[blotter_paper]

> 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.

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.

[nickpsecurity]

It could be as simple as scanning the barcode on a drivers license, the data goes to government system, and they compare what they see. Minus the last step, this already happens at lots of places that sell beer.

If minimizing privacy invasion, they could type info they're verifying in to get a yes/no instead of seeing whole thing. There's strategies for reducing abuse of such a service, too.