[X] My Assistant

[Kanada Ten]

Then I'd end up bringing mentioning children and their inability to hold on to a damn cellphone.

[Serbitar]

A SIN is only a number. There is nothing to be encrypted.

And BTW, you change the price of a gallon of milk by editing the price in your database. The RFID tag on the gallon only gives a number, that identifies the gallon in the databasse.

[Kanada Ten]

I assume that when they broadcast the SIN it's encrypted to look like normal data. But, then again, a SIN isn't really that useful in terms of raw information.

[hobgoblin]

[Shrike30]

Think of a "SIN burner" like the old MICR machines that were used to print the strings of numbers on checks. Yes, it's basically a glorified automatic typewriter... but they weren't easy to come by, weren't sold openly on the corner, and most companies wouldn't sell one to you if you couldn't prove you represented a bank.

"Used" might not be the right word... think "refurbished." If the case is clean and there's not more than a couple of minor scrapes on the thing, they might take it on a tradein, scrap the chip, and wait to burn a new one for the next owner.

[Kanada Ten]

I don't see how any of that applies to issuing RFID cards at birth.

And even poor kids can go field tripping to Downtown.

[Shrike30]

*shrug* I think part of it is your game's level of dystopia versus my game's level of dystopia. The way I run SR, the poor are pretty badly disenfranchised; no corporate "citizenship" means lousy job opportunities, no commlink makes you one step above an illegal, and using a bunch of the "workarounds" like certified credsticks makes shopowners worry that you're a criminal. Happy, well-meant social gestures (like providing an ID card for a newborn) aren't profitable, so nobody encourages it. It rains all the time, and the rain will strip the enamel off your teeth and burn out your eyes if you lean your head back to catch it on your tongue. There are no more puppies, only feral hellhounds snarling at you from the alleyways. Stuff like that.

People with money have the means to work around little hitches in society like that... by the time kids are out playing on their own, they've got a kiddylink. If CorpDaddy gets mugged on the subway downtown and his commlink is stolen, he's trying to find a 'Star officer, so he doesn't mind when a drone swoops down to ask what's going on (after all, the home office has his ID on file, and he's going to take a trip to the station house either way). If you've got social support and a reliable income (read, you're a wage-slave), life in 2070 isn't bad. If you don't, well... the money that drives society (and the citizens that can vote in it) aren't aimed at you.

The SINners have more money than the SINless, they have an easier time spending it, and they buy top-of-the-line products more often. It makes very little sense, given a market environment of cutthroat competition and low corporate morality, to have a lot of the corporate culture interested in helping the poor or great moral causes... you want your workers spending their money in your stores, not on charity efforts. And when you control most of the airwaves and almost all of the cultural influences your workers are exposed to, instilling cultural norms (like sneering at the poor, rather than wanting to help them) isn't hard. If the school your kid goes to is a corporate one, he might get to go on field trips... but if he's going to a corporate school, he's not poor.

Again, my game, not yours. Yours sounds like a brighter world.

[Kanada Ten]

Yeah, mine's a regular 40 Watt bulb to your Darkness Generator.

Hellhounds eat puppies <check>
Shop owners worry that you're a criminal <check>
Making governments buy spare RFID tags <check>
Acid rain from a red sky <check>
Kiddylinks <check>
Making workers pay for increased security and profitability by decreasing poverty from their own paychecks and calling it charity <check>

[Jaid]

just a quick answer from my perspective on the earlier questions about why the government wouldn't issue SINs to anyone who applies... it's quite simple really.

if you have a SIN, you are eligible for all the costly programs the government has... welfare, public schooling, any possible medicare programs, etc.

if you have no SIN, they can just boot you into the corner, cover you with something (so they don't have to look at you), and pretend you're not there.

and just because they don't give you a SIN doesn't mean they aren't keeping records on you...

[Kanada Ten]

Criminal SINs don't grant any of those privileges, AFAIK.

[Jaid]

yes, well people don't generally go and ask for a criminal SIN now, do they? ;)

and actually, criminal SINs do offer some (minimal) benefits:

1) RAW, fake SINs are good for probably no more than 10 uses or so. even the best are not terribly resistant to detection. as such, a SIN that can be used simply for purchasing items without any chance of failure is nice to have handy sometimes. of course, if you throw in a few reasonable houserules (like you don't have to verify your SIN for the local stuffer shack) then this is certainly somewhat lessened.

2) you can't be made to disappear anymore. sure, you can be thrown in prison, but since the system knows you exist, it might ask questions about you. which is more than can be said for the SINless.

so anyways, consider that it costs money to put someone in prison as compared to just beating them to within an inch of their life and leaving them on the streets (which is more or less free, and likely to get rid of them anyways) when they commit a crime, and i think you might have further reason why you might not necessarily be given a criminal SIN when the star catches up with you. in fact, IMO, most people with criminal SINs probably had a real SIN at some point, imo.

remember, while in Jail the government has to feed, clothe, and shelter you, which all costs money. they likely pay for certain medical expenses (childbirth, for one), and have to pay someone to watch you. it is much cheaper to simply make the SINless disappear than it is to give them all criminal SINs.

plus it looks good for demographics (keeps unemployment, poverty, illiteracy etc levels looking low.)

IMO, this also accounts for why orks haven't (officially)completely overrun the world (in terms of how many there are) by 2070... according to all the census information, there aren't that many of them because a whole heck of a lot of them are SINless and are simply swept under the rug.