19 ms·

Your name is way too long for your ID

103 points by bpierre 13y ago

bpierre 13y ago
There is an interesting article on w3.org about names and websites assumptions: http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names
- chiph 13y ago
  I've tried to promote one of their suggestions -- having just one big name field, plus another for "How do acquaintances address you?" to let the user enter what they want to be called in an email greeting. So far, not one employer has gone for it. Just too radical an idea -- to let the user self-identify.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
    Don't have just one. I'd suggest two: * What is your full name, including title? (e.g. Mr John Jules Smith, Señor José Hernández Fernádéz, Kim Ban-Moon) * How do you wish to be referred to? (e.g. Mr Smith, John, Sñr Hernández, Mr Kim) * How should we address you? (e.g. Mr Smith or John)
    - chiph 13y ago
      The one I've considered adding is: "How would people would expect to find you in the phone directory?" Which covers the Icelandic given-name first scenario, as well as the matronymic vs patronymic issue. This puts the person in control of what to sort on, while how to sort it would be controlled by the active user's culture settings.
      - patmcc 13y ago
        This has the problem of any user under 20 asking "What's a phone directory?"
cstross 13y ago
See also "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names": http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b... (This falls under point #6)
- grannyg00se 13y ago
  But should we really worry about the 0.01% outlier who has seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon? More on topic, why should official systems allow for names of arbitrary length? Obviously your 1800 character preference for last name is not going to fit on all standard forms of identification. A standards-compliant name should be issued and you can use your preferred name for personal matters.
  - TillE 13y ago
    > the 0.01% outlier who has seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon? I cannot adequately express my dislike for this kind of mockery. Seriously, fucking stop it.
    - jrockway 13y ago
      Probably time to adjust your meds.
    - grannyg00se 13y ago
      Did you read the link in cstross' reply? I'm not mocking anything. Some combination of those rules would actually require this type of naming situation.
      - kordless 13y ago
        Did you really just rationalize this using a blog post? To quote #36 on the list you are referencing: "You’re kidding me, right?" Scribble: to cover with scribbles, doodles, or meaningless marks. Names aren't meaningless, and TMK names don't change depending on the time of month. By phrasing things the way you are, you are making generalized (and fictitious) blaming statements about something that is very personal. And you got called out on it.
polymatter 13y ago
I had a similar problem. I have a Brazilian name which means I have multiple middle names which normally means it can't fit in the required space. When I renewed my UK Passport they just decided to lose one of my names. I was furious, but it became clear I'd need to go through administrative hell to correct it, and I needed the passport at the time. Some time later, I've just given up on having my full name. I prefer just to give out a firstname lastname and ignore my middlenames. Its just far too much hassle to go through. As far as I am concerned, I have an external name which fits in ASCII and complies with anglo-centric formulae and an internal name which doesn't. Thats just my personal choice though. My sister is defiant and managed to get her full name on by demanding that it was an unhyphenated triple barreled surname.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Is what your sister claimed sort-of correct anyway? An English middle name is generally a given name that can perfectly well be totally unrelated to family history. It's my understanding that Brazilian (and Portuguese) "middle names" are usually if not always family names, are they not? Insisting that they are part of your surname sounds like it might be the easiest way to get it accepted - it is common enough in Europe to have surnames with spaces. E.g. a Dutch surname like "Van der Vaart", or "Van Helsing", so it's quite likely various agencies etc. run into that often enough.
  - jotaass 13y ago
    It's quite usual to have two family names, one from your mother's side and another from your father's. Usually the father's family name comes last, but it's by no means a rule, more of a social norm (and somewhat fading). Additionally, it's also perfectly reasonable to have two or more "first names". The consequence of all of this, and having four names myself, is that I'm always confused what I'm supposed to fill in as my first and last names. I end up using just my very first and very last, but i always feel like I'm being disrespectful towards my mother's family for the omission.
    - cgore 13y ago
cocoflunchy 13y ago
Similar story here... My first and middle name were concatenated on my social security card, and I lost a few letters in the process too.
randyrand 13y ago
