Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn • Hacker News Board

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#41

Post by tialaramex » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

JBorrow wrote: post #29

tinus_hn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what does the app do?

In the UK, you upload a photo from your phone of yourself (that it checks to make sure is valid), you put in your old passport number, and you send your old passport by post to the office. Then in a few days you get your new passport with the photo from your phone.

Valid here means, the app tries to determine if you did any of the things the rules tell you not to do, like, wearing sunglasses, or using the photo of you with your best friend, or taking a full body photo when they want a face. Later a human will check, and also compare the photo to your last one. Maybe you dyed your hair blond... and grew a different moustache... But how did your missing eye grow back? And why is your nose now further up your face?

So the app catches a lot of dumb mistakes that you could make, before a human had to waste their time, but it isn't the only validation.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#42

Post by bouncycastle » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

stagas wrote: post #33

Why do we still have borders? Is it a form of learned helplessness? As a European travelling freely inside the Schengen zone is one of the most amazing things and you can argue it has stopped war among those countries. What is the problem of not extending it to the entire world? Does anyone know? Also, it seems that tons of resources are wasted maintaining them when they could be used for increasing prosperity for ev…

People like drawing imaginary lines and then segregating themselves between these lines based on their shared delusions. Passports give them a sense of control and security.

I often wonder why I can't just give up my own nationality and have no country. Because why not?

Update: just saw on Wikipedia that statelessness is actually a thing! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#43

Post by encryptluks2 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

I live in WA state and receive unemployment. I recently had to verify my identity after getting unemployment for 6 months. This required that I send them a color copy of my DL & SS card, and a passport too since I had one. It was announced shortly thereafter that the system they use to process documents was compromised. A virtual passport app may present real data risk, but no more than the government already does in the multitude of breaches that take place every year with no end in sight.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#44

Post by cdmckay » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

yabones wrote: post #38

As a Canadian, I will provide some context around our application for passport process. I went through it a year ago (got my passport 2 days before lockdown), so it's still fresh in my head. To get a passport, you have to go to the post office, get the paper forms (and a spare or two in case you mess up), and fill them out. They need info about where you were born, the doctor who delivered you, your current address a…

I'm also a Canadian and my experience has been much different.

I've done the process many times, and it takes a couple hours max to gather everything you need.

You can download the forms from the Government of Canada website and complete them using the free version of Adobe Reader, or you can print them out and do them by hand.

Probably the most annoying part is getting the photos, but nearly every pharmacy can take the passport photos for you, and they all know how to do it because it's very common. I've never had a photo rejected by the passport office.

You don't need to know who the doctor who delivered you was.

You don't need a "public servant of some sort". The passport application clearly says they just need to have known you for 2 years and have a Canadian passport already.

It's also rare that they ever call the guarantor, or the references. I've never heard of it happening to any of my family or friends.

It's a pretty simple process and you only have to do it every 10 years.

Source: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/englis...

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#45

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

stagas wrote: post #33

Why do we still have borders? Is it a form of learned helplessness? As a European travelling freely inside the Schengen zone is one of the most amazing things and you can argue it has stopped war among those countries. What is the problem of not extending it to the entire world? Does anyone know? Also, it seems that tons of resources are wasted maintaining them when they could be used for increasing prosperity for ev…

I worry that these COVID border closures have fatally weakened Schengen. They may be only temporary public health measures, but the symbolic effect of successfully restoring walls between Europeans could be devastating in the long term. You have national-level health ministers saying that they are not especially concerned about the difficulties of people who live in a community that extends across both sides of the border, or who drive back and forth for (sometimes essential) work every day.

When e.g. Macron has expressed opposition to the survival of Schengen in its current form, then it makes it easy for such leaders to resort to supposedly "short-term" border closures after COVID, having seen that they could easily get away with it during the epidemic.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#46

Post by krageon » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

ivnubinas wrote: post #40

danpalmer wrote: post #10

> IBM Canada has won $1.5M contract to develop new platform for IRCC This will buy what? A team of 4 interns and new grads for 6 months. At the end they'll have a slide deck with too much wordart in ith containing some half-baked ideas, and a few lines of code that don't do anything useful at all and are further from production readiness than starting from scratch.

