[privacy] Social Security Card to be National ID?

[Randy Abrams]

> Please go read up on asymmetric encryption, PKI, certificates, CAs, etc. Then come 
> back and tell me how you are going to counterfeit Microsoft website's certificate...

I am reminded of a quote in, off all things, a book on robotics that went something to the effect of "if you only see one solution you probably don't understand the problem."

If I want to counterfeit Microsoft's website certificate then I have an exceptionally difficult task, however if that is what I am trying to do then I am probably going after something entirely different and there will be a variety of approaches that will work.

Not the web site certificate, but when I worked at Microsoft there were two Microsoft digital certificates issued by Verisign to people who did not work for Microsoft... Hence the impetus to turn on certificate revocation in IE.

As for freedom (and civil liberties) being an illusion, that's not exactly true. There are some remnants left that are worth fighting for... They just don't happen to be in Iraq.

Cheers,

Randy


________________________________

	From: C Q [mailto:kyle.c.quest at gmail.com] 
	Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 6:12 PM
	To: Randy Abrams
	Cc: Fergie; privacy at whitestar.linuxbox.org
	Subject: Re: [privacy] Social Security Card to be National ID?
	
	
	At least here you tried to provide some reasoning behind your statement... That's progress :-)
	
	Once again, I'd like to revisit the scenario with money. Please tell me are most bills counterfeit?
	Yes, there's a problem with people counterfeiting money, but it's not an epidemic. And it's actually 
	easy to counterfeit our money... Their protection mechanisms are pathetic :-) 
	If we have really good id cards. It will be much harder to counterfeit them. It's not about 
	impossibility... it's about reducing the possibility. Besides... even if the crooks will 
	manage to counterfeit the cards to make them visually similar there will still be a matter
	of having to deal with digital fingerprints, etc. That won't be that easy to counter fit.
	Please go read up on asymmetric encryption, PKI, certificates, CAs, etc. Then come 
	back and tell me how you are going to counterfeit Microsoft website's certificate...
	
	As for freedom... I got news for you. There's no such thing. Especially in the US. 
	It's an illusion... And it's been gone for many many years. I have lived in other countries, 
	so I can share my first hand experience that a lot of times you have much more freedom
	elsewhere...
	
	And another thing about freedom... it's a relative concept. For example, the drivers in Germany
	are fighting the Green Party that wants to impose a 120km (about 75 miles) speed limit. 
	The German drivers are saying that it's their right... a free man should be able to go as 
	fast as he wants from point A to point B. 
	
	Speaking of driving... where's this freedom thingie you are referring to... when you are forced 
	by law to wear a seatbelt as if the government owned your body and soul...
	
	
	On 5/18/07, Randy Abrams <abrams at eset.com > wrote: 

		And yet it will not accomplish either. It will add a product line to the black market. Criminals with funding will buy the technology to beat the ID card, and will also sell excellent counterfeits on the black market, making it harder to discover an illegal alien. For the law abiding American it will only facilitate government tracking. 
		
		It's simply a proposal that no American who values freedom at all could accept as anything less than an assault on the rights and freedoms of the innocent.
		
		Cheers,
		
		Randy
		
		
		________________________________ 
		
		        From: C Q [mailto:kyle.c.quest at gmail.com]
		        Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 5:54 PM
		        To: Fergie
		        Cc: privacy at whitestar.linuxbox.org
		        Subject: Re: [privacy] Social Security Card to be National ID?
		
		
		        You are right. I didn't word it correctly. I meant to say that
		        I talked about those two issues. Yes, one of the main benefits 
		        behind introducing National ID is to have better tools
		        in preventing what you mentioned (the whole pilot license thing).
		        I agree that this should really be about that and less about
		        controlling illegals. It's just that website with the original article 
		        tried to get immigration into the mix. I just had to say something about that...
		
		
		
		        On 5/18/07, Fergie <fergdawg at netzero.net> wrote:
		
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		                - -- "C Q" <kyle.c.quest at gmail.com> wrote:
		
		                >There are two issues here:
		                >1. National ID and its benefits 
		                >2. Illegal aliens and their impact on the lives of the people who live in
		                >the US.
		                >
		
		                Actually, no.
		
		                Number 2 should be "Prohibiting terrorists from obtaining pilot's 
		                licenses."
		
		                It is nothing less than disingenuous to color this debate on a
		                National ID card as an illegal immigration control issue.
		
		                After 11 September 2001, the _entire_ impetus for a National ID 
		                card (née Real ID) was to put into a place a mechanism to identify
		                people who weren't supposed to be here -- namely terrorists.
		
		                - - ferg
		
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		                --
		                "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
		                Engineering Architecture for the Internet
		                fergdawg(at)netzero.net
		                ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/