"A method and system for conducting an electronic discussion relating to a topic. The discussion system of the present invention receives a selection of an item that is to be the topic of the discussion. The discussion system then receives comments relating to the selected item and generates a message that includes a description of the selected item and the received comments. The discussion system then sends the generated message to participants of the discussion. The discussion system receives from a participant who received the generated message additional comments that are to be added to the generated message. The discussion system sends the generated message along with received additional comments to the participants of the discussion."
If they insist on giving out these M&M patents to companies, they should at least have a staff that knows something about software! Its beyond a joke, beyond absurd; who precisely in Amazon is filing these patents, and why dont the people who maintain the gears of Amazon site stump up and say..."ummmm you cant do this"...obviously because Amazon can do this!
Peppercoin accounts are backed by a bank account, usually via a credit or charge card.
That is the death knell. Any system that interfaces to credit cards or bank accounts but which doesnt have some utterly compelling extra feature is going to fail, especially when there are services like PayPal already dominating the market.
Any point of friction, like having to sign up for a bank account to spend money will instantly limit the uptake. Merchants will become disenchanted with the lack of customers, and stop converting their content to peppercorn files.
If opening an account is not a three field form, then forget it. This is the true problem of micropayments; how to give away the user accounts to create a huge spending population.
Because the basic Moneo card is anonymous, there are no privacy or identity theft concerns. But if an owner loses his or her smart card, the cash that's stored onboard can be used by whoever finds it -- which is why there's a $107 storage limit.
Fascinatingly, the article doesnt say precisely who is issuing the card; is it a private company, or the French Government?
If its a private company, this system will not engulf France without being nationalized. No private company will be allowed to control the method by which all the money in France is spent, and of course, for it to be really efficient, there can be only one system.
The limit of 107 is just silly. If you have a 500 euro note in your pocket and then use it to light a cigar, thats your business. Limiting the amount that can be lost is absurd; its your money; if you want to put 20,000 on the card, its your risk. A card that cant even take the value of the highest denominated note in circulation (500e) is pretty stupid.
Chaumian Digicash was superior to this. It really was anonymous, in that the entire system was secret. With this system, all your transactions to and from the card are recorded. There is no advantage in moving your money to the card from your account; move it to cash, and the utility of the final object is the same. Also with Digicash, there were no artificial and absurd limits to how much you could put in your "wallet".
This is not a matter of the private policies of individual banks.
Yes, it is.
Just because government makes bad policy doesnt mean that everyone has to jump through artificial hoops that really ought not to be there.
Anyone immigrating to the UK can get a recomendation from the bank that they are leaving before they try and open an account in the UK. Most USA banks have a relationship with an overseas bank, so this is not a problem.
The real problem is with people who know nothing about banking and human rights. In an earlier thread, another brit was complaining that his bank refused to open a joint bank account for himself and his wife, due to the bank not accepting thier id. It transpired that he banked at the same branch for ten years, yet, DIDNT KNOW THE NAME OF HIS BANK MANAGER.
With people like this running around and complaining, the sympathy-o-meter of any sensible person quickly drains to 0. Identity doesnt require plastic. It requires only a chain of personal, trusted introduciton. Relying on plastic and biometrics is just a bad, faulty replacement for it; blanket deployment of these cards solve none of the problems that they are being touted as able to solve, and costing a fortune that the UK can ill afford, in every way.
Eh? Wha? Why should I know my bank manager? I have no idea who my bank manager is, or if I've ever seen him/her.....Now it's entirely done using self-service machines.
This is a major part of the problem in civilized countries; people are increasingly relying on tokens to provide trust where social interaction used to.
If you and your wife are opening a joint bank account, getting a mortgage, putting all your eggs in one basket you had better be DAMN sure they know your face, your job, and every thing about you.
Its plain common sense, and believe me, the day you have any trouble with your account is the day that you WISHED that you knew your bank manager personally.
No biometric ID card can replace your bank manager knowing you personally. One cannot hide behind technology and still interact socially in an efficient manner.
It is not a mess. What we have are private people who opt for the services that they want, and take what they want, rejecting the rest.
DSS fraud can be addressed comprehensively by issuing a photo ID card that is made to solve just that problem. This is a non issue.
The only people who benefit from that are criminals.
I dont care to enumerate the benefits of freedom to man. Just ask someone who used to live in East Germany, or the old USSR, or Franco's Spain about that quesition.
It took me two weeks last year to open a joint bank account with my wife, due to the bank quibbling over what was suitable identification and what wasn't. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, credit card statements, bank statements, utility bills, NHS cards and signature samples were among the items that were requested and submitted to prove who we were and where we lived. This was despite the fact I'd already had an account with them for 10 years.