As much as I want to agree, there needs to be some standardization. Whether its the supported character set or the name lengths, it's literally impossible to support everything. Personally I think every state should have a list of legal constraints for a name - maybe they already do.
- snitko 13y ago
  For god's sake. It's just a piece of paper. If a name is too long for it, well, damn, spend some additional time and customize it and print this one special id.
  - emhart 13y ago
    This. Whether for this specific case or in general, the rigidity of these sort of governmental/administrative systems dehumanize us. We are engaged in a conversation about the standardization of names, about applying limits to our given, or chosen names because of? What? Suppressing cultural or personal identities...why? So everyone can parse your name on an ID? For a community that routinely cries out against national ID laws and champions the right to anonymity, many of the comments on this thread surprise me.
  - sukuriant 13y ago
    Because that will totally go well when it's checked against it being a fraud. Standardization makes finding frauds easier
- daxelrod 13y ago
  It's the implementation of this that's the difficult part. You also need to standardize how names are canonified into these legal constraints for when someone moves into the state. Worse, there are lots of expectations that your state and federal IDs will have matching names (or at least, names that match in the ways people expect: First and Last, with some leeway for a middle to not be there at all or be truncated to an initial). See also this discussion of naming in Japan for the difficulties people run into when there is a system with both Nicknames and Legal Names: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6145768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6145768
xradionut 13y ago
I've work with names and other demographic data darn near my entire career. I've also had name issues due to the length of one of my names. Things are better and more accommodating than twenty years ago when every byte was precious. But some cultures and individuals get ridiculous. I'm not allocating 400 characters of space in a standard name field just because you want to include your family tree, PGP key, DNA sequence and homeland geology in your name. (I will put this in another table, and link it relationally so the software and the people can access your true name.)
- colanderman 13y ago
  Yes, who cares about those ridiculous cultures. Why can't they just use normal names that can be represented by 10 or fewer ASCII characters like the rest of us? They're just being difficult.
  - xradionut 13y ago
    Don't be absurd. Software can be made to be very accommodating. Most systems I work on allocate a 50 character nvarchar for a full name, various fields for prefix, first, last, multiple middles, suffix, maiden, titles, informal salutation, aliases, nick names, gender change issues, etc. And various flags and other fields/tables for exceptions, notes and warnings, etc... But you wouldn't believe the bad data and crap people put in name fields unless you've worked with a huge number of sources over the years. I've seen every bad variation possible. And that's not including address fields. Or combined name/address fields with multiple names and multiple addresses in the same record with a complexity that would vex a dyslexic Talmudic scholar.
    - blackhole 13y ago
      Sarcasm. You're missing it.
- king_jester 13y ago
  > But some cultures and individuals get ridiculous. I'm not allocating 400 characters of space in a standard name field just because you want to include your family tree, PGP key, DNA sequence and homeland geology in your name. (I will put this in another table, and link it relationally so the software and the people can access your true name.) This attitude boils down to "I write software that is easy for me to write, not easy for you to use." Why should any user want to use the software a developer that is hostile to their existence?
kbart 13y ago
scribbles a note to himself "who the f__k would need a name field in UI longer than 32 symbols" is not a valid argument.
madaxe 13y ago
On a tangent - NP really need to obfuscate those ID's better. Pixellating is pretty readily reversible - you just need the base card image (find it or shop it), and you can then brute-force by iterating through numbers/letters as needed for each field, pixellating, and comparing the outputs. Edit: in fact, as they've included two images with the same info, pixellated differently, you could almost certainly heuristically solve without brute-forcing. Eigenvectors, baby.
- leif 13y ago
  Thanks, now I need to spend the rest of the day looking for a reason to say "eigenvectors, baby."
- kordless 13y ago
  You reminded me of this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_means_dodgy_numbers_and_dangerous_designs/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_me... I wonder if you did reverse out her name if it would have all the right characters in it, and if it didn't, what sort of changes to would make her family heritage in the process? :)
- ars 13y ago
