On Tue, Dec 31, 2002 at 11:02:48AM -0800, Tim May wrote:
| On Tuesday, December 31, 2002, at 09:49 AM, Kevin Elliott wrote:
|
| >At 12:12 -0500 on 12/31/02, Adam Shostack wrote:
| >>Rummaging through my wallet...a grocery card in the name of Hughes, a
| >>credit card with the name Shostack, and an expired membership card in
| >>the name Doe.
| >
| >Interesting point on grocery cards... Why do they have your name at
| >all? Every grocery card I've ever gotten they've said "here's your
| >card and application, please fill out the application and mail it in".
| > I say "thank you ma'am", walk out the door and toss the "application"
| >in the trash. Not exactly strong (or any) name linkage...
|
| * No store I have used has ever _checked_ that a name is "valid"...they
| don't even care when my credit card or check says "Timothy C. May" but
| my Customer Courtesy Card says J. Random Cypher, or Eric Hughes, or
| Vlad the Impaler...or is just unattached to any name.
And as you say below, checking that a name is valid is hard, except
when you can free-load off the effort of the state to issue
identities. Grocery stores don't bother, which was my point to Bill.
Free-loading off the identity infrastructure of the state is a huge
problem. "Fair and Issac," "Experian" and the rest are parasites
whose gossip/cross-referencing/credit scoring/libel is only possible
because of the state's investment in identity cards.
That problem is getting worse because none of that information is
private, and many credentials, like drivers licenses, are very
valuable in relation to how hard they are to get. And so identity
theft, inability to get a mortgage, etc, will have to be balanced
against al that cool credit that's made possible by the tracking
system. In the end, it won't be worthwhile to many people to be
finger and iris printed as part of their daily lives. Or maybe it
will.
Note that I'm not saying that they're easy to get: Thats irrelevant.
Such things are more valuable to get then they are difficult, and will
remain that way. Drivers licenses, trusted traveller cards, etc, will
always be worth getting if you're a fraudster.
Adam
| * All in all, not a very interesting example of ID and tracking. Things
| will get much more interesting, and worrisome, if there is ever a
| national ID system (in the U.S.) and some kind of legislated
| requirement (albeit unconstitutional!) that citizen-units must ID
| themselves with valid ID for all purchases, or at least of certain
| classes of purchases (beyond guns, for example).
--
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
-Hume