You need to change banks. You should know your manager after ten years of banking. That story doesnt ring true somehow. And even if you had a government issued ID card, the bank would not be compelled to accept it to give you service.
Please let me have my ID card.
Next time you are in holiday in France, you can get one easily. Go to the police, and they will issue with a "carte sejour".
Everyone speaks for themselvs, obviously. I hope that you emailed your pro-card opinion to the comittee...if only to offset the effect of the "tin hat" brigade:]
I asked why and they said, well, you could just steal it and the proof that you have given isn't enough to let us hire you a car. I then had an idea - I asked them if they would accept my Spanish debit card along with my Spanish ID. And they would, they said because the ID card was more secure.
Just because a single company whose staff are stupid would not rent you a car, doesnt mean that everyone in the UK should mandatorily be carrying an ID card.
You say that you dont have a credit card "because you dont like them". Extrapolate this. Imagine that you are forced to have a credit card by legislation. Would you think that that was wrong?
As for the rights that you have thrown away, I cant answer you sufficiently because your idea of what rights are are different to mine.
The problem of DSS fraud is soluable without everyone in the UK being forced to carry an ID card, this is obvious.
There is nothing wrong with having a means to identify yourself to others, what is wrong, and what most people against ID cards are saying, is that this card should not be issued by a government, and it should not ever be complusory.
ID cards solve some very particular problems, but are no good for others, and are certainly not a panacea.
If a government wants to solve a particular problem, like DSS fraud, they can put in place a mechanism (a DSS only ID card, usable only for the DSS and no other purpose), but in each case, they must PROVE that the mechanism will work.
Giving everyone in the UK an ID card will not solve the problems that everyone is trying to heap on them.
You seem really confused about how modern society works. Your rights do emanate from the state, or at least, the lawmaking part of it.
It is you, my friend, who is confused. "Modern society" doesnt have anything to do with your rights as a human, and where they emanate from. Your rights are not given to you by any government, they are born pre-existing when you are born.
Again, you seem confused. You have no "right" to open a bank account. Banks ask for papers because they need to be sure you are who you say you are.
You have the right to interact with private people and institutions in any way that you agree to interact. The government has nothing to do with this at all. They should not be able to prevent you from engaging in this sort of activity, by requiring you to have a government issued ID card. The right that I am talking about is the right to be free from interference in you private affairs.
I would hope that most Europeans understand how their systems work a little better than you seem to.
Its irrelevant, since I do not live in these places, and thier bad laws do not apply to the British.
Speak for yourself. I am a British citizen. I would like to see ID cards mainly because I hate the idea of my taxes going to Social Security fraudsters.
Social security fraudsters can be stopped by the issuing of a DSS only photo ID card. We do not have to have a catch all card to stop fraud. It would cost less, and solve the specific problem of DSS fraud without infringing anyone elses rights. Its amazing that sensible people want to throw away thier rights unecessarily perhaps if you had personally fought in a war against people who were trying to enslave you you would think and act differently.
But it's not perfectly orderly. Do you realise how much of the money you contribute to the state via taxes goes to fraudsters? I am concerned about it because I pay taxes in the UK! I expect most other Europeans don't really give a damn.
Like i said here and in another thread, this problem can be fixed by a DSS only card. Its not an excuse to issue a mandatory card for everyone.
This is what the Spanish already have in place. We can see that it does not stop ETA from doing anything, or any of the other crime that takes place in Spain.
It does of course, put a huge burden on the ordinary Spaniard, and has stripped away his privacy, and right to interact freely in the private sector.
It has to be said that a country that lived under Franco for decades would probably be more inclined to accept such a measure. The British have never been under such rule, and so when we kick against this type of government program, it looks strange to the Europeans, who are deeply habituated to being submerged to the neck in beaurocratic molasses every day of thier lives.
Your data, your address, medical records, school records, passport details and records of where you have travelled...all of this is your personal property. No one has the right to collate it into a centralized database, and certainly, no contractor has the right to make a profit out of the mandatory management of this data.
ID cards constitute an unneeded extra layer of intrusion into a persons life; they are instruments of economic and physical control, and they should be shunned at every opportunity.
The idea that a Spanish child is fingerprinted as a matter of routine, like a criminal, for the purpose of an ID card is deeply offensive to the British, and I would imagine, to most Americans.
Being able to prove who you are should never be contingent on a document given to you by the state.
Your rights as a human being do not emanate from the state; this includes your right to live where you want in your own country, and to go out of your house and walk in the street.
