NO2ID Campaign against ID cards

[Liszt]

If Islam as currently practiced wasn't ideologically the polar opposite of Western values perhaps they wouldn't feel such emotional neglect. I certainly won't advocate Western governments "submitting" to Islam in order to appease the radicals, rather Islam should reform itself or stay the hell out of Western countries.

wow! I have several Islamic friends, and they are not at all like that, even though I am actually obsessed with classical/romantic music.


And I thought this thread was supposed to be about the new ID cards.

 

[Earthborn]

How does a criminal forge a retina scan or a fingerprint? Is there a surgery that can do this?

Forging fingerprints as easy. Here's one way to do it. There are several others.

Retina scans are of course a lot harder as people don't generally leave imprints of them everywhere they go. But you can bet that once the stakes for doing it are high enough, someone will figure out a way. Retina scans are probably the most reliable and hardest to fake, but it still suffers from the same fatal flaw as all other biometric techniques: you're stuck with it. Once the security of your scan is compromised, you can not regain it while a password can be changed and lock replaced.

 

[WildCat]

Forging fingerprints as easy. Here's one way to do it. There are several others.

So a suspect is going to do all that after being arrested but prior to his fingerprinting? And no one will notice all that gunk on his finger? Nor that his fingerprints don't match any other data?

Retina scans are of course a lot harder as people don't generally leave imprints of them everywhere they go. But you can bet that once the stakes for doing it are high enough, someone will figure out a way. Retina scans are probably the most reliable and hardest to fake, but it still suffers from the same fatal flaw as all other biometric techniques: you're stuck with it. Once the security of your scan is compromised, you can not regain it while a password can be changed and lock replaced.

So because someone may be able to do it at some point in the future if "the stakes are high enough" means we should scrap the whole idea?

That's like saying you don't bother locking your doors because someone could pick the lock anyway, or break a window.

 

[WildCat]

wow! I have several Islamic friends, and they are not at all like that, even though I am actually obsessed with classical/romantic music.

Funny, that's what all the acquaintences of the London tube bombers said also. Mohammed Atta's family says the same thing, couldn't have been their little boy in the 9/11 plot!

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Funny, that's what all the acquaintences of the London tube bombers said also. Mohammed Atta's family says the same thing, couldn't have been their little boy in the 9/11 plot!

Whilst what you are saying is true, what you are implying above is borderline bigoted.

 

[WildCat]

Whilst what you are saying is true, what you are implying above is borderline bigoted.

What was I "implying"?

If bigotry is being against religious nutters trying to force their societal visions down everyone else's throats, then I'm a proud bigot.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

What was I "implying"?

Liszt said, without fully understanding your point, that she/he was friends with good Muslim people.

You then compared their percieved persona to the percieved persona of the London bombers and Atta.

Keeping my peripheral vision on somebodies persona because of what a collection of people with similar beliefs have done is what a bigot does.

 

[Earthborn]

So a suspect is going to do all that after being arrested but prior to his fingerprinting?

No, of course not. But that is not the point. You'll have to identify someone before you can arrest him, and the idea of biometrics is that you would be able to quickly and automatically identify people. Of course once arrested faking prints isn't usefull anymore, but this sort of thing can help people avoid being arrested. Or shop on someone else's expenses.

That's like saying you don't bother locking your doors because someone could pick the lock anyway, or break a window.

No, it is like saying that I don't bother locking my door with a lock for which I can have only 2 keys during my entire life (retina scanning) or with a lock for which I have no choice but to leave copies of my keys behind everywhere I go (fingerprint scanning).

So because someone may be able to do it at some point in the future if "the stakes are high enough" means we should scrap the whole idea?

Yes, we should scrap the whole idea. Biometrics for security is a flawed concept. If you want to be secure, you should be able to change your locks once in a while, not be stuck with your keys from birth.

 

[aries]

Let me tell you one thing:

In Denmark each citizen ove the age of 16 (or is it each child now?) have a personal National Health Insurance Card. It is yellow for some reason. This card is mandatory if you want to receice free medical treatment from your doctor or a hospital. No Danes have ever for the past 30 year or so objected to this card. Each card have a specifik number identifying you --- basically it is your birthday and and four or six letter code.

I do believe that this prevents identifty theft as you will need to get another person's central person data to say you're him or her. The police if they arrest can ask to see you this National Health Card to identity you rather quickly. This means no more or very few false arrests.

Let me also say this:

The police and other authorities can already now trace your steps. Each time you use an ATM it is logged, each time you're on the internet, it is logged. Each time you use your creditcards, whether it is online or not, it is logged. Each time you use a normal phone or a cellphone, it is logged. The authorities in Denmark have long given the police etc. access to data compiling? (comparing data from one database to another one's). It was done years ago to combat social fraud with social benefits and then, of course, it got extended due to the fear of terror.

Of course, no system is secure, but the Danish National Healt Person Data System is one of the most secure facilities in the world. You can guarantee that terror or identi theft will be done, even if yoiu have such an ID card. What it does, from experience in Denmark, is making it harder and more difficult to do this.... (not that I'm advocating either).

 

[SteveGrenard]

Did anyone mention this yet? If not, welcome to the club or the biometrics database race:

FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics
$1 Billion Project to Include Images of Irises and Faces

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 22, 2007; Page A01

CLARKSBURG, W. Va. -- The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

(Photo:Highly accurate face-scanning cameras are being developed. (Photos By Bob Shaw For The Washington Post)



"Bigger. Faster. Better. That's the bottom line," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which operates the database from its headquarters in the Appalachian foothills.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/21/AR2007122102544.html?hpid=topnews


hmm//Thomas Bush III eh? Shulda known.

 

[andyandy]

The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

so, the police will store innocent people's files on the fingerprint database in case they do commit a crime?

may as well go the whole hog and put everyone on the fingerprint database......

i wonder how such a large store would effect the usability of fingerprinting? If you have 300 million prints, even a 1 in a million error match is going to give plenty of false positives....and (if CSI is to be believed ) plenty of lifted prints are incomplete leading to greater chance of false positives....

do we have any criminal experts (or expert criminals ) on JREF?