Private Information in a Dangerous Real Time

Terrrists might steal your identity, use it to buy red mercury and make dirty anthrax bombs! And we all know that SL is full of terrrists.

OK, I have a really really dumb question. I'm in a US state that automatically puts our SS numbers on our Driver Licenses, but gives us the opportunity to change that number to something random. Now our DL is valid for 30 years after we're given it. I was given my DL back in 1994 when they started requiring holograms; I haven't had to update it yet. Now, though, the photo is digital, the signature is digitally encrypted, etc etc. I went to get my SS number changed to a random number, and the DVM said that it couldn't since it didn't have any digital info on hand for me. Am I LESS safe, or MORE safe, or it doesn't matter either way?

Oh how funny. Okay I wish I had never started this thread and this is last time I will be on resident answers.

See my note above

I'm serious, Jig...
You put it up there in the OP...

HOW is this going to risk national security?

Mickey - I just see the handing out of personal information as risking a great deal to everyone. That is all. Please don't crucify me for saying what I did.

And my sincerest apologies for upsetting you or even implying anything of that nature. I will be certain to avoid resident answers in future.

heheh me too! i figure heck if they got my info and used it, it could only get better!

In 1997, Maryland adopted a law allowing residents to request that the MVA not release personal information about them, either in an individual record or as part of a larger list.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/frompost/march98/privacy9.htm

Legislation is in the works in a majority of states to prevent the disclosure of social security information:

SEE: http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/privacy/SSN2006_Pending.htm

"In addition, some states are discontinuing practices that result in routine disclosure of SSNs. For example, since July 1, 1997, Georgia no longer automatically prints SSNs on licenses but rather assigns its own numbers for driver licenses and uses SSNs as license numbers only if requested by the license holder to do so. Ohio, which before July 29, 1098, routinely printed SSNs along with state-assigned numbers on driver’s licenses,now allows drivers the option of not having SSNs printed on their licenses. Also,

AAMVA [ American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators]officials believe most states in which driver records are public now exclude SSNs when responding to requests for driver records.

http://lists.essential.org/noprivacy/msg00326.html

.

I'm not trying to crucify you.

I understand the dangers of handing out too much information, but I also see a LOT of hysteria about this issue and you have been a pretty vocal protester against it.
When I see things like "risk to national security", I want to know what you mean, to see if there are any honest reasons for you saying it, or if you are just trying to stir things up.

So, are you now saying that there ISN'T a risk to national security?

I'm gunna re-post my previous comments on the same major issue:

Really, and honestly,
the "passport number ID" will only encourage kids to use adult grid, and discourage adults from playing second life.
Why? Well, handing over one of the most sensitive documents to a company that specializes in "campaign deployment" is not smart, all adults know this, but, kids stealing their parents ID to "verify" themselves, why would they see the harm in it?
It's very easy to tell if little Susie stole your credit card to play an online game, why? Suddenly odd charges pop up, look for the source, bing bang boom, we have a winner!
Identity theft, however, little harder to track, unless you buy an online credit score every week, thereby actually lowering your credit score *yes kids, you are limited to the amount of times your credit score can be accessed without it affecting your credit score...*, and checking to see if new credit cards and what not are now attached to your name,
so, instead of pay pal getting your credit card information, and you knowing who to go after if it's leaked, you give it, online, to a dodgy group, who's parent company specializes in American political deployment, go us?
All for what? To play a game?
I own 2 estates, Hathian and Vodou, Hathian houses the sim everyone loves to hate, The Crack Den, we are undoubtedly adult content, mostly because we keep the "texture blood" makers in funky fresh styles, and send their kids to college *yes...the violence thing, yay me*, but, apart from that, we've had over 20k traffic daily for over a year, and over 25k for 5 months + straight, we keep people interested in SL, and lose money on the place, we are content providers, without us, SL is nothing *I don't mean without CD, I mean without artists to create interesting and interactive content*, SL without RP sims/nightclubs/coffee shops/and gigantic shooting gallerys where you kill emus and blame the fact they cannot fly, is, literally, an empty shell, that would become addictive to none, it relys entirely on user created content,
so yeah, other then being pregnant and hormonal IRL, I'm irritated about this whole "Insert SS# here" issue for all these reasons, and I've put them in bullet form!

