I thought this was appropriate.

What would be the advantages of a national ID? The only clear advantage I see is that it unifies the disjointed state regulations/practices. How much of an improvement would that be?

 

I wouldn't oppose it if it was proposed, unless there was some bizarre or nefarious reason for doing it.

 

This.

What would be the advantages of a national ID? The only clear advantage I see is that it unifies the disjointed state regulations/practices. How much of an improvement would that be?

 

I wouldn't oppose it if it was proposed, unless there was some bizarre or nefarious reason for doing it.

 

It would act as a passport, drivers license, national ID card, social security card, it would be vital in handling the immigration crisis we are going to have to address, and I would argue it would make all types of fraud much tougher to commit. In other words, no more bull on identity, you either have your National ID Card or you don't.

 

This issue is like the NSA collecting phone records, you are either all in on National Security or it is only a matter of time before our enemies come for us.

I understand their point about having multiple agencies issuing IDs in Kentucky. For example, my wife went to get her address changed on her license in Fayette County last month. She had to have (I believe) 2 different pieces of mail showing her name at the new address. This year when she moved to Somerset with me we went to the Pulaski County Court house to get her address changed there and they simply asked what the new address was. Now the lady working the counter knew me and I was there so she probably didn't have any reason to think we were getting an ID with a fake address on it. However, she could have been doing exactly that for any number of reasons. By having a protocol for issuing the ID I would think that their minimum standards for verifying your information would be followed. That being said I don't think anything should change as far as when you are, and aren't, required to present your ID to the authorities.

It would act as a passport, drivers license, national ID card, social security card, it would be vital in handling the immigration crisis we are going to have to address, and I would argue it would make all types of fraud much tougher to commit. In other words, no more bull on identity, you either have your National ID Card or you don't.

 

This issue is like the NSA collecting phone records, you are either all in on National Security or it is only a matter of time before our enemies come for us.

 

 

How so? Not saying it wouldn't, just asking how you see it achieving that end.

Just like Snake Plissken.

 

Yep, that's who I thought of at the time.

So if I don't have an ID what country do I get sent back to?

 

North Korea

How so? Not saying it wouldn't, just asking how you see it achieving that end.

 

For starters think of it this way. How many different planes does Southwest Airlines use? How many of their planes have gone down? I believe the answers are 1 (various 737s) and 0. That is not an accident (no pun intended).

 

If we had ONE ID card we (individuals and businesses and government) would all be well versed and we would almost always know who we were dealing with. Now we have multiple IDs (State, Foreign, ID Only, fraudulently made ones, work IDs, passports, Military, Federal, social security cards, etc.). If you want to cash a check you either have your National ID Card or no dice (I am sure check cashing places would love it). Theft/Fraud would go way down. Additionally, if you were required to show your National ID Card with credit card purchases theft and cost would go way down. Eventually credit card companies would offer reduced rates (and percentages taken from merchants) that agree to swipe/check a National ID Card with all purchases. Ask anyone in business that is successful how much they pay to credit card companies in fees each year. It is staggering.

 

Additionally, a National ID would put the United States in control of immigration and everyone in this country. No card, stay. Also, it would stop all kinds of fraud and insurance claims involving undocumented people. No National ID Card no ability to file any kind of complaint, lawsuit, claim, anything for that matter. No scholarships, no medical benefits, no voter fraud, no government assistance, no section 8, no food stamps, no car insurance, no home/renters insurance, no car ownership, no nothing, no ability to own or rent or lease anything, on and on. And for anyone that says we can't deny medical treatment I agree, only the authorities will meet you at the hospital to document you (just like they do if it is a gunshot or knife wound).

 

I would also propose that any fraud involving the making, using, etc. of a National ID Card should be a serious felony with a long, mandatory prison sentence. And, any government official that uses the National ID system/database (this ties in with eventual DNA database for crime fighting) for any illegal activities should face the death penalty, no exceptions. In other words, if we are going to trust the government with all of this information/data they have to show us they take it very serious and will never abuse/forge the information.

 

My point is, when you are only dealing with one of something (737 or a National ID Card) it is a much more efficient, safe, competent, effective, etc. Southwest mechanics only need to know the 737, merchants/citizens/government only need to know the National ID Card.

For starters think of it this way. How many different planes does Southwest Airlines use? How many of their planes have gone down? I believe the answers are 1 (various 737s) and 0. That is not an accident (no pun intended).

