National IDs: One way or the other
Posted on 12/07/2001 6:54:14 AM PST by sam_paine
REALITY CHECK
National IDs: One way or the other
December 5, 2001 |
 |
 |
Idiots. My father used to repeat his favorite rule of life to me every time I said something stupid (which is still pretty often). "Put your mind into gear before your mouth into motion." As McNealy implied in my recent interview, if most people welcomed a rational discussion about the big difference between authentication in situations that demand it (such as boarding an airplane, renting a crop duster, or voting) and storing personal information in a database, national ID critics might not be so quick to vilify advocates of something a lot more bulletproof than what we have today.
 |
For everyone who thinks that we'll suddenly become inconvenienced because we have to start presenting an ID everywhere we go, guess what? We're already supposed to present an ID almost everywhere we go. No one is proposing that we double or triple the number of situations where an ID is required. Ellison's and McNealy's propositions would close two giant holes that make today's systems useless.
First, a bulletproof ID for the public - one that cannot be forged and is safe from unauthorized use -- does not exist. Now, many organizations have implemented very good three-factor security for their own internal use. Three-factor security is based on what you know (a password), what you have (an ID card or other security token), and who you are (biometrics). Think of three-factor security as an ATM card that requires, in addition to a PIN code, a fingerprint. The digitized fingerprint isn't kept in a database. It's digitized and encrypted into the ID card, just like the PIN number.
Second, the current system's dependence on human beings to check IDs (and check them correctly) is absurd.
Any politician or person who tells you that today's public identification systems solve the problems they were intended to solve is a moron.
Enter Ellison and McNealy. The two men are proposing somewhat different approaches to solving the same problem. Ellison's approach, which civil libertarians miscategorize as a national ID, is nothing of the sort. What Ellison suggests is that we have a national standard for implementing IDs. Ellison doesn't care how many IDs you have to carry, or who issues them, as long as their authenticity is guaranteed. In fact, Ellison would probably love for there to be thousands of issuers. The more organizations that issue IDs, the more databases he'll probably sell. But, to guarantee the authenticity if those IDs, the national government needs to ratify a standard with which all issuers must comply.
One ID issuer best approach?
McNealy, who is rumored to be making some kind of national ID announcement at this week's Open World, doesn't have a master plan. (At least not one that he was prepared to divulge in my interview with him.) I asked McNealy how he thought the system should work. He said he hadn't really thought it through that much. Thinking out loud, he first talked about how there might be multiple issuers, but then settled on the idea that there probably should be one -- the U.S. government. His rationale was simple: If the specification that guaranteed each ID's authenticity changed for some reason (for instance, if encryption requirements changed), implementation of the new spec would be far simpler with one issuer.
What most concerns McNealy is that this good idea might be squashed for all the wrong reasons. His opponents argue that a national ID is a slippery slope toward Big Brother watching every one of us. McNealy refers to this as "building databases" and suggests that we don't change the way things are done today. For example, most of us (whether we know it or not) already have substantial databases built around our names or social security numbers. Airlines, ISPs, credit card companies, on-line merchants, and many other businesses are busy building profiles of us. The civil libertarians hate these databases. But what they hate even more is the idea that the government could use a national ID to connect these disparate databases in a way that could form a more complete profile. Indeed, a national identification standard would make it much easier to connect databases and build those profiles in minutes.
McNealy doesn't like the idea, comparing it to a federal wiretap. Laws preventing such wiretaps, he believes, need to stay in place or even be strengthened to deal with the digital age. Had a national ID specification been in place before September11, and had the courts issued "database tapping" orders swiftly enough, much more might have become known much sooner about the hijackers before some of the leads went cold.
Aside from the not-so-subtle differences in the their ultimate solutions (multiple issuers vs. one issuer), both Ellison and McNealy appear focused on the same problem: a bulletproof ID specification with no room for abuse and no way to deliberately or inadvertently shortcut the authentication process.
