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Comment by stephenitis | Hacker News Reader

Good maybe we'll finally pass a bill to give us better working public identification numbers.

Unlikely. We have terrible, dangerous, expensive, painful de facto national ID, none of which bad elements hinder use of it (with associated government and private databases) for the purposes people worry about, but a huge segment of the right and a fair amount of the left won’t let us fix it because they fear a good version would be misused, and/or that it’s the “mark of the beast”. Never mind that the horse is already out of the barn I guess. So we’re stuck with a bunch of extra lost time and money for no reason.

> because they fear a good version would be misused, and/or that it’s the “mark of the beast”

I'm aware of and share the concerns about misuse (it has happened, see the tax ID debate in Germany), but what the fuck is that with "mark of the beast" relating to ID cards?!

I know it seems crazy but it’s a real thing. There’s been litigation related to it over social security numbers, even. I’ve known people IRL who are sure any ID improvements are a move toward the rise of the Antichrist, and these were otherwise “normal” Christian folks. It’s fairly widespread, as nutty concerns go.

Well, there's a Venn diagram where there is overlap of legitimate concern over tracking people and these religious beliefs. OTOH SSNs are like the least of problems compared to how tracking is all over our digital lives.

> legitimate concern over tracking people

Why couldn't the government use SSN to track people? There is no way to avoid tracking in situations where you need to identify yourself, regardless how you identify yourself, so why not make a robust way to identify yourself?

Yes, I agree. Just pointing out that their worldview is not entirely dissonant with actual problems. Not saying it’s right.

They think that a unique number for each person would let the government oppress people. Basically they think it makes it easier for the government to track you, even though current usage of social security number gets the exact same effect without any of the advantages of a mandatory national id number.

That, yes, but a surprisingly-large-to-rational-bubbled-HNers set of Americans actually worry that any kind of national ID program is part of the rise of the Antichrist to power and that having one puts them under, or will in the future put them under, the Antichrist’s power. Seriously.

I have never encountered anyone claiming the antichrist has anything to do with IDs.

Oh I certainly have. I've seen this quoted by my crazy family members:

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.

Yeah, the first one is kind of nothing (as long as the mark location is taken figuratively and not literally, it could even mean something like a phone number), but the second one kinda came to the forefront around 2022 when governments started talking about vaccine passports and the possibility of using them to deny access based on vaccination status.

It's an extremist argument that has at times been used in fundamentalist Christian circles. It's not a widespread refrain, but there are people who don't want any kind of government tracking and use that argument to persuade some Christians.

Be careful what you wish for.

I think we can come up with a far more sophisticated solution than ID numbers using PKI. Whether that's a good thing or not is unclear.

Issued by who? The states vs federal ID is still a very polarizing conversation. I see no way that all 50 states will ever agree on the exact same system. Look at the RealID situation.

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