[Forwarded] RealID: How to become an unperson.

[Jonathan Thornburg]

hadmut at danisch.de wrote:
> - In Germany we have an ID card and I have it in my pocket all the
>  time. But actually it is rarely used, I do need it not more than
>  maybe three times a year. [[...]]

As a Canadian living and working in Germany, my legal "ID card" is
my (Canadian) passport.  (I don't have a German (or Canadian!) driver's
license.)  When I bought a cellphone calling plan the cellphone store
asked for this (I guess the police want to make sure an identifyable
person can be found for each cellphone number).

It was clear from our conversation that very few (if any) Canadians
had ever bought cellphone calling plans from this employee before.
(Not suprisingly -- there aren't that many other Canadians living
or travelling here.)  Indeed, I rather suspect mine may have been 
the first Canadian passport this particular employee had ever seen.

So... just how reliably could he have spotted a fake passport?

ciao,

-- 
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn at aei.mpg-zebra.de>
    Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
    Golm, Germany, "Old Europe"     http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
    "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
     powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
                                       -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam


---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com