Provided that the specification requires three-factor security, the human element is removed because a biometric system stands in the way of any transaction that requires authentication, such as voting or boarding a plane. For merchants (electronic, bricks and mortar, or both), the same technology that guarantees the person sitting next to you on the plane is who they say they are could also be the one that prevents abuses like credit card fraud. Merchants almost always bear the cost of credit card fraud because the authentication process failed for some reason. With the right controls in place, the benefits of a national ID idea far outweigh the detriments.
|
David Berlind is Editorial Director of ZDNet's Tech Update. |
Arrogance I cannot begin to fathom. The current loose distributed scheme may be better than a single point-of-failure national system!!!
What they don't get, and refuse to consider, is that if you even have a "99.9%" fool proof ID, people will treat it like it's 100%, and any mechanical failure, or inability to access Ellison's main database (as if it were Santa's list) will put you under suspicion.
Ever had your credit card or ATM card rejected when there was no problem with your accounts? Do people assume it's the system, worn mag stripe, fat-fingered your PIN, etc, or just assume that your credit has been rejected??????
-sam
David Berlind is a "good little Nazi".
"We're already supposed to present an ID almost everywhere we go."
REALLY??? I have a counter proposal. When any foreign national enters the US, the INS clamps on a non-removable, GPS position transmitting anklet with a uniqe digital signature, which transmits continuously to a computer in Washington. When they leave, we remove it. CITIZENS don't have to wear one.
NO! what we have today are broken people! When they start doing their job and people are held accountable for screwing up, then we'll see if we need a national ID card.
'Techno-devotees' or those who like to use their infrared ports to beam phone numbers from their PalmPilot to their phone without ever having read or understand the nitworkings of the IrDA specs, seem much more amenable to figuring that they can solve anything with their new obvious centralized plan.
Luckily, the old white guys in Boston weren't similarly confused.
Did anyone notice the assault on Ashcroft yesterday? Senate Dim-wit: "Mr. Ashcroft, why will you not dig through the Firearm background check files to see if gun buyers are terrorists???" AG: "Because, the congress authorized the background checks for initial VERIFICATION of gun purchases ONLY." Senator: "Well why not use it since the database is already there???" AG: "Because it would be illegal."
It was the first time I was proud of Ashcroft's actions.
LOL-although I would say that those "old white guys" weren't just in Boston. My own branch was in Connecticut at the time.
I'm pretty much a techno-phile, myself, but this guy is a techno-geek with no clue about the history of government (especially government tyranny). He was lucky enough to grow up in the (mostly) free society bequeathed to him by those "old white guys", and doesn't understand the wellsprings of his liberty. Thinking like his is what takes us down the slippery slope back to slavery.
Funny that he should use such a choice phrase.
The fact that this kid referes to privacy matters as matters concerning only "civil libertarians" proves that he is a Nazi wannabee.
Now we know first hand how the communist and fascists governments get thier power. It is through gullable kids like this ignorant idiot trying to convince other gullable ignorant idiots that communism is for their own good.
Even for legal aliens, you'd have to depend on the word of their homeland - which may hate the U.S. and not feel like cooperating - to know that "Abdul Mohamed" really is the guy's name. And it goes without saying that illegal aliens - who often already have multiple fake IDs under different names and different Social Security numbers - would be impossible to "identify" that way. Add the reality of politics of offending ethnic lobbies (LaRaza, MALDEF) that are support groups for illegal aliens.
Coming soon to an OHS checkpoint near you.
I guess it's the East Germans' and Russians' time to make fun of us.
Their anser is "Well that's how you tell. If they don't have a (working) ID, then they are bad guys and must be detained. You just need to be sure that your unbreakable ID always works to retain your civil rights.
Let him have an earful even though he won't listen, folks: david.berlind@cnet.com
October 20, 2001
It's a safe bet that most of the people reading this alert aren't high government officials or corporate mega-barons.
Unlike Attorney General John Ashcroft, Senate Majority Leader Tom Dashle or Larry Ellison ("Mr. National ID"), CEO of the giant database company Oracle, you won't be responsible for creating the laws, regulations, and technologies that are rapidly being used to turn the U.S. into a police state under the false claim that mass surveillance of citizens and uncontrolled searches are the best means to "combat terrorism."
But you may be responsible for implementing these police-state policies.
If you're a software engineer, you may be asked to write or configure citizen-tracking databases or national ID systems.
If you're police officer or National Guardsman, you may be expected to conduct unconstitutional searches or make mass arrests of innocent people.