Your right to open a bank account should not be conditional on having government issued papers.
Governments issue licences to professionals, but these documents are there to identify that you are trained and they are not there soley to identify you.
We understand that Europeans do not get this, and we dont have any problem with them, and the way that they are made to live.
We in Britain, do not want to use these systems. Europeans should simply understand this, and move along.
People who are compelled to use ID cards seem to dislike / be befuddled by the fact that there is a perfectly orderly society where ID cards to not exist...
We do have 'de facto' ID cards - let me explain to you what 'de facto' means. It means, in this case, that whilst there is no official ID card, there are a number of other documents we carry which, in effect, carry out the same purpose. So we already have a 'de facto' ID card system - and haven't lost any nebulous 'liberties'.
We do not carry these cards by compusion. By your logic, a gas bill is a defact ID card, since you can open a bank account with one.
Having something more efficient and with more legal grounding would be better for everyone.
No it would not, because it would be abused, as is the case in every country where such a card has been introduced.
Liberty is not a "nebulous" concept. If it is nebulous to you, we are simply on polar opposites of this debate.
So why shouldn't we carry proper ID cards? We already carry them anyway, to a great extent.
We do not. People in the UK have not carried any kind of ID card since 1953. "To a great extent" is , dare I say, meaningless in this context, because we are talking about a mandatory card and not a voluntary system. Even if the system were to be voluntary, because it is administered by HMG, it would de facto become compulsory.
I understand very well that all the data is linked together and I'm glad!
Go live in Spain.:]
And this info is, again, de facto linked together anyway.
No, it is not, and you know that (or should know that).
They have this info anyway - how do you think they investigate criminals?
By getting warrants and following due process.
Linking it makes it easier for them to do their job, which is not to hassle innocent citizens, but to enforce the rule of law.
Obviously you have never been to a warehouse party, or an outdoor rave:] Anyone who trusts in the good will of the govt. simply doesnt know thier history.
Finally what countries have you been visiting that you don't want the police to know about?
Thats my business.:]
This is the "if you dont have anything to hide you dont have anything to worry about" argument that the pro card dullards wheel out every time there is a debate on this subject. I dont know which thing frigntens me more, the fact that ID cards might get forced through, or that there are so many people who repeat, ver batim the same arguments that they have picked up from a tory quotebot on "Question Time"
You cant on the one hand say "hear hear" when someone posts that Britain is a free and cultured place, and then later in another thread, say that liberty is a "nebulous concept". Britian is all about liberty, TRUE liberty....need I say more?
Imagine what a Spaniard thinks when they try to open a bank account in the UK. They ask you for your driving licence! If you don't have one, they ask for a recent gas or electricity bill. Seriously! How nuts is that!
A bank is a private institution. If they require that you piss into a cup in order to open an account, that is their business. Banking sign up procedures and the issuing of a mandatory ID card really do not overlap, and that is the point.
What this actually demonstrates is that the government in the UK does not interfere in the banking affairs of the citizens. Imangine it, in Spain, you cannot open a bank account unless the government issues you an ID card. That is the correct perspective to take when looking at that example IMHO; needing gotv. permission to open a bank account cannot be right, by any measure.
When I lived in London I a met a local who was unemployed and was drawing unemployment benefit and housing benefit in the names of four different people - people he had just invented!
People drawing DSS should be issued a DSS card, that has a photo on it. Like a passport is used only for crossing borders, this card would be used for the DSS and nothing else. Problem solved, fraud is reduced and no ones rights are infringed.
I applied for a new copy of my UK drivers licence (the old one was getting tatty) and was told that I had aleady been sent a replacement - apparently someone had applied for a replacement copy in my name
Then you apply for a new one, and have the fake one cancelled. A drivers licence is merely there to prove that you can drive, it shouldnt be used for anything else, and the fact that it was "borrowed" by someone is not enought of an incentive for everyone in the UK to be compelled to carry this life changing, all encompassing card. The majority of people are honest, and do not engage in this type of fraud. We cannot go down this road because of a small minority of "criminals".
Europeans do not seem to be able to distingush between a government instution (DSS, DVLA) and private instituions (Banks, Hospitals). There is a difference, a profound one, and they must at all costs be kept separate.
A ludicrously inefficient system where we all have a multitude of de facto ID cards and no proper organised standard?
That is a lie. There are no defacto ID cards in the UK. And we most certainly do not want a "proper organized standard" which will be abused by every contract employee given access to sensitive databases.
What freedoms do we in the UK have that someone in, say, Germany doesn't?