  There is nothing secret on the ID, so they didn't really need to pixelize it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
michalu 13y ago
"disrespectful to all Hawaiian people" some people will say and make themselves believe anything to get their 15 minutes of fame. I am foreigner living in UK and local council and government constantly screw up foreigners names, we always have a good laugh about it with friends.
- btilly 13y ago
  Did you note that she lives in Hawaii? Screwing up foreigner's names is one thing. Screwing up the locals is another. The locals in this case still resent the way that the USA took over in a coup. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Kingdom_of_Haw... for the history.
  - EvanKelly 13y ago
    There's actually more to the story. She's not actually Hawaiian, but she married a native Hawaiian and took his name. He passed away and she wants to keep the name to remember him by. In Hawaii right now there seem to be two prevailing schools of thought. 1) It's the state's responsibility to respect everyone's name. 2) She shouldn't have to change her name, but they don't have to put the whole thing on her ID
isaacjohnwesley 13y ago
She should live in India, all her identification cards will have shortened names automatically because the data entry operator names the citizen here and not parents. I have so much trouble with Isaac and Issac :(
notjustanymike 13y ago
Note to self: never hire a Hawaiian to write code! I can just picture it now: function convertThisDecimalDeclaredByMyCoworkerTimToBackWhenWeStartedThisCompanyThreeYearsAgoAnInteger() {}
- didgeoridoo 13y ago
  Oh so like Objective-C?
DanBC 13y ago
The article links to another article about names in New Zealand, which need government approval. (http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/01/world/asia/new-zealand-stange-baby-names/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/01/world/asia/new-zealand-sta...) I thought that some people were just sending comedy names because, well, that's what some people do. But some parents aren't joking around: > Four years ago, a 9-year-old girl was taken away from her parents by the state so that her name could be changed from "Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii." (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/24/familyandrelationships.newzealand http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/24/familyan...) > A family court judge, Rob Murfitt, gave the order after hearing that the child was embarrassed about her name and had refused to reveal it to friends. "She told people her name was K because she feared being mocked and teased," the child's lawyer, Colleen MacLeod, told the court. > The judge criticised parents who give their offspring bizarre names, saying it exposed children to ridicule among their peers. > "The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment that this child's parents have shown in choosing this name. It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap, unnecessarily," he said.
mavhc 13y ago
And that's why everyone should be referred to by their assigned 128 bit GUID
pixelcort 13y ago
I am a U.S. citizen who recently moved to Japan. When I entered the country, my first and middle names were combined to create a 20 character given name that appears on my Japan-issued ID. Ignoring the more common issues of computer systems not accepting non-Japanese names, it has been a bureaucratic nightmare, struggling with applying for credit cards, opening banking and investment accounts, and linking things together, as each system has different lengths limits for names, and in some systems my name is input as Unicode "double width romaji", which in some systems will not match the otherwise identical ASCII version of the name. I truly wish I was offered the ability during immigration to just drop the middle name, but even then my first name is longer than some systems' 5 character limit, where I am often put in as "Cortl".
- Pxtl 13y ago
  > "double width romaji" The double-width latin characters are the bane of every data analysis using Asian data. It's a roll of the dice whether any given Latin character will be in typical ASCII form or double-width form. I'm sure there's some "seriously insensitive character comparison" library out there, but it's not built into my SQL server's "LIKE" operator, that's for sure.
  - rspeer 13y ago
    The seriously insensitive character comparison you're looking for is NFKC normalization (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_equivalence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_equivalence). You would probably be able to normalize all your strings before putting them into your database. You'd lose no functionality unless at some point later you really did need to distinguish "C" from "Ｃ".
Smirnoff 13y ago
You don't have to go too far. Twitter doesn't let me put my full name either. I have a typical Russian name (Vladislav) and a last name that consists of 11 letters. Is that really too long for Twitter to handle?
- batuhanicoz 13y ago
  My full name is "Fırat Batuhan İçöz", it is 17 characters (including the space between my first and middle name). And Twitter didn't have a problem with it, when I used my full name in the past. And just tried adding my first name again, it works.
