National ID Card

[Conf1rm3d_K1ll]

Originally posted by jared_c


Oh wait a minute. The government is issuing these cards. The same people that want back doors in PGP, and the same people that created carnivore, echelon, and green lantern.

Or maybe i'm just paranoid. Comments?

When I read the first two paragraphs of your post I was getting ready to flame! Sarcasm got me again!


There's no such thing as "just being paranoid", jared. ONLY THE PARANOID SURVIVE!

[antihaxor]

yea confirmed_kill I agree:
Just because I'm paraniod doesn't mean they are not after me!

[jcmcb]

I for one do not see that a National ID card is such a bad thing. After all you need an ID card to do just about anything, and we all (at least all of use that are over 16 or so) have one. I have 4 at the moment, all for different things. It seems to me that this is all a smoke screen - A crass ploy by the Oracle CEO to get some new business and also pointless Chicken Little-ism by others!

Just my own 2 cents...

[thirdeg]

Since when has an ID card or a gun license totally stopped criminals? We wll never know! All we do know is that honest people all ways get stopped by the same things that are supposed to protect. Sports men and women in the UK have been stopped from shooting target pistols, but when was the last time the IRA or another terrorist organization got licenses for there C4 and grenade launchers? OK forms of ID may reduce the amount of criminals, Nothing is 100% secure. There is more than 1 way to skin a cat!!

[antihaxor]

Ok now.....why did you have to dig up this dead dog of a thread?

[darkes]

In many ways I think that thirdeg has hit the nail on the head. National ID cards will only catch the inexperienced criminal - the more experienced ones will actually exploit the system to their own ends. And terrorists will either ignore it, or use convincing fakes if they need to.

Just as a minor point to jared_c, as far as I know there is no back door to PGP (regarding the maths behind it - I do have a maths degree), which is why the UK & US governments want to get everyone to change to a a system where everyone has to register their keys with them.

[thirdeg]

Yes PGP maybe 100% secure when it comes to being able to crack it, but as I said in my last post there is more than 1 way to skin a cat. US and UK Governments are being given laws to fight what they call terrorism, I admit im not up to speed on bills passed in the US recently, but in the UK they are saying hacking is terrorism, they are also trying to pass new laws to inprison suspect terrorist without a trial, they have also passed laws giving police more powers to detain computer equipment if the person is 'belived' to be a terrorist. So back to the top of the post-Yes it maybe 100% secure but what happens when they come round to your house and take your computer with the keychains that only take a couple of weeks to crack, unless of course you have a 5000 character keyphrase (I have never met someone this paranoid, but im sure there out there!!!). All you people should know if you are trying to get into something always go for the weakest link, in this case the person behind the computer!

[cF_nM]

Anyone here read 1984? This is sounding just a bit familiar......

[jared_c]

Wow, I just noticed that in my previous post I put "Green Lantern", instead of "Magic Lantern". Seems like my childhood comic book heroes are coming back to haunt me. Damn them! I think I'll go back and edit that before someone burns me bad.

To darkes, you are right. As far as the public knows there is no back door in PGP. I think Phil Zimmerman did a good job fighting the government about that. The government wanted to add a back door to PGP, but it wasn't their software to add it to. That is why there is no doubt in my mind that if a national ID card was used to access things, the government would have the master skeleton key to access EVERYTHING.

[rcgreen]

When I first learned about the NAZIs and the
holocaust, I always wondered how, in places
like Poland or the Netherlands, how in the hell did
they know who was jewish and who was not?
They look just like everyone else.
I believe those countries already had
extensive paperwork on the population
including name, address, occupation,and
religion. No one ever thought the information
would be used for evil.