US Government Begins Rollout Of Its 'Driver's License For The Internet'

[aGameOfThrones]

An idea the government has been kicking around since 2011 is finally making its debut. Calling this move ill-timed would be the most gracious way of putting it.

A few years back, the White House had a brilliant idea: Why not create a single, secure online ID that Americans could use to verify their identity across multiple websites, starting with local government services. The New York Times described it at the time as a "driver's license for the internet."

Sound convenient? It is. Sound scary? It is.

Next month, a pilot program of the "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" will begin in government agencies in two US states, to test out whether the pros of a federally verified cyber ID outweigh the cons.

The NSTIC program has been in (slow) motion for nearly three years, but now, at a time when the public's trust in government is at an all time low, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST -- itself still reeling a bit from NSA-related blowback) is testing the program in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The first tests appear to be exclusively aimed at accessing public programs, like government assistance. The government believes this ID system will help reduce fraud and overhead, by eliminating duplicated ID efforts across multiple agencies.

But the program isn't strictly limited to government use. The ultimate goal is a replacement of many logins and passwords people maintain to access content and participate in comment threads and forums. This "solution," while somewhat practical, also raises considerable privacy concerns.

[T]he Electronic Frontier Foundation immediately pointed out the red flags, arguing that the right to anonymous speech in the digital realm is protected under the First Amendment. It called the program "radical," "concerning," and pointed out that the plan "makes scant mention of the unprecedented threat such a scheme would pose to privacy and free speech online."

And the keepers of the identity credentials wouldn't be the government itself, but a third party organization. When the program was introduced in 2011, banks, technology companies or cellphone service providers were suggested for the role, so theoretically Google or Verizon could have access to a comprehensive profile of who you are that's shared with every site you visit, as mandated by the government.

Beyond the privacy issues (and the hints of government being unduly interested in your online activities), there are the security issues. This collected information would be housed centrally, possibly by corporate third parties. When hackers can find a wealth of information at one location, it presents a very enticing target. The government's track record on protecting confidential information is hardly encouraging.


http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140503/04264427106/us-government-begins-rollout-its-drivers-license-internet.shtml

more sources: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/nstic-government-internet-id/

[AngryCanadian]

Is this a joke? if the American Government does this Harper will follow suit. :rolleyes:

[phill4paul]

Ah, yes. Something has been found that is un-regulated. Time to make it a "privilege" and issue a licence which can be taxed, tracked and revoked.

[mrsat_98]

Ah, yes. Something has been found that is un-regulated. Time to make it a "privilege" and issue a licence which can be taxed, tracked and revoked.

I see dead people surfing the net.

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/500x/46084498.jpg

[FindLiberty]

LOL, Will this guber-tcp/ip ID thing work with Bitcoin and somehow still remain anonymous?

[HOLLYWOOD]

It's all to protect businesses and government image, while handing Big Brother agencies the last bastions of what little privacy is left.

[pcosmar]

An idea the government has been kicking around since 2011 is finally making its debut.

I first saw this shit proposed and discussed (and mostly discarded or opposed) back in 2004.. and I was first online in 2003.

It was stupid shit then,, but some were pushing the idea.


Is this a joke? if the American Government does this Harper will follow suit. :rolleyes:

It is most certainly not a joke..

And folks have seen it coming.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsPJaIQNM5w

Uploaded on Dec 1, 2008

Recorded in 1996 by Entropica & V.Tea and released by UK psychedelic club Megatripolis, with words written by John Perry Barlow (founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Grateful Dead lyricist) in response to the Clinton administrations' effort to censor and control the internet with the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996.

[pcosmar]

The full text if the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
by John Perry Barlow

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone,, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.
In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.
In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.
We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.
Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996

[kahless]

I suspect this will probably go down first as you will not be able to pay any government tax services or licensing without it. That will just happen without the media questioning it.

It will be "hosted by 3rd parties". Insert boobus's lovable that can do no wrong dot com in their eyes and all is okay with them. Sure there will then be initial outrage when Facebook, Google, social media sites and mobile apps begin implementing it. But they will probably use some false flag event "that could have been avoided if..." everyone had a internet drivers license. Something like gay kids killing themselves due to online bullying to rally the idiots for it.

They are probably also betting on Boobus not being able to live without their beloved facebook or mobile app that will require it. Once they play along Boobus will then mock anyone that is against it as a conspiracy theorist.

In their own words.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/randi-zuckerberg-anonymity-online_n_910892.html

Zuckerberg, who is Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, argued that putting an end to anonymity online could help curb bullying and harassment on the web.

“I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away,” she said during a panel discussion on social media hosted Tuesday evening by Marie Claire magazine. “People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.”

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has also made this suggestion, calling online anonymity “dangerous” and predicting that governments will eventually “demand” that people use their names for all online activity.

[jllundqu]

Yeah because Google and Verizon would NEVER share data with the government... :rolleyes:

[Czolgosz]

Of course this will happen. Duh.

[thoughtomator]

The idea of a license implies that said license can be revoked.

[pcosmar]

The idea of a license implies that said license can be revoked.

Exactly.

[ZENemy]

Fuck them

We will and already are building our OWN internet. Do some research.

[roho76]

Of course. Well, look at how well obamacare.whogivesashit is doing. It's obvious they should control the internet.

[Danke]

I already got one.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Do think Tyrants in Borg Government think they will be getting a license to commit crimes?

If anything, the unsecured individual's licenses will be copied/stolen/used to commit fraud... this will lead to even further laws/censorships/internet imprisonment.


This CON GAME conjured-up by the lawyers in the Security Industrial Complexes... so easy to see the shit storm coming down the road... and you the individual will pay for all of it... even your freedoms.