If they outsource it they can hire lots of mid and senior level engineers using my country's salaries as a reference. Paying 34K a year salary (which is a top 0.1% salary in the Dominican Republic) they can hire up to 35 senior engineers.

Of course, outsourcing is in the vast majority of cases a complete disaster.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#47

Post by ghaff » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #37

i can't help but wonder... Sometimes I feel like just dropping my phone and never pick it up again. Let it shut off and never turn it on again. Will it be mandatory in the future to own a mobile phone? What if I don't want to have one?

It becomes harder and harder--and harder still if you also don't want to use email, etc. You're an edge case and institutions tend to forget about edge cases or just don't want to be bothered with them. So, for example, you now need to show up in offices because you can't sufficiently validate your identity otherwise.

I actually know one senior person in Silicon Valley who refused for years to get a cell phone and only relented when his nanny insisted after he and his wife adopted a child. I think he still doesn't have a personal smartphone although his current employer gave him a company phone to carry.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#48

Post by andi999 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

stagas wrote: post #39

andi999 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if this is a serious question. Generally the idea of a common travel area makes sense if the countries at a similiar economic development (like the Schengen zone). This also means that the training skills of the people are not too differend; and this prevents all kind of social problem you would get otherwise.

It's an honest question. I just don't see that question ever being asked by anyone, to me they don't make too much sense. I understand there'd be a period where things would get messy but won't we eventually reach an equilibrium where everyone is where they want to be, no resources wasted on borders and immigration and everyone just travels and works freely everywhere?

Well everybody probably agrees it will be messy, and not everyone thinks the equilibrium will be good, so the incentives to try this are low.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#49

Post by tialaramex » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #37

i can't help but wonder... Sometimes I feel like just dropping my phone and never pick it up again. Let it shut off and never turn it on again. Will it be mandatory in the future to own a mobile phone? What if I don't want to have one?

I don't imagine it'll be mandatory in free countries, but it'll be horribly inconvenient without. You didn't have to have a telephone either but by say 1980 if there's an important service and it's only available by telephone the government is likely going to say well, there are public call boxes, good luck with your weird lifestyle choice.

I got vaccinated at the weekend. SMS to my phone, with a personalized URL in it from my doctor's practice. Follow URL, pick time slot, turn up.

No smartphone? Copy the URL by hand to a computer. No Internet? No appointment for you. No SMS? Too bad, you don't get an invite until they're chasing the last people. In July I'm sure anybody with a pulse will get a jab here just by turning up but right now you need an invite.

There was an attempted queue jumper at the site. "I don't know why my name isn't on the list, you called me". "We called you? Nobody got a phone call. We sent texts.". "Yeah that's what I meant, I got a text". Sure you did Pal.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#50

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #12

danpalmer wrote: post #10

> IBM Canada has won $1.5M contract to develop new platform for IRCC This will buy what? A team of 4 interns and new grads for 6 months. At the end they'll have a slide deck with too much wordart in ith containing some half-baked ideas, and a few lines of code that don't do anything useful at all and are further from production readiness than starting from scratch.

I wish I was being facetious, but I really don't think I am. IBM hired extensively from my university, I know people who worked there or adjacent to IBM in industry. They hired the bottom of the cohort (computer science/software engineering) at university and didn't hire anyone who could code. They emphasised communication over technical ability (fine, ok), but their style of communication is business buzzwords in sl…

I totally believe you. Here in nl IBM recently f'd up a storage layer beyond recovery in a series of really dumb moves going from 'minor problem' to 'extensive, unrecoverable dataloss for large number of customers'.

After messing it up someone thought that maybe they should call in people who actually know this stuff but by then it was way too late. Highly annoying, that a brand that used to be associated with reliability is now pretty much a guarantee for pretty marketing, expensive suits and some disaster in your future.