From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 01:21:18 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Driver Licenses
In-Reply-To: <ac25297f5d97f55fb62fca290eeac01f@anon.efga.org>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980209091437.007b5da0@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>I used to work in a lab with an MRI.  Erased my credit cards
>regularly.  I visit from time to time. :)

Don't you just hate it when that happens :-)
In particular, unlike scratching the mag strip off or ironing,
if the mag strip doesn't work, you can just look ignorant.
I have enough trouble with my real credit cards being non-scannable.

The issue of driver's license mag strip technology has been
discussed here in the past, and probably also on some of the
privacy newsgroups.  You could grunge around the archives and
see what you find.  If memory serves me correctly, most of them
use a common magstripe format used for credit cards,
which gives three stripes of up to about 80 bytes each.
(It's been suggested that some states use a higher magnetization
level, either to reduce forgery or probability of damage.)
Typically they'll have the DL#, name, height, weight,
eye color, race, Jew bit, Commie bit, etc.,
so the cops can not only scan the information conveniently,
but also can compare it to the information on the front
to see if it's forged.
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639