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DalTheJigsaw123

Facebook Wants to Issue Your IRL Offline ID & Internet Driver's License.

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At the start of this year, it seemed as if Facebook wanted to utilize its identity infrastructure already on millions of websites in order to issue your Internet driver's license. Apparently that wasn't aiming quite high enough, since it now appears as if Facebook has future plans to issue your offline identity cards as well. Facebook filed for a trademark for "goods and services" to use Facebook on "cards, namely business cards and non-magnetically encoded identity cards" that could be read by NFC and RFID-enabled devices. If that didn't make you shiver, then the new trademark application states, the "business card and identity card design services" and "printing services" would be for "facilitating social and business networking through the provision of data for use on business and identity cards."

 

Like Google Plus, Facebook regards pseudonyms as a sin and wants to kill off anonymity. Many sites have cut back on comment spam, though, by requiring Facebook Connect which in turn requires a user's real identity. Countless millions of websites have avoided the headaches and hassles of managing their own identity system by implementing the free and easy code for Facebook Connect to manage online identities. In fact, logging in, "liking" and sharing via Facebook has literally become a critical part of the Internet's identity infrastructure.

 

Another emerging potential giant gamer-changer is the ability for people to use their mobile devices with near field communication (NFC) technology to interact with everyday situations, objects and people. NFC can be used to exchange data between two devices that are close to each other. The Google Wallet app is expected to be huge since it will store virtual copies of your credit cards for easy and fast payment at checkout. Other eCommerce NFC apps could be used for boarding passes or for purchasing airline, movie, concert, or other event tickets. On the social networking side, NFC allows for fast file sharing, to pass out electronic business cards, to enter a multiplayer mobile game, or to "touch NFC devices together to Facebook friend each other."

 

Why wouldn't Facebook want to take advantage of its "identity management" to conquer the offline world as well? The filed trademark suggests the Facebook ID cards could work with NFC and RFID. "Smart tap" RFID and magstripe products "have been used in many different fields, such as finance, telecommunications, security, tax, parking, hospitals, retail and hotels." Even Windows 8 will include built-in NFC functionality, sending hardware and software firms scrambling to take advantage of the tap-to-share NFC RFID functionality.

 

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/78955

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Well you can't do it the same way here as in India. Totally unacceptable.

 

For fun: check out www.startpage.com

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