Jan
13
Digital Insecurity
Filed Under Technology
As I walked into the BMV, I remembered that they only take checks or cash. I’d thought about this the other night and reminded myself to take along the checkbook. Then I promptly forgot.
I don’t like checks. I pay everything I can electronically. The whole act of writing checks feels arcane. The idea of sitting down with a pile of bills and book of stamps, of making tiny ledger entries in the check register, of doing addition and subtraction, feels completely inefficient. It feels like a ritual. A chore of adulthood. Something you’d do in the 1970’s: sit down at the kitchen table after work, loosen your wide tie, run the numbers, argue with the wife about money, and then suck down a scotch in a really ugly glass. Not really my style.
Likewise, I don’t carry much cash. I don’t spend a whole lot of money in my day to day routine. And due to my legendary lack of self-control, I find that if I do have cash, I’ll probably spend it. Most places where I might partake in a little commerce take debit cards these days anyway. There’s a threefold benefit for me. One: If I have to take out the card, I think about the purchase a little more and am less apt to spend frivolously. Two: All transactions go into Quicken, where I track them by category. I can analyze our spending patterns and budgets like the organization freak I am. Three: Until I spend it, the cash remains in our bank account, soaking up .0000115% interest. Hey, every little bit helps, right? These days, everyone should be as fiscally responsible as they can.
Beyond these benefits, I see checks and cash as old and insecure technology. People have been counterfeiting bills and washing checks forever. Say what you will about hackers snatching money out of your online bank account, you have to admit that there is a higher level of skill with techno crimes than with someone mugging you for your folding money. And when something is more difficult, you have fewer potential players. And with a smaller pool of thieves, less risk for each individual to be victimized.
I’ll never be a cash-only luddite. Not until the grid goes down, anyway. And then currency will be gunpowder, children, and flour.
So I was a little annoyed at the BMV. I couldn’t understand why the county would not embrace a modern banking method. I can walk into most fast food restaurants and use a debit card, but not a government agency? Wouldn’t they get their money sooner from card transaction instead of check? Wouldn’t this result in an extra $0.004 in their coffers from some banking wizardry?
I received my digital comeuppance later that same day. A letter from my school informed me that my private information, including my Social Security Number, may have been compromised. I may be open to identity theft.
Ours is a more technological age. But still vulnerable. Efficiency has a price, it seems. The crimes are more complicated–and damaging–than robbery and forgery. Our system hasn’t quite figured out what these crimes are, let alone how to stop them. Let alone how to prevent them. On one hand, I have to believe that an electronic transaction between two banks with no human interaction is safer than a paper document delivered through the mail.
On the other hand, I want to crawl into a hole and come out when it’s 1910.
There was a lot of talk about the national ID cards this week. There’s an argument against these cards based on civil liberties, that our country is one where no one has to “show their papers”. But I’ll go one better: these cards won’t work. Our government is not equipped, at any level, to make any kind of secure identification document. The systems between different bureaucracies are not integrated, not standardized. Any attempts at communication between these systems will introduce more risk: more connection points for intrusion, more contracted software work from private firms, more replication of data on more servers. The very likely result is to expose personal data for every citizen in a one-stop shop for identity thieves.
Should we believe that unrelated agencies can secure data when the BMV still won’t process debit cards?
Think about your Social Security number. These numbers where introduced in 1936. This was before television, let alone online consumer databases. Over the past seventy years, these numbers have been used for everything from tax forms to hospital records. When you get a new job, what do they ask for? These numbers have been made useless by their ubiquity. And think about the card itself. No picture, no identifiers, no laminate. And delivered through the U.S. Postal Service. These numbers are ruined.
Despite the complete insecurity of Social Security Numbers, these numbers remain the significant identifier for us as U.S. citizens. I remain unconvinced that our bureaucracy can create a truly secure and useful document. Fix these numeric identifiers (scrap them and start over), and we would be a big step closer to securing everyone’s identity. Fix these, and maybe we’ll see if the government is capable of organizing a new ID system.
That is, right after we can get the BMV to accept debit cards.
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