Schneier on Security

Hi, Bruce.

I'm sending you the article from the Pittsburgh City Paper in which you were recently interviewed tomorrow.

In the meantime, the article is online:
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A42618

Nice article.
I suggest that all Bruce's US readers forward the link to their local representatives.

Also we should point out that the US already has a national ID system, commonly referred to as a passport. Perhaps that point should be more heavily publicized. Once US Citizens figure out that REAL ID is not a security mechanism, but an internal passport, maybe they will be less enthusiastic about it. Or am I hoping for too much?

Bruce,

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the purpose of the National ID system. I was under the impression that a National ID card was meant to provide a more consistent (single) form of identification which would lessen the burdeon of financial institutions of verifying the identify of any given individual. Financial institutions currently have to rely on a hodge-podge of different bits of information (which is easily forged) for a given individual before they can be certain that a person taking out a load is who he/she says he is. Isn't one thing going for the National ID Card a means of standardizing identity?

I agree that no system is ever fool-proof... but if we can make the cost of faking an identity expensive enough that it defeats the average dumpster-diver, isn't that in itself worth $23billion?

For all I know the National ID Card is just a laminated social security card. However what I understood it to be had me hopeful that identity theft would be lessened to a degree.