If you're a technician, it may be your job to install facial- recognition cameras in public places.
If you're a bank employee, you may be expected to help the government extend its routine probes into the accounts of millions of innocent people.
If you're an employee in the federal or state bureaucracy, you may be expected to demand national ID cards and/or biometric ID from members of the public.
If you're a taxpayer, you'll be expected to empty your pockets to pay for false security and very real tyranny.
The possibilities are plentiful and frightening -- all the more frightening because these things may soon become the stuff of everyday life and work. Just the ordinary routine of police- state America. The Bush administration has declared a War on Terrorism. And to whatever extent that means hunting down and punishing genuine terrorists, we support the effort. But just as the War on Drugs became a 20-year war on the American people and an excuse to tear away the protections of the Bill of Rights -- eroding property rights, privacy, due process, and dozens of other liberties -- the War on Terrorism may be used to strip away the last remaining American freedoms.
Millions of you will be asked to be the foot soldiers in that Jihad against American Liberties -- the dutiful, loyal "Jihad Joes" (and "Jihad Janes") obeying the commands of higher ups. If you go along with abusing the rights of your countrymen -- in major ways or insignificant ones -- you'll only be "following orders." You'll just be "doing a job."
"Don't blame me," thousands of cops and clerks and technicians and programmers and internment camp guards will shrug. "I'm only a little guy trying to protect my pension."
It's true that the obedient Jihad Joes don't have the power of their masters. But without their obedience, the masters wouldn't have the power to surveil and control the citizens of America. They would not have the power to steal our freedom. They need US to help them do that.
The U.S. government has the authority to track down and deal with terrorists without gutting one more article of the Bill of Rights. All the new demands -- for expanded searches, new crimes and increased sentences, wiretaps on the innocent, indefinite detentions, more databases, more cameras, more record keeping, more biometric ID, more submission -- are just an excuse for implementing a long-held agenda of control.
When CCOPS and its sister organization Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership have sent out alerts describing the problem of growing tyranny, many readers have responded, logically enough, "Yes, but what do we do about it?"
No one has THE answer to ending tyranny. But there is AN answer -- a big, important one that you can immediately practice in your own life, without having to wait for your congressman or anybody else to act.
Problem is, it's an answer almost no one wants to hear: RESIST.
The ultimate responsibility of everyone who truly loves freedom is to LIVE freedom. That means to resist bad laws. That means to refuse to enforce or in any other way help implement police-state policies.
We must refuse to obey, refuse to submit to the searches or to conduct them, refuse to take a national ID card or to program the database for it or install the scanners used to track cardholders. We must refuse to be disarmed or to disarm innocent others.
It is our responsibility. It is the ultimate test of whether we sincerely value freedom or we just want to sit and whine as powerful people and their Jihad Joe minions seize it from us.
"But," the potential enforcers object, "If I refuse to obey or if I quit my job, they'll just replace me with somebody more brutal and more willing to follow bad orders."
We hate to say it, but maybe seeing the true ruthless face of the police state is exactly what it's going to take to wake Americans up. Maybe the polite cop or the courteous clerk enforcing the police state only helps prolong the agony of tyranny by making injustice more tolerable to foolish men and women.
"But," many potential resisters object, "If I resist and others don't, they'll just roll right over me. I'll accomplish nothing for freedom and might get myself arrested."
That's a risk, certainly. So we must not only resist individually, but encourage and organize resistance from others. It's worked for the left for decades. And we're not talking about polite marches, petitions, and protests that the media and government will ignore. We're talking about making it impossible for the controllers to have control.If we do nothing, we're guaranteed to accomplish nothing. If we resist and fail, at least we're keeping the flame of freedom alive. We're preserve the spirit of freedom in our own lives, even if it dies all around us. We must resist to give our children and grandchildren the only hope they can possibly have of being free again.
We all have a responsibility now.
Draw your line in the sand; know what you won't tolerate yourself and what you won't inflict on others.
RESIST the police state. Nobody can tell you which specific actions you should take (or not take). But you can start by reading Henry David Thoreau's powerful essay, "Civil Disobedience" ( http://www2.cybernex.net/~rlenat/civil1.html ) and Thomas Paine?s "Common Sense" ( http://www.vt.edu/vt98/academics/books/paine/common_sense ).