Have you ever read the German Constitution? Aparently not. Go read it CAREFULLY and see if the Germans have more rights than the British. You will find that they are very much less free.
Based on my experience, we have very similar liberties - it just takes a lot longer in the UK to prove who you are, for whatever reason.
Your obviously limited experience cannot be the measure used to see if we should all carry ID cards or not. Right and wrong are not (thankfully) measured by your personal experience. If you want ID cards, then by all means you should have written to the comittee with your pro card views.
And you have to register where you live - big deal!
In Germany, France, Belgium, $euronation you do, but in the UK you do not have to register where you live, with anyone.
Also, shock horror, you have to make sure you have documentation in your car that proves you're insured and shows who the car is registered to.
This, like carrying a passport to cross borders is a particular case of identifying someone, in this case who owns a car and is insured. There is a separate piece of ID for each, with a separate database. If the police stop you and look at those papers, they dont have access to your passport and a list of all the countries that you have ever visited this is the point that you dont understand; this card will link all of your data together, data that has no real connection to each other. What does the fact that you have a bank account at nat west have to do with the validity of your drivers licence? All these facts will be in one place each time your card is accessed, and that is a bad thing.
If we love that in Britain the only 'freedom' lost will be the ability to steal cars and drive without insurance as easily as one can at the moment.
we need a way to identify people, and if you think that driver's licenses and social security numbers aren't already doing this, you're just closing your eyes to it.
Who is this "we" that you are talking about?
The UK doesnt have a Social Security Number, and its only recently that there have been photo driving licences here; up till the time of their introducion, the UK drivers were more orderly than they are today.
Whilst the cards might be harder to crack (which is bullshit, just ask Marcus Kuhn about this) the point is that these cards will tie ALL your infomation to one unique identifier.
If you have an SSN, or you are a European that is already compelled to have an ID card you might well say "pfah! whats the difference?". The people in the UK are not yet numbered in this way, so we have alot to loose, unlike you. We are not "whining about loosing our freedoms"; we still have ours in this respect.
And all this bullshit about CCTV is simply bullshit. CCTV cameras can be dismantled; an invasive and all pervasive ID card system, like lymph node cancer, will be impossible to remove from the UK once they are introduced.
An independent survey at Stand has been taken, amongst others, where the overwhelming majority of responses have been against the introduction of an ID card of any kind.
The Government consultation emall address automagically responded to all submissions with "Thank you for your email in support of the introduction of entitlement cards". Its clear that they want to push this through wether it will reduce crime and fraud or not, and wether anyone wants these cards or not.
The Home Secretary himeslf had his identity stolen by a journalist to highlight the dangers of identity theft, which will without a doubt rise if these new cards are introduced.
For an insight into why these cards are true evil, read this piece in The Guardian about how the Spanish have been habituated into ID cards like battery chickens who refuse to leave thier cages when the doors are opened.
Really, if Europeans want to have ID cards, no one in the UK has a problem with that, and no one here is interested in arguing with Europeans who think that ID cards are "no problem at all". If you want ID cards, you are free(??!) to use them all you like. The British do not want them, under any circumstances short of actual war in Europe, and even then, only temporarily.
For us ID cards are a waste of time, money and most importantly, a violation of the human rights of British Citizens.
In the end, I'm left with the feeling that the folks at the UFO magazine seized on some out-of-context statement made by the ESA or NASA and interpreted it as they saw fit.
You obviously didnt watch the interview. Take a look at it, listen carefully to the explanation offered, then come back.
Interesting use of the word "cure" as if someone is ill.
There was a wide screen version of PropCycle that had the wheel of the excersise bike connected to a mechanical fan which blew air into your face as you pushed the pedals; this gave you a great feeling of motion when racing around to pop the balloons....awesome!
Like you'd care! Why do you care if anyone cares? Skeptics are the true psycotic personalities in their never ending and utterly pointless circular debates.
...utter crap. Whatever you say and think, I'm cool with it.
Slashdot Mirror
GNU Mailman:
"A method and system for conducting an electronic discussion relating to a topic. The discussion system of the present invention receives a selection of an item that is to be the topic of the discussion. The discussion system then receives comments relating to the selected item and generates a message that includes a description of the selected item and the received comments. The discussion system then sends the generated message to participants of the discussion. The discussion system receives from a participant who received the generated message additional comments that are to be added to the generated message. The discussion system sends the generated message along with received additional comments to the participants of the discussion."
If they insist on giving out these M&M patents to companies, they should at least have a staff that knows something about software! Its beyond a joke, beyond absurd; who precisely in Amazon is filing these patents, and why dont the people who maintain the gears of Amazon site stump up and say..."ummmm you cant do this"...obviously because Amazon can do this!
