[pp.int.general] Big Brother in NL?

[Reinier Bakels]

>
>    I like the German system. It allows you to print your (demestic) 
> tickets at
>    home. Obviously you should not be able to print tickets for friends who 
> have
>    not paid - the germans solved that by linking the ticket to the credit 
> card
>    you used for payment. You could someone elses credit card, but then you
>    should have it with you if you travel.
>
> This method is the worst I have heard of.  It identifies the
> traveller.  It won't even let you buy a ticket for someone else to
> travel with.
No. It identifies the person who bought the ticket. The credit card may be 
owned by a firm. And of course, the system allows you to buy multiple 
tickets. For the reasons you explain, the code on the ticket is not 1:1 
related with the credit card number.
>
> No thanks.  I will buy a ticket with cash at a train station.
Then you probably have to queue, and often you have to may an additional 
fee. A human at the windows is more expensive than a computer on the 
Internet. And perhaps for privacy reasons I don't want a human operator to 
know where I am travelling. A computer is neutral.
A vending machine may be an alternative - but it may not provide all the 
reduction options, and you may have to inserts large amounts of cash money - 
because I presume you don't want to pay with any payment card (debit or 
credit) for security reasons.
>
> Other systems let you pay and get a code which you use as a ticket.
> That identifies who pays -- if she pays by credit card -- but does not
> identify the traveller.  It is a little less bad than the German
> system.
Perhaps I did not make myself clear. This *is* basically the German system. 
The code is on the ticket as a kind of two-dimensional barcode, and the 
conductors (guards) carry a protable laser reader to read it. In the end, 
systems that allow you to print tickets at home depend on some 
irreproducible physical token, if I am correct. (Some people believe that 
the Mexican flue epidemy is used as a pretext to inject a nanochip! - so 
that the authorities can follw RMS wherever he goes)

But I do share your concern about privacy. Next Wednesday, I am going to see 
a doctor to prepare for a trip to the Far East: to get malaria pills, 
perhaps immnisations. Dutch law nowadays require you to present an ID if you 
see a doctor. Which is a measure against illegal immigrants. They can't see 
a doctor without being caught. Fortunately, I am not an illegal immigrant! 
But should I support this inhumane system? How does the US handle its large 
number of illegal (hispanic) immigrants?

Another concern is that they like to identify people of foreign origin 
("allochtonen" - a Greek word denoting people from foreign soil). They 
adopted a very wide definition wich makes me a person of foreign origin, 
because my mother was born - as a Dutch citizen - 100 km across the border 
where my grandfather was a diplomate! I am still waiting to be invited for 
an exam testing my command of my native language ... In NL, a politican once 
proposed to make the Dutch language mandatory for conversations in the 
street (she meant: instead of Turkish or Arab). My observation is that the 
US more or less accepts to have become a bilingual country speaking Enlish 
and Spanish. Or do you also have fanatic politicians who want to exterminate 
the use of Spanish in the US?

reinier