Why not a national ID card?

[I Ratant]

I think standardization is a good argument. It would be a lot easier if you could have your drivers license/passport etc. in one, and an id with a chip is nearly impossible to forge.

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I don't have a problem with the idea, as long as the security is there.
One number for everything, as it could be.

 

[Bob001]

What did you mean by fraud would be harder, if not deliberate criminal acts?

I meant, clumsily, that many of your links describe deliberate criminal acts other than identity theft, like filing false invoices and false tax credits. I am suggesting that criminal acts involving identity fraud would be harder to commit if it was harder for one person to pretend to be someone else. Of course, if a stranger calls you and you tell him your bank accounts and SS number, a secure ID card won't save you.

 

[I Ratant]

It's in the nature of many Americans to be suspicious of the gummit. Come to think of it, I suppose I am one of them.

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Any part of the gummint, from dog catcher on up!

 

[Bob001]

The first problem in establishing an indisputable proof of my identity is that I must first indisputably prove my identity to the people issuing the IDs. How do I do that? Birth certificate? Passport? Drivers license? How can a secure form of ID possibly be based on inherently insecure IDs?

That's an important question. But we consider a passport to be indisputable proof of identity under most circumstances, unless someone suspects it was stolen or tampered with, and passports are issued on the basis of a birth certificate, a government ID like a driver's license, and a personal application to a government agent. If IDs were routinely issued at, say, age 16, a combination of birth certificate, parental certification and school records might be enough, and if the card and database included a thumbprint the ID would stay with the person for life, even if he changed his name. For older people, a combination of birth certificate, driver's license or passport, credit report or other tools might be enough. Most of us have a documented life history, and if someone didn't -- an identity thief, an illegal immigrant -- it would raise alarm bells.

 

[crimresearch]

I meant, clumsily, that many of your links describe deliberate criminal acts other than identity theft, like filing false invoices and false tax credits. I am suggesting that criminal acts involving identity fraud would be harder to commit if it was harder for one person to pretend to be someone else. Of course, if a stranger calls you and you tell him your bank accounts and SS number, a secure ID card won't save you.

OK. The links describe fraud involving federal government employees.

I still don't see how a National ID Card is going to do anything except increase the opportunities for such fraud.

Instead of getting someone's SSN, checking account #, driver's license, home phone, and so on beforehand, all they will need to do is steal, copy, or otherwise get a single card... and they are effectively you.

That doesn't fit in with my idea of safer.

 

[marplots]

What you apparently consider "benefits," I consider horrendous intrusions and violations of privacy. I don't want to make it easier for anyone who desires to do so, to collect data about me. I have no problem with a legal authority investigating a crime, discovering who I am, if I am the focus of that investigation, so long as once I am cleared of wrong-doing my privacy is securely maintained, beyond that there is no need for anyone to know anything beyond what I choose to reveal. I would find a "one-card-for-all-uses" and applications an unacceptable and intolerable state of affairs. It is not my job or goal in life to make other's snooping more convenient or easy.

Would you support it if you had control of access level on it? Not just an "everything on" or "no ID," but a way to authorize keeping parts private? I don't see this as a problem and you still get the benefits of showing it to verify your identity when you only wish that function.

I think your objection is so common that it would have to be a part of any program that has a chance of passing. Further, we could add a provision that private companies could no longer keep your information on file for sale. How's that?

 

[marplots]

The first problem in establishing an indisputable proof of my identity is that I must first indisputably prove my identity to the people issuing the IDs. How do I do that? Birth certificate? Passport? Drivers license? How can a secure form of ID possibly be based on inherently insecure IDs?

I don't think it's as hard as it appears, as long as there is a bio-metric associated with it and the capability to alter records. The bio-metric should link it to you-the-person-in-the-flesh instead of just you-the-paperwork, and the capability to alter the database means it can be corrected when errors are found.

So, lets say you start off gaming the system and there's no current way to catch you lying (no fingerprints already on file, for example). From then on, you are stuck with whatever you claimed to start with. It wouldn't be much different than legally changing your name or simply using another name outright. And this works as long as your fraud doesn't have any gain to it. As soon as you start using my social security account or bank account or whatever, you get caught. And you can't simply re-do the crime again because we've got your bio-metrics.

I know that's kind of theoretical, but I think a version of that would work.

 

[Biscuit]

I'll take that bet. Credit cards with chips haver never been forged as far as I know.

Thats because right now its easier, cheaper, and just as effective to fake the ones without chips.

Now the next logical step is to say that all CC should therefor have chips! Sadly that would make faking chipped ones very profitable and before long you would have faked CC's with chips in them.