Peppercoin accounts are backed by a bank account, usually via a credit or charge card.
That is the death knell. Any system that interfaces to credit cards or bank accounts but which doesnt have some utterly compelling extra feature is going to fail, especially when there are services like PayPal already dominating the market.
Any point of friction, like having to sign up for a bank account to spend money will instantly limit the uptake. Merchants will become disenchanted with the lack of customers, and stop converting their content to peppercorn files.
If opening an account is not a three field form, then forget it. This is the true problem of micropayments; how to give away the user accounts to create a huge spending population.
Because the basic Moneo card is anonymous, there are no privacy or identity theft concerns. But if an owner loses his or her smart card, the cash that's stored onboard can be used by whoever finds it -- which is why there's a $107 storage limit.
Fascinatingly, the article doesnt say precisely who is issuing the card; is it a private company, or the French Government?
If its a private company, this system will not engulf France without being nationalized. No private company will be allowed to control the method by which all the money in France is spent, and of course, for it to be really efficient, there can be only one system.
The limit of 107 is just silly. If you have a 500 euro note in your pocket and then use it to light a cigar, thats your business. Limiting the amount that can be lost is absurd; its your money; if you want to put 20,000 on the card, its your risk. A card that cant even take the value of the highest denominated note in circulation (500e) is pretty stupid.
Chaumian Digicash was superior to this. It really was anonymous, in that the entire system was secret. With this system, all your transactions to and from the card are recorded. There is no advantage in moving your money to the card from your account; move it to cash, and the utility of the final object is the same. Also with Digicash, there were no artificial and absurd limits to how much you could put in your "wallet".
This is not a matter of the private policies of individual banks.
Yes, it is.
Just because government makes bad policy doesnt mean that everyone has to jump through artificial hoops that really ought not to be there.
Anyone immigrating to the UK can get a recomendation from the bank that they are leaving before they try and open an account in the UK. Most USA banks have a relationship with an overseas bank, so this is not a problem.
The real problem is with people who know nothing about banking and human rights. In an earlier thread, another brit was complaining that his bank refused to open a joint bank account for himself and his wife, due to the bank not accepting thier id. It transpired that he banked at the same branch for ten years, yet, DIDNT KNOW THE NAME OF HIS BANK MANAGER.
With people like this running around and complaining, the sympathy-o-meter of any sensible person quickly drains to 0. Identity doesnt require plastic. It requires only a chain of personal, trusted introduciton. Relying on plastic and biometrics is just a bad, faulty replacement for it; blanket deployment of these cards solve none of the problems that they are being touted as able to solve, and costing a fortune that the UK can ill afford, in every way.
Eh? Wha? Why should I know my bank manager? I have no idea who my bank manager is, or if I've ever seen him/her.....Now it's entirely done using self-service machines.
This is a major part of the problem in civilized countries; people are increasingly relying on tokens to provide trust where social interaction used to.
If you and your wife are opening a joint bank account, getting a mortgage, putting all your eggs in one basket you had better be DAMN sure they know your face, your job, and every thing about you.
Its plain common sense, and believe me, the day you have any trouble with your account is the day that you WISHED that you knew your bank manager personally.
No biometric ID card can replace your bank manager knowing you personally. One cannot hide behind technology and still interact socially in an efficient manner.
Slightly OT, but hell its off the front page now!
and the same mess?
It is not a mess. What we have are private people who opt for the services that they want, and take what they want, rejecting the rest.
DSS fraud can be addressed comprehensively by issuing a photo ID card that is made to solve just that problem. This is a non issue.
The only people who benefit from that are criminals.
I dont care to enumerate the benefits of freedom to man. Just ask someone who used to live in East Germany, or the old USSR, or Franco's Spain about that quesition.
I'd jump at the chance.
:]
You wont get that chance.
It took me two weeks last year to open a joint bank account with my wife, due to the bank quibbling over what was suitable identification and what wasn't. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, credit card statements, bank statements, utility bills, NHS cards and signature samples were among the items that were requested and submitted to prove who we were and where we lived. This was despite the fact I'd already had an account with them for 10 years.
You need to change banks. You should know your manager after ten years of banking. That story doesnt ring true somehow. And even if you had a government issued ID card, the bank would not be compelled to accept it to give you service.
Please let me have my ID card.
Next time you are in holiday in France, you can get one easily. Go to the police, and they will issue with a "carte sejour".
