131–140 of 201 posts
About 5 years ago I went to a getaway-type bachelor party. Along with us were the groom's future brother-in-law and two state police officers (friends of the groom, it wasn't that exciting a trip). At one point in the night, the brother-in-law (18) hands his fake ID over to the cops, they both stare at it and go, "Nope, no way I could tell that was fake." Ever since I've been waiting for the US to suck it up and drop…
Interesting that they mention Boston - along with NC it's the only place where my green card has been refused as an acceptable form of ID. I have no idea why a federally issued photo ID with my name, DoB and photo on it apparently isn't enough to prove my age. As a Brit, it amuses me that there are apparently so many balding 20 year olds with grey beards in the US that I am suspicious. They also don't seem to like my…
Boston is the real deal when it comes to ID crackdowns. About 150k college students so some tens of thousands of fake IDs, plus a history of blue laws. I believe that legally they are even allowed to refuse legitimate out-of-state US drivers' licenses (most places do not do this, but they can). Foreign passports also can be refused. And that's not even counting the notorious "box scanners" which, to my knowledge, are…
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…
I've been interested in this topic for a while. The article was fairly good but I did have a few minor quibbles. For one, ordering from IDGod (the vendor in the story) is known to be very reliable. If packages get stopped at customs, a customer can contact support to get a replacement shipped at no charge. Additionally, the advanced scanner BarZapp is pretty much a non-issue. Almost any ID purchased from vendors on t…
How will a fake id pass BarZapp? According to the article (I know nothing about this, so could be wrong) it looks up the id in a database and returns the name and dob of the owner. How could the made-up name be in the database? Or are they cloning existing IDs, and the buyer doesn't get a choice in the name?
How do you prove someone once showed you a fake ID? Well, back in the $1 per shot polaroid / kodak instamatic era, you didn't. So the fake ID owner got away with it and bar owner got punished, which is the only reason bars cared about carefully checking fake IDs.
Now with a machine the bar has a fighting chance in court, the police verbally claim the bar served an underage patron, and the police provide a person residing in the city who is underage, but there is nothing in common between those two people, your honor here is a copy of the patron's license clearly showing he's 22 at that time and there's no legal record of my patron ever having been charged with a fake ID infraction and my patron is not the same person as the supposed police witness, so, your honor I request you dismiss the case K thx bye.
There is also the 3rd party to blame, if a bouncer knows some punk who gets drunk and starts fights, oh so sorry your ID failed the scan, now go away. "No point arguing with me, buddy, you need a better fake ID, yell at the guy who sold it to you".
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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...
But a drivers license is not a valid proof of identification here
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> the US simply seems culturally incapable of healthy approaches to easing kids through becoming adults on a number of dimensions I couldn't agree more, and numerous problems are pretty much a direct result.
The worst part is that teaching kids about alcohol safely at home, European style, is ILLEGAL in much of the US, meaning that social services might come take your kids if they discover you gave them a glass of wine at Christmas. I grew up in Europe. I was planning on letting my kid try a small glass of wine with food in their early teens. But doing so in the US, I actually risk jail and loss of parental custody. Let…
This may seem kind of bizarre, and perhaps the criteria in many states need to be made clearer and more objective, but it's not an inconsistent position. In many contexts the law allows parents to expose their kids to different kinds of risks, but if the overall amount of risk is considered too high, then the parents' fitness may be questioned. In the alcohol context, a judge might consider that letting children drink at meals in their parents' presence was not unfit parenting, but knowingly allowing the children to drink every day without any supervision was.
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The worst part is that teaching kids about alcohol safely at home, European style, is ILLEGAL in much of the US, meaning that social services might come take your kids if they discover you gave them a glass of wine at Christmas. I grew up in Europe. I was planning on letting my kid try a small glass of wine with food in their early teens. But doing so in the US, I actually risk jail and loss of parental custody. Let…
It boggles my mind that outside my small social bubble, people around my age (23) spend their whole weekends drunk. I'm not out to stop them and I accept their choices, but I wonder if it's also a result of our alcohol culture. Most people can't seem to enjoy just one or two beers.
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The worst part is that teaching kids about alcohol safely at home, European style, is ILLEGAL in much of the US, meaning that social services might come take your kids if they discover you gave them a glass of wine at Christmas. I grew up in Europe. I was planning on letting my kid try a small glass of wine with food in their early teens. But doing so in the US, I actually risk jail and loss of parental custody. Let…
I think you've oversimplified the legal situation here. Many states' laws do allow parents to give their children alcohol, but they may also allow the parents' practices in this regard to be considered as a factor in finding that they are unfit parents, which is a determination that should be made by a formal hearing, considering various evidence. This may seem kind of bizarre, and perhaps the criteria in many states…
This is true for several states.
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I think a big part of the problem is that America is very large and very car focused. If you can reasonably walk to where you're drinking (or more importantly, walk home from there), then you're less likely to drive drunk. Many bars in America essentially require driving to and from.
I think the car-orientation of the US would greatly benefit from a European-style approach to teaching kids about alcohol. I lived in Germany for a year as an exchange student when I was 16, the age at which kids can drink without a parent present. They can't get a license until 18. The vast bulk of kids there, in my experience, seemed to figure out sane drinking well before they got behind the wheel. Coming back to…
Unfortunately this is true and applies to a broad range of subjects.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a big part of the problem is that America is very large and very car focused. If you can reasonably walk to where you're drinking (or more importantly, walk home from there), then you're less likely to drive drunk. Many bars in America essentially require driving to and from.
Isn't this a zoning problem rather than a size problem? Does zoning generally allow having a neighborhood bar?
Add in the availability of public transit, and you can basically always go to whatever bar you wish without driving.