Why SINs are a bad idea, at least to my point of view. Options

[ludomastro]

This article got me to thinking about how screwed you would be in someone checked off dead on your SIN.

[Jhaiisiin]

Wow. I want to say "I can't believe that could happen!" but I can't bring myself to do it. It's a government agency run by human beings. Toss in even a small margin of error, and you have a massive problem. Humans, unfortunately, come with built-in errors. Still, that's one seriously screw up. I really feel for those people.

[Abbandon]

I have had family members who have switched insurance plans who go through similar process's. The old insurance place is where the hospital send the bills who then send you a bill, but your not even with them anymore, and when you call the hospital they dont have any clue about your new insurance policy and when they call your old insurance place the old insurance place doesnt help resolve the issue at all.

That all happens because of multiple nodes of information. I think in the future there will be a central database. All the people you owe money to will subscribe to that database in order to get their information on how to bill you and what not. This would eliminate all the discrepencies. The central database would get backed up every night and have a offline daily save so nothing could really harm it. Unless you went onsite and planted c4 on the offline save and then crashed the online database hehehe.

[kzt]

In SRworld it seems that one of the requirements to be employed as an computer operations manager is to be mentally retarded. Otherwise they couldn't have these huge meltdowns every few years in which "all data is lost" because people who have a clue ensure that data that they consider important is backed up off-site and have an on-line replica in another physical location.

[Critias]

In SRworld it seems that one of the requirements to be employed as an computer operations manager is to be mentally retarded. Otherwise they couldn't have these huge meltdowns every few years in which "all data is lost" because people who have a clue ensure that data that they consider important is backed up off-site and have an on-line replica in another physical location.

I blame it more on the fact that no one actually does anything at all with computers, in Shadowrun, but rather with computer shaped plot devices.

[Guest_kuromu_*]

I blame it more on the fact that no one actually does anything at all with computers, in Shadowrun, but rather with computer shaped plot devices.

So, in Shadowrun, the wage-monkeys do not have problems with mistyping or not backing up, they have problems fitting square-shaped data block A into circle-shaped storage node B. Or stealing/breaking the shiny date ball altogether! Given the state of the typical data-entry positions nowadays and the growing tie-in of data with everyday life, the smallest glitch is sure to cause some interesting things.

No matter how many safeguards get put in place to protect the integrity of our data, there are always equal and sometimes exceeding evolutions of idiots and miscreants ready to break things.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

In SRworld it seems that one of the requirements to be employed as an computer operations manager is to be mentally retarded.

That's a requirement for most management positions IRL.

[Chrome Tiger]

That's a requirement for most management positions IRL.

And I think it describes our "IT Person" precisely. Ah, must be nice to be the owner's daughter. *cough* But I digress. Yes, I work with a lot of management types that would not have a job if they did not have a strong department underneath them to cover the slack.

[kzt]

In the real world, in larger organization, idiots (if nothing else) cause the backup guy to have to restore data from backups all the time. If he can't restore the VPs documents he tends to have the opportunity to seek other opportunities. Though if she's the owners daughter she might just get an assistant that actually does the work. I've seen that before. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[KCKitsune]

You have to remember for every "idiot proof system" in the existence, the Universe evolves a better idiot. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Cthulhudreams]

SINs in shadowrun make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Say I'm a CAS citizen working formally working for one of the megas that collapsed, joined Ares in the breakup, then emigrated to UCAS and assumed UCAS citizenship, while joining Horizon.

This is not a particularly unlikely circumstance. I imagine many people do something similar today.

By my count, I have five 'passports' and five different single identity numbers, as the CAS, UCAS, and megacorps are all valid issuing authorities, and if I just change my name differently in four jurisdictions I now have five separate identities. It's really weird to take them as some sort of golden identifying label, when a john doe can perfectly legitimately have 5.

Also, one of the SINs was issued by a country that no longer exists, and probably cannot have its validity checked. Ever.

Also funny: Say I lost my records in the crash, but had a new set issued from everywhere I worked - thats now 5 'dead' and 5 'live' identities a regular corporate worker has.

What the hell?

[kzt]

What the hell?

There is a reason the FASA motto was "sell the sizzle, not the steak". Cool cover illustrations and neat ideas sold games, consistency and logic didn't and took time and money from marketing. Plus you had Jodie making changes just prior to shipping things, which is how you got the ST Combat Simulator with an event where you could kill everyone on a ship with a photon torpedo and have the ship totally undamaged. The playtesters and designers were a bit hot over that . . .

[Whipstitch]

To be fair, that's rather speculative, isn't it? I'm sure that many countries and corporations attempt to set it up so that there's one master SIN that is modified as needed rather than issuing multiple SINs to a single entity. Of course, whether they're successful in having a somewhat unified system or not is another issue entirely.

[hyzmarca]

There is one real advantage to being dead. You can do anything and get away with it. You could become an assassin for hire and not even make the slightest attempt to cover your tracks because the police will always be stonewalled by the fact that the only fingerprints belong to a dead person. Filing tax returns shouldn't be a problem if you don't pay taxes and, being dead, the IRS is never going to come after you for failure to pay taxes.

[kzt]

You could become an assassin for hire and not even make the slightest attempt to cover your tracks because the police will always be stonewalled by the fact that the only fingerprints belong to a dead person.