tilsammans 13y ago
Let's for a minute assume that we as developers will be able to agree on some sort of best practice. The "Falsehoods" article and the W3C page mentioned in the comments are good, valuable resources and I really hope developers across the world will take them into consideration. Then it is time to show your form to the client and he/she goes nuts! "People must enter their full name". Okay they can just write their full name into this text input. "No they must enter both first and last name". But not everyone in the world has a first and last name. Icelandic people? "Just require a space in the name". Like nobody in China has? "Don't argue with me, I am the client, require a space!!!ONE!" It's discussions like these I feel I can't really win. Most clients aren't technical, they are chock full of assumptions and they are not paying me to argue with them, they are paying me to require first name and last name and quick! I understand that education needs to happen but there are limits as to how much education your client accepts from you before he goes to a different shop.
- viraptor 13y ago
  Iceland has both first and last names, afaik. It's just the inheritance (first name + suffix becomes child's last name) and sorting that changes (usually by first rather than last name).
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    China has first names and last names too. I don't see why that client is a problem. Especially since I'd have no idea how to isolate the family name without having multiple fields or a space. It seems like either half could be 1-2 characters, so what do you do with a three character full name?
- mcherm 13y ago
  I try to explain to my clients that one of the advantages I bring (one of the reasons they pay me the "big bucks") is that I have knowledge about these kinds of things and I can bring that to the table. Of course, that means I have to be judicious. I am NOT going to tell the US bank that I work for that they should support people without a separate first and last name when that is FAR more rare among their customers than people who type wrong and SHOULD have entered a space, so checking for a space will annoy 2 customers while protecting 1000 from stupid typing errors.
notallama 13y ago
solution 1: spill over to second card. solution 2: hash function
matthuggins 13y ago
I love the level of ignorance in the comments on that article. e.g.: > I doubt she can even pronounce it. or: > I am surprised her first name is Janice? She should change it to IamsofullofmyselfbecauseIamsospecialbecauseImarriedahawainman. ...and the list goes on. Just because your heritage has shorter names or names that don't sound anything like hers doesn't mean your culture is "right" or something. People need to learn to be more open-minded.
pacofvf 13y ago
until recently I couldn't use my last name in Facebook, and its pattern it's very common in Spanish: "de la Fuente"
ck2 13y ago
Am I the only one who wants to know how it is pronounced and what the meaning possibly is? I'm with her on this one but I am curious how a government would handle an ancestral name that has glyphs.
- wcfields 13y ago
  I wonder if a first nations person in Canada can have the syllabics[1] put on their ID? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics
- baddox 13y ago
  Or an ancestral name with 10^1000 letters. It's easy to reduce the argument to absurdity.
- joshz 13y ago
  How it's pronounced: http://www.khon2.com/2013/09/10/action-line-state-alters-womans-name-after-it-fails-to-fit-on-drivers-license/ http://www.khon2.com/2013/09/10/action-line-state-alters-wom...
orng 13y ago
Similarly: here in Iceland your official full name cannot exceed 32 characters, including spaces, due to legacy database constraints. It's retarded and has been highly debated recently.
mrweasel 13y ago
That reminds me that SAP has yet to respond to my question "Is SAP Business One not sold in Sweden". For some reason it has been decided that 50 characters are enough for a field that contains first middle- and last- name. Normally you can just deal with the extremely long name when and if they occur, but 50 characters is pushing it a bit.
rocky1138 13y ago
I've had arguments with people in the past about this sort of thing: names are overrated and not a unique identifier. If the UID on the identification card matches the info in the system, the card ID is valid and up-to-date, the face matches, and the name is close, it's a match.
jjindev 13y ago
On most days start-up programmers think about carving out a solution for a large enough serviceable, available, market. Time to market matters. Mark it as an open issue and move on. Etc. On other days, programmers are advised that it is culturally insensitive to leave anyone behind. People are mock-scolded that if they don't allocate their efforts to the 0.01% subset of their name system, they are bad people, whatever start-up dream they had. BTW, my family used the Scandinavian "-sen" system of naming, until the government told everyone they had to stop, that heritable names made tracking easier. I'm one of the thousands/millions of people worldwide locked in as "son of Jens."