 

If we had ONE ID card we (individuals and businesses and government) would all be well versed and we would almost always know who we were dealing with. Now we have multiple IDs (State, Foreign, ID Only, fraudulently made ones, work IDs, passports, Military, Federal, social security cards, etc.). If you want to cash a check you either have your National ID Card or no dice (I am sure check cashing places would love it). Theft/Fraud would go way down. Additionally, if you were required to show your National ID Card with credit card purchases theft and cost would go way down. Eventually credit card companies would offer reduced rates (and percentages taken from merchants) that agree to swipe/check a National ID Card with all purchases. Ask anyone in business that is successful how much they pay to credit card companies in fees each year. It is staggering.

 

Additionally, a National ID would put the United States in control of immigration and everyone in this country. No card, stay. Also, it would stop all kinds of fraud and insurance claims involving undocumented people. No National ID Card no ability to file any kind of complaint, lawsuit, claim, anything for that matter. No scholarships, no medical benefits, no voter fraud, no government assistance, no section 8, no food stamps, no car insurance, no home/renters insurance, no car ownership, no nothing, no ability to own or rent or lease anything, on and on. And for anyone that says we can't deny medical treatment I agree, only the authorities will meet you at the hospital to document you (just like they do if it is a gunshot or knife wound).

 

I would also propose that any fraud involving the making, using, etc. of a National ID Card should be a serious felony with a long, mandatory prison sentence. And, any government official that uses the National ID system/database (this ties in with eventual DNA database for crime fighting) for any illegal activities should face the death penalty, no exceptions. In other words, if we are going to trust the government with all of this information/data they have to show us they take it very serious and will never abuse/forge the information.

 

My point is, when you are only dealing with one of something (737 or a National ID Card) it is a much more efficient, safe, competent, effective, etc. Southwest mechanics only need to know the 737, merchants/citizens/government only need to know the National ID Card.

 

 

Right, but I can also see how someone would argue that we only have one form of currency, but it's that's counterfeited. Not saying a national ID card is bad or that it wouldn't be more ideal to streamline processes, but I don't see it as being an end-all, be-all solution either.

 

There are currently states where murdering hundreds of innocent people in cold blood won't get you the death penalty, so while it's noble in thought that there'd be that type of cause attached to accessing a database for nefarious purposes and that we could rely on that as being a safeguard against some type of Cold War McCarthyism type intrusions, the reality of that happening is almost nil.

 

As far as the part about Federal authorities having access to data, I would imagine they have all the access they could ask for given programs like the NSA and who knows what else opened under legislation like the Patriot Act. Not saying the Patriot was the first or will be the last, just that on that side of coin, I don't think the Feds are really wanting for access to basically any type of data under the control of any domestic branch of government that they can think of. I'm not really sure what type of info available to a state or local government that they'd want, but couldn't have access to. I mean this to say that, in a weird way, it's a point for the "one big Skynet system" arguments.

 

 

 

As far as identity theft and identity fraud, we could probably talk for days about it. You can see how much I type in replies here, and I know you probably have a much different end of it than I and that while our takes on the issue (as molded by our experiences), might not be entirely similar, I'd be interested in hearing out what someone had to say from a different perspective than mine (and that's just me trying not to reveal my thoughts on a real complex issue... though I will say, I may surprised you. It's a south-central Texas thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My impression is that the majority of it isn't really something that's conducted what I would term "in person", and that even if it were, that it will be trending away from that.

 

I'm living in a place that probably has one of the largest percentage of illegals living in it if we get right down to it, and in my dealings with the public sector doing tax and legal work, the majority of cases that I've worked on involved an illegal person stealing a legal person's identity. Whether that was a national or state identity isn't going to change that. The people who know how to game the system steal someone's information one way or another (intercepting mail, phishing scams, stealing a wallet, buying a stolen identity) and are smart enough to use it for a short period of time, then drop it and go into the wind.

 

Most businesses employing someone like this probably know exactly what's going on, but they don't do anything about it because that's a worker who'll never complain to HR, have a dispute about overtime, file a workman's comp claim, etc. It should raise a red flag when someone shows up, there might be some suspicions, and they choose to defer their taxes to the end of the year. It should really raise a red flag when the guy who filled out David on his application is the same guy being paid as Greg. Later, a taxpayer gets a bill that a they don't recognize and is deferred, while they already off at their next gig and the process is being repeated.

My impression is that the majority of it isn't really something that's conducted what I would term "in person", and that even if it were, that it will be trending away from that.

