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It doesn’t take a religious nut or a conspiracy theorist to see the catastrophically enormous downsides of universally mandated, centrally managed, and cryptog

It doesn’t take a religious nut or a conspiracy theorist to see the catastrophically enormous downsides of universally mandated, centrally managed, and cryptographically-backed state identification cards, complete with RFID. Imagine, for example, that upon declaring a protest unlawful, the police could simply scan all the RFID-enabled ID cards in the area and issue everyone a court summons. Not carrying an ID card? No access to anything - public transportation, payments, and can’t even authorize your car to start. Also, it’s a felony to do so intentionally and with intent to evade law enforcement monitoring. State wants to search your laptop? Your 2FA and disk encryption is mandatorily tied to your ID card, and the state holds keys in escrow. Some things should be onerous for the state and decentralized. This is absolutely one of those things.

getcrunk 4y ago
It sucks that this seems to be the only way. Why can’t we support both. Given how QR codes are forcefully replacing menus with no paper fallback options seems to be the only way
jszymborski 4y ago
See, I totally agree that you shouldn't require identification for most services. But, for things like banking, car registration, etc... we require strong ID'ing, and it behooves society to make it secure. I still think municipalities should own their own data rather than have it stored at a central federal level, but we need municipalities to rely on something better than a serially-issued social insurance/security number which I have stored in a million databases that can pop at any second. It's easy to dream of the future dystopia and ignore the one we live in now, where identity theft is trivial.
- shortstuffsushi 4y ago
  Worth calling out imo, in our current world you have recourse and an ability to "recover" from identity theft (to some extent). If the government controls your identity and revokes some piece, what can you do?
  - jszymborski 4y ago
    What stops them from doing that today? What stops a government from not renewing your driver's license or passport or not issuing a SIN/SSN or leaking your SIN/SSN? How about just denying you federal services _after_ providing ID? How about putting you on a watch list? Governments have been using IDs to deny services to oppressed peoples since IDs existed, but I think the options that leaves you with is to fight for a free and democratic government or not have IDs.
    - shortstuffsushi 4y ago
      I don't disagree that there are ways the government can deny you service now, just mean wrt a non-government example like identity theft, you at least have some path forward.
- logifail 4y ago
  > car registration, etc... we require strong ID'ing Can you elaborate on what you mean by "strong"? I've been involved in precisely three car purchases over the last 20 years, and I don't recall what was involved in the way of ID checks. Have the feeling that at most some government-issued ID may have been pulled out of a wallet, presented ... and glanced at. The dealer handled the registration in every case. Oh, and in all three of those purchases we drove a (brand new) vehicle away from the dealer having paid not even a deposit and clutching a paper invoice(!) with the verbal instruction to pay it "straight away". Guess we seemed trustworthy :)
  - jszymborski 4y ago
    I guess I should have phrased it as "we _should_ require strong ID'ing". Absolutely agree that currently you can get away with faxed signatures, photocopies of IDs, and all manner of incredibly "weak" ID'ing.
    - catiopatio 4y ago
      > "we _should_ require strong ID'ing". Why? I’d much rather live in a world where privacy is prioritized over making life easier for the police.
strbean 4y ago
There is quite a lot of slipper slope going on here. > centrally managed, and cryptographically-backed state identification cards, complete with RFID. Does not necessitate: > universally mandated > No access to anything > felony to do so intentionally > Your 2FA and disk encryption is mandatorily tied to your ID card All the latter things are awful, but we can have the first thing without any of the latter things.
- lzauz 4y ago
  Believe me if you have the first thing the latter things will eventually follow. At least in the EU "universally mandated" has been a reality for a very long time.
  - Pxtl 4y ago
    Then why haven't they done that already? "Hold your encryption key in escrow" is perfectly feasible without a national ID system.
  - Fargren 4y ago
    There are many places with mandated ID. Can you mention one in which any of the others on the list have "eventually followed"? You are presenting speculation as unavoidable fact.
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    That's the definition of the slippery slope fallacy. Those things need not necessarily follow, that's the point.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- heywherelogingo 4y ago
  Yet. It's not slippery slope, it's looking ahead. Is the ice on the lake cracked? No. Therefore there is no chance of it cracking? Setup, then execute, not necessarily immediately.
Pxtl 4y ago
We have many of those things already, but using flaky inconsistent ID forms like drivers' licenses and social numbers.
Fargren 4y ago
This is a strawman, and plainly untrue. Many countries have mandatory id. I have personally lived in Argentina and Spain, both of them have it, for close to a century (89 years in Spain, 54 years in Argentina, but it replaced a pre-exisitng system). The Spanish DNI has RFID. In neither place, nor any country with mandatory ID as far as I know, you get "no access to anything". The worst thing that can happen is that if the police choose to stop you, not carrying your ID can lead to you being taken to a police station temporarily. Which is not great, but not anywhere near close to what you are suggesting is inevitable. And police can detain you arbitrarily in places without state-mandated IDs, this is just a cute excuse that they can add to their repertoire.
- input_sh 4y ago
  If anything, I'm annoyed by having to have three IDs in my pocket (ID, drivers license, health insurance card) and still not being able to achieve much with them alone. There's usually some other document involved (proof of residence, birth certificate, something else).
