Photo-ID: questions

[Atom 'Smasher']

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> | one could also scan in their social security card, drivers
> license, work
> | id, etc...
>
> The difference is that these documents are produced by a (hopefully)
> trusted manufacturer (the "Bundesdruckerei" for German ID cards),
> are certified by a (hopefully) trusted authority (my home city's
> registry office), and are designed to be (hopefully) non-forgeable.
> Public OpenPGP keys on the other hand can just be produced ,
> certified and issued by anyone.
> There IS a difference, and this is exactly the problem: people
> making no distinction between a photo on an ID card and a photo in
> an OpenPGP key.
===================================

need a fake ID in the states? just ask a teenager! one needs to be 21 to
purchase alcohol, so most teens know where to get fake IDs. every now and
again, especially since 9/11, we hear stories about people who work in the
offices that produce ID cards (mostly driver licenses here) illegally
selling ID that is indistinguishable from the real thing because
physically, it IS the real thing. and of course it's easy enough to make
something just to be scanned in, not physically inspected.

my point was really more about giving away information that could be used
without one's consent to cause harm to their identity... certain things
should *NOT* be publicly distributed, because they facilitate identity
theft. on the list of things that i would NOT want to publicly distribute
would be a scanned copy of my physical signature.


> | i don't use a GUI for any gpg/pgp interaction,
>
> Noticed that you can specify a picture viewer in the conf file? Or
> don't you use graphics without interfaces either?
=====================================

i do ~some~ work on a GUI system, but i'm always on the command line.
maybe someday i'll experiment with a viewer... but that'd be really for
entertainment purposes.


        ...atom

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