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Journal pudge's Journal: Schneier on REAL ID 10

Journal by pudge
Some people are afraid to speak out against someone like Bruce Schneier, when he is talking about an area of expertise, like security.

I am not one of these people.

Read that page, and UnRealID, which echoes the same sentiments. Most of it is complete drivel. His points are largely irrelevant or inaccurate.

  • The bill says ID info must be machine-readable, making them more prone to identity theft.

    Problem is almost every state DL is already machine-readable, and there is no reason to suspect that private businesses will be more likely to get this information from me under REAL ID than they are now.

  • Eventually the cards could be required to have RFID.

    OK, complain about that when it happens. It is not in this bill.

  • The cards require actual addresses, no exceptions, not even for judges, police, or undercover cops.

    So a judge or cop doesn't give his ID out for scanning to anyone who doesn't need it. When was the last time anyone who wasn't a government official even LOOKED at your driver's license, let alone scanned it? Every once in awhile a store will look at it, but I wouldn't let them scan it. Just decline to give your ID to anyone to scan, unless they are official. Big deal.

    As to undercover cops ... are you RETARDED? What undercover cop is going to carry his actual ID on him? Undercover cops have always been able to get fake IDs, and that won't change.

  • The ID databases will be linked.

    Yes, the "linked database" boogeyman. The government can SPY on you (as if without this, they would be unable to do so just as easily).

    Of course it would make identity theft easier in theory with a single point of failure, but what the hell do I care, when I am in danger in fact from many multiple points of failure anyway?

  • The IDs cannot be given to illegal aliens, which means, um, our roads will be less safe.

    Uh, no, it won't. Most illegals can't or won't get them now, because they are afraid to, and most of the time they do get them it is because they lied about their identity to get them. And what's the alternative, to license illegal aliens, which encourages illegal immigration, and therefore creates more of an immigration problem, which is inherently a security problem?

He also links to previous pages wherein he basically makes an argument against identification, since it is not perfect, and therefore when we use it, we are trusting it, when we shouldn't. That's true, but what is the alternative? No IDs? No passports? No driver's licenses? Where does it end? He uses a broad argument to attack a specific instance, but this broad argument would also attack other instances in the same manner. Why check ID at military installations? How about random screening?

And then he calls all this is representative of living in a "police state," thereby showing exactly how he arrived at such uncharacteristically poor logic: he is emotional about the issue and unable to objectively evaluate it.

I am not in favor of REAL ID per se. I don't know enough about it, and have mixed feelings about national IDs, and required IDs. But normally sane people can't expect to convince too many people by abandoning their sanity.

This discussion was created by pudge (3605) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Schneier on REAL ID More

Schneier on REAL ID

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  • While I am a regular reader of Schneier's security journal and find a lot of what he says on-the-mark, I think that people need to learn to take his advice with a grain of salt. Sure, he is a security expert, but not all of the security experts in the industry agree with him on all accounts, and he certainly is not always correct. I also occasionally question the amount of research he has put into what he talks about.

    I know that I certainly do not always agree with what he has to say, and sometimes it se

  • When was the last time anyone who wasn't a government official even LOOKED at your driver's license

    Whenever I walk into a bar.

    I'm starting to think that drivers licenses are too overloaded. We never should have gotten permission to operate a vehicle, mixed up with identification. And we never should have gotten identification mixed up with proof of age. What a mess. It reminds me of how the social security number's role kept getting expanded.

    What I find distasteful about the RealID thing, is tha

    • Whenever I walk into a bar.

      I never get carded (although I don't drink, so that's part of it), but even if I did, they wouldn't scan my card, which was the main point. Every time people look at your card now, they might look at it in the future. Big whoop.

      I'm starting to think that drivers licenses are too overloaded. We never should have gotten permission to operate a vehicle, mixed up with identification.

      Why? How can you prove you have such permission without identification linking that permission
      • I know of a liquor store in Boston that uses the same type of document reader/authenticator used by border agents to automatically verify the age of customers. Since there are so many foriegn students here using their passports as id it also helps the store make sure that nobody is using a fake id. The age verification is done using OCR, not the barcode data found on some DLs.

        In any case, until recently the AAMVA specs on what data to put in the barcode and how to format it have been so fuzzy that the m

      • ... instead of capturing them when they try to get this special permission and shipping them back to their own country.

        So, you honestly think that we will find all the illegals once this law is passed because they will are just a bunch of dumbasses who will continue to go to the DMV to get drivers licenses? "Aha, Enrique, we have caught you in our clever REALID trap, you can't get a Driver's license and now you are going home!"

        • So, you honestly think that we will find all the illegals once this law is passed

          So, you honestly think I implied something remotely similar to that?
          • I was being facetious.

            "capturing them when they try to get this special permission"

            This struck me as funny.

            A RealID/NationalID/Driver's License doesn't fix the problem of illegals either. Now they will just drive without licenses. As long as they obey the traffic laws and don't get into accidents, then they won't be asked for the documentation that they wouldn't be able to attain and therefore be discovered and sent packing.

            Now, if we started having traffic stops and demanding everyone's papers, erm D
            • A RealID/NationalID/Driver's License doesn't fix the problem of illegals either.

              It isn't intended to.

              Now they will just drive without licenses.

              Like most of them do now.

              It is a nonsense argument that it will deter illegals.

              Agreed. Good thing no one is making that argument.
  • First of all, I support the notion of a National Id card principally in the context of decoupling Americans dependence upon our SSN as a national Id metric, even though the back of that card says "this is not an ID", it really is.

    The bill says ID info must be machine-readable, making them more prone to identity theft.
    The capability for any machine readability scares people, but the fear here is about RFID, like the US passports have become. That is another fight, where apparently the State Dept is starti

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