FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses • Hacker News Board

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#271

Post by thephyber » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 12:50 AM UTC

packetlost wrote: post #196

thephyber wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, a facetious jab at legitimate criticisms of Voter ID laws. It's worth pointing out that the point of contact for state IDs is the DMV, which is the butt of every government inefficiency complaint. If, instead, it was done at USPS offices or even by postal workers on their routes, no one would complain. It's entirely about whether the burden is placed on the citizen to maintain their Constitutionally guarantee…

> which is the butt of every government inefficiency complaint I always find DMV (or whatever your state's equivalent) inefficiency arguments to be hilarious. They're run extremely efficiently for the government . They suck use because of that (long wait times, most important stuff gets shipped by mail weeks later).

All the more reason to decouple DMV from ID verification.

Like I said, the USPS is in a much better position to be able to scale identity to the national scale.

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#272

Post by otterley » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:03 AM UTC

k33n wrote: post #246

ericmay wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks have provided great information. It's up to you to decide to accept the facts or continue to double down on your private worldview, but it won't serve you well to be ignorant of the facts here.

You and that other guy made good points from a constitutional law standpoint, don’t misunderstand my disagreement for dismissal of any kind. A legal term of art is often a bit different than the basic word itself. From a legal term of art perspective, I’m essentially referencing “absolute sovereignty”, which would more closely mirror the actual dictionary definition of sovereignty, as a basic, contextless word.

It seems disingenuous, or at least antisocial, to insist that you are correct about a broad and unqualified statement you made while also declaring that you meant something narrower all along.

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#273

Post by thephyber » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

bigbuppo wrote: post #231

packetlost wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is the butt of every government inefficiency complaint I always find DMV (or whatever your state's equivalent) inefficiency arguments to be hilarious. They're run extremely efficiently for the government . They suck use because of that (long wait times, most important stuff gets shipped by mail weeks later).

I live in Misissippi. The last time I had to go in-person for a license renewal I was in and out in less than 10 minutes because they had automated kiosks. Then again, Mississippi is a progressive state.

Yes, I'm sure every person in Mississippi has the same super expedient interaction as a HNer when they have to visit to get their ID documents. I bet you even live next door to the DMV so your travel time was negligible.

The point of the government doing it is that it has to be able to service those people who live maximally far from a DMV (say 60 minutes each way by car), who can't drive there, who have to weigh losing pay to take the time to travel there, who have below average intelligence, who are functionally illiterate (because Mississippi created A LOT of those before their recent education reforms), who "can't use technology", who forgot to bring whatever specific document qualifies for Real ID, etc.

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#274

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:26 AM UTC

It’s interesting how quickly this story dropped in the rankings. It’s a highly relevant story, that is likely to spawn more notice.

Ars already has a story about the same breach: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/09/my-drivers-license-...

Is this story being flagged? If so, why?

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#275

Post by DANmode » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:32 AM UTC

megagpt5 wrote: post #241

DANmode wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Negligence isn't a crime in itself. It is an explanation or cause for other crimes. Correct, like being criminally negligent of a child, if you leak data through long-known vectors (for argument’s sake), one could argue you are criminally negligent in securing the private data. It doesn’t really go that way, often, now. It could, as more e.g. water treatment and energy providing facilities get pwnd.

Except the US has no law that you have to secure private data or that not securing it is a crime.

Pretty sure I just cited it.

Good luck arguing against their conviction rate.

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#276

Post by what » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 2:34 AM UTC

thephyber wrote: post #271

packetlost wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is the butt of every government inefficiency complaint I always find DMV (or whatever your state's equivalent) inefficiency arguments to be hilarious. They're run extremely efficiently for the government . They suck use because of that (long wait times, most important stuff gets shipped by mail weeks later).

All the more reason to decouple DMV from ID verification. Like I said, the USPS is in a much better position to be able to scale identity to the national scale.

USPS already handle passport applications no? It’s where I went for my kids and they verify all the documents or whatever.

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#277

Post by what » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 2:39 AM UTC

thephyber wrote: post #273

bigbuppo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Misissippi. The last time I had to go in-person for a license renewal I was in and out in less than 10 minutes because they had automated kiosks. Then again, Mississippi is a progressive state.

Yes, I'm sure every person in Mississippi has the same super expedient interaction as a HNer when they have to visit to get their ID documents. I bet you even live next door to the DMV so your travel time was negligible. The point of the government doing it is that it has to be able to service those people who live maximally far from a DMV (say 60 minutes each way by car), who can't drive there, who have to weigh los…

The idea that people are unable to get IDs is an absolute myth. You need it to for basically everything a normal adult does.

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#278

Post by rswail » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:17 AM UTC

navigate8310 wrote: post #132

rswail wrote: post #90

The main question to government is: 1. You already know who everyone is. By definition identification as an individual is by government. 2. Why is there not a system that allows a business or other service to ask for government identification that is encrypted and only visible to government, but that allows a business to ask for certain details, required for the operation of the business (eg confirmation of driving l…

One can argue, this would be an unintentional tracking of the population by government

One could argue that, but with a properly designed API, it could preserve anonymity while still providing businesses with the necessary validation.

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#279

Post by jltsiren » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 7:50 AM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #205

k33n wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American States are not sovereign entities. We fought an entire war over that.

American states are sovereign entities. This is very well understood in Constitutional law, albeit a little confusing for the laymen as the common understanding of sovereignty would be something like, well France is sovereign because it has an army and it conducts trade and all of those sorts of sovereign things. But US states are sovereign entities who have, effectively, joined together to delegate some of their sov…

US states are sovereign in the sense the term is understood in US constitutional law, but not in the sense used in international law and international politics. They would be autonomous subdivisions of a sovereign state in the latter sense.

Sovereign states in the latter sense can delegate their powers to external entities (as they do in the EU), but they can also unilaterally choose to take that power back (as the UK did).

The USSR was an interesting case when it comes to sovereignty. Legally its member republics were sovereign states, but that sovereignty meant little in practice. As a result of a weird compromise, Ukraine and Belarus were founding members of the UN, despite not being sovereign in the generally understood sense. There was a legal mechanism for secession, but in the end, the member republics ignored it and dissolved the union.

Re: FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

#280

Post by MaKey » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 7:52 AM UTC

consp wrote: post #97

MaKey wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Europe and got ~$350 because of three data leaks. The amount per instance was vastly different though - $255, $80 and $15.

I'd be very interested in which ones, since I've never received anything despite being in several big breaches (and have received the boatload of spam to prove it). I'm pretty sure this is very country specific.

I can't say which ones as it is one condition of the settlement agreements not to talk about specifics and I gave numbers already. You don't get compensations automatically. I pursued them with the help of a specialized law firm that takes a cut of the settlements.