The truth about 'Road Pricing'...

[megawatt]

Stulz wrote:

Hardly a rational explanation mega.. One possible outcome is no reason to bury your head in the sand. This is a demorcrasy, and so your comment is rather dictatorial. I don't like it so go away!! Very mature.

Ha ha ... You really are priceless ... Are you sure you're not Softus? I can imagine you sat there sucking your thumb right now.

I agree that we live in a democracy (which is what I assume you meant by demorcrasy) so let the people decide with a referendum. If the government thought they had a chance of success they would have no problem doing so. They don't, however, and so they continue to use Bush scare tactics in an attempt to win people over. I have more faith in the people of this country, though, and don't expect to see a compulsory ID card with detailed personal information encoded onto it anytime soon irrespective of how many sheep like you believe their tired old rhetoric (if you're unsure what it means google it).

If we didn't do something to fight crime because it might be abused by a minority at some later point, then there would be no laws to combat crime and criminal behaviour. My personal feeling is that you are unable to counter the logical and economic arguments so you simply post a silly comment, which does you no justice what so ever.

You're entitled to it, of course, though nobody has yet presented any logical and economic arguments that I agree with and until they do I will not change my opinion ... This Stulz is the basis of a democracy.

Anyway, who's saying anything about it being abused by a minority? If you're capable of reading more than the few lines you ever respond to you'd see that my fear is that it will be abused by the state!

MW

 

[ellal]

Take Debit/Credit card fraud, something like 60% of reported crime in the UK, according to Police figures last year, is of this type. If, when you present such a card, the store keeper/assistant asked to see your ID card, this would prevent their use except by the person whose card it is. Of course it would be reliant on people asking and checking, and so is not infallible, but it would certainly make in roads. The lack of ID cards has actually been highlighted as to the reason why fraudulent us of Debit/Credit cards is worse in the UK than anywhere else in the industrialised nations, although I accept that this is oversimplifying the matter.

Apart from the figures you give for this crime (which I'd dispute), then any kind of fraud changes with the current 'checks'..'chip & pin' came in and the type of fraud changed to skimming and online crime - how, btw, will an ID card stop online fraud?. The banks are now looking at 'chip & pin2' because criminals are getting around the existing version!..Banks have indeed said that they are making their plans without ID cards in mind as they don't believe they will offer a high enough security - and money talks!

Tax evasion. .......

From your example given..

Guess what...that is what is supposed to happen with NI. numbers...!

Just making another form of ID compulsory will make no difference - because human nature being what it is, employers of 'casual labour' will always do what they can to cut costs...unless of course you wish to make such an offence punishable by a mandatory 10 yr jail term!!

And even then you'd have to have such a draconian process of inspections that you'd have to employ an army of snoopers!

Further, the only weapon the security services have in combating Illegal Immigrants in this country at the moment is information from the public, which is as rare as rocking horse droppings and often as useful as a chocolate fireguard. If an ID card was introduced and made mandatory for a short period with random stops, then those here illegally could be identified and removed. I am not saying such a system is a panacea, but it will help to significantly reduce the scale of the problem and as such reduce crime overall. If crime is reduced, then perhaps the Police will have more time to address the types of crime that many people currently feel they do not care about, such as burglary etc.

Ah...if so, then you would have to issue an ID card to EVERYONE entering this country UPON ENTRY!...have you worked out how to do that, without causing so much inconvenience that genuine visitors wouldn't bother?

It's the same with the issue over terrorists...a suicide bomber only needs one identity, so the whole 'multiple identities' is a red herring..

And with benefit fraud - the total bill is about £1.5billion, of which 10% is identity related (they don't like that figure being quoted). The problem is not fraud related to who you are, but what you're not telling them. i.e. you're working but claiming, not claiming to be someone else!

In the meantime £6billion is going to be spent (so multiple that by at least 3.. ) on a system that won't do any of the claimed things..

And IMO, it'll make fraud etc worse in the long run...because if this is supposed to be the 'gold standard' of your identity, then it'll be worth more to criminals. Anything made/programmed by man can be forged/cracked - and when you have that 'gold standard' ID, then you'll be free to defraud whilst showing something that the country has been told is 'un-forgeable'!!

 

[megawatt]

Agreed ... I doubt Stulz will though

 

[joe-90]

You can forge an 'end product' like a card or whatever, but you can't forge the information at the other end that it matches up with.

I recently obtained a new passport. I had to sign in a box on the application, but that signature appears nowhere on the passport.

This means that someone cannot forge that signature as they can't see it.

The chances of randomly signing a signature that matches mine is just too unlikely for anyone to try.

Therefore, the system is inherently much safer.

The same applies to the photograph. You can change it on the passport - but not on the system that matches it up.

 

[megawatt]

The weak links in any secure electronic system are the human beings who manage it.

As long as people can be corrupted there will be no such thing as a secure computer system.

 

[ellal]

You can forge an 'end product' like a card or whatever, but you can't forge the information at the other end that it matches up with.

I recently obtained a new passport. I had to sign in a box on the application, but that signature appears nowhere on the passport.

This means that someone cannot forge that signature as they can't see it.

The chances of randomly signing a signature that matches mine is just too unlikely for anyone to try.

Therefore, the system is inherently much safer.

The same applies to the photograph. You can change it on the passport - but not on the system that matches it up.

In addition to what megawatt says (heard of the fact that bank security systems have been infiltrated by criminals?...), then the data you are referring to is actually stored on the rfid chip in the passport. That chip has already been proved to be easy to hack!..so, if you know the signature and the relevant checking person can't see it, but the system says 'OK', then who are they to question it?

