NII and the US Card

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date:  Sat, 16 Apr 94 16:12 EDT
From: WHMurray () DOCKMASTER NCSC MIL
Subject:  NII and the US Card
To: farber () CENTRAL CIS UPENN EDU (David Farber)




Last week in the security track of the CardTech/SecureTech Conference, I
heard a presentation by a representative of the U. S. Postal Service on
the "US Card."  This is a piece of the national information
infrastructure intended to mediate all government services to and
controls over the citizen.


It will contain health care data, financial data, tax data, and identity
data.  It will contain a private key (digital signatures only), a pin,
and other identifying data.  (While emphasizing that "open to new
applications" was a requirement of the system, he was silent on arrest
record, voter registration, gender preference, and previous condition of
servitude.)


Use of the card will be "voluntary."  The government is doing this for
us because it will enable them to give us better service, because the
citizens require "one card," and to protect us from the "twenty million
'little brothers'" that we now recognize as the "real threat to our
privacy."  (He did not claim that this would protect us from terrorists,
child molestors, drug dealers, or religious cults.)  (All of this was
delivered with a perfectly straight face and without challenge from the
audience.)  Of course if we do not like it, we can do away with it,
right?


The official stated that the Postal Service is prepared to issue a
hundred million of these cards within months of getting the go ahead.


Along with the net, "voluntary" fingerprinting of the poor, CLIPPER, and
the FBI's digital telephony initiative, what more could any citizen, not
to say government, ask for?  Law and order is just around the corner.


Aren't you glad to hear that Orwell had it all wrong?


William Hugh Murray, Executive Consultant, Information System Security
49 Locust Avenue, Suite 104; New Canaan, Connecticut 06840
1-0-ATT-0-700-WMURRAY; WHMurray at DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL