• homes@piefed.world
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      11 hours ago

      Not that easy. Even back in the 80s, they frequently wrote your drivers license number down on the back, especially at chain businesses like supermarkets

      • krooklochurm@lemmy.ca
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        4 hours ago

        A 1980s driver license, the peak of anti forgery technology.getting a Time Machine and check book is easy, but forging a drivers license from the 80s - impossible.

        • homes@piefed.world
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          3 hours ago

          And it would almost certainly cost you more than whatever you were paying for groceries. Not a particularly wise investment.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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        3 hours ago

        It was easy to fake an identity back then. Nothing was computerized or tracked. Just get a birth certificate from a baby who died around the time of your birth, and you could get a Social Security card, a Driver’s License, and a whole new identity.

        • homes@piefed.world
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          3 hours ago

          Nothing about that was easy. It may not have been as difficult as it is now, but it still wasn’t “easy”.

          • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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            3 hours ago

            It wasn’t that hard. Spend a couple hours in the children’s section of a cemetery in some midsize Midwest city, and you’d have a list of names of babies, who most likely died right in that very county. Request a copy of a birth certificate from the local county offices. Use that to apply for a Social Security Card, and use that and the birth certificate to get a driver’s license.

            Most of it has to be done through the mail, so it will take a while, but that’s the worst of it.

            Can’t do that today, though. They’ve locked down birth certificates pretty well, it would be hard to get your mitts on one. These days they tend to just steal someone else’s identity, and live parallel lives with someone else.

            • homes@piefed.world
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              1 hour ago

              You just described to me how it’s extremely difficult and requires a lot of effort.

              When I had a racket making fake IDs in the 90s, I didn’t go through a fraction of that much trouble, and they came out looking perfect. Because I figured out the algorithm by which New York State makes ID numbers. It wasn’t difficult. The number corresponds to several different pieces of information on the license itself. And with Photoshop, I just put your picture in there.

              No traveling to a midsize Midwest city, no trolling cemeteries for dead children, no interstate identity and Social Security fraud required. And it took about 15 minutes to do.

              And even then, I wouldn’t call that “pretty easy”

              • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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                1 hour ago

                Yeah, that was life before the Internet. You actually had to do stuff. You couldn’t just click a few keys, and get what you want.

                Still, to create an entirely new identity, and disappear? Today, you couldn’t do it all. A little legwork and a few months of waiting for mail isn’t that much to ask.