Everyone speaks for themselvs, obviously. I hope that you emailed your pro-card opinion to the comittee...if only to offset the effect of the "tin hat" brigade
I asked why and they said, well, you could just steal it and the proof that you have given isn't enough to let us hire you a car. I then had an idea - I asked them if they would accept my Spanish debit card along with my Spanish ID. And they would, they said because the ID card was more secure.
Just because a single company whose staff are stupid would not rent you a car, doesnt mean that everyone in the UK should mandatorily be carrying an ID card.
You say that you dont have a credit card "because you dont like them". Extrapolate this. Imagine that you are forced to have a credit card by legislation. Would you think that that was wrong?
As for the rights that you have thrown away, I cant answer you sufficiently because your idea of what rights are are different to mine.
The problem of DSS fraud is soluable without everyone in the UK being forced to carry an ID card, this is obvious.
There is nothing wrong with having a means to identify yourself to others, what is wrong, and what most people against ID cards are saying, is that this card should not be issued by a government, and it should not ever be complusory.
We just dissagree! It happens!
So what's the answer?
To which particular problem?
ID cards solve some very particular problems, but are no good for others, and are certainly not a panacea.
If a government wants to solve a particular problem, like DSS fraud, they can put in place a mechanism (a DSS only ID card, usable only for the DSS and no other purpose), but in each case, they must PROVE that the mechanism will work.
Giving everyone in the UK an ID card will not solve the problems that everyone is trying to heap on them.
You seem really confused about how modern society works. Your rights do emanate from the state, or at least, the lawmaking part of it.
It is you, my friend, who is confused. "Modern society" doesnt have anything to do with your rights as a human, and where they emanate from. Your rights are not given to you by any government, they are born pre-existing when you are born.
Again, you seem confused. You have no "right" to open a bank account. Banks ask for papers because they need to be sure you are who you say you are.
You have the right to interact with private people and institutions in any way that you agree to interact. The government has nothing to do with this at all. They should not be able to prevent you from engaging in this sort of activity, by requiring you to have a government issued ID card. The right that I am talking about is the right to be free from interference in you private affairs.
I would hope that most Europeans understand how their systems work a little better than you seem to.
Its irrelevant, since I do not live in these places, and thier bad laws do not apply to the British.
Speak for yourself. I am a British citizen. I would like to see ID cards mainly because I hate the idea of my taxes going to Social Security fraudsters.
Social security fraudsters can be stopped by the issuing of a DSS only photo ID card. We do not have to have a catch all card to stop fraud. It would cost less, and solve the specific problem of DSS fraud without infringing anyone elses rights. Its amazing that sensible people want to throw away thier rights unecessarily perhaps if you had personally fought in a war against people who were trying to enslave you you would think and act differently.
But it's not perfectly orderly. Do you realise how much of the money you contribute to the state via taxes goes to fraudsters? I am concerned about it because I pay taxes in the UK! I expect most other Europeans don't really give a damn.
Like i said here and in another thread, this problem can be fixed by a DSS only card. Its not an excuse to issue a mandatory card for everyone.
If I were not maxed out with my friends, I would mark you friend: BRILLIANTLY SAID, and completely true.
AT last some common sense!
Brilliantly said.
This is what the Spanish already have in place. We can see that it does not stop ETA from doing anything, or any of the other crime that takes place in Spain.
It does of course, put a huge burden on the ordinary Spaniard, and has stripped away his privacy, and right to interact freely in the private sector.
It has to be said that a country that lived under Franco for decades would probably be more inclined to accept such a measure. The British have never been under such rule, and so when we kick against this type of government program, it looks strange to the Europeans, who are deeply habituated to being submerged to the neck in beaurocratic molasses every day of thier lives.
Your data, your address, medical records, school records, passport details and records of where you have travelled...all of this is your personal property. No one has the right to collate it into a centralized database, and certainly, no contractor has the right to make a profit out of the mandatory management of this data.
ID cards constitute an unneeded extra layer of intrusion into a persons life; they are instruments of economic and physical control, and they should be shunned at every opportunity.
The idea that a Spanish child is fingerprinted as a matter of routine, like a criminal, for the purpose of an ID card is deeply offensive to the British, and I would imagine, to most Americans.
It will not wash here in the UK.
The British isles are a part of Europe, because, according to the insane EC they are not islands
Now THAT is what we call "Flawed Reasoning".
Being able to prove who you are should never be contingent on a document given to you by the state.
Your rights as a human being do not emanate from the state; this includes your right to live where you want in your own country, and to go out of your house and walk in the street.
Your right to open a bank account should not be conditional on having government issued papers.