- twblalock 4y ago
  Western Europe is one example where IDs have not been abused. But China is another example where they have been. If you give your governments tools that can be used for oppression, even if they aren’t abused today, it would make it easier for a new authoritarian government to abuse them later on. Spain was a dictatorship for much of the 20th century and Argentina had had multiple military dictatorships too — it could happen again. Europeans are far too confident that they have overcome the problems of the past by building the EU etc. A bit more American-style distrust of government would be a good thing.
  - Fargren 4y ago
    Both of the examples I used had mandatory state IDs during their dictatorships. The IDs were not significantly instrumental to the government's power. I don't think the addition of RFID really would change that in the event of a new dictatorship. But even if mandatory RFID IDs were a critical tool of authoritarian governments, what would prevent the dictator from issuing mandatory IDs after taking power?
arrrg 4y ago
In Germany at least there are several measures in place to make this slippery slope a fallacy (as it usually is) and not realistic. You can pick whether you want to have an ID card or a passport or both. You are not required to carry your ID card with you. In general the actually existing surveillance of mobile phones that were in a certain area at a certain time is much more worrisome to me.
- jll29 4y ago
  > You are not required to carry your ID card with you. "I am not a lawyer" but: "Deutsche im Sinne des Art. 116 Abs. 1 GG sind nach § 1 Personalausweisgesetz (PAuswG) verpflichtet, sobald sie 16 Jahre alt sind und der allgemeinen Meldepflicht unterliegen oder sich überwiegend in Deutschland aufhalten, einen gültigen Ausweis zu besitzen und ihn auf Verlangen einer zur Feststellung der Identität berechtigten Behörde vorzulegen sowie einen Abgleich mit dem Lichtbild des Ausweises zu ermöglichen." You must either carry a national ID document or, if you are requested to identify yourself by the police, make it available to them in reasonable time on request (say, if you left it at home, show it to them at a police station the next day).
  - f1shy 4y ago
    In the text says it clearly: you must have an ID, and you have to present it if requested. That does not means, you have to have it with you at all times. Exactly this is the kind of fine details that a lawyer distinguishes in the law. So no. Absolutely no. You do not have to carry it with you. If it comes to the need, then maybe the police have to scort you to your home and you have to show the ID. But you are not requested to have it with you at all times.
    - cf141q5325 4y ago
      Except technology makes it possible to constantly send get requests to everyone not carrying it. The limiting factor here was how much time police was willing to waste. Slippery slopes work exactly because people are incapable to predict the long term consequences for eroding safety standards and are at the same time arrogant enough to believe to be very much capable. Its cognitive biases at work in selecting some of the most reckless approaches for dangerous situations.
8note 4y ago
I don't think the government considers it much of an inconvenience to use violence to handle all of those things today. Automatically issuing court summonses without first using chemical weapons and forced restraints is pretty good actually. If youre trying to make it so the government can't prosecute people for protests, you need to get rid of the idea of an illegal protest The government can already torture, enslave, and kill you. If you can trust your government to handle those well, then this is no problem because they'll also handle ids responsibly. If government can't handle those things well, the ids don't make for much of a change wrt to the government The bigger disadvantages of a national id I think are that it moves ownership away from you, and to the card, like with block chain systems, the card is the owner, and you only have access to the card
- catiopatio 4y ago
  > I don't think the government considers it much of an inconvenience to use violence to handle all of those things today. Of course it does. It’s expensive, inefficient, and plays badly on TV. How much easier would it be if every single person could be identified automatically from a drone and arrested out of public view? How much more efficient if people suppressed themselves, and never attended a protest, out of fear of it being declared illegal and automatically receiving a summons (or worse, an arrest warrant)? > The government can already torture, enslave, and kill you. If you can trust your government to handle those well … I don’t trust them to handle those well. That’s why the legal system incorporates strong checks and balances, and even then is still ripe with corruption and abuse. Why would I want to give them more powerful tools with far less oversight? > If government can't handle those things well, the ids don't make for much of a change wrt to the government That’s absurd; if you don’t trust a government, facilitating their abuse of citizens obviously has a material impact on the scale and scope of their actions. Your argument, taken to its conclusion, would justify any privacy violation by the government.
Shorel 4y ago
I really don't see the problem with having an actual ID. We have universally mandated, centrally managed IDs in Colombia, and we have been using them for many decades now. I find the idea of using social security ID or a driving licence as an ID very backwards. I have a wallet that has RFID protection. Public transportation uses a different card, payments also use a different card (a normal bank card, like you surely have), and I don't see why you think these payments will be forcibly linked to the ID card. And don't get me started about laptops or smartphones. There's an application for smartphones that allows to have your ID digitally inside the app, and that's it. Your ID is not tied to any encryption or login. So, you actually sound a bit unreasonable. I repeat: the use of social security numbers or driving licences is very awkward in my opinion. An actual ID has many advantages.

