A FELON"), I've no desire to go to a bar. If I want to drink, I'll buy my liquor at a grocery store with a couple of $20s from my weekly 'petty cash' and I'll invite a couple friends over, or just drink alone. Sure, there's no playing pool or being hit on by drunk chicks, but there's also no loud, smelly football players drinking piss beer--that, and the prices are a lot better when I mix my own drinks.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
...but it won't stop me from taking 20$ from the kids standing behind the liquor store to buy them a case of PBR.
God bless their little, slightly drunk, souls.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
Officer:"License and registration, please."
BEEP
"I see you had three martinis, two shots and bought a bloody mary for the dishwater blonde who dumped you to go to the park with the accountant."
You: "It tells you all that on my license?"
Officer: "No, I gave them a ticket for having sex in public while being ugly a few minutes ago. Now, step out of the car and put your hands behind your back."
www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.
Err, no, in Ohio actually. Around here there are a few bars that have taken to scanning the magnetic strip in our drivers license. Lucky for me, I have a few of those super strong neodymium magnets and have completely negated said magnetic strip.
They usually give up after about 15 swipes.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
That's pretty ridiculous. You could make the same argument about any data. Just think: if we put a GPS receiver and a radio transponder in everyone's car, we could compile all sorts of interesting data! We'd be able to tell if someone was speeding or driving aggressively, if they commit a hit-and-run, if they're cheating on their spouses ... heck, we could even get rid of all those traffic helicopters. Does anyone think that's not a really fucking terrible idea? It would be an unbelievable mass invasion of privacy.
Lots of information has the potential to be useful. That's not enough, by itself, to invalidate the very serious privacy concerns.
Anytime you start collecting information in advance, "just in case," you're fundamentally doing something wrong. You're treating innocent, honest people like criminals in order to make life marginally easier for the cops. If that's what people in law enforcement say they need to succeed, then we need to fire them and get some more innovative law enforcement, and give them better resources -- not twist our society around backwards in order to make their jobs easier.
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On the radio the discussion was about east coast bars swiping information, lying to the patrons and telling them it was for security reasons, to prevent re-entry of banned or troublesome former-patrons.
(Me here forward:)
The thing was, they were promptly selling this information to other parties who reprocessed it as thank you offers, happy birthday offers, coupons, ads etc with extreme precision because these companies had ALL the necessary information to reduce the cost of marketing these people. It also gave these marketers a way of upping the price/cost of information these marketers wanted.
Later, when I moved to Oregon for a year, I saw the cashier at a convenience store actually SWIPING the card of someone buying alcohol and I think cigarettes (it's been a while, so it could be the reverse or the checking of purchase of both...).
That turned me off. I don't recall buying alcohol myself at that mart. What I think is stupid is swiping the ID of someone who obviously is well above 25 or 30, and doesn't appear to be wearing spy or makeup-artist appliances.
I guess then that people with passports (I don't know if stores will try to scan these and if they can't then decline/refuse the sale) can present them instead of their driver's license.
Somebody needs to come up with a two-or-three-part license/age-verification/right-to-vote device/card so that for clubbing and purchases not involving checks or credit, only NAME AND AGE/DOB appear.
Then, for big-ticket items, the second part (matching) has to be presented to provide ADDRESS (Current and maybe 5 previous or 5-10 years of previous addresses based on reconciled IRS & quarterly payroll records for working/retired adults).
The THIRD part would be for retirement/pre-retirement benefits/public assistance receipt and cash-out of stocks/purchase of property and so on, that don't need to be passed on to anyone except government/law enforcement.
Maybe I've blurred some areas, but I'm ALL FOR saying "SCREW YOU" to clubs, bars, and any place scraping information they have NO business obtaining, possessing or reselling. If they want to ban patrons, then use imagery/facial recognition equipment at the point of ejection or to replay tapes of a confused situation/melee.
Anyone reading headlines about bar bouncers participating in assaulting or stalking of patrons can easily see how this 2-3-part identification deprives nosy bar or shop employees from gleaning residency information on cash-only patrons. It could possibly even work for police identification situations when the police stop is a graduated information determination: First: verify the detainee is NOT who your on the lookout for. If name is STILL too close a match, ask the detainee to produce part two.
