How to spot a good fake ID

Minimizing teen drinking is all very well, but I despise the permission-seeking society we&#x27;ve ended up with with you have to show ID in all kinds of places and beg for permission to exist.<p>Last winter my wife was ill with a cold. I stuck my credit card in my pocket and went to the drugstore to buy a box of Theraflu, an over-the counter decongestant. They wouldn&#x27;t sell it to me without ID and when I protested this they grabbed the box and told me to get out of the store or they would call over their armed security guy. This was a corporate change, I had bought the same product many times before without ever being asked for ID.<p>People are forced to ask permission far more today than a few decades ago, and everyone is treated like a suspect if they object. I don&#x27;t know who&#x27;s more contemptible, the petty authoritarians or the people meekly giving up their privacy and dignity to get permission to engage in the most ordinary activities.

So I&#x27;m thinking my state-issued driver&#x27;s license might be fake. Some of its qualities:<p>- Does not have any raised lettering<p>- Has weird edges around my hair from the shadows that look just like the ones the author called Photoshop evidence<p>- The hologram looks like crap. Nice to see that Massachusetts doesn&#x27;t skimp on it the way $STATE does.<p>- The aspect ratio of the picture is squished because they just used my last photo. COVID, you know.<p>- Clearly says &quot;NOT FOR REAL ID PURPOSES&quot; which I know refers to &quot;RealID&quot;, but still makes me laugh.

I worked at a project on automated border gates a while back and those automated scanners are really interesting.<p>They usually scan the document in several stages using different light sources to check UV&#x2F; IR &#x2F; visible light features and sometimes illuminated from different angles but usually with a fixed camera position.<p>This leads to the interesting effect that you could present different images in quick succession to show the correct image for each spectrum even if you don&#x27;t have a document that can appear correct in all spectral ranges at once.<p>You can&#x27;t obviously do that by hand but we ended up using a display (even a high dpi smartphone) that synced up to the scanning process for security testing.<p>[1] if you are interested<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ieeexplore.ieee.org&#x2F;abstract&#x2F;document&#x2F;6975597" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ieeexplore.ieee.org&#x2F;abstract&#x2F;document&#x2F;6975597</a>

The thing that gets me is that in order to get one of these dandy IDs with the holograms, micro lettering, and laser cutting is a birth certificate and an electric bill. My birth certificate is hand typed on an IBM Selectric typewriter on common security paper and the only real security feature is the embossed emblem of the rural county of the rural state I was born - and unless you have a sample to compare with you really can’t validate. Most utility bills are printed on cheap lightweight paper by a common laser printer and the only security feature might be a bit of color or a slightly non-standard size. Once you have a drivers license you are only a fee payment away from a passport.<p>Granted I might get a lot more scrutiny if I walk into the DMV wearing an El Tri t-shirt and speaking with an accent but barring that it seems a very low bar to turn a crappy hand-typed 50s birth certificate into a modern secure ID.

When I was in college, the laws were not quite so strict as they are now: in that state, persons over 18 could purchase 3.2 beer (3.2% alcohol by volume). Still, a fraternity or fraternities would bring in a fake-ID manufacturer every fall. Somebody on the student paper wanted to do an article on it. But his boss or bosses had had such a fake id. The article never ran.<p>Let me add that the age of drinking was set to 21 across the country because the Reagan administration did not wish to make airbags mandatory. It was argued that raising the drinking age would produce an equivalent or greater savings in life compared to mandating airbags in new cars. The Department of Transportation could withhold funds from any state that allowed those under 21 to purchase alcoholic beverages.<p>Those of you younger than I am will know how much effect raising the drinking age really had. My impression is, Not much.

This author is almost as skilled as the staff at my local AMC Theatre, where I was a bystander to a woman getting denied a beer on account of her Washington, D.C. driver&#x27;s license not being a &quot;state-issued ID&quot;.

Why do bouncers in the US enjoy looking at IDs so much, even for OBVIOUSLY adult people? In Austria and Germany, you don&#x27;t usually get asked for your id, unless you look underage AND the clerk&#x2F;bouncer is in the mood to check.<p>When I was clubbing in New York, the bouncer would even control my id very closly when I went back in after a smoke. It was cold, he saw me leave, he saw I wasn&#x27;t wearing more than a t-shirt in the cold night. Yet he took 20 seconds to check my passport. People tell me I look like 35.

I&#x27;m in the UK and it always perplexed me why the USA drinking ID laws are quite so strict. Surely people are going to get booze one way or another, and the idea is that by having some level of ID you&#x27;re stopping <i>most</i> people from drinking underage in a bar? Most people over here start drinking in parks with mates around 13-16 and it&#x27;s not big deal, if anything in my opinion it&#x27;s safer they drink in pubs and bars where people can keep an eye on them.

