Schneier on Security

RvnPhnx • April 11, 2005 8:28 AM

Ok, this is a case of the utility of the action being questionable since the usefulness of the item to the common citizen (but not to the government juggernaut) is limited. License plates are actually useful to the common citizen–my mother for instance whom owns a common Make/Model car and needs to know that it is indeed her car that she is trying to open the drivers’ side door to.

Sure, from a “freedom” perspective it makes sense to have complete autonomy and no automotive registration. The very same kind of perspective is being used right now to claim that we don’t need a “saftey net” to protect families from extreme poverty and disease. Indeed the logical extension (although perverse as it sounds) of this ideal of autonomy is to have no government at all and to rely on one’s clan (family) for everything–including justice.

We did that in the past, it didn’t work too well. Neither has the idea of Ultra-Nationalism worked all that well (and it spawns its own evils, like racism, and various corrupted socialsims and marxisms). Classicism is still left here in the USA to a small extent (by comparison to the fuedalism of midevil England), and racism isn’t gone either–both side effects of autonomy gone wrong.

Remember, effective and just government is a balancing act of utility: “Is what I’m going to give to the whole worth what I get as an individual?” In this case it just isn’t worth what you’ll pay for it.

RvnPhnx • April 11, 2005 10:25 AM

@Torres
I’m glad that your paranoia has overwhelmed your good common sense. It gives me the opportunity to point out that tracking somebody meerly by their license plate can be a pain in the ass for law enforcement–and for common stalkers. There is good reason to allow law enforcement to track vehicles (when the safety of the locals warrants it)–but at the same time automating the process takes away the effort factor, encouraging abuse. This is the whole idea behind forcing the government to release people (here in the USA, historically anyway) that it doesn’t have the evidence to hold. It makes them (the workers of law enforcement) work for it–decreasing the chances that somebody will get away with abusing the system by making the effort they put into doing so all the more public in nature. And that is the key–that the action is public in nature–which protects the autonomy of the random individual.

It is the secret nature of various actions (including the anonymous monitoring of RFID tags) which threatens the autonomy of individuals while providing NO PUBLICALLY ACCOUNTABLE QUANTIFIABLE BENEFIT to fulfill the requirement that whenever an individual gives something up they get something back of equal value–and that we are able to prove it to ourselves without unreasonable trouble.

Now as for your example, unlike the rules of logical arguement used in mathematics–in the nexus of philisophical reasoning and public policy one counter-example is often not enough to prove that something isn’t so. I will, however, take your example and make note of it.

Remember, so long as it is a pain to keep track of individuals it will not be done frivolously. There are too many of us. The other thing that needs to be done is for it to be possible to know whom is watching us. That is why the license plate isn’t nearly as big a deal as RFID. I can tell is somebody is following me (should I care to pay attention, it is in fact reasonably obvious in all but the most advanced cases–an arguement for another day), but I cannot tell if I am being tracked in a classified database somewhere. That is the issue. There is no utility to the average law abiding citizen to have their law abiding neighbors tracked by non-public means. It is a balnace.

Remember, extreme autonomy causes abuse of ones neighbors (clan warfare, etc) and the lack of reasonable autonomy damages the ability of individuals to preseve that autonomy. If we do not know that our autonomy is being infringed (license plate: we know, RFID: the average person doesn’t know, nor do they have any idea how it may work and who may “see” it) then we cannot comment on this infringement nor can we control it. That is where my argument lies.

RvnPhnx • April 11, 2005 11:52 AM

@Torres
The next time you can tell me that the license plate was not an available tool for tracking down an actual criminal or stolen property I will buy your argument. The next time you can tell me that a car’s VIN isn’t useful information to people other than the government and your insurance provider I may listen. The next time you can tell me that dental records are not useful to help identify “Jane Doe” and to bring her murderer to justice you may have an issue worth talking about.

So long as you believe that the only use of identification is for people to persecute you nobody will take you seriously. I personally have no use for the plate number of an intoxicated driver–but I do have use for a police officer whom has been properly authorized to apprehend that individual and to make the road that much more safe for me to use by knowing that plate number. That is what we pay taxes for (something else which I’m sure that you’d deem unnecessary).
The fact is that much of what we do today depends on one person being able to prove that they are who they are, and for the group (the government in many cases) to prove the same thing. Think about it.

RvnPhnx • April 11, 2005 3:26 PM

@Torres
Why should something need to be useful to me directly to benefit me?
Where do we draw the line between public identification (which the individual being identified can look at) from secret identification (which the individual identified cannot view)?