getcrunk 4y ago

It sucks that this seems to be the only way. Why can’t we support both. Given how QR codes are forcefully replacing menus with no paper fallback options seems to be the only way

jszymborski 4y ago

See, I totally agree that you shouldn't require identification for most services. But, for things like banking, car registration, etc... we require strong ID'ing, and it behooves society to make it secure. I still think municipalities should own their own data rather than have it stored at a central federal level, but we need municipalities to rely on something better than a serially-issued social insurance/security number which I have stored in a million databases that can pop at any second. It's easy to dream of the future dystopia and ignore the one we live in now, where identity theft is trivial.

shortstuffsushi 4y ago
Worth calling out imo, in our current world you have recourse and an ability to "recover" from identity theft (to some extent). If the government controls your identity and revokes some piece, what can you do?
- jszymborski 4y ago
  What stops them from doing that today? What stops a government from not renewing your driver's license or passport or not issuing a SIN/SSN or leaking your SIN/SSN? How about just denying you federal services _after_ providing ID? How about putting you on a watch list? Governments have been using IDs to deny services to oppressed peoples since IDs existed, but I think the options that leaves you with is to fight for a free and democratic government or not have IDs.
  - shortstuffsushi 4y ago
    I don't disagree that there are ways the government can deny you service now, just mean wrt a non-government example like identity theft, you at least have some path forward.
logifail 4y ago
> car registration, etc... we require strong ID'ing Can you elaborate on what you mean by "strong"? I've been involved in precisely three car purchases over the last 20 years, and I don't recall what was involved in the way of ID checks. Have the feeling that at most some government-issued ID may have been pulled out of a wallet, presented ... and glanced at. The dealer handled the registration in every case. Oh, and in all three of those purchases we drove a (brand new) vehicle away from the dealer having paid not even a deposit and clutching a paper invoice(!) with the verbal instruction to pay it "straight away". Guess we seemed trustworthy :)
- jszymborski 4y ago
  I guess I should have phrased it as "we _should_ require strong ID'ing". Absolutely agree that currently you can get away with faxed signatures, photocopies of IDs, and all manner of incredibly "weak" ID'ing.
  - catiopatio 4y ago
    > "we _should_ require strong ID'ing". Why? I’d much rather live in a world where privacy is prioritized over making life easier for the police.