Why borrow screwing around politicians, just change the name of Washington DC to: FUCKING FASCISTSVILLE, WHORESBERG, New Jackoff City

[acptulsa]

Well, that's what the internet gets for propagating all that horrible free speech. Of course the public needs to be protected from the free exchange of information and ideas.


Fuck them

We will and already are building our OWN internet. Do some research.

Come now, citizen. You know perfectly well that licensing is but the first necessary step toward getting this subversive activity of yours properly labeled as the terrorism it is.

Al Gore invented the licensed and legitimate internet, and if you were a civilized human that would be good enough for you.

[amy31416]

This is crazy. I was just listening to NPR this morning where they had a "news" item that Vladimir Putin is trying to put this into effect and they were trying to make him look like a dictator and conspiracy theorist for it.

[acptulsa]

This is crazy. I was just listening to NPR this morning where they had a "news" item that Vladimir Putin is trying to put this into effect and they were trying to make him look like a dictator and conspiracy theorist for it.

The juxtaposition of this story and that editorial would make for a brilliant vid...

[amy31416]

The juxtaposition of this story and that editorial would make for a brilliant vid...

Jon Stewart does that sort of thing quite often, think he'll cover this?

I have my doubts...

[TonySutton]

Don't forget mandatory internet insurance to protect you and those you interact with.

[Pericles]

Fuck them

We will and already are building our OWN internet. Do some research.

There is much good to come from that. For one thing rationalize the IP address assignments geographically so that WAN admins lives are much easier on screening out or in places that cooperate or don't. I could easily live without traffic from China or Russia .....

[acptulsa]

Don't forget mandatory internet insurance to protect you and those you interact with.

Don't you realize tptb monitor these boards constantly and closely?

STOP GIVING THEM IDEAS!!

[bunklocoempire]

Just protect my rights. You had one job.

[Ronin Truth]

How old for a Learner's Permit?

[phill4paul]

How old for a Learner's Permit?

Depends on if they take whichever special interest mandated course is assigned.

[DamianTV]

LOL, Will this guber-tcp/ip ID thing work with Bitcoin and somehow still remain anonymous?

Actually, the exact opposite. And you wont get Bitcoins, you'll get their version of bitcoin. It wont happen immediately, but you know they can not survive if they do not maintain a money system that benefits them. Digital, yes. Honest, no.

[tangent4ronpaul]

i seriously doubt this will ever happen.

Real ID got shot down
When they tried to make the entire Internet G rated, that got shot down.
Things like this are incredibly unpopular.

-t

[moostraks]

i seriously doubt this will ever happen.

Real ID got shot down
When they tried to make the entire Internet G rated, that got shot down.
Things like this are incredibly unpopular.

-t

Like casinos in Ohio, they will just keep floating the idea and tweaking it until popular sentiment is created enough for the idea to float as legit. Wait until the common core generation becomes voters. When a generation who has no memories of anything but fear and surveillance gets to vote we are screwed. It isn't that voters necessarily have to have voted for it to be "voted" in, people just have to perceive there is popular support for it to be forced upon us.

[Lucille]

i seriously doubt this will ever happen.

Real ID got shot down
When they tried to make the entire Internet G rated, that got shot down.
Things like this are incredibly unpopular.

-t

I sure hope you're right, but...


The White House argues cutting down on inefficiencies and fraud would bolster the information economy. In an era where we have cars that drive themselves and flying robots delivering beer, you have to wonder how much longer people are going to put up with standing in line at the DMV for four hours to hand a teller (with a taxpayer-paid salary) a copy of your birth certificate and piece of mail to prove you are you.

If an analysis of the pilot programs in Michigan and Pennsylvania find the centralized ID saves time and money and spares us the DMV line, privacy advocates are going to have a hell of a fight ahead of them (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?451144-Obama-Administration-Launches-Plan-To-Make-An-quot-Internet-ID-quot-A-Reality).

Big Brother is Coming To Your Brokerage Account
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-07/big-brother-coming-your-brokerage-account


Once again, rather than reforming the system, the status quo is doubling down. I have recently highlighted several such efforts with regard to the internet, which can be read below:

Say Goodbye to “Net Neutrality” – New FCC Proposal Will Permit Discrimination of Web Content
Obama Administration Launches Plan to Make an “Internet ID” a Reality

It now appears the status quo is moving to destroy any last semblance of privacy with regard to your personal brokerage accounts. Yep, in the name of “stopping fraud” and the practices of unscrupulous brokers, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) wants to launch a program called Cards, or the Comprehensive Automated Risk Data System. This electronic system sounds a lot like the so-called metadata the NSA is collecting on everyone’s internet usage. This “robocop” would collect a weekly “record of activity at all of the more than 4,100 brokerage firms nationwide.”

For your own good of course. Oh, and yeah, to stop terrorists or something…
[...]
Give me a fucking break. The last thing the establishment cares about is stopping fraud. Fraud is the number one driver of American GDP at the moment. It is institutionalized, protected and endorsed. This is about nothing more than destroying your financial privacy.
[...]
The battle is on and the system is doubling down. What are you going to do about it?

[PRB]

Fuck them

We will and already are building our OWN internet. Do some research.

without their infrastructure?

[DamianTV]

without their infrastructure?

Too much infrastructure already exists for people to create their own internet. Even if it means going back to dialup BBS services.

[LibForestPaul]

No, this will come. 5 years tops. Porn + Drugs + Money Laundering(Bit Coin) + Tax Havens + Violence(bullying) + Guns + SOPA(mega upload)

Oh yes, this is coming.
I already envision numerous banksters, bought politicians, conservative baptists, ****** brits, RIAA, all in closed room bukkaking all over US constitution while seeing this go up for a vote.