103 points by bpierre 13y ago

There is an interesting article on w3.org about names and websites assumptions: http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names

chiph 13y ago
I've tried to promote one of their suggestions -- having just one big name field, plus another for "How do acquaintances address you?" to let the user enter what they want to be called in an email greeting. So far, not one employer has gone for it. Just too radical an idea -- to let the user self-identify.
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  Don't have just one. I'd suggest two: * What is your full name, including title? (e.g. Mr John Jules Smith, Señor José Hernández Fernádéz, Kim Ban-Moon) * How do you wish to be referred to? (e.g. Mr Smith, John, Sñr Hernández, Mr Kim) * How should we address you? (e.g. Mr Smith or John)
  - chiph 13y ago
    The one I've considered adding is: "How would people would expect to find you in the phone directory?" Which covers the Icelandic given-name first scenario, as well as the matronymic vs patronymic issue. This puts the person in control of what to sort on, while how to sort it would be controlled by the active user's culture settings.
    - patmcc 13y ago
      This has the problem of any user under 20 asking "What's a phone directory?"

cstross 13y ago

See also "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names": http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b... (This falls under point #6)

grannyg00se 13y ago
But should we really worry about the 0.01% outlier who has seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon? More on topic, why should official systems allow for names of arbitrary length? Obviously your 1800 character preference for last name is not going to fit on all standard forms of identification. A standards-compliant name should be issued and you can use your preferred name for personal matters.
- TillE 13y ago
  > the 0.01% outlier who has seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon? I cannot adequately express my dislike for this kind of mockery. Seriously, fucking stop it.
  - jrockway 13y ago
    Probably time to adjust your meds.
  - grannyg00se 13y ago
    Did you read the link in cstross' reply? I'm not mocking anything. Some combination of those rules would actually require this type of naming situation.
    - kordless 13y ago
      Did you really just rationalize this using a blog post? To quote #36 on the list you are referencing: "You’re kidding me, right?" Scribble: to cover with scribbles, doodles, or meaningless marks. Names aren't meaningless, and TMK names don't change depending on the time of month. By phrasing things the way you are, you are making generalized (and fictitious) blaming statements about something that is very personal. And you got called out on it.

polymatter 13y ago

I had a similar problem. I have a Brazilian name which means I have multiple middle names which normally means it can't fit in the required space. When I renewed my UK Passport they just decided to lose one of my names. I was furious, but it became clear I'd need to go through administrative hell to correct it, and I needed the passport at the time. Some time later, I've just given up on having my full name. I prefer just to give out a firstname lastname and ignore my middlenames. Its just far too much hassle to go through. As far as I am concerned, I have an external name which fits in ASCII and complies with anglo-centric formulae and an internal name which doesn't. Thats just my personal choice though. My sister is defiant and managed to get her full name on by demanding that it was an unhyphenated triple barreled surname.

vidarh 13y ago
Is what your sister claimed sort-of correct anyway? An English middle name is generally a given name that can perfectly well be totally unrelated to family history. It's my understanding that Brazilian (and Portuguese) "middle names" are usually if not always family names, are they not? Insisting that they are part of your surname sounds like it might be the easiest way to get it accepted - it is common enough in Europe to have surnames with spaces. E.g. a Dutch surname like "Van der Vaart", or "Van Helsing", so it's quite likely various agencies etc. run into that often enough.
- jotaass 13y ago
  It's quite usual to have two family names, one from your mother's side and another from your father's. Usually the father's family name comes last, but it's by no means a rule, more of a social norm (and somewhat fading). Additionally, it's also perfectly reasonable to have two or more "first names". The consequence of all of this, and having four names myself, is that I'm always confused what I'm supposed to fill in as my first and last names. I end up using just my very first and very last, but i always feel like I'm being disrespectful towards my mother's family for the omission.
  - cgore 13y ago

cocoflunchy 13y ago

Similar story here... My first and middle name were concatenated on my social security card, and I lost a few letters in the process too.