You could make the most elaborate complex and security proof national ID you wanted and it wouldn't matter. As that card would represent "U.S. citizenship" they would be very desirable and within months you would have fakes. The only way to keep ahead of the fakes would be to literally keep ahead of them and change the features every 6 months and that is cost prohibitive.

I have spoken of my expertise in spotting fake driver's licenses used by college kids to drink in other threads so I won't re-hash it here. I can tell you the two newest DL last year were TX and CA. Very nice, lots of security features, and we started seeing fakes within 6 months. Kids were paying up to $250.00 for these just so they could drink in bars! Imagine the profits for anyone able to fake a national ID card for you.

 

[Bob001]

... I still don't see how a National ID Card is going to do anything except increase the opportunities for such fraud.

Instead of getting someone's SSN, checking account #, driver's license, home phone, and so on beforehand, all they will need to do is steal, copy, or otherwise get a single card... and they are effectively you. ...

But most of that information is easy to obtain if you look for it. (Every person who touches your check sees the number on it, and it's printed with your name and address.) The SS number is probably hardest to get if you're careful about how you use it. The security of an ID card would come down to a question of how the card would be designed. If it included a photograph, a pin code selected by and changeable by the user, and a chip with coded information that included a thumbprint that could be read by a scanner -- and that could be used to cancel the card if it was lost or stolen -- it would be more secure than most IDs that we have now. It wouldn't be hard to design a system where you would swipe the card, enter your pin and press your thumb against a scanner. A stolen card would be a useless piece of plastic. Even getting your account numbers wouldn't help a thief. You might be able to set up electronic accounts with banks, merchants etc. by going somewhere one time to scan the card when you open the account, or even using a gadget you would attach to your computer, and you would only need to scan it again if you needed to change your address or other personal information. If you lost your card you would have to go to a government office with your other ID and your thumb to get a new one. Right now anyone who has a small amount of information about me can claim to be me.

 

[Bob001]

.... I can tell you the two newest DL last year were TX and CA. Very nice, lots of security features, and we started seeing fakes within 6 months. ...

Just curious, were the fakes scannable? Did they have magnetic strips or chips? It's easy to fake an ID that looks like a real one, but are the fakes linked to the state databases? If a bar has an electronic credit card reader (and who doesn't?), maybe it could have a license scanner?

 

[Soapy Sam]

So what's the downside to a national ID card?

One downside potentially, is that docile, law abiding citizens like me will start blowing up government buildings and shooting policemen.

Which would be expensive.

 

[Biscuit]

Just curious, were the fakes scannable? Did they have magnetic strips or chips? It's easy to fake an ID that looks like a real one, but are the fakes linked to the state databases? If a bar has an electronic credit card reader (and who doesn't?), maybe it could have a license scanner?

We have hand held scanners. like these

You can get very cheap fakes that do not scan but most spend a few extra bucks and the magnetic strip is encoded with all of the information thats on the front of the id. They scan just fine.

There is a third type, and my personal favorite, has "stock" info encoded on the back. You will often see a group of guys from the same frat house all with the same state id and if you pay attention you will see that each id is encoded with the same info! They did a group buy and got a discount!

A list of some of the "fool proof" security features I have encountered faked over the last decade.

- Microprint
- Holograms
- UV and UV multi color
- UV pictures
- Silhouetted images
- Raised lettering

Those are off the top of my head. I don't think any state uses microchips as its too expensive.

It must be a multi million dollar business just for underage kids. Imagine the desire for a faked citizenship card. It may not be easy to fake but if there is a profit to made then it will be faked. This is true from car parts to paintings and there is no reason to think this would be exempt.

 

[Bob001]

We have hand held scanners. like these

You can get very cheap fakes that do not scan but most spend a few extra bucks and the magnetic strip is encoded with all of the information thats on the front of the id. They scan just fine.

I had no idea that the fakes are that sophisticated. I'm not sure what it says about college kids that they need to drink that bad.

But by scanner I meant a device that links electronically to a live database. When you swipe a credit card it links directly to the bank, which determines whether it's valid and records the transaction. The card is no good if the database doesn't accept it. If you do two transactions one minute apart, and the second one breaks your credit limit, the database can reject it. My idea of a secure card is one that is linked directly to an official database. A passport is not just a piece of paper. It's part of an electronic system that records when you left the country and when you returned, and when the border officer scans it your picture and information from your passport shows up on his screen -- unless you stole or tampered with the passport -- and it is provided by the database, not the document. He will ask you when you left the country, and getting it wrong or saying "I don't remember" will not go well. Ideally, when you scanned those driver's licenses they would be connected to state databases that would show the correct information for legitimate DLs and would flag the ones that come up with no records. A magnetic strip that just confirms the fake information seems kind of pointless.

