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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

> The reason it still happens is that banks are forced, through competition, to minimise "identity proving" burden for consumers, in a "get credit now with instant approval!" kind of way.

The best solution would be if the US introduced mandatory passports or other forms of ID cards with smartcard capability, similar to the German Personalausweis. It has a secure cryptoprocessor with key vault, meaning it can be used to sign documents (if the bureaucracy to get a signature CA wouldn't be completely stuck for years now, SIGH), but especially companies willing to use authenticated data can fetch them securely over any NFC enabled terminal. Quite ingenuous.

This would entirely kill ID fraud at the source. The problem only seems to be an aversion in some parts of the US population against ID documents.

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I don’t think you’ll see this happen in the US any time soon, literally because of a Bible verse; Revelation 13:16-17 (King James Version):

  16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

  17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

It’s not talked about a lot here, but this verse is the go-to for many flavors of Christian politics in the context of federal law and national identity.

The pathetic irony is that intelligence services and dozens of corporations have already done this. So we citizens, err consumers, have all of the downsides and none of the benefits of authenticity.

In addition to the sky faerie grifters, the anti-rationality mentats categorically oppose allowing government to govern.

Sure, but the work-around is easy - just put the mark on your left hand! Problem solved!

I’m an American and have never heard of this. Calling bullshit.

You must be in a large city...

Biblical prophecy finds way to legislators in battle over ID plan http://archive.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2007/03/...

RFID: Sign of the (End) Times? https://www.wired.com/2006/06/rfid-sign-of-the-end-times/

On social media, vaccine misinformation mixes with extreme faith https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/16/covid-v...

The problem is the US would first need to grow the political will to ban most businesses from demanding and then long term storing that ID. As it stands right now, for needlessly invasive things like supermarket discount cards you can just give them a bunch of fake info, and get a new nym every year or so to make your history less useful. But with an unrestricted smartcard ID, there would be no escape from the commercial surveillance web. Something like the GDPR is a hard requirement before stronger identification is palatable in the US.

> The best solution would be if the US introduced mandatory passports or other forms of ID cards with smartcard capability, similar to the German Personalausweis. [...] This would entirely kill ID fraud at the source.

So, does Germany not have ID fraud anymore?

Sure, fake or stolen passports and (often preliminary) ID Cards from public offices exist and are traded on the darkweb but ID fraud is so rare it´s almost unheard of compared to the rampant fraud in the US

I think part of it is deregulation in the USA too. As has been mentioned it is sooo easy to sign up for credit cards because banks want citizens drowning in debt. When I lived there I got like 4 credit card applications in the mail per day; every store has its own credit/rewards card; every company has the same idea to extract as much wealth from citizens at the expense of their good health.

All of this fraud is an extension of that deregulation, which leaves people exposed. Frankly a slower moving economy is probably BETTER in the long run, but it’s all numbers and figures nowadays. People are reduced to an SSN number.

Nah. Here in Germany I can open a bank account in a matter of ten minutes online - for once, US-level deregulation is not the problem.

That same ID would also kill the conversation around voting fraud, whether it actually happens or not.

Agreed, but requiring stricter identity verification is now considered racism.

No. Doing so in a way that is intentionally designed to be more difficult for disadvantaged groups to fulfill so that they do not participate in the democratic process--that is not "considered" racism, it is racism.

But you know that. It must be hard to be so aggrieved.

> intentionally designed to be more difficult for disadvantaged groups

Why is obtaining an ID "intentionally designed" this way. Don't you need to get a driving license to drive? A passport to re-enter the country? Do disadvantaged groups not get driving licenses?

> Why is obtaining an ID "intentionally designed" this way.

Because when you make the places to get them few in number and difficult to get to, then make the lines to get them very long, you create hurdles for people who have jobs that are not overly friendly towards long or variable absences.

This is intentional, much as many places in the United States have reorganized voting locations to themselves be difficult to get to. Disenfranchisement is intentional.

> Don't you need to get a driving license to drive? ... Do disadvantaged groups not get driving licenses?

Many in the United States live in urban areas where they're not required and where they may not be economically feasible. (These folks tend not to vote for the people who are pushing ID requirements.)

> A passport to re-enter the country?

The set of Americans who never have cause to leave the country is very large.

I've never seen the problem explained this way. Thanks for helping me to understand. Seems like we could "fix it" if there was some way to make obtaining the IDs easy and quick. I doubt there's a solution for that, however...

There are ways, but they would require the cooperation of the political actors who don't want people whose votes they do not have--and, more generally, who they appreciate being at the mercy of the police in very actionable ways, which is the other issue with a lack of identification.

Yes germany does not have identity fraud in the same way US does

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