On Tue, 19 Apr 1994, Bill Garland wrote:
the point-of-sale terminal is encoded on the card or is in their "neat little database" on the network into which they are tuned.
In my area the drivers liscence don't have magnetic strips or anything like that. It is also a common practice to forge Military IDs which are easier marks since there is a large airforce base nearby with af kids galore. Something like Adobe or some other decent photo-shop, graphic editing software and a good laser printer and scanner can basically make you almost any ID you want when you know where to get the needed supplies from. You can by the special laminating material etc.. and then do a bit of computer art and you have yourself a new fake ID. Look in like Loopmaniacs catalogs and other similiar publications ofr sources for blanks.
I don't know, but I guess this might mean that the paper driver's licences we use here in the back woods are soon to go the way of the buggy whip. The military ID should have been enough - I would assume that, especially in the largest armed force ever assembled by man, it is easier to fake a drivers licence than a military id. But I've been wrong before...
Mil IDs are easy, BUT supposedly they are coming out with newer ones that would be very difficult and would wipe out most of the little guys making the fakes.
If the info is on the card, follow the refrigerator magnet idea if you don't want them to cash your cheque. Or do as the Sarge did. Then, instead of having a record that you purchased Pentouse Letters on April 14 at 10:33 pm in Mac's Milk on the corner of Broadway and 110th, they have a record of your withdrawal of 50 bucks from the atm and a picture in their video database as you did the withdrawal. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Or do as I do, which is easy for me considering i don;'t have too much income or t5ansactions going on since I am relatively young, unestablished etc.. which is to put it in a savings account without an ATM card and then cash my checks at a local mini-mart, and do all transactions with cash afterwards. Sure I cant get anything for investing etc.. but my cash-flow is low enough that it makes little difference to me. The problem with this is that in order to subsrice to services and such that require a check or credit number I can either get my parents to do it, or find another method that doesnt connect to me.
If the info is in the database, and it is (even though _this_ pos terminal may not have access to it) then - well, if you object to this, keep up with cp and other fora, get yourself some fake or anonymous id's (?), write code, use pgp, become judgement proof, move and don't set up forwarding addresses, have your id killed, etc.
This is a topic I am interested in giving the light of recent events with Big Bro moving in. Is there any precedence for the use of technology for killing your old ID, or generating a good fake or anonymouse one(false, but not deep)? Even at only nineteen I am sure that I have mucho info in databases around the nation and elsewhere, not criminal or anything sjust your standard marketing databases and such. Hell I can barely program and im on mailing lists for Borland programming conventions. All of this from becoming a favored customer at B.Dalton and Waldenbooks. That's just the beggening I am sure. Our school here uses Social Security numbers as student ID numbers. As cypherpunks can anyone suggst ways to protect yourself from such encroachment thru technology, sicne that is the main topic here. In case some people just kill this thread before getting to the bottom of this post, since it has dicresses abit from the original point, Ill post another seperate post listing some of my ideas on this topic of protecting your privacy from such things, tho it is a continuous thread in this list.
Bill Garland, whose .sig just vanished
You're eqipped with a hundred billion nueron brain, that's wired and fired, and it's a reality generating device, but you've got too do it. Free youself ----Tim Leary----