BIOMETRIC ID CARDS

Jefferson claimed that those who give up liberty to attain security
deserve neither. That was over two hundred years ago, before the French
Revolution. The world has moved on.

Modern governments satisfy clients and electorates. The clients get
lucrative grace and favour contracts enforced by a compliant judiciary
and police and military while the electorate get health care,
education, social security and the enforcement of the just laws.

WHO WANTS ID CARDS

The police.
ID Card manufacturers.
Tony Blair
David Blunkett
Zionist occupation forces
The Japanese
The French
The Singaporeans
The Saudis
The Thais
Most governments
Intergovernmental organisations such as the E.U.
Megalomaniacs

The idea of universal ID cards goes back over one hundred years.
Previously letters of introduction and statements of rights and powers
would apply mostly to the rich, including important slaves. In much of
the world the equivalent of parish birth records still exists.

WHO OPPOSES ID CARDS

The 'Black Helicopter' Conspiracy theorists.
Anti-flouridition nutters.
'Civil Liberties' advocacy organisations.
Professional tattooists.
Surgical implant lobbyists.
Skeptics.
The paranoid.
Those who fear information abuse.

Channel Four conducted a telephone poll during the bulletin
announcing the Blair-Blunkett plan. About 54% approved of the ID
scheme.


DATABASE SUPPORTED ID CARD SYSTEM (DBSICS)

I am sure that the Blair-Blunkett scheme has been discussed by data
base and network experts. Credit card and online cash cards have been
around for about twenty years in much of the world. The performance of
these systems is quite impressive. The best systems seem to come from
private corporations such as Mastercard or Visa. These systems are
voluntary, although sometimes it's a disadvantage not to volunteer
something for a credit card company database.

Any national ID card system has to be different to these credit card
systems, although the people who supply the parts could be the same.
There is no reason why a national ID card system should run on one
computer and their are many advantages to keep up off-shore mirror
sites in case of earthquake, tsunami or nuclear missile strike.

For those wishing to see a grand I.T. project there can be nothing
better. There is also nothing to stop a good system being implemented
piecemeal. Careful maintenance could be done in Bangalore, Penang or
Hainan. It's just a system of plastic cards with silicon microcircuits
tied to a database somewhere. The ID cards will be used to satisfy the
police but people will also use them to show their friends, and also
sexual partners if proof of age is important. Young looking people will
be able to use the ID cards to proof of entitlement to be served
alcohol and tobacco. Brothels will be able to check out the customers.
People who hire cars, motorbikes, speedboats and so on will be able to
use the ID card as security. The more acceptable an ID card is, the
more useful it becomes.

OBVIOUS QUESTIONS

People thinking about ID cars should try to answer the following
questions. The answer is not always obvious.

1. You have a population of N people covered by a DBSICS and M
machines. Write down a way of calculating the number of distinct ways
of sharing the database ?

Hint. Try Euler's partition function.

2. Will ID Cards cut crime ?

Hint. New laws pertaining to the misuse of ID cards will create new
offences. Whether crime is created depends on how much money government
will allocate to round up and reprocess those who do not produce ID
cards when required.

3. Will ID cards speed up queues ?

Hint. New queues will occur in new places. Phone networks get much
faster access to the global village than operator mediated assistance.
You can now join a queue anywhere in the global village.

4. How often will ID cards need to be reissued ?

With a DBSICS the cards will only have to be reissued if they are
physically destroyed or lost, or if the government wants to restart the
system from scratch.

It should be noted that extended periods of foreign travel may lead
to a card needing to be reissued. Many American states require even
short term residents to destroy their old driving licence and get a
valid state driving licence, or else retake the driving test.

The homeless and refugee population is most likely to lose the cards
most often. Tidal surges in the Thames estury will cause many to be
separated from the ID card. That's why its better to have the important
data on the ID card stored on a central computer. If it's biometric
data that's even better. The authorities will be able to take
appropriate action if you are killed by flood or your are victim of a
war crime such as those carried out by supporters of Saddam or
Slobodan.

5. You have a DBSICS with N people and there are M people who can
look at the database. Must all of the M people themselves be on the
DBSICS ?

Hint. Yes.


6. You have two DBSICS with M and N people. Can you write down a
function of M and N that estimates the cost of merging the two systems
?

Hint. try M+N + correction terms.


7. Should a government DBSICS be financed through user fees or
general taxation ?

8. Will hackers be able to inconvenience or even maim people ?

Hint: Iris scanners could have lasers installed by accident or
design. Remember David Bowie's film, The Man who Fell to Earth.
Intrusive biometrics can be damaging.


9. Will everyone's data be stored in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets ?

Hint: Microsoft Excel is the best general purpose data manager in
the World. Everyone knows how good it is.

10. Will be there help lines for cybercoolies who lose data while on
the job ?

11. Will the government DBSICS facilitate crosslinking with recent
phone calls and such like ?

In theory yes. Using such information to anticipate and avert
terrorist attacks such as truck bombings is morally justified on the
grounds of saving lives. In theory the ability to trace car hire and
recent movements of suspected terrorists and corrupt members of law
enforcement agencies is quite beneficial. The beauty of a well designed
DBSICS is that it can easily adapt to and quietly trace fakes, fraud
and forgery without letting anyone know. An adaptive DBSICS will
certainly be able to lull fraudsters into a false sense of security,
and then provide the prosecution with a full file when the miscreant is
eventually arrested.

12. Will the government Database (DBSICS) be attended by robots ?

Hint. Hopefully much sensitive cross checking and repair work will
be done by Ayais (A.Is for Artificial Intelligence) and DB-trawlers.
This would enhance privacy except for the designers of the various bots
and worms. Opening up robot design competitions for schoolchildren
would be a good means of encouraging participation.

13. What is the network topology ?

Hint. It's usually like the nervous system of advanced life on
Earth. In theory the topology could be a single star with a big
computer in the center and everyone on the DBSICS being connected to
this computer via their mobile phone. An adaptation of that topology
would work quite well in up country Thailand where they still do things
via village headmen and suchlike. Computers are located near mobile
phone masts and the database regularly pings the user. You get a
heirarchy of star graphs.

Taksin Shinawatri the head of Thailand is the robo-cop strong man
ruler that anticipates Terminator's rise to power. He made his money
and power from police work and investing in and advocating the
cybersociety. Salvadore Allende's ideas of a cyberstate have great
support world wide.

14. What about neural nets and fuzzy logic. Will the government use
these techniques to keep track of us ?

Hint: Which century do you live in ? It's already 2003. The
government will comission organisations to keep track of us. These
organisations could themselves become states without states being
entirely off-shore milk cows for the global elite.

15. Will I need to remember a pin number to use my ID card?

Yes. Greatest use will come to those who remember their pin number.

16. Will I be able to check my own information on the government
computer database ?

Hint. It's best to be prepared to pay.

17. Can the government sell the data to third parties ?

The contracts to store the data are most likely to be made to third
parties. Security is likely to involve both compression and encryption,
in that order.

18. Will there ever be a one to one correspondence between ID cards
and people in the UK?

Hint. This is a waiting time problem. You assume the population
growth eventially stabilises. Assume machines get smarter and the
system can control itself and look after us. Death comes via euthenasia
capsules with a variety of options including interstellar spaceship
probe.

19. Will the government database be open to voyeuristic surfing ?

Commercial pressures can be unbearable. Voyeuristic surfing could
save human lives. It could also lead on to war crimes.

20. Can my pet cat or dog get onto a DBSICS ?

That's no problem, but it's Pay as you Go. It's free for the pet.

DIVISION OF THE SPOILS

People who get the ear of the governments are often big IT
subcontractors such as Ross Perot or Taksin Shinawatri. For these
people the Blair-Blunkett project is like building the Panama Canal or
the Three Gorges Dam. They think a minority will suffer inconvenience
but the majority will gain. It is to be doubted whether existing IT
contractors have the required skills to do the job.


Try a google search for Data Base Supported Identity Systems.

You will find out that in the beginning of 2003 a consortium called
Schlumberger-SCEMA contucted research in the UK and found that 80%
of the public supported compulsory ID cards. Schlumberger is an
instrument company based in the Netherlands Antilles.


Tony Goddard

 http://d4maths.lowtech.org/mirage/stat-a.htm