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by Qwertystop
2420 days ago
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Utility bills are forgeable paper, yes. So is any other proof short of the strong cryptographic kind, which is going to be a lot more trouble to get set up infrastructurally. Also, forging them, or theft of mail, is a notable threshold beyond "just say you live there". Generally, in my experience, proof-of-address is coupled with some other requirement to prove your identity, so a genuine-but-stolen utility bill would need to be coupled with either a forged ID or a remarkable resemblance to the actual owner. It's not perfect, but I would say that in most cases it's better than nothing. It's a bit lacking for of subletters, but when I've needed proof-of-address, showing the signed lease has also been acceptable. (I actually am in a month-to-month with no lease and with a roommate's name on the utility bill, so the last time I needed proof of address I needed something else. Can't now remember what it was.) |
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More trouble definitely, but not crazy hard. Some creditcard companies do it in those chip cards (others just put a readable ID on the chip, which is why you still see zoe gods printing chip cards). I know the government is generally less efficient than corporations, but they've got a massive budget. They should be able to figure out how to make an ID with a cryptographic signature that verifies itself and brings up a pre-registered photo on the computer of the person verifying you that's pulled from a government database. I don't really even want the government to have power, and I believe a national ID program like the one I'm proposing would do that in ways, so I'm fine with them failing to do this... I just don't understand why they haven't yet.