randyrand 13y ago

As much as I want to agree, there needs to be some standardization. Whether its the supported character set or the name lengths, it's literally impossible to support everything. Personally I think every state should have a list of legal constraints for a name - maybe they already do.

snitko 13y ago
For god's sake. It's just a piece of paper. If a name is too long for it, well, damn, spend some additional time and customize it and print this one special id.
- emhart 13y ago
  This. Whether for this specific case or in general, the rigidity of these sort of governmental/administrative systems dehumanize us. We are engaged in a conversation about the standardization of names, about applying limits to our given, or chosen names because of? What? Suppressing cultural or personal identities...why? So everyone can parse your name on an ID? For a community that routinely cries out against national ID laws and champions the right to anonymity, many of the comments on this thread surprise me.
- sukuriant 13y ago
  Because that will totally go well when it's checked against it being a fraud. Standardization makes finding frauds easier
daxelrod 13y ago
It's the implementation of this that's the difficult part. You also need to standardize how names are canonified into these legal constraints for when someone moves into the state. Worse, there are lots of expectations that your state and federal IDs will have matching names (or at least, names that match in the ways people expect: First and Last, with some leeway for a middle to not be there at all or be truncated to an initial). See also this discussion of naming in Japan for the difficulties people run into when there is a system with both Nicknames and Legal Names: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6145768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6145768

xradionut 13y ago

I've work with names and other demographic data darn near my entire career. I've also had name issues due to the length of one of my names. Things are better and more accommodating than twenty years ago when every byte was precious. But some cultures and individuals get ridiculous. I'm not allocating 400 characters of space in a standard name field just because you want to include your family tree, PGP key, DNA sequence and homeland geology in your name. (I will put this in another table, and link it relationally so the software and the people can access your true name.)

colanderman 13y ago
Yes, who cares about those ridiculous cultures. Why can't they just use normal names that can be represented by 10 or fewer ASCII characters like the rest of us? They're just being difficult.
- xradionut 13y ago
  Don't be absurd. Software can be made to be very accommodating. Most systems I work on allocate a 50 character nvarchar for a full name, various fields for prefix, first, last, multiple middles, suffix, maiden, titles, informal salutation, aliases, nick names, gender change issues, etc. And various flags and other fields/tables for exceptions, notes and warnings, etc... But you wouldn't believe the bad data and crap people put in name fields unless you've worked with a huge number of sources over the years. I've seen every bad variation possible. And that's not including address fields. Or combined name/address fields with multiple names and multiple addresses in the same record with a complexity that would vex a dyslexic Talmudic scholar.
  - blackhole 13y ago
    Sarcasm. You're missing it.
king_jester 13y ago
> But some cultures and individuals get ridiculous. I'm not allocating 400 characters of space in a standard name field just because you want to include your family tree, PGP key, DNA sequence and homeland geology in your name. (I will put this in another table, and link it relationally so the software and the people can access your true name.) This attitude boils down to "I write software that is easy for me to write, not easy for you to use." Why should any user want to use the software a developer that is hostile to their existence?

kbart 13y ago

scribbles a note to himself "who the f__k would need a name field in UI longer than 32 symbols" is not a valid argument.

madaxe 13y ago

On a tangent - NP really need to obfuscate those ID's better. Pixellating is pretty readily reversible - you just need the base card image (find it or shop it), and you can then brute-force by iterating through numbers/letters as needed for each field, pixellating, and comparing the outputs. Edit: in fact, as they've included two images with the same info, pixellated differently, you could almost certainly heuristically solve without brute-forcing. Eigenvectors, baby.

leif 13y ago
Thanks, now I need to spend the rest of the day looking for a reason to say "eigenvectors, baby."
kordless 13y ago
You reminded me of this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_means_dodgy_numbers_and_dangerous_designs/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_me... I wonder if you did reverse out her name if it would have all the right characters in it, and if it didn't, what sort of changes to would make her family heritage in the process? :)
ars 13y ago
There is nothing secret on the ID, so they didn't really need to pixelize it.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

michalu 13y ago

"disrespectful to all Hawaiian people" some people will say and make themselves believe anything to get their 15 minutes of fame. I am foreigner living in UK and local council and government constantly screw up foreigners names, we always have a good laugh about it with friends.

