Schneier on Security

Gabriel • October 28, 2011 4:44 PM

@Griskupar: Don’t know where you live, but over here in the US, most sites give you the option of entering the street, city, and state, or the ZIP code. Obviously, I prefer typing five digits.

@Clive & NobodySpecial: In Georgia, the rule is supposed to be ID everyone, but most stores leave it to the discretion of their employees. For example, if you think they’re younger than their 30’s. When I worked in a grocery store at a teenager, one cashier refused to sell it to a customer who looked to be well into her 30’s without an ID. She complained to a manager, but the manager left it the cashier’s call. Obviously, the manager can’t force her to sell without an ID, but it’s an example of how every now and then you run into a strict cashier. This cashier was actually older, so she wasn’t “green”. Over here, the police actually do conduct inspections occasionally, sending an undercover member who is under 21 but looks older. So there are probably a few folks who are extra cautious, since they don’t want a free ride in the back of a police car, even to the point of being beyond reason.

Of course, the most effective ID still remains, at least in the US, some green pictures of long dead important men. Change color and gender of the individual in the portrait to match your country. As long as you know where to go, that will get you just about anything without any further ID. Reminds me of the scene in the movie Jumanji where the hunter from the game’s fantasy world wants to buy a new gun in a real world gun store. He is bewildered when the gun store owner presents him with the necessary paperwork and requests ID. That all changed when he produced a bag of gold coins. Unfortunately, any respectable currency or highly valuable and fungible commodity will always find a way past the rules that are supposed to protect our society.

Gabriel • October 28, 2011 10:22 PM

@Nick P: well, for the time being, in Georgia, you can’t buy on a Sunday and take it home, but you can go to a bar and drink all you want and increase the DUI rate. why? Because it affects restaurants, bars, hotels, conventions, etc. this costs not only those businesses but also hurts tax revenues.

*eventually, a domino effect will force most municipalities to roll back the Sunday rule. The legislature recently made this a municipality decision. This puts pressure on each city to drop The rule or see tax revenues go to their neighbors . Hell didn’t quite freeze over, but it did start getting cool enough for water to condense.

Gabriel • October 29, 2011 2:11 PM

@Nick P: the funny thing about people are the freedoms they care about. Some people scream for liberty, but they want the government to ban things they don’t like. This goes for all sides of the spectrum except for the purest of anarchists. The problem is, nothing should be regulated or prohibited unless you can clearly demonstrate where not curtailing the rights of one will result in substantial peril to the rights of others. This applies to basic concepts (I don’t have the right to kill you because it takes away your right to live, unless you present an unprovoked threat to my right to live) to more complex ones such as financial and business regulations (your leverage if not regulated would allow you to deprive me of my assets or property unfairly without me being able to protect those assets).

The problem is, so many rules and regulations are at best knee jerk reactions to a credible threat and at worst pandering to an interest group or portion of the electorate.