-Less secure then CC validation
-Kids have just as easy access to their parents ID cards as they do to their parents CCs
-Untraceable if your information ends up in some dinks hands, and he "becomes you"
-Dodgy American political deployment group taking it
-Many content creators quitting over it.
-More likely to have underagers with their parents ID willing to do it, then real 18+ers
-Possibly the death of SL, with Sony's new SL like game coming out, REALLY bad timing!

But yeah, feel free to insult, flame, and call me a preschooler now, the forums are great for that!

and YES, multiple threads ARE necessary, heck, maybe if people fill the forums with em, the linden lab employees *might* read 1, and do something about it,
if you are pro-verifying, then you are either a kid, or, someone with enough disposable income that you are cool with paying other people's credit card slips, that have now appeared in your name, or providing new shiny passports to people who want to illegally access your country, and don't mean the police tapping on your chamber door, arresting you for something your ID did, but you didn't.

If you want to take it to the extreme. The information gets hacked, false documents get issued, people travel under false pretences and voila, national security is at risk.

Okay okay ... mea culpa Mickey. I apologise. I just had an idea that is all and wanted some opinions. I didn't need the third degree.

It's a major risk to national security,
an american right wing political deployment group is collecting world wide passport information over the internet,
anything can go wrong there, you can guarantee they will store it, someone hacks that database, uses the information to create credible documents, and enter a country under false pretenses, using YOUR name, there you go, national security crisis, and you are going to guantonimo bay for giving terrorists your information.

The Sky, It's falling.

Not so much,
but this will kill second life. Just watch, the numbers will die, and what major company wants to pay thousands for an island in a game no one plays?

Valerie, that's good to know. Thanks for the info. Unfortunately it comes a bit late for some of us. Unless the laws change and data miners are required to purge their databases it's all already out there, and I find it highly unlikely that the US government will make any laws to cripple data miners now that they've been sold on using heuristics to mine such data for purposes of predicting future crime and playing the six degrees of Osama Bin Laden.

Anybody who wants your SIN can get it. The goverment already has it, companies already have it. Having been a scummy Telemarketer for awhile I can tell you. The ads you get, the spam calls, the spam email, the spam snail mail. All based off your credit score. Which involves your SIN.

You are thinking the majority of SL content providers/players are american,
they are not,
and handing over your passport number to a right wing american political deployment network is REALLY hard when you arent in a "big brother" country with all your moves all ready being watched

As a side note, due to being married to a cop, we have an unlisted everything, and never receive "spam calls"

You might want to check out this link before you blow identity theft off so flippently hon... http://www.ojp.gov/topics/identitytheft.htm

Wow... ok. I didn't realize it was quite that easy to make the magnetic strips and watermarking and readable code as all that.
Forging passports is nowhere NEAR as easy as "I got the information, I can make a passport" any more.

Add to that... How am I going to be arrested and sent to Guantanimo Bay if a third party resource is hacked?

Methinks Chicken Licken has raised her head yet again.

Because you literally cannot prove that your ID was hacked,
so, the assumption would be that you sold your passport to the terrorist, and since guantonimo bay features no trials, tally ho, off you go!

These kinds of things are already happening because of the US goverment mining this type of data for their own purposes. Thousands of people can't board airplanes because their name is the same as someone on a watch list. They then have no recourse for having their names removed. Almost all internet traffic in the US already passes through several hubs operated by the NSA and AT&T so that it can be scanned for certain words and phrases and be stored for future datamining. So, in a sense, it is a national security problem, but one caused by the government itself. Are you going to keep your ID numbers away from the people who issued them in the first place? Far from seeking to protect you, the government is complicit in data collection and mining, much of which is farmed out to third parties who sold them this snake oil in the first place.

That;s again assuming the majority of content providers are american,
they are not.

one does not need to forge a passport. thats the allure of identity theft. using a real identity to obtain real documents.

The passports in my country are hand-written.