 

I'm living in a place that probably has one of the largest percentage of illegals living in it if we get right down to it, and in my dealings with the public sector doing tax and legal work, the majority of cases that I've worked on involved an illegal person stealing a legal person's identity. Whether that was a national or state identity isn't going to change that. The people who know how to game the system steal someone's information one way or another (intercepting mail, phishing scams, stealing a wallet, buying a stolen identity) and are smart enough to use it for a short period of time, then drop it and go into the wind.

 

In short, if you use your National ID Card along with your credit card fraud will be cut way down. So, if you want max protection you don't use your credit card without your NID and if your NID gets stolen you immediately report it. Considering the NID will be a smart card if it gets more than say 100 feet away from your smart phone an alarm goes off and if it is stolen you immediately report it.. In short, with tech we can make it extremely tough on the bad guys if we go to one, all knowing National ID Card.

In short, if you use your National ID Card along with your credit card fraud will be cut way down. So, if you want max protection you don't use your credit card without your NID and if your NID gets stolen you immediately report it. Considering the NID will be a smart card if it gets more than say 100 feet away from your smart phone an alarm goes off and if it is stolen you immediately report it.. In short, with tech we can make it extremely tough on the bad guys if we go to one, all knowing National ID Card.

 

 

Most of the time, people don't know their identity has been stolen or compromised until it's way too late.

 

I think that implementing your plan and having safeguards like you imagine would be tougher than you think do securely when people can spoof IPs, turn host computers into drones, etc. Someone eventually figures out a way to clone an NID card or copy one in a way that activates the copy and deactivates the NID (which the user might not realize until it's too late).

 

 

Your hypothetical is also saying that using the National ID info is, at least on some level, going to be transmitted to third parties during purchases to verify authenticity in a way that provides more information than as things currently stand. Probably not the best idea when you see the kind of data breaches at Target, etc. Putting all of our eggs in one basket and keeping everything in one place might not be the best thought for dealing with things on that level. Do that and one backdoor, one click, one rouge employee, etc. could bring a whole system to it's knees.

 

 

Smart phone/card idea has too many problems too. You have to leave your card and phone together at all times and you are probably going to have thousands of false alarms going flooding companies or people getting so tired of the alarms going off that they stop using the security features.

 

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/07/15/data-breach-bulletin-silk-road-bitcoin-bidder-loses-62000-to-phishing-scheme/

Most of the time, people don't know their identity has been stolen or compromised until it's way too late.

 

I think that implementing your plan and having safeguards like you imagine would be tougher than you think do securely when people can spoof IPs, turn host computers into drones, etc. Someone eventually figures out a way to clone an NID card or copy one in a way that activates the copy and deactivates the NID (which the user might not realize until it's too late).

 

 

Your hypothetical is also saying that using the National ID info is, at least on some level, going to be transmitted to third parties during purchases to verify authenticity in a way that provides more information than as things currently stand. Probably not the best idea when you see the kind of data breaches at Target, etc. Putting all of our eggs in one basket and keeping everything in one place might not be the best thought for dealing with things on that level. Do that and one backdoor, one click, one rouge employee, etc. could bring a whole system to it's knees.

 

 

Smart phone/card idea has too many problems too. You have to leave your card and phone together at all times and you are probably going to have thousands of false alarms going flooding companies or people getting so tired of the alarms going off that they stop using the security features.

 

 

Data Breach Bulletin: Silk Road Bitcoin Prospective Bidder Loses $62,000 To Phishing Scheme - Forbes

 

You are right, we can just keep the broke and getting worse system/security we have.

 

Nothing is perfect. Furthermore, you are taking liberties with my suggestion and then beating up on your own assumptions.

 

Bottom line, we need a National ID Card, there is no two ways about it.

You are right, we can just keep the broke and getting worse system/security we have.

 

Nothing is perfect. Furthermore, you are taking liberties with my suggestion and then beating up on your own assumptions.

 

Bottom line, we need a National ID Card, there is no two ways about it.

 

 

I agree that no system is perfect and that identity theft and fraud is becoming an even bigger problem, I'm just not sure how the national ID card goes about fixing some of those problems once everything is put into practice. I’m not sure we’re on the same page with identity theft either. Sorry if I'm misinterpreting what you were saying and then running. Here's how I took what you'd said:

 

"Considering the NID will be a smart card if it gets more than say 100 feet away from your smart phone an alarm goes off and if it is stolen you immediately report it."

 

I took that to mean that you implied that a security feature of the card would be some sort of sync with a phone and or something similar, which I would see a lot of practical problems with. It seems like any type of scenario where flags fly so quickly could cause more problems than they solve. If you forget to deactivate your home security system, it calls the police, and you need to take at least 20 minutes to iron out the situation over the phone each time, then eventually you quit activating the alarm as often or the costs of maintaining enough resources to keep that process active become either a headache or financial strain.