Share this message with at least 12 other people who also care enough to live -- not just talk about -- freedom. Send this message to law enforcement officers, former peace officers, National Guardsmen, people in the military, and employees in all levels of government.
DON'T BE A JIHAD JOE. Don't look your grandchildren in the eye someday and tell them that when the police state came, "I WAS ONLY FOLLOWING ORDERS."
Website © 2001 CCOPS < webmaster@ccops.org >
From: EDentification@aol.com cc:
Subject: e-Dentification Alert
URGENT
In the mid 1990s e-Dentification in cooperation with a Canadian company developed the concept of an airport and air travel security system that, had it been deployed, would have effectively thwarted the hijackings and subsequent damage of September 11, 2001.
We are now exploring the resurrection of that system. In order to effectively do so we need a great deal of help. We will need financing, management, engineering, cooperation of hardware and software providers and the contacts to place this system in front of those who can deploy it.
If you can help, know someone who can, or are just interested in finding out more about this, please contact me.
John E.
CEO
Edentification, Inc.
To: Edentifica@aol.com
Subject: Re: e-Dentification Alert
I hope you mean well.
We have met before, and I hope to keep this as civil as possible, but no amount of Big Brother "e-Dentification" biometrics or otherwise "would have effectively thwarted" all of those kamikazes.
But it would have led the United States closer to Orwell's fantasies.
And padded your pocket.
Shame on you for attempting to use this tragedy to expand your business opportunities.
What exactly do you think my grandfather was doing in WWII when he was "fighting for our freedom?"
Respectfully yours,
Sam
"Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Shame on you for missing the point. This is not about Orwell, or profits.
This is about making a contribution that might save some lives. One of our people was injured in the crash at the Pentagon. We are not looking to sell anything. We are looking to work with others to provide a solution that could have saved over 5000 lives.
It is fortunate that the overwhelming response to my message sees the world far more clearly than you do.
You clearly see the world through very jaded eyes.
John E.
CEO
Edentification, Inc.
To: John E.
Subject: Jaded
It's not about being jaded. It's about the ethics and morality constraining well meaning technical advances.
Please don't misunderstand my objection.
I do not object to your success in business, rather, I object to the ultimate objective of this PARTICULAR APPLICATION.
If you could, through biometrics or otherwise, track every single good and evil person in the world, and ring out an alarm at the boarding gate of every possible airliner in the world, you might indeed deter some evil people and save some lives.
But you will have taken freedom of association away from every "free," innocent and decent person in that world.
The people who would control those identification systems will not be you, they will be the same people that were "protecting" those in the WTC...that is, fallible humans. They will be the ones who determine who is "good" and who is "evil" without trial.
Fallible humans with "infallible technology" is more dangerous than it is helpful.
America is about those patriots that sacrificed themselves on the Pennsylvania flight by rushing the terrorists, it is not about cowering to the cowards by sacrificing more freedom.
I think the Secy of Defense has it absolutely correct:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld On Fox News Sunday September 16, 2001
TONY SNOW, HOST:
RUMSFELD: I think that you have to remember that a terrorist can attack at any time and any place using any technique. And if you were going to [lockdown the US airspace], you would have to do that with every subway, with every port, with every ship, with every crossroad, with every large gathering of human beings.
The way to deal with this problem is not to suddenly become a police state and say we're not going to be free and we're not going to go about our lives; it's to go after the people who are posing this very serious danger to the world. And that's what we need to do.
I do wish you success in business, and happiness in your life, and I pray for the families of the victims daily....and us all.
Just please remember, though the voices may be fewer than those clamoring for a lockdown of fortress America, that there are strong, intelligent, optimistic patriots who will oppose other optimistic patriots such as yourself who would lead us toward more control by a black-budgeted unaccountable government, and less and less freedom.
And that opposition by "jaded" folks is required for a free state.
Sincerely,
Sam
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
John Philpot Curran - requoted by Jefferson, etal later
The CDC can develop a benign RNA tag that uniquely tags a person and sloughs off an ID trail wherever they go. This tag can be inserted with a dropper in the baby's eye, or better yet, in the water supply!!!
Ok, I got carried away and thought we were talking about flouride!!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