btilly 13y ago
Did you note that she lives in Hawaii? Screwing up foreigner's names is one thing. Screwing up the locals is another. The locals in this case still resent the way that the USA took over in a coup. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Kingdom_of_Haw... for the history.
- EvanKelly 13y ago
  There's actually more to the story. She's not actually Hawaiian, but she married a native Hawaiian and took his name. He passed away and she wants to keep the name to remember him by. In Hawaii right now there seem to be two prevailing schools of thought. 1) It's the state's responsibility to respect everyone's name. 2) She shouldn't have to change her name, but they don't have to put the whole thing on her ID

isaacjohnwesley 13y ago

She should live in India, all her identification cards will have shortened names automatically because the data entry operator names the citizen here and not parents. I have so much trouble with Isaac and Issac :(

notjustanymike 13y ago

Note to self: never hire a Hawaiian to write code! I can just picture it now: function convertThisDecimalDeclaredByMyCoworkerTimToBackWhenWeStartedThisCompanyThreeYearsAgoAnInteger() {}

didgeoridoo 13y ago
Oh so like Objective-C?

DanBC 13y ago

The article links to another article about names in New Zealand, which need government approval. (http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/01/world/asia/new-zealand-stange-baby-names/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/01/world/asia/new-zealand-sta...) I thought that some people were just sending comedy names because, well, that's what some people do. But some parents aren't joking around: > Four years ago, a 9-year-old girl was taken away from her parents by the state so that her name could be changed from "Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii." (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/24/familyandrelationships.newzealand http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/24/familyan...) > A family court judge, Rob Murfitt, gave the order after hearing that the child was embarrassed about her name and had refused to reveal it to friends. "She told people her name was K because she feared being mocked and teased," the child's lawyer, Colleen MacLeod, told the court. > The judge criticised parents who give their offspring bizarre names, saying it exposed children to ridicule among their peers. > "The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment that this child's parents have shown in choosing this name. It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap, unnecessarily," he said.

mavhc 13y ago

And that's why everyone should be referred to by their assigned 128 bit GUID

pixelcort 13y ago

I am a U.S. citizen who recently moved to Japan. When I entered the country, my first and middle names were combined to create a 20 character given name that appears on my Japan-issued ID. Ignoring the more common issues of computer systems not accepting non-Japanese names, it has been a bureaucratic nightmare, struggling with applying for credit cards, opening banking and investment accounts, and linking things together, as each system has different lengths limits for names, and in some systems my name is input as Unicode "double width romaji", which in some systems will not match the otherwise identical ASCII version of the name. I truly wish I was offered the ability during immigration to just drop the middle name, but even then my first name is longer than some systems' 5 character limit, where I am often put in as "Cortl".

Pxtl 13y ago
> "double width romaji" The double-width latin characters are the bane of every data analysis using Asian data. It's a roll of the dice whether any given Latin character will be in typical ASCII form or double-width form. I'm sure there's some "seriously insensitive character comparison" library out there, but it's not built into my SQL server's "LIKE" operator, that's for sure.
- rspeer 13y ago
  The seriously insensitive character comparison you're looking for is NFKC normalization (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_equivalence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_equivalence). You would probably be able to normalize all your strings before putting them into your database. You'd lose no functionality unless at some point later you really did need to distinguish "C" from "Ｃ".