 

 

"So, if you want max protection you don't use your credit card without your NID and if your NID gets stolen you immediately report it." I took this to mean that you either have to use your NID with online purchases (which would potentially open up that info being transmitted to a third party that you were making the purchase from), or that online purchases wouldn't be fully protected because you couldn't use your NID with them. That's probably a very bad thing for online business and commerce.

 

 

Additionally, I was just trying to say that, in the case of identity theft, it isn't as if people automatically know that their identity has been stolen or compromised at or immediately after it happens, if they did, they'd probably report it. Why wouldn’t they? It’s not like people don’t know their data has been stolen or corrupted and just don’t report it.

 

Identity theft versus physical theft is more like the difference in a vandal keying your car versus them hacking your keyfob and programming it so that when you hit the lock button, everything appears normal, but the car will unlock and the windows roll down 20 minutes later before re-locking again after another 20. Unless you’re lucky, you might not notice that until it’s too late. It’s not as visible as the cosmetic damage and the cosmetic damage doesn't make it easier for a second thief to come along and take more while you play whac-a-mole and try to pinpoint the issue of how your car got robbed but you came back to it and there was no damage and it appeared locked.

 

 

When I think of identity theft, I think of things in three to four steps: Entity A does the actual stealing, hacking, and initial compiling of that information. Entity A is probably done with the whole bit there. They are just the person who puts the skimmer on the card reader at a gas pump or crackhead who steals mail but doesn’t have a computer. Entity B is the person who actually knows what to do with it. They access the stolen data, aggregate it, and get it ready to market. Entity might not even know Entity A by name or directly meet them, they are there to take the raw data and make it something that someone wants to buy. Entity B sells the data they've cleaned up to Entity C. Entity C is a third person who is fairly removed from the original breach/theft and some time has passed with no one really being any wiser. Entity C could be a third person, or it could be a type of fence that buys in bulk from a processing center, then acts as a broker who finds individual buyers (i.e., why would someone who wants to pose as legal need 100 identities, they just need one to accomplish their objective???).

 

You don't know your identity has been stolen or compromised because someone might not use it to buy something on your credit card. Maybe they use it to open a new line of credit. Maybe they use it to go to a store and give your address when they use their own money to purchase chemicals used to make meth. You might not be aware that anything is up until you get your next bank statement, see an updated credit report, or have an agent knock on your door wanting to know why you've been buying chemicals in bulk.

 

 

Back to reporting identity theft-- once someone does realize something has gone wrong, however, processing an identity theft claim is really time consuming if you look at it from the perspective of the victim. It's not quick or easy to file an affidavit of identity theft (and wait for it to process), mail in forms for copies of identity documents like birth certificates that you’ll need just to get your actual identity documents back (wait on those to process), get the identifying documents like a birth certificate and take them down to the DMV in person, then take your new documentation home and start opening new accounts.

 

Once the claim for identity theft is made and/or a case is flagged, anything tied to it is shut down and it’s such a process to get that undone that you wouldn’t believe it until you go through it yourself. It’s not as simple as a phone call and trying to convince someone over the phone that it’s actually you, not the identity thief.

 

I’d compare it to this: you are John A. Doe. You’ve recently been contacted by a police officer in Town A because a warrant keeps has mistaken you for John B. Doe. They know you are John A. Doe and that you don’t have a warrant issued against you, but they can’t fix the error for a month because the warrant was issued in Town B and has to be corrected there, but it also takes some time. In that time, you are probably going to have to sit tight and hope you doesn’t get pulled over, need to have any kind of background check ran for employment, and hope that the message gets to the person in charge of things in the next town over and everything gets cleared up. Maybe John A. Doe can avoid Town B, but people whose identity has been stolen are probably going to need to access checking accounts to pay bills or encounter problems when there’s a credit dispute filed against them. They can’t use their original account, and you probably aren’t going to open a new line of credit elsewhere when trying to explain that the credit dispute is actually related to an open identity theft claim, but they can trust that it’s really you and take what you say at face value.

 

Seeing the mess that has been made for some people when there is a dispute over money to the IRS despite knowing the type of information the IRS has had access to the entire time (like a person who has been simultaneously working at 4 different jobs in 3 different states within a one year period... it's happened while they happened to be in federal custody) doesn't give me tons of faith in thinking putting what they already have in a different place and putting a new label on it is really going to change tons. Maybe it helps, but if it were as simple as that, then it'd seem like anything requiring a social security number would already be more immune.