I wish more jurisdictions would make age verification cards. A photo of me, the police logo, and the words <i>This person is plenty old enough</i>.<p>I don’t want to be identified. I just want a beer.

The sooner we use PKI for identification in some oauth2 like system (where we can choose to redact irrelevant information such as our name or address) the better.<p>Brisbane Australia scans ID cards on entry to nightclubs (I think there’s a control where if you’re booted from one club you’re barred from all for the night). I’m all for a safe nightlife, but good luck asking a bouncer what their data retention, data privacy, and operational&#x2F;technical security are without getting laughed out of the cue.

The item you referred to as &quot;fake passport&quot; is a Swedish national ID card. While not a passport, it will double as one when traveling <i>within the European Union</i>. How did you come across it?

If you want the details on security features of EU&#x2F;EEC drivers licenses, the European Union has published a handbook for that:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;euagenda.eu&#x2F;upload&#x2F;publications&#x2F;untitled-96809-ea.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;euagenda.eu&#x2F;upload&#x2F;publications&#x2F;untitled-96809-ea.pd...</a>

When I was a kid, we would make fake IDs using a huge poster board. We used pinstriping meant for cars to make the &quot;grid&quot; that all the text went into, rub-on letters for all the text, and a highlighter to draw &quot;see through&quot; stuff like the state seal. Then, you cut out the space where your photo went and actually held it in front of your face. A friend takes photos from various distances, then you pick the photo that&#x27;s closest to the size of an actual license. They worked, even with the obvious flaws they had, because the bouncers really just wanted plausible proof that they had checked.

Having read this, I went and found my Global Entry[1] card. It has remarkably few of the security features mentioned: it&#x27;s clearly machine cut and has visible laminate layers, and the raised features are incredibly easy to miss. I&#x27;ve used this card to enter and leave the United States multiple times, but every bartender thinks it&#x27;s fake.<p>Oh, and my picture on it is laughably bad. I distinctly remember the border agent using a consumer Logitech webcam to take it.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Global_Entry" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Global_Entry</a>

It&#x27;s interesting to observe the process of bartenders or club bouncers in USA verifying foreign driver licenses, esp. if someone looks like they are in their 30s or older.<p>A person turns the driver license around a few times, too quick to read anything on it and gives it back to you, or they ask you where the birth date is and quickly check whether the four-digit number you pointed them to is smaller than whatever the current cut-off date is.

Why should a bar care? Just do a “decent” enough job to make the cops know you’re trying.

I mean really the objective is to show that you put in an effort that was good enough for the state inspector. Most places that check ID don’t care if it’s actually fake just that an effort was made

When I was 19, I had a perfectly valid California ID card for my 23 year old cousin who kinda looked like me. A bouncer in Seattle confiscated it because &quot;every California license I&#x27;ve seen says &#x27;driver&#x27;s license,&#x27; not ID card.&quot;

Weird that ID&#x27;s still don&#x27;t have, say, QR-codes or something similar with a cryptographic-signature to verify that the info&#x27;s accurate. Or chips like with credit-cards. Lots of different ways stuff like that could be done.<p>Holograms and such seem like a clumsy strategy.

Just let the teens drink.

There are also several security features only visible with UV and IR light. Any good bouncer will have at least a UV light within reach.

Not that I am a fan of gvt control, but why don’t modern IDs have a QR code containing the key attributes signed using PKI, and perhaps a link to a photo from a gvt website? That would make it unfalsifiable, without the person checking the ID needing to be an expert, they could just use a gvt issued app.

Temporary paper IDs are issued in some states while you await receiving your real ID in the mail. They are easy to Photoshop and print and must be accepted with a photo ID with matching name, like a college ID.

&gt; You’ll notice it’s smooth with rounded corners. This is because your ID is laser cut.<p>Does laser cutting give better surface finish than machine cut? I thought it was opposite

FYI in Texas it’s a driver license, not driver’s license.

How do they know that some of these issues aren&#x27;t just manufacturing defects? Once you suspect that an id is fakeis there a way to confirm it!

On your real ID, the laminate is almost unnoticeable, except for a slight glossy sheen. It ends at the end of the card, although if you look very closely at the edge of the card you can see two or three layers: the laminate, the card stock, and possibly another layer of laminate.

How many businesses actually care? Isn’t the business a victim of fraud if a customer uses dishonest papers to gain admittance? Last I knew fraud vitiates everything.

This is a well designed web site. Kudos