Same could work for other scenarios. Use your imagination.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The bigger issue is that it's not hard to tie all of this data together to get a picture of a persons live, less their privacy. Lets just say the RIAA pumps an extra million bucks into some senators reelection fund and manages to get a bill passed that makes it a crime to purchase more than 500 pieces of recordable media a year (without some sort of license).
It would be very easy for the government to subpoena the records of all the major chain stores and very quickly have a list of people who broke this law. They could even write it into the law that it's retroactive to some date. Or how about people who also have netflix accounts and own a DVD writer and have purchased DVD-R media in the last year... Even if it's not a technical "crime" they could probably sue you in civil court with a "Pay us 5k and we'll go away" shake down game.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The problem is that this system will only be able to prove that you were in the bar, not that you were actually drinking.
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I'm all for personal privacy but I really can't see the loss of this sort of privacy outweighing the benifits of getting drunk drivers kept in jail or having a factual record for divorce hearings.
Whoawhoawhoa there. Divorce hearings? You think it's a good idea for your entire drinking history to be brought up in a divorce hearing? That sounds to me like the most abusive application possible for this data.
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Groups like MADD are the modern day puritans. They're not content with just protecting basic public order, but rectifying perceived personality flaws by using the state to remake society. MADD and those like them have never met a restriction on drinkers' rights they didn't find too onerous, short of the way that Sharia tends to punish drinkers.
I hate being reminded of the damage that alcoholics do as part of some stupid scheme to further erode basic rights. I grew up with an alcoholic father. Don't fucking remind me. There are only times I've nearly punched a girl in the face was when I had a proto-MADD member who didn't grow up in such a household piously get in my face saying that I didn't know what I was talking about WRT alcoholism and family life.
Yes yes, very few of you are lawyers, but I'm wondering what the legality of removing/obscuring the barcode so that it no longer scans.
The info is still there on the front of the license so a human can still read it (I swear I wasn't speeding, officer!). But you wouldn't end up as easily in the junk-mail databases.
Chip H.
After a liquor store scanned my license without even asking my permission, I got ahold of a magstripe writer and deleted the data on my license's magstripe and wrote over it with my credit card. Now when I go out I can use the same card to get past the bouncer and pay the tab. Sometimes they look at me funny when I present my license for payment, but when they run the card the transaction is always approved.
You mean like a cell phone?
Look this whole thing is sour grapes, just because something could be misused doesn't mean it will. Bruce Schneier isn't even concerned that this is an issue, which I take to be a first.
Credit cards, ez-pass, cell phones, and supermarket club cards all give you greater exposure.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Oh, wait you meant identification tech. Stupid title got me confused...
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
We have two barcodes on our IDs. One 1D which only has the ID number the 2D has unencrypted driver's license or identification card number, the date of birth, the expiration date, and cardholder name as well as encrypted part which has address and other items. The law has made it illegal to decrypt the barcode except for law enforcement.
Ergo, if a bar starts sending you crap after you've visited you can assume they decrypted the info. However they could still track you for the "DUI" and "Divorce" with the ID number alone, but I guess more people are worried about the spam aspect.
Error: Sig not found.
Ok...I was guessing this was more of a northeastern type thing. I get the feeling they're really MUCH more hung up on drinking laws up there. You mention having two drinks and driving home up there, and people I talk to get their panties all in a wad. Much more relaxed down here in the SE...hell, we even have drive through daquiri shops here where I live, and until 4-5 years ago I think it was, we didn't even have an open container law here.
Anyway, I've noticed over the years that the NE is much more uptight about liquor laws than in the SE. I'm not sure how bad it is out west, but, I hear it is pretty bad out there too.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Just read this article from the paper a few weeks ago: Maltby's bigger concern is the total smoking ban, which he views as a fundamental civil-rights issue, since it extends beyond the workplace into an individual's home. He notes that 29 states and the District of Columbia have so-called lifestyle-rights laws that protect employees' rights to smoke when they're not at work.
But not Florida. "When I found out it was legal to discriminate against smokers [in 2002], those were my marching orders," said Westgate's chief executive, David Siegel, who gave his tobacco-using employees a year's notice before the total ban went into effect.
[...]