Governments issue licences to professionals, but these documents are there to identify that you are trained and they are not there soley to identify you.
We understand that Europeans do not get this, and we dont have any problem with them, and the way that they are made to live.
We in Britain, do not want to use these systems. Europeans should simply understand this, and move along.
People who are compelled to use ID cards seem to dislike / be befuddled by the fact that there is a perfectly orderly society where ID cards to not exist...
South Africans cannot lecture ANYONE about human rights, especially in the realm of IDs.
Period.
We do have 'de facto' ID cards - let me explain to you what 'de facto' means. It means, in this case, that whilst there is no official ID card, there are a number of other documents we carry which, in effect, carry out the same purpose. So we already have a 'de facto' ID card system - and haven't lost any nebulous 'liberties'.
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:] Anyone who trusts in the good will of the govt. simply doesnt know thier history.
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We do not carry these cards by compusion. By your logic, a gas bill is a defact ID card, since you can open a bank account with one.
Having something more efficient and with more legal grounding would be better for everyone.
No it would not, because it would be abused, as is the case in every country where such a card has been introduced.
Liberty is not a "nebulous" concept. If it is nebulous to you, we are simply on polar opposites of this debate.
So why shouldn't we carry proper ID cards? We already carry them anyway, to a great extent.
We do not. People in the UK have not carried any kind of ID card since 1953. "To a great extent" is , dare I say, meaningless in this context, because we are talking about a mandatory card and not a voluntary system. Even if the system were to be voluntary, because it is administered by HMG, it would de facto become compulsory.
I understand very well that all the data is linked together and I'm glad!
Go live in Spain.
And this info is, again, de facto linked together anyway.
No, it is not, and you know that (or should know that).
They have this info anyway - how do you think they investigate criminals?
By getting warrants and following due process.
Linking it makes it easier for them to do their job, which is not to hassle innocent citizens, but to enforce the rule of law.
Obviously you have never been to a warehouse party, or an outdoor rave
Finally what countries have you been visiting that you don't want the police to know about?
Thats my business.
This is the "if you dont have anything to hide you dont have anything to worry about" argument that the pro card dullards wheel out every time there is a debate on this subject. I dont know which thing frigntens me more, the fact that ID cards might get forced through, or that there are so many people who repeat, ver batim the same arguments that they have picked up from a tory quotebot on "Question Time"
You cant on the one hand say "hear hear" when someone posts that Britain is a free and cultured place, and then later in another thread, say that liberty is a "nebulous concept". Britian is all about liberty, TRUE liberty....need I say more?
Imagine what a Spaniard thinks when they try to open a bank account in the UK. They ask you for your driving licence! If you don't have one, they ask for a recent gas or electricity bill. Seriously! How nuts is that!
A bank is a private institution. If they require that you piss into a cup in order to open an account, that is their business. Banking sign up procedures and the issuing of a mandatory ID card really do not overlap, and that is the point.
What this actually demonstrates is that the government in the UK does not interfere in the banking affairs of the citizens. Imangine it, in Spain, you cannot open a bank account unless the government issues you an ID card. That is the correct perspective to take when looking at that example IMHO; needing gotv. permission to open a bank account cannot be right, by any measure.
When I lived in London I a met a local who was unemployed and was drawing unemployment benefit and housing benefit in the names of four different people - people he had just invented!
People drawing DSS should be issued a DSS card, that has a photo on it. Like a passport is used only for crossing borders, this card would be used for the DSS and nothing else. Problem solved, fraud is reduced and no ones rights are infringed.
I applied for a new copy of my UK drivers licence (the old one was getting tatty) and was told that I had aleady been sent a replacement - apparently someone had applied for a replacement copy in my name
Then you apply for a new one, and have the fake one cancelled. A drivers licence is merely there to prove that you can drive, it shouldnt be used for anything else, and the fact that it was "borrowed" by someone is not enought of an incentive for everyone in the UK to be compelled to carry this life changing, all encompassing card. The majority of people are honest, and do not engage in this type of fraud. We cannot go down this road because of a small minority of "criminals".
Europeans do not seem to be able to distingush between a government instution (DSS, DVLA) and private instituions (Banks, Hospitals). There is a difference, a profound one, and they must at all costs be kept separate.
What exactly do we have to lose?
Liberty.
A ludicrously inefficient system where we all have a multitude of de facto ID cards and no proper organised standard?
That is a lie. There are no defacto ID cards in the UK. And we most certainly do not want a "proper organized standard" which will be abused by every contract employee given access to sensitive databases.
What freedoms do we in the UK have that someone in, say, Germany doesn't?
