[Politech] Do-it-yourself Poindextering -- of ret. Adm. John Poindexter

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Mon Dec 08 2003 - 06:52:25 PST

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    To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
    From: Rob Carlson <rob@private>
    Subject: DIY Information Awareness
    Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 17:10:41 -0500
    
    This will be old news to some, but amusing for others.  Here is a 
    demonstration of do-it-yourself Information Awareness correlation for 
    drivers license numbers:
    
    1. Select your political target resident of Florida, Illinois, Maryland, 
    Minnesota, New Hampshire, Washington or Wisconsin.  For maximum irony in 
    this example, we'll select every privacy advocate's best friend and 
    Maryland resident: Vice Admiral John Poindexter.
    
    2. Find a biographical resource for political figures which will have their 
    full name and date of birth.  For this exercise, I used Warstories:CC.
    
       http://www.warstories.cc/
    
    Input their name and retrieve their biographical profile:
    
       http://www.warstories.cc/person/?personId=3300
    
    3. Take their full name including last name (Maryland MVA always requires 
    that the legal name from your birth certificate be used for the initial 
    entry in their database) and month and day of birth.  Type them all into 
    Alan De Smet's Driver's License Calculator:
    
       http://www.highprogrammer.com/cgi-bin/uniqueid/dl_md
    
    You should see:
    
    Input
    Last Name: Poindexter
    First Name: John
    Middle Name: Marlan
    Date of Birth:
        Month: 8
        Day: 12
    
    Output
    Driver's License Number: P532-429-585-630
    
    4. On the assumption that there is no other "John Marlan Poindexter" (or 
    similar soundex) born on 8/12 living in the State of Maryland, you now have 
    an accurate correlation of the available data which you can save and use to 
    verify and challenge a physical ID card.
    
    You can now treat any Admiral Poindexter you meet you presents you a 
    different Identification Number with a degree of suspicion prudent in this 
    day and age and deliver the alleged impostor immediately to the proper 
    authorities.
    
    5. You can now sleep soundly knowing that you have done your patriotic duty.
    
    --
    Rob Carlson  rob@private  http://vees.net/
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