Also, the photo that is stored is a standard jpeg (about 50k, so not exactly high quality)...hands up anyone who knows how to rename/replace a file? - because effectively that's all a hacker needs to do!

Don't believe the 'secure' propaganda

 

[megawatt]

The other weakness with any form of secure ID is that people get used it and the normal rules of human common sense get forgotten ... Without ID cards the human checking element is more robust.

 

[joe-90]

Are you saying that there is no information on the passport that is contained elsewhere for reference purposes? If so - show me your source.

 

[megawatt]

Surely it depends where the passport is presented?

If you go through passport control abroad they will be able to bring up the biometrics on the passport and compare them with the individual stood in front of them ... They won't be able to compare to any stored information anywhere else ... Unless you know more?

 

[Stulz]

You can forge an 'end product' like a card or whatever, but you can't forge the information at the other end that it matches up with.

I recently obtained a new passport. I had to sign in a box on the application, but that signature appears nowhere on the passport.

This means that someone cannot forge that signature as they can't see it.

The chances of randomly signing a signature that matches mine is just too unlikely for anyone to try.

Therefore, the system is inherently much safer.

The same applies to the photograph. You can change it on the passport - but not on the system that matches it up.

Thank you Joe, you have actually just posted the way that many have proposed the ID card system should work.

 

[Stulz]

Surely it depends where the passport is presented?

If you go through passport control abroad they will be able to bring up the biometrics on the passport and compare them with the individual stood in front of them ... They won't be able to compare to any stored information anywhere else ... Unless you know more?

I think you will find it's called the Internet, a little invention of a chap called Tim Berners-Lee and used by about 2 billion people globally. Every government in the world has an Internet connection and it would be so simple for passport control stations in airports and other points of entry/exit to have access to this connection and thus the stored information.

An even better system would be for you host nation to send the information electronically to the airport at your destination for verification that the person who arrives is the one that left. This information can then be forwarded on to the next and so on. If international banks and other systems can operate in this way and have secure systems, then I an sure that passport systems can too.

 

[ellal]

Thank you Joe, you have actually just posted the way that many have proposed the ID card system should work.

But not the way it is proposed it will work...and even the 'root ID' is at risk if it were to work as suggested!

 

[ellal]

Are you saying that there is no information on the passport that is contained elsewhere for reference purposes? If so - show me your source.

just google...

passport rfid information

the only info so far checked against the passport at 'passport control' is various 'undesirables' lists!...and that's just based on names!

 

[ellal]

I think you will find it's called the Internet, a little invention of a chap called Tim Berners-Lee and used by about 2 billion people globally. Every government in the world has an Internet connection and it would be so simple for passport control stations in airports and other points of entry/exit to have access to this connection and thus the stored information.

An even better system would be for you host nation to send the information electronically to the airport at your destination for verification that the person who arrives is the one that left. This information can then be forwarded on to the next and so on. If international banks and other systems can operate in this way and have secure systems, then I an sure that passport systems can too.

Which internet are you referring to?...the 'secure one' that the government wants to tell us exists, or the 'real world one' which we all know is full of holes!...

And where did you get the idea that bank systems are 'secure'...I thought you were talking earlier about fraud in that system..

 

[Stulz]

And IMO, it'll make fraud etc worse in the long run...because if this is supposed to be the 'gold standard' of your identity, then it'll be worth more to criminals. Anything made/programmed by man can be forged/cracked - and when you have that 'gold standard' ID, then you'll be free to defraud whilst showing something that the country has been told is 'un-forgeable'!!

The experience of other nations does not bear that out, it is easily possible for each ID card to have embedded in it a unique ID key, a 512 bit encrypted Hexadecimal computer generated one. Whilst I agree that if man can make, then man can break most types of security system. If a central computer generates a new key for each card issued and records this data, encryprypted digitally on the card, and on the central database, then that card can be proved to be genuine or false very simply.

The technology is there to make a secure system without all the biometric gumph that Blunket rattled on about, that would, in my experience of the technology, actually make the system insecure.

Oh, and to answer an earlier question by Ellal, Yes I would make the employing of an illegal immigrant imprisonable by a sentence of 10 years without parol.

Regarding terrorism. It is actually rare that Muslim Terrorists use fake ID's, this is why so many actually get caught. Due to the Official Sectrets Act I cannot say too much here. However where fake ID's help terrorists is actually those who support the terrorists with logistics, finances and other support infra-structure. This is also true for other forms of terrorist, such as the extreme animals rights groups, ETA in Spain and many former Ulster groups.

Fake ID's are very commonly used to create dummy bank accounts in order to channel money through. If individual accounts have too much money going through them then banks often alert the security services if this involves large sums. As a result the groups who provide financial and logistical support often create, sometimes, hundreds of fake accounts, these then filter the cash into a common offshore account and in general makes such funds almost untraceable. It is in the logistical and financial support that ID cards would hit and harm terror groups. The people who provide this support are not those brave enough to actually take part in terror acts themselves, they are cowards of the highest order, also many are "respected" in their communities, they have reputations to uphold. Without the possibility of fake ID's to operate these accounts, the vast majority of this financial and logistical support would fade away or be carried out in less covert ways, allowing the security services to penetrate the systems and act accordingly.

I do wish the Government would offer the public more information on how any proposed ID system would work, after all, if you are not given all the information, or even the correct information, no-one can make the correct and informed decision necessary.

With regards to controlling abuse of the system, the primary abuser would be either the security services and/or the Government. Legislation can be introduced to prevent this, and legislation put ontop of this to prevent it being changed except by a referendum of the nation. Simplistis, yes, and such control measures would have to be considered and discussed nationally before introduction, but it is possible if the political will was there and the public had access to the full facts and figures.