Only problem? My client had been married before, to pad her retirement account. And who knows where the husband had gone.

Twice.

Fortunately, my client ended up being free to marry as she pleased. Wisely, she had never actually used her real name to get married.

Unfortunately, it was because she'd used her sister's.

 Reply

I am glad my many-times-married sister never heard this either, and I can assure you she wont hear of it through me.

 Reply

@Curves: I must sadly say that is the only Steve Martin film that I truly abhor, and I would kindly ask to not be reminded of it ever again.

 Reply

@monoverb: Did you ask 48 white people and 2 black people? I call statistically-poor-surveying on you.

Though you have come up with a great scam to get people's SSNs: "Hey, I bet the SSN assignment system is racist! What's yours?"

 Reply

Everyone give me your social security numbers, and I'll check into it further.

 Reply

I'm thinking that it's geographic. We're in NY.

You would not believe how many people said "I have one odd and one even". For the record, if my SSN is 123-45-6789, we're talking about 45, not 4 and 5 or 9. Right??

 Reply

white and odd here too.

 Reply

*steps back slowly*

 Reply

@DeusExMach: You on the other hand...

 Reply

It was never intended to be a national id card...

 Reply

It isn't the card itself that bothers me, it's what comes with it. (tracking chip, government database, prison sentence or deportation for being without your "papers", etc...)

 Reply

There is, however a distinction between having something prove your identity, and having something help someone identify you. Driver's licenses and other forms of state ID, as well as passports are designed to be hard to forge and copy, and also include your picture and other biometric information. They therefore are useful to prove your identity. Your Social Security card does not have these same qualities and therefore does not do a good job proving your identity.

On the other hand, people may want a unique identifier to distinguish me from the other MonkeyEsqs, and knowing that I'm MonkeyEsq with a SS# ###-##-#### will allow you to make that distinction.

 Reply

What we should have is a GUID (a la the SSN), and related secret keys to actually prove our identity.

It's completely laughable that the generally accepted advice to protect your identity is "don't give out your SSN!" followed by "errr, except to banks, brokerages, car dealerships, credit unions, [potential] employers, furniture stores [special financing available!], cable and phone companies..." and other things I can't think of right now.

 Reply

No, I have a passport, and I'm aware they come with the rfid chip now. But the difference is my passport is still considered a privilege for travel, not a government identification requirement for every man, woman, & child. Kind of a difference there wouldn't you say?

 Reply

I would like some elaboration on this statement since I am neither a 'cat person' or a 'heroin addict' and do not have [a use for] a passport.

 Reply

"Yeah there's really no good argument against a national ID card. "

I have the best argument - issuing national ID cards is not a power given to the Federal Government in the Constitution. Any power not specifically granted to the Federal Government in the Constitution is a power that they are not authorized to have.

 Reply

Surely national ID cards can be described as "necessary and proper" to carry out all manner of powers listed in the Constitution.

 Reply

I disagree. But it doesn't matter, because it will never work in the U.S. anyway. There are too many states and people against it. And there's no way for the gov to force every person in the country to go stand in line and get a government ID card. It's not gonna happen.

Another downfall of Real ID is that the gov expects the states DMV offices to take care of it all at the expense of the state. Definitely not gonna happen. Hawaii asked them where exactly they were supposed to come up with 11 billion out of thin air for this stupid idea, and the gov didn't have an answer.

Another downfall of Real ID is the single point of failure. How long will it take for someone to clone it? Once it's cracked and duplicated, that's it. It's "security" is worthless.

There are laundry lists of good reasons to not have a national ID card, and no good reason for it. By contrast, all of the forms of ID out there right now are voluntary. A Drivers License is not required, unless you choose to drive. A SSN is not required, since you are not required to work. A passport is not required, unless you choose to leave the country (by traditional methods and expect to return). A library card (amazingly, accepted as ID in some circumstances) is not required unless you use the library. And on down the line. Theoretically speaking, you are free to walk around and live your life without government "papers" in this country if you choose. Real ID would change that. And not for the better.

How much more do you really want to give to the gov? They can already take away everything you've got, and everything you ever will have, simply by labeling you a "terrorist". They don't even have to charge you anymore. They can lock you up and throw away the key, any time they choose. And we allowed that to become a reality. That's not paranoia, it's real world.

So what's going to happen one day when you're out for a walk and a cop decides to question you, but you don't have your government "proof of existence" on you? Personally, I don't want to find out.

 Reply

However, international travel is fun and interesting, so don't count it out.

@Killjoy: I was speaking in the context of employment -- most corporations I've worked for required a driver's license and a SS card or birth certificate, or some combination of documents. But a passport alone would be enough. (This is to prove both identity and citizenship, in the case that the applicant is American).

I'm sure that's not the case 100% of the time, but I've noticed that on most government forms where you need to prove your ID the passport will be weighted most heavily. For example, when we married and my wife changed her name the SS office required a passport OR two or more documents from another list.

 Reply

Now your information is an RFID reader away with that card than say, something they'd have to get out of your wallet, or safe deposit box, or other ways. A hacker could literally visit every Starbucks in a city for an hour a day and reap thousands of people's identities as a result. Hell, they could build an automated scanner and just take a stroll through a concert, or a State Fair, or a 4th of July celebration, or New Year's in NYC...

 Reply

if they were 'necessary and proper' we would have had them 200 years ago. It seems to me we've gotten along just fine without them, making them neither necessary nor proper.

 Reply

it's worded "necessary AND proper" not "necessary OR proper" - the AND clause makes it not true as both conditions must be met.

 Reply

It has to be necessary and proper; it's not necessary because we can do/have done just fine without it. Case closed.

Leave an argument about proper for something that you might argue is necessary for governance but is being handled improperly. (i.e. Yes, we need defense, but conscripting child armies is not a proper approach.)

God I'm wordy today.

 Reply

We've "gotten along fine without it" because, until the last 20 years or so, the technology hasn't been there to make it a widespread-enough problem. Times change.

 Reply

"They didn't have the internet and credit cards 200 years ago."

which shows that the internet and credit cards also are not necessary.

necessary means "can't expect to live without it" - so a national defense, food, air, water, basic medicine, these are all things which are necessary.

ipods, credit cards, cars - all unnecessary.

 Reply

The last few digits are less easily reverse-engineered.

Or was that just your way of saying "First! TLDR"?

 Reply

Without any sort of algorithm, I would guess 320923MONKEYMOnnEY24392839NOODLEOIjjjEUJnsdkjfc as your SSN.

 Reply

Giz does provide a link to the original article. It is in an orange color, immediately following the post by Mr. Chen.

 Reply

@OMG! Ponies!: counting your posts, eh? 9849 is a lot.

 Reply

The counter is part mnemonic and part self-imposed pain-in-the-ass to make sure that I don't shoot my proverbial load prematurely.

For those wondering, if you type "http://gizmodo.com/profile/[username]?start=x into the address bar, you can find out where your at, commentwise. x is the number of comments. It takes some deduction. If you're newish, start with 100 and work your way up.

And I'm nowhere near being the most prolific here.

(9854)

 Reply

Not the most elegant reason, but probably the correct reason.

 Reply