I hate to tell you, but the cops are not that stupid. The minor fact that someone claims you are dead will not slow them down. The reports of people's demise are often greatly exaggerated. Now the IRS, that's another matter. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) But the solution is that you probably won't be allowed to get hired if you are dead once the various anti-illegal proposals go through.

[Cardul]

I hate to tell you, but the cops are not that stupid. The minor fact that someone claims you are dead will not slow them down. The reports of people's demise are often greatly exaggerated. Now the IRS, that's another matter. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) But the solution is that you probably won't be allowed to get hired if you are dead once the various anti-illegal proposals go through.

There is a legal definition of dead, but there is not a legal definition of "alive." If you have gotten yourself, somehw, legally declared dead, it has proven nearly impossible to get that decision reversed. I remember readong a guy who had actually had something happen where he was declared dead, complet with death certificate, and the guy spend 20 years trying to prove that he, legally, was alive. From what I understand..he died of old age before things could be straightened out.

[Juggy#3]

I see no real reason for it to work like that, honestly. If I was setting up a SIN system, I'd set up a person with a single SIN, registered to them at birth, and simply attach or detach citizenships to that SIN as needed--this SIN is a registered citizen with Ares Macrotechnology, oh wait, it is no longer, remove that citizenship and attach it to Fuchi, etc. etc.

If a persons SIN get's wiped or they're declared dead or something, well tough shit. Plenty of people live without a SIN....you're just one more.

[nezumi]

But FDR promised our social security number would never be used for identification purposes... *thrusts fists in the air* Roosevelt!!!!

Yeah, that lady really looked cut out to turn to a life of being an undercover assassin ;P I have to admit, once my house is paid off, I wouldn't mind 'killing' my wife off so she can become a high-powered, globe-trotting assassin who makes lot of secret money and buys a house in the Bahamas where I go visit when I'm not earning my paltry government salary. I'll have to talk to her about that. If only she were an identical twin gymnast porn star ninja...


Seriously though, in my game there is one SIN per person, no matter who creates it. Technically an entity capable of creating SINs could sell legitimate SINs for money, which would be pretty sweet. That single SIN travels with you where ever you go, and if by some chance you get a second one, legally you're supposed to tie it back to the first.

[hobgoblin]

remind me, are there fingerprints or dna data attached to current day social security numbers?

[bibliophile20]

remind me, are there fingerprints or dna data attached to current day social security numbers?

No. At least not yet. (Cue RealID Card...)

[nezumi]

remind me, are there fingerprints or dna data attached to current day social security numbers?

I have to imagine there are cases where they are. To qualify for my government job, for instance, I needed a background check, a social security number, and to have my fingerprints scanned, which would imply to me that there's a database somewhere storing all that together.

[kzt]

remind me, are there fingerprints or dna data attached to current day social security numbers?

It's kind of unlikely if you have never been fingerprinted.

If you have, then yes. This includes fingerprinting for the military, a job, gun permit, etc. It all ends up in IAFIS.

The identifiers IAFIS uses for reporting matches seem to be:

"1) FBI Number

2) State Identification Number (SID)
The SID is an identifying number assigned to the subject of record by the state in which the arrest occurred. Enter SID numbers with no more that ten alphanumeric characters, which includes the state abbreviations.

3) Social Security Number (SOC)"

Plus name and birthdate. All the various names and birthdates, as criminals change these like most people change socks.

DNA is typically only in the database for people arrested for felonies. And I'd assume that it uses similar identifiers, but I can't find the users guide for submitting samples to see. I am uncertain if the samples the military takes from enlistees are filed in the database or not.

[hyzmarca]

DNA is typically only in the database for people arrested for felonies. And I'd assume that it uses similar identifiers, but I can't find the users guide for submitting samples to see. I am uncertain if the samples the military takes from enlistees are filed in the database or not.

The samples taken by the military from enlistees can, by law, only be used for identifying corpse-chunks left behind by nasty explosives mishaps and other things. It is in a database but, to my knowledge, isn't connected to any other databases.

[hobgoblin]

so thats the "real" problem here, that nothing thats part of the person ties the number to said person.

therefor, when a person is declared dead, it becomes a war of words about some person or other belonging to the number or not.

but then again, trying to id someone have been a issue for all of human history.

its not without reason that a girl was more or less required to be a virgin until married up to present day chemical birth control.

it was the best way to tell if a child really belonged to the father...

but then, who ever came up with the idea of tying the bloodline to the male side of the family in the first place didnt exactly have a practical world view...

[Simon May]

I'm sure that many countries and corporations attempt to set it up so that there's one master SIN that is modified as needed rather than issuing multiple SINs to a single entity.

As far as I'm concerned, the UCAS set up SINCentral as the main housing of all SINs, other countries and megas contracted with them to be able to issue SINs and track people entering their borders and doing business with them respectively. The people at SINCentral, realizing they essentially held all the cards, then busted away from the UCAS government (by offering to lower fees to megas who backed them). Then, in order to better profit from the situation, they began contracting to different agencies who actually worked the monitoring and distribution of SIN data. It's this last part that causes there to be discrepancies (because not all agencies will admit they didn't have the money to buy the latest updated data or upgrade their systems to an "authorized" level of safety). SINCentral still exists, but it's in their favor to make more money by contracting out, allowing for loopholes, and giving corps the ability to make some people appear or disappear.