Siegel, who says his brief flirtation with cigarettes ended in 1959, is so strongly opposed to the habit that he would like to see smoking banned completely. Short of that, he hopes his company's smoking ban -- effective in Florida and every other Westgate location where it's allowed by state law -- becomes a model for other employers.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
I knew a bartender I worked with in NC who was red-carded (basically, failed a spot-check for not carding someone who came in to buy a drink...so many red-cards and you lose your ability to serve liquor) when a lady obviously in her 50's was not asked for her ID. How did she know she was of age? Attire, Hair, Grey hair, Wrinkles...Oh, and the single biggest thing the bartender could tell she was over 21....She ordered a drink that nobody has seriously drank since the 70's. Definately not a trendy or strong underager kind of drink.
By law, retaining and using this information is a felony.
So, while some national chains may think this is a great idea, they'd better start getting themselves fitted for orange jumpsuits, IMHO.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"If I drank this much in America I would be an alcoholic, in Australia I'm a fucking legend"
"What do a fisherman in a boat and American beer have in common? They're both close to water"
So I'm almost completely off topic, but just wanting to point that out.
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
If someone doesn't smoke at work, doesn't preach at people, does their job, shows up on time, acts professional, etc, it should be none of the employer's business.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
I've always heard it as "What does having sex in a canoe have in common with Bud Light? They're both fucking close to water"
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Out here in America we have similar jokes about lousy American beer, but we also have plenty of great beers too and no one I know drinks any of those horrid pilsners. And to any Australians who get to snobby about their beer all I've got to say is "Fosters".
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I guess that's true. I just had some visitors from Finland who got all excited about Sierra Nevada Ale, for example.
I wouldn't know because my taste runs more to jello body shots and speedballs. "Vive le difference", I say.
{Mrs Ratzo: just a joke, if you're reading this.)
You are welcome on my lawn.
If they scan your ID, they know you were THERE.
If you buy liquor with CASH, the only way they can prove you drank (or bought booze, actually) is to ask eyewitnesses.
If you buy liquor with electronic means, then they can easily say "Hey, you were here, AND you bought booze" by querying databases. You suddenly become the result of a SQL query, effectively. A credit card purchase record would most likely give the SAME information, though, couldn't it?
Could someone please explain why restricting the sale of alcohol to those under 21 is worth all of the costs/consequences that follow.
Why can't we simply allow anyone who wants alcohol to buy it? Vendors can choose not to sell to certain people (ie. young children) and the public can choose whether or not to frequent businesses that sell alcohol. If a store is selling booze to eight year olds, then the public can simply boycott the business.
Sure some people become addicted to alcohol, but why should I be punished for their problems? Sure kids might obtain liquor, but surely parents are capable of addressing such a situation. Sure some people choose to drive drunk and get in a car accident that maybe kills someone, so arrest them for doing so.
By creating a system of laws around the consumption of liquor, we've simply given those in positions of authority new tools to oppress the masses. Liquor stores can be harassed by police sending in underage people. Motorists can be harassed with things like drunk-driving checkpoints. Businesses can be harassed by politicians on liquor control boards who demand bribes, kick-backs or "favors" in exchange for approving an application for a liquor license. Patrons can be harassed by establishments that resell the information on their identity cards.
I say eliminate the whole damn system. I find it doubtful that keeping it in place is less costly than doing away with it entirely.
1. Carry a passport and use that as ID. For almost any purpose that does not require proof of authorization to drive or proof of address, that should suffice.
2. When you show your passport or ID in a bar or restaurant to prove your age, keep a hold on it! Don't let it out of your hand, let alone your sight.
Fizz
True for the most part? You sir, are mistaken. The US brews more specialty beers than anywhere. If you're here and you're drinking canoe beer, it's your own dumb fault for thinking US beer sucks.
If you live near a BevMo, go there looking for beer. Screw your head on tight and GO!
Fortunately, they appear to be illegal in my state already: RSA 263:12, X, 260:14.
Liberty in your lifetime
Mod parent up. I'm an Aussie and I've had some truly outstanding, world-class US beers. The craft-beer industry over there is exploding and, quite frankly, one of the most exciting things to happen to the beer industry world-wide in centuries.
Fosters? No one in Australia drinks Fosters. It's just cat's piss that we export to the rest of the world. I'm not sure if we even bother to make it fizzy first.