Smirnoff 13y ago

You don't have to go too far. Twitter doesn't let me put my full name either. I have a typical Russian name (Vladislav) and a last name that consists of 11 letters. Is that really too long for Twitter to handle?

batuhanicoz 13y ago
My full name is "Fırat Batuhan İçöz", it is 17 characters (including the space between my first and middle name). And Twitter didn't have a problem with it, when I used my full name in the past. And just tried adding my first name again, it works.

tilsammans 13y ago

Let's for a minute assume that we as developers will be able to agree on some sort of best practice. The "Falsehoods" article and the W3C page mentioned in the comments are good, valuable resources and I really hope developers across the world will take them into consideration. Then it is time to show your form to the client and he/she goes nuts! "People must enter their full name". Okay they can just write their full name into this text input. "No they must enter both first and last name". But not everyone in the world has a first and last name. Icelandic people? "Just require a space in the name". Like nobody in China has? "Don't argue with me, I am the client, require a space!!!ONE!" It's discussions like these I feel I can't really win. Most clients aren't technical, they are chock full of assumptions and they are not paying me to argue with them, they are paying me to require first name and last name and quick! I understand that education needs to happen but there are limits as to how much education your client accepts from you before he goes to a different shop.

viraptor 13y ago
Iceland has both first and last names, afaik. It's just the inheritance (first name + suffix becomes child's last name) and sorting that changes (usually by first rather than last name).
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  China has first names and last names too. I don't see why that client is a problem. Especially since I'd have no idea how to isolate the family name without having multiple fields or a space. It seems like either half could be 1-2 characters, so what do you do with a three character full name?
mcherm 13y ago
I try to explain to my clients that one of the advantages I bring (one of the reasons they pay me the "big bucks") is that I have knowledge about these kinds of things and I can bring that to the table. Of course, that means I have to be judicious. I am NOT going to tell the US bank that I work for that they should support people without a separate first and last name when that is FAR more rare among their customers than people who type wrong and SHOULD have entered a space, so checking for a space will annoy 2 customers while protecting 1000 from stupid typing errors.

notallama 13y ago

solution 1: spill over to second card. solution 2: hash function

matthuggins 13y ago

I love the level of ignorance in the comments on that article. e.g.: > I doubt she can even pronounce it. or: > I am surprised her first name is Janice? She should change it to IamsofullofmyselfbecauseIamsospecialbecauseImarriedahawainman. ...and the list goes on. Just because your heritage has shorter names or names that don't sound anything like hers doesn't mean your culture is "right" or something. People need to learn to be more open-minded.

pacofvf 13y ago

until recently I couldn't use my last name in Facebook, and its pattern it's very common in Spanish: "de la Fuente"

ck2 13y ago

Am I the only one who wants to know how it is pronounced and what the meaning possibly is? I'm with her on this one but I am curious how a government would handle an ancestral name that has glyphs.

wcfields 13y ago
I wonder if a first nations person in Canada can have the syllabics[1] put on their ID? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics
baddox 13y ago
Or an ancestral name with 10^1000 letters. It's easy to reduce the argument to absurdity.
joshz 13y ago
How it's pronounced: http://www.khon2.com/2013/09/10/action-line-state-alters-womans-name-after-it-fails-to-fit-on-drivers-license/ http://www.khon2.com/2013/09/10/action-line-state-alters-wom...

orng 13y ago

Similarly: here in Iceland your official full name cannot exceed 32 characters, including spaces, due to legacy database constraints. It's retarded and has been highly debated recently.

mrweasel 13y ago

That reminds me that SAP has yet to respond to my question "Is SAP Business One not sold in Sweden". For some reason it has been decided that 50 characters are enough for a field that contains first middle- and last- name. Normally you can just deal with the extremely long name when and if they occur, but 50 characters is pushing it a bit.

rocky1138 13y ago

I've had arguments with people in the past about this sort of thing: names are overrated and not a unique identifier. If the UID on the identification card matches the info in the system, the card ID is valid and up-to-date, the face matches, and the name is close, it's a match.

jjindev 13y ago

On most days start-up programmers think about carving out a solution for a large enough serviceable, available, market. Time to market matters. Mark it as an open issue and move on. Etc. On other days, programmers are advised that it is culturally insensitive to leave anyone behind. People are mock-scolded that if they don't allocate their efforts to the 0.01% subset of their name system, they are bad people, whatever start-up dream they had. BTW, my family used the Scandinavian "-sen" system of naming, until the government told everyone they had to stop, that heritable names made tracking easier. I'm one of the thousands/millions of people worldwide locked in as "son of Jens."