strbean 4y ago

There is quite a lot of slipper slope going on here. > centrally managed, and cryptographically-backed state identification cards, complete with RFID. Does not necessitate: > universally mandated > No access to anything > felony to do so intentionally > Your 2FA and disk encryption is mandatorily tied to your ID card All the latter things are awful, but we can have the first thing without any of the latter things.

lzauz 4y ago
Believe me if you have the first thing the latter things will eventually follow. At least in the EU "universally mandated" has been a reality for a very long time.
- Pxtl 4y ago
  Then why haven't they done that already? "Hold your encryption key in escrow" is perfectly feasible without a national ID system.
- Fargren 4y ago
  There are many places with mandated ID. Can you mention one in which any of the others on the list have "eventually followed"? You are presenting speculation as unavoidable fact.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  That's the definition of the slippery slope fallacy. Those things need not necessarily follow, that's the point.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
heywherelogingo 4y ago
Yet. It's not slippery slope, it's looking ahead. Is the ice on the lake cracked? No. Therefore there is no chance of it cracking? Setup, then execute, not necessarily immediately.

Pxtl 4y ago

We have many of those things already, but using flaky inconsistent ID forms like drivers' licenses and social numbers.

Fargren 4y ago

This is a strawman, and plainly untrue. Many countries have mandatory id. I have personally lived in Argentina and Spain, both of them have it, for close to a century (89 years in Spain, 54 years in Argentina, but it replaced a pre-exisitng system). The Spanish DNI has RFID. In neither place, nor any country with mandatory ID as far as I know, you get "no access to anything". The worst thing that can happen is that if the police choose to stop you, not carrying your ID can lead to you being taken to a police station temporarily. Which is not great, but not anywhere near close to what you are suggesting is inevitable. And police can detain you arbitrarily in places without state-mandated IDs, this is just a cute excuse that they can add to their repertoire.

input_sh 4y ago
If anything, I'm annoyed by having to have three IDs in my pocket (ID, drivers license, health insurance card) and still not being able to achieve much with them alone. There's usually some other document involved (proof of residence, birth certificate, something else).
twblalock 4y ago
Western Europe is one example where IDs have not been abused. But China is another example where they have been. If you give your governments tools that can be used for oppression, even if they aren’t abused today, it would make it easier for a new authoritarian government to abuse them later on. Spain was a dictatorship for much of the 20th century and Argentina had had multiple military dictatorships too — it could happen again. Europeans are far too confident that they have overcome the problems of the past by building the EU etc. A bit more American-style distrust of government would be a good thing.
- Fargren 4y ago
  Both of the examples I used had mandatory state IDs during their dictatorships. The IDs were not significantly instrumental to the government's power. I don't think the addition of RFID really would change that in the event of a new dictatorship. But even if mandatory RFID IDs were a critical tool of authoritarian governments, what would prevent the dictator from issuing mandatory IDs after taking power?

arrrg 4y ago

In Germany at least there are several measures in place to make this slippery slope a fallacy (as it usually is) and not realistic. You can pick whether you want to have an ID card or a passport or both. You are not required to carry your ID card with you. In general the actually existing surveillance of mobile phones that were in a certain area at a certain time is much more worrisome to me.