Have you ever read the German Constitution? Aparently not. Go read it CAREFULLY and see if the Germans have more rights than the British. You will find that they are very much less free.
Based on my experience, we have very similar liberties - it just takes a lot longer in the UK to prove who you are, for whatever reason.
Your obviously limited experience cannot be the measure used to see if we should all carry ID cards or not. Right and wrong are not (thankfully) measured by your personal experience. If you want ID cards, then by all means you should have written to the comittee with your pro card views.
And you have to register where you live - big deal!
In Germany, France, Belgium, $euronation you do, but in the UK you do not have to register where you live, with anyone.
Also, shock horror, you have to make sure you have documentation in your car that proves you're insured and shows who the car is registered to.
This, like carrying a passport to cross borders is a particular case of identifying someone, in this case who owns a car and is insured. There is a separate piece of ID for each, with a separate database. If the police stop you and look at those papers, they dont have access to your passport and a list of all the countries that you have ever visited this is the point that you dont understand; this card will link all of your data together, data that has no real connection to each other. What does the fact that you have a bank account at nat west have to do with the validity of your drivers licence? All these facts will be in one place each time your card is accessed, and that is a bad thing.
If we love that in Britain the only 'freedom' lost will be the ability to steal cars and drive without insurance as easily as one can at the moment.
You dont understand what we love about Britain.
Go back to sleep.
Yet another dude habituated to ID cards.
Firstly, people in the UK dont have ID cards.
Secondly, what about the 3rd 4th (n+1)th options ie:
[_]Permanently opt out of the ID card scheme.
Like battery chickens, the idea of being outside of a cage is like a flatlander imagining a mountain range. Europeans have ID cards "in the blood".
we need a way to identify people, and if you think that driver's licenses and social security numbers aren't already doing this, you're just closing your eyes to it.
Who is this "we" that you are talking about?
The UK doesnt have a Social Security Number, and its only recently that there have been photo driving licences here; up till the time of their introducion, the UK drivers were more orderly than they are today.
Whilst the cards might be harder to crack (which is bullshit, just ask Marcus Kuhn about this) the point is that these cards will tie ALL your infomation to one unique identifier.
If you have an SSN, or you are a European that is already compelled to have an ID card you might well say "pfah! whats the difference?". The people in the UK are not yet numbered in this way, so we have alot to loose, unlike you. We are not "whining about loosing our freedoms"; we still have ours in this respect.
And all this bullshit about CCTV is simply bullshit. CCTV cameras can be dismantled; an invasive and all pervasive ID card system, like lymph node cancer, will be impossible to remove from the UK once they are introduced.
An independent survey at Stand has been taken, amongst others, where the overwhelming majority of responses have been against the introduction of an ID card of any kind.
The Government consultation emall address automagically responded to all submissions with "Thank you for your email in support of the introduction of entitlement cards". Its clear that they want to push this through wether it will reduce crime and fraud or not, and wether anyone wants these cards or not.
The Home Secretary himeslf had his identity stolen by a journalist to highlight the dangers of identity theft, which will without a doubt rise if these new cards are introduced.
For an insight into why these cards are true evil, read this piece in The Guardian about how the Spanish have been habituated into ID cards like battery chickens who refuse to leave thier cages when the doors are opened.
Really, if Europeans want to have ID cards, no one in the UK has a problem with that, and no one here is interested in arguing with Europeans who think that ID cards are "no problem at all". If you want ID cards, you are free(??!) to use them all you like. The British do not want them, under any circumstances short of actual war in Europe, and even then, only temporarily.
For us ID cards are a waste of time, money and most importantly, a violation of the human rights of British Citizens.
In the end, I'm left with the feeling that the folks at the UFO magazine seized on some out-of-context statement made by the ESA or NASA and interpreted it as they saw fit.
You obviously didnt watch the interview. Take a look at it, listen carefully to the explanation offered, then come back.
Interesting use of the word "cure" as if someone is ill.
There was a wide screen version of PropCycle that had the wheel of the excersise bike connected to a mechanical fan which blew air into your face as you pushed the pedals; this gave you a great feeling of motion when racing around to pop the balloons....awesome!
Perfect client side email filtering.
The more people blow this problem up, the more likely it is that legislators will try and tackle it.
And you know what that means; more bad "cyberlaw".
Much better to concentrate on solutions to a problem, rather than making repretitive and useless noises about the problem itself.
Like you'd care!
...utter crap.
Why do you care if anyone cares? Skeptics are the true psycotic personalities in their never ending and utterly pointless circular debates.
Whatever you say and think, I'm cool with it.