[Cryptography] IDs and licenses, not Possible reason why password usage rules

[Jerry Leichter]

> Indeed, I have two valid driver's licenses for several months every time
> the license is renewed.  There's no "not valid before" date on the new
> license, the renewed license is issued in advance of its expiration, and
> since the renewal is by mail, I'm not required to surrender my old
> driver's license to get a new one.
Until relatively recently, way after every other state, New York used a plain cardboard computer-printed license with no photo on it.  (Politics:  The office that printed and mailed them was up in Albany and well-connected.  They were not about to lose jobs to every DMV office in the state issuing licenses when they took a photo.  They eventually reached a compromise that I believe holds to this day:  The photos are indeed taken at each DMV office, but they are then uploaded to the central office in Albany which prints and mails the licenses.)  My original driver's license was from New York.  Later, I moved to Massachusetts and got a license there.  They looked at my NY license, but gave it back to me. So I had two of them.  For years after, New York let me renew my license - all I had to do was pay the fee.  No photo so no visit to a DMV office required.  At some point (well before they actually started requiring photos) I decided there really wasn't any point; but for many years I had licenses from multiple states, and no one seemed to care.

Meanwhile, I noted earlier that when I last renewed my Connecticut license, I couldn't get an Enhanced license because my envelopes weren't good enough.  Since my license had actually expired, they issued me a new not-good-for-Federal ID one, telling me I could convert it to a Federal one later (for an additional fee, of course).  I did so a couple of weeks later.  *They didn't collect my previous, perfectly good for another three years, license.*  So I now have three licenses:  My expired one (which they also didn't bother to keep); and two valid ones, one "plain" and the other "Federal", both covering the same validity period.

There's a *lot* of security theatre involved in this stuff.

Connecticut *did* finally eliminate one bit of held-over nonsense, the biannual sticker for your license plate to prove you'd renewed your registration.  They were always checking your registration on-line anyway, so the sticker was pointless.  However, you *do* still have to have a card from your insurance company.  I recently learned from a cop that in fact the card must have a date within the last year or it isn't valid.  Never even thought of that - other than the date, my insurance cards have been identical for many years as I've kept the same carrier.  And ... "issued no more than a year ago" means, literally, nothing:  Some policies are only good for six months.  And any policy can be canceled.  (Not to mention that anyone who cares to can print an exact duplicate saying whatever they want with little effort.)

This is something that, again, is checked on-line anyway.  But, hey, it's a nice violation to justify "reasonable suspicion" with....

                                                        -- Jerry