jll29 4y ago
> You are not required to carry your ID card with you. "I am not a lawyer" but: "Deutsche im Sinne des Art. 116 Abs. 1 GG sind nach § 1 Personalausweisgesetz (PAuswG) verpflichtet, sobald sie 16 Jahre alt sind und der allgemeinen Meldepflicht unterliegen oder sich überwiegend in Deutschland aufhalten, einen gültigen Ausweis zu besitzen und ihn auf Verlangen einer zur Feststellung der Identität berechtigten Behörde vorzulegen sowie einen Abgleich mit dem Lichtbild des Ausweises zu ermöglichen." You must either carry a national ID document or, if you are requested to identify yourself by the police, make it available to them in reasonable time on request (say, if you left it at home, show it to them at a police station the next day).
- f1shy 4y ago
  In the text says it clearly: you must have an ID, and you have to present it if requested. That does not means, you have to have it with you at all times. Exactly this is the kind of fine details that a lawyer distinguishes in the law. So no. Absolutely no. You do not have to carry it with you. If it comes to the need, then maybe the police have to scort you to your home and you have to show the ID. But you are not requested to have it with you at all times.
  - cf141q5325 4y ago
    Except technology makes it possible to constantly send get requests to everyone not carrying it. The limiting factor here was how much time police was willing to waste. Slippery slopes work exactly because people are incapable to predict the long term consequences for eroding safety standards and are at the same time arrogant enough to believe to be very much capable. Its cognitive biases at work in selecting some of the most reckless approaches for dangerous situations.

8note 4y ago

I don't think the government considers it much of an inconvenience to use violence to handle all of those things today. Automatically issuing court summonses without first using chemical weapons and forced restraints is pretty good actually. If youre trying to make it so the government can't prosecute people for protests, you need to get rid of the idea of an illegal protest The government can already torture, enslave, and kill you. If you can trust your government to handle those well, then this is no problem because they'll also handle ids responsibly. If government can't handle those things well, the ids don't make for much of a change wrt to the government The bigger disadvantages of a national id I think are that it moves ownership away from you, and to the card, like with block chain systems, the card is the owner, and you only have access to the card

catiopatio 4y ago
> I don't think the government considers it much of an inconvenience to use violence to handle all of those things today. Of course it does. It’s expensive, inefficient, and plays badly on TV. How much easier would it be if every single person could be identified automatically from a drone and arrested out of public view? How much more efficient if people suppressed themselves, and never attended a protest, out of fear of it being declared illegal and automatically receiving a summons (or worse, an arrest warrant)? > The government can already torture, enslave, and kill you. If you can trust your government to handle those well … I don’t trust them to handle those well. That’s why the legal system incorporates strong checks and balances, and even then is still ripe with corruption and abuse. Why would I want to give them more powerful tools with far less oversight? > If government can't handle those things well, the ids don't make for much of a change wrt to the government That’s absurd; if you don’t trust a government, facilitating their abuse of citizens obviously has a material impact on the scale and scope of their actions. Your argument, taken to its conclusion, would justify any privacy violation by the government.

Shorel 4y ago

I really don't see the problem with having an actual ID. We have universally mandated, centrally managed IDs in Colombia, and we have been using them for many decades now. I find the idea of using social security ID or a driving licence as an ID very backwards. I have a wallet that has RFID protection. Public transportation uses a different card, payments also use a different card (a normal bank card, like you surely have), and I don't see why you think these payments will be forcibly linked to the ID card. And don't get me started about laptops or smartphones. There's an application for smartphones that allows to have your ID digitally inside the app, and that's it. Your ID is not tied to any encryption or login. So, you actually sound a bit unreasonable. I repeat: the use of social security numbers or driving licences is very awkward in my opinion. An actual ID has many advantages.