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Doesn't matter where the fraud happens if the system is comprimised. Try this one:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/banking/ped/

And it clearly states it isn't the card that's an issue:

The UK banking industry chose to deploy Chip & PIN cards that do not encrypt the data exchanged between the card and the PED during a transaction.

and

The banks can do more to prevent such attacks. The more expensive DDA (Dynamic Data Authentication) cards allow the PIN to be encrypted and so preventing it from being intercepted.

So there's a fix to that and even though it may not be 100% perfect it's still so much safer than the current one. I know the Danish banks haven'thad a single incident with fake chipped cards in +3 years now.

 

[crimresearch]

But most of that information is easy to obtain if you look for it. (Every person who touches your check sees the number on it, and it's printed with your name and address.) The SS number is probably hardest to get if you're careful about how you use it. The security of an ID card would come down to a question of how the card would be designed. If it included a photograph, a pin code selected by and changeable by the user, and a chip with coded information that included a thumbprint that could be read by a scanner -- and that could be used to cancel the card if it was lost or stolen -- it would be more secure than most IDs that we have now. It wouldn't be hard to design a system where you would swipe the card, enter your pin and press your thumb against a scanner. A stolen card would be a useless piece of plastic. Even getting your account numbers wouldn't help a thief. You might be able to set up electronic accounts with banks, merchants etc. by going somewhere one time to scan the card when you open the account, or even using a gadget you would attach to your computer, and you would only need to scan it again if you needed to change your address or other personal information. If you lost your card you would have to go to a government office with your other ID and your thumb to get a new one. Right now anyone who has a small amount of information about me can claim to be me.

That would be great... if we can just get the technology perfected, and change the basic nature of the human race to utter honesty.

In the absence of those factors, I'll stick by my assessment... a national ID card, (with the ensuing 'more federal bureaucracy') increases, not decreases, the chances of fraud.

 

[crimresearch]

We have hand held scanners. like these

You can get very cheap fakes that do not scan but most spend a few extra bucks and the magnetic strip is encoded with all of the information thats on the front of the id. They scan just fine.

There is a third type, and my personal favorite, has "stock" info encoded on the back. You will often see a group of guys from the same frat house all with the same state id and if you pay attention you will see that each id is encoded with the same info! They did a group buy and got a discount!

A list of some of the "fool proof" security features I have encountered faked over the last decade.

- Microprint
- Holograms
- UV and UV multi color
- UV pictures
- Silhouetted images
- Raised lettering

Those are off the top of my head. I don't think any state uses microchips as its too expensive.

It must be a multi million dollar business just for underage kids. Imagine the desire for a faked citizenship card. It may not be easy to fake but if there is a profit to made then it will be faked. This is true from car parts to paintings and there is no reason to think this would be exempt.

Exactly. The value will make it worth someone's while to do what people have always done since forever...

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Thats because right now its easier, cheaper, and just as effective to fake the ones without chips.

Now the next logical step is to say that all CC should therefor have chips! Sadly that would make faking chipped ones very profitable and before long you would have faked CC's with chips in them.

You could make the most elaborate complex and security proof national ID you wanted and it wouldn't matter. As that card would represent "U.S. citizenship" they would be very desirable and within months you would have fakes. The only way to keep ahead of the fakes would be to literally keep ahead of them and change the features every 6 months and that is cost prohibitive.

I have spoken of my expertise in spotting fake driver's licenses used by college kids to drink in other threads so I won't re-hash it here. I can tell you the two newest DL last year were TX and CA. Very nice, lots of security features, and we started seeing fakes within 6 months. Kids were paying up to $250.00 for these just so they could drink in bars! Imagine the profits for anyone able to fake a national ID card for you.

I don't think so. There a are millions of chipped credit cards so I think we would have seen it by now. You don't just set up a microchip factory.

 

[crimresearch]

I don't think so. There a are millions of chipped credit cards so I think we would have seen it by now. You don't just set up a microchip factory.

Correct. You simply steal them, or get an employee to get some, set up for your purposes.

 

[Bob001]

That would be great... if we can just get the technology perfected, and change the basic nature of the human race to utter honesty.

This is all purely theoretical (although I hold out hope for the perfectibility of the human race). The left, right and center would be unified in opposition to anything like this. But national IDs seem to work pretty effectively in other countries with no loss of freedom or increase in crime. Here, I have never understood why we can't at least make Social Security numbers and cards more secure, but nobody is even talking about that.

On the other hand, the Enhanced Driver's License programs already operating in some states might start to function like a national ID:
http://www.dhs.gov/files/crossingborders/gc_1197575704846.shtm

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Correct. You simply steal them, or get an employee to get some, set up for your purposes.

You don't "simply" steal from a place like that. The place would have the same security level as the US Mint. I'm not saying there's such a thing as a 100% secure system but it can be made much safer than the current one.