11 ms·

How incredible it is that a Federal Agency needs a private company to identify its own citizens. You guys really should get smart ID cards like every other sane

• mtgx 9y ago
  Such cars could also probably be used as voter IDs, no? And there wouldn't be any issue of "restricting certain people from voting" because the federal government would have to provide everyone with one anyway. It could also lead to safer and more verifiable voting on voting machines (even though I still believe nothing beats pen and paper at this).
  • muninn_ 9y ago
    Any you know why this won't happen? Republicans don't want a national ID and Democrats don't want to anger their base. I am not a huge fan of the idea (from the Republican side although I'm not a Republican) but at this point I don't even care because companies cannot be trusted to handle this.
  • balabaster 9y ago
    This assumes that the version of democracy wanted in the U.S. is a version that allows everyone equal access to voting. You also make the mistake of assuming that the version of democracy that the people want is the same version that the government wants.
  • corpMaverick 9y ago
    Yes, a key point will be that they must be free.
    • mcny 9y ago
      Yes, that is a necessary condition but it is not sufficient. Accessibility is another issue. * Do replacements cost money? * Do I have to go somewhere in person to get the card? Is it within walking distance? * What are the days and the hours that this place is open? * ... (there are so many more questions but most importantly) * How do we pay for it?
      • untog 9y ago
        Yes, this stuff is crucial. In the US, many people say "what's wrong with requiring a specific ID for voting?" and in theory there isn't, except when you have to trek for half a day on public transit to get to a place where you can actually apply for ID. And you need ID in order to verify you are eligible for the ID! Not everyone has a driving license. If it were done benevolently and with the best of intentions, it could work. But it isn't.
        • danudey 9y ago
          > Not everyone has a driving license. I'm a 30-something middle-class white male who works in tech in a large Canadian city with excellent public transit. I don't have a driver's license, and I'm constantly running into idiotic barriers because I don't have one. People and processes seem to assume that I do and when confronted with the contrary, a lot of people don't really know what to do.
          • seretogis 9y ago
            I work in the same city and am in a similar situation, but there are non-drivers-license options[1] which you can use. I use my CareCard and US Passport Card until I'm able to get an enhanced ID/BCID. [1] http://www.icbc.com/driver-licensing/getting-licensed/Pages/Apply-for-an-enhanced-licence-ID-or-BCID.aspx http://www.icbc.com/driver-licensing/getting-licensed/Pages/...
• thomascgalvin 9y ago
  You're implying that the US is sane. If we tried smart ID cards here, half the population would have a meltdown over the Mark of the Beast of 1984 or "papers, please" or something.
  • JPKab 9y ago
    Let's not forget the other half of the population that would scream how discriminatory the ID card requirement is against certain populations who can't easily get to the offices where they are given out. We have this debate currently with requirements for ID at polling stations.
    • danudey 9y ago
      A national ID card would be better for those kinds of people. You'd get one once and then be able to vote with it and you wouldn't have people at polling stations lying to you about what ID you needed. It wouldn't stop the issue of Republicans closing polling stations in minority communities, but it's a start.
    • yahna 9y ago
      Except that debate is dishonest because if the republicans actually cared about voter security the obvious response to "minorities don't have access to ID" is "okay, lets fund a program to get everyone ID". Of course the democrats fall for the trap every time, because using security as an excuse for taking away rights is almost as good as using child porn as an excuse for censorship and monitoring. People go "oh yeah, that sounds reasonable"
  • snerbles 9y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if dismissals similar to yours were made to those concerned about the IBM's tabulation machines arriving in 1930s Germany.
  • tryingagainbro 9y ago
    what is the problem that needs to be solved differently? IRS that collects TRILLIONS a year gave a $7.25 MILLION contract to connect a few dots to a company that can. Do you realize how little is $7.25m to USA? About 3-4 Tomahawk missiles and that money probably paid for itself several times over (probably to ID tax "cheaters".)
• AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > You guys really should get smart ID cards like every other sane country. We should not. You don't have EU-issued ID, we don't need US-issued ID. When you drop off your clothes at a dry cleaner, they give you a ticket that lets you pick them up again. They don't need an ID number that lets them correlate your dry cleaning with your Amazon purchases and your phone's location history and your medical records and your tax returns. And we shouldn't give them one.
  • 794CD01 9y ago
    If I did have such a number, the dry cleaner could know when I was on my way to the store and bring my clothes up to the counter so they are ready when I arrive. And they could hold my amazon purchases for me to pick up at the same time.
    • AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      Why would I want my USB adapter delivered to my dry cleaner instead of my home or workplace? Literally none of those things require a national ID anyway. You can just give them that information, if you want to. The ID only allows to it to happen without your consent. Including all the things you don't want, like price discrimination.
      • 794CD01 9y ago
        If that's your preference, then instead you'd opt to have your dry cleaning delivered to your home or workplace as well.
        • AnthonyMouse 9y ago
          In which case it no longer has any relationship with your Amazon purchases, which come from an entirely different place. And still doesn't require a national ID to implement.
          • 794CD01 9y ago
• EGreg 9y ago
  Smart ID cards? That's so last century. People have been replacing cards in ther wallet with apps on their phone. What you need is CONTROL OVER YOUR OWN IDENTITY. YOU SHOULD HAVE DIFFERENT IDS IN DIFFERENT DOMAINS. It is You who should choose to tell domain A that you are X on domain B. Tracking you across domains and cross-correlating databases shouldn't be as easy as looking for the same ID! You should use devices under your control to store private keys that let you authenticate. YOU should provision other devices, and repudiate compromised ones. And YOU should be able to see your friends joining domains like porn.com ONLY IF THEY WANT YOU TO. https://github.com/Qbix/auth https://github.com/Qbix/auth is a humble proposal for how to get from here to there.
  • ColinWright 9y ago
    I've been astonished recently over how many people can't even get their own name right when logging onto a site, let alone their password, or even their email. People are constantly unable to produce their identifying information - requiring them to have multiple IDs and remember which ones belong to which things is just never going to happen. I don't know what the solution is, but people in tech don't seem to realise just how hard the majority of people find it to recount anything with any accuracy.
    • abustamam 9y ago
      I always get my name wrong on legal websites because my legal name is Abdul-Rasheed Bustamam. Many sites, like the DMV, don't allow hyphens in names. So my other name is Abdul Rasheed Bustamam. Some sites don't like hyphens or spaces. So I become Abdul R Bustamam. R being my middle initial, and I don't have a middle name. Then, some sites have a length limit so I often become Abdul Rashee Bustamam. These are for organizations like insurance, government, credit cards; when I checked and froze my credit I counted about eight different "legal" names that I have. I use a password/email manager to manage passwords, but unfortunately there's no name manager :)
      • danudey 9y ago
        Pet peeve as a Canadian: our postal codes are two sets of three characters, alternating letters and numbers (correctly written as A0B 1P0). Websites invariably fail to accept my postal code because of one of two issues: I did put in a space, or I did not put in a space. It's mind-blowing to me that website developers can't come up with a solution to this problem other than (mistakenly) telling me what my postal code should or should not look like, when the rules are pretty simple. The other cardinal sin: Canada Post will sell you a gigantic database of postal codes and associated addresses, so you can look up an address for a given postal code. In many cases a postal code will tell you a specific street, specific side of the street, or in the case of condos or apartment buildings, will identify a specific building, so this is great for making sure the delivery address makes sense. Unfortunately, new buildings and their postal codes are being created all the time, so I've had a few cases where I couldn't order something online because my (three year old) postal code wasn't in their database, so they just gave me an error saying "check your postal code and try again". I ended up having to get a friend of mine to order my wife's birthday present once because it wouldn't accept my postal code for either billing or shipping. All of this because someone thought they'd be smart and fucked it up.
• brainfire 9y ago
  Federal employees wouldn't implement a project like that - contractors would. Like Equifax. (Or my employer, for whom I am not speaking.)