It seems to me any sort of ID that can be forged for under $500 is
worse than useless. Any serious bad guy can easily afford fake id.
For everyone else it is just a hassle if they forget their id.
In our past anonymity was not a right. Everyone knew everyone in the
village/tribe. You could not easily do wrong without others knowing
it was you.
If we got serious about a Universal ID, what are its characteristics?
1. costs over $1,000,000 to forge.
2. not useful to anyone other than the true owner.
3. can be scanned in under a second.
4. cannot be scanned without permission from the owner.
5. Should not need to be replaced unless lost. Additional photos
could be digitally added as you age.
6. it should be useful as a credit/debit card, id card, door key,
proof of age, link to medical records. It might even capture most of
the information needed to compute your taxes in a way that the
government has to believe you.
7. It would have to be based on encryption technology and digitally
signing information such as DNA, retinal patterns, fingerprints,
photo.
It might be reasonable to design such a card presuming the card will
have the CPU and memory of a laptop running Java.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com
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