Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fake IDs in the age of the internet

melmagazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 201 posts

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#41

Post by graton »

paulddraper wrote: post #27
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #5

The mass use of fake IDs of this sort is a bizarrely American problem. In the UK, you're considered an adult at age 18. Most (aside from the unfortunate 17-year-olds) university students can legally purchase alcohol, smoke, or gamble if they so choose. But we don't have MADD, I guess.

Your bizarreness may be misplaced. American 18-year-olds can smoke and gamble. I don't see how 18 prevents fake ids from 16 and 17 year olds though.

The smoking age in Arizona, California, Kansas, New York City, and a lot of cities and counties have 21 as the smoking age.

And 21 is the gambling age in many states in the US.

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#42

Post by castratikron »

realusername wrote: post #8

Is that seriously how the driving license looks like in the US? It looks like a student card, I understand why it's easy to duplicate now.

Drivers licences are issued by the states, so the quality of licences vary. Each state comes up with their own implementation, which can be as secure as they see fit. If you have any friends from Pennsylvania and Minnesota you should ask to compare their licences; only one should seem difficult to reproduce.

There really is no national minimum on the security of a drivers license. Since a drivers license can be used to board a domestic flight, there is something called the REAL ID Act that attempts to set a federal standard for state issued licenses. But other than that the states are mostly on their own with regards to implementation.

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#43

Post by douche »

pzduniak wrote: post #12
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #5

The mass use of fake IDs of this sort is a bizarrely American problem. In the UK, you're considered an adult at age 18. Most (aside from the unfortunate 17-year-olds) university students can legally purchase alcohol, smoke, or gamble if they so choose. But we don't have MADD, I guess.

Being a well-off 19yo engineer in Poland I can't even imagine being treated unequally in everyday life, so that's yet another reason to not visit US for me, other than almost certainly being questioned at a border (although 90% of my income comes from startups in California).

If you're a stereotypically ethnic Polish person (just guessing from the username) no one is going to even look cross-eyed at you if you can speak English at all.

The 21 year drinking age is still idiotic and actively harmful.

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#44

Post by Tenhundfeld »

paulddraper wrote: post #27
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #5

The mass use of fake IDs of this sort is a bizarrely American problem. In the UK, you're considered an adult at age 18. Most (aside from the unfortunate 17-year-olds) university students can legally purchase alcohol, smoke, or gamble if they so choose. But we don't have MADD, I guess.

Your bizarreness may be misplaced. American 18-year-olds can smoke and gamble. I don't see how 18 prevents fake ids from 16 and 17 year olds though.

Just FYI, a handful of states have 19 or 21 as the age to buy tobacco, and while I think you're right about the age to gamble being 18 in most states, most casinos require you to be 21 – at least from my anecdotal experience.

This doesn't change your overall point about fake IDs, but it does support the idea that America has a bizarre set of age limits around "sinful" behaviors.

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#45

Post by backtoyoujim »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #5

The mass use of fake IDs of this sort is a bizarrely American problem. In the UK, you're considered an adult at age 18. Most (aside from the unfortunate 17-year-olds) university students can legally purchase alcohol, smoke, or gamble if they so choose. But we don't have MADD, I guess.

Whenever I read "in the UK" these days my mind wanders to how BREXIT will affect it ?

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#46

Post by scurvy »

post_break wrote: post #4

This reminds me of back in the day when someone broke into the Ohio DMV and stole the machine that made the IDs and starting making exact "fake" IDs.

Before the days of prevalent computers and searchable databases, one would just take someone else's information to the DMV and get a real ID with their info.

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#47

Post by mdp »

driverdan wrote: post #3

I'm a bit disappointed in this article. Interviewing someone who bought fake IDs and a small scale seller from 1994 isn't that insightful. He should have tracked down a current seller and interviewed them. Prices have dropped in the past 10 years which I assume means increased competition. It would be interesting to hear how that has affected the business. I'm also curious about the techniques they use. When I was se…

Hah, I also had the Alps for the same reason. I always wondered what percentage of their sales was to kids making fake IDs.

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#48

Post by lvoudour »

ivl wrote: post #39
lvoudour wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In Greece, we don't check IDs for alcohol use (in practice. I think we're supposed to be doing it, nowadays). There are also no on-premises laws for alcohol. That's not correct. The law states clearly that alcohol purchase and consumption in public are illegal for underage people [1]. It's also illegal to enter premises where alcohol is served, without being escorted by an adult. Unfortunately the problem with Greec…

I'm not convinced it's reasonable to call it a problem. Prohibitionists have done little good, particularly when it comes to lighter drugs, such as alcohol or marijuana.

It's not as big a problem as in northern Europe (alcoholism), but it's still a problem. Alcohol has claimed significantly more victims than all hard drugs combined. I agree prohibition is not the answer, only a change of culture will deter you from e.g. driving when you're drunk. But taking the drunk drivers off the streets or shutting down premises that systematically serve alcohol to kids, is not a bad idea

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#49

Post by ben_jones »

Several of my friends are college bartenders who check these IDs regularly. Most fakes are easy to spot but its generally more of a hassle to actually bounce someone then let them get by. If a bar gets any heat, like a higher percentage of incidents outside in a given month, they'll step up their rejections. Attractive people, and specifically attractive women, are let in much more often.

Re: Fake IDs in the age of the internet

#50

Post by glenneroo »

swimfar wrote: post #17
realusername wrote: post #8

Is that seriously how the driving license looks like in the US? It looks like a student card, I understand why it's easy to duplicate now.

Compared to what? I've seen much simpler driver's licenses from other countries. Up until recently (2013 maybe) the French driver's license was literally a piece of pink paper with a picture glued to it. http://flawlessfakeids.com/wp-content/uploads/French-Fake-Dr...

Same in Austria, a pink piece of paper until a couple years ago.

http://diepresse.com/images/uploads/5/e/b/1299947/ansturm_sc...

p.s. your link is broken:

> The owner of this website (flawlessfakeids.com) does not allow hotlinking to that resource

Post reply on HN