Thread: breaking covid rules

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

The simple little yellow "Immunisation Booklets" that all international travellers carried in the 1960's worked well, and no debate about privacy.

This.

I had to take one to South America (after 960 different shots) and was told "to not come back" if I lost it.

It was REQUIRED to get back in. I could lose the passport, but not that card!

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

The simple little yellow "Immunisation Booklets" that all international travellers carried in the 1960's worked well, and no debate about privacy.

It only worked in the 1960's because back then virtually no household and very few businesses had the facilities to make a credible copy of the document. Now, there are few households which do not have access to a computer and printer.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

The simple little yellow "Immunisation Booklets" that all international travellers carried in the 1960's worked well, and no debate about privacy.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

I had to take one to South America (after 960 different shots) and was told "to not come back" if I lost it. It was REQUIRED to get back in. I could lose the passport, but not that card!

Originally Posted by doug3030

It only worked in the 1960's because back then virtually no household and very few businesses had the facilities to make a credible copy of the document. Now, there are few households which do not have access to a computer and printer.

Doug is almost entirely correct, in those days no ordinary person could forge such a document. There is also the point that perhaps far fewer people would actually want to. In the 60's, the majority of adults had lived in wartime. Many had also lived through the Spanish 'flu epidemics after WWI. I suspect there was quite possibly a greater degree of "act for the good of the masses", and certainly more experience of genuine hardship and the community spirit which such hardship brings. Perhaps these days such things are less important, and have been replaced with "I want it now". We are comparing people who slept every night in gas masks with people who refuse to wear a modern "surgical" mask for 10 minutes while they walk round a supermarket!

It could be that not only were people unable to easily forge documents like the "Immunisation Booklet" in the 1960's, but they also understood the intention of the Booklet and were far more likely to abide by it, rather than seeing it as an attack on their "personal freedom". Just a thought!

Originally Posted by Warb

As you say, any paper or "image" based system will be forged, as will anything that is stored on a device. However there is no requirement for any of that, because I doubt many airport security installations, restaurants or any other venues don't have internet connections available. Live queries with a mug shot avoids all those issues!

As most modern passports are furnished with a 'chip' I can't see why it couldn't be utilized to store info on vaccination/testing status and avoid the need for separate additional proof. I'm thinking only of international travel here as I realize you wouldn't want to be waving your passport to get into your local for a beer.
Pete

Originally Posted by woodhutt

As most modern passports are furnished with a 'chip' I can't see why it couldn't be utilized to store info on vaccination/testing status and avoid the need for separate additional proof. I'm thinking only of international travel here as I realize you wouldn't want to be waving your passport to get into your local for a beer.
Pete

Very true, but if (for once) we had an international system, you could give your code and get checked whether you wanted a beer at your local or a beer while you were on holiday domestically or abroad...... Remember that once you have put your seat upright and fastened your seat belt for landing, the next venue you go to after the airport will still want to check your vaccination status!

Originally Posted by doug3030

It only worked in the 1960's because back then virtually no household and very few businesses had the facilities to make a credible copy of the document. Now, there are few households which do not have access to a computer and printer.

With respect, Doug, I do not think that it would be easy to forge those little yellow booklets. Where, for example, would you get the correct type of cardboad for the cover - texture, weight, colour, etc.

One the other hand, the average twelve year old nerd will probably probably replicate any electronic passport quite quickly, or find out how to do so.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

With respect, Doug, I do not think that it would be easy to forge those little yellow booklets. Where, for example, would you get the correct type of cardboad for the cover - texture, weight, colour, etc.

As a former Warrant Officer in the Army, I was, on a few occasions, responsible for preparations for taking large numbers of soldiers overseas. One of my responsibilities was to ensure that all passports were in order and their International Health Certificates (the little yellow books) were current and everyone had the necessary vaccinations for our destination.

I can assure you that when you have 100+ IHC's sitting on your desk it soon becomes apparent that there is a wide range of different batches of stationery stock used over the years to make the covers and the internal pages. If one does not look like the other ones it doesn't necessarily mean it's a fake - It might just mean that it came from a different batch, sometimes years apart.

Too good a fake can catch one out. Isn't there a story that the Soviets caught out the Yanks faking their spies passports because their staples didn't promptly rust?


On faking a vaccination document, its crazy. Firstly, one would need to acknowledge that the disease is real, hence the real need for such a documents existence. Second, one would want to avoid a simple vaccination and instead spend a fortune on such a fake. Thirdly, one is really putting themselves at the greatest risk!

Host: "Would Sir like to sleep in this elbow-to-jowl Lepper colony for a week?"
AnitVaxer: "Yes! Here is my current vaccination record!"

Another concept - Why aren't the cops fabricating these documents and attempting to sell them? Catch these people out at the purchase stage. Charge them with uttering, or such.

My thoughts are simple. If people actively reject vaccination. Fine. Record that fact. If they turn up at the hospital diseased, not only are they last in line, but they pay full price - Every Cent, film industry accounting style.... Bugger them!

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Too good a fake can catch one out. Isn't there a story that the Soviets caught out the Yanks faking their spies passports because their staples didn't promptly rust?

When I was in Indonesia in the 1990's a counterfeiting ring was exposed because their "money" was better than the real thing.

Non issues really. Digital certificates accompanied by block chain identifiers have been around and used widely. It's however an entirely different story that the Morrison govt are somehow capable to implement it.

Originally Posted by justonething

Non issues really. Digital certificates accompanied by block chain identifiers have been around and used widely. It's however an entirely different story that the Morrison govt are somehow capable to implement it.

I think you might be oversimplifying the issue by reducing it to its underlying technology. Nobody would dispute that there are encryption systems that are very hard, if not completely impossible (US government allowing) to break. The issues are the next level up from that - the "user interface".

1/ The certificate has to include a mug shot to identify the individual. For international travel this may not be such an issue, because the traveller will also have a passport. But at the local pub or football ground the certificate must be able to be easily matched to the individual.

2/ The certificate must be verifiable by a second "reader" device. The screen of the individual own phone is in no way acceptable - we have many people locally who have screen shots of the check-in app (as an example) that they flash at staff to "prove" they have checked in. These are fairly easily spotted because the time and date are wrong, but it would take 2 minutes to write an "app" that also updated the time on the fake image. We have some very noisy people locally screaming about the "New World Order" (thank you, Kerry Chant!) and I have no doubt that they will use any option available to stay outside the law. However, an encrypted file with an image that can be displayed/verified on a second reader device would fulfil this criteria.

3/ Not require a mobile phone. What? Who has no phone? Well, in our area actually a great many people don't have mobile phones. Many old people, and by "old" I'm talking >60 don't have phones. Many rural areas (such as my farm) don't have coverage, so there's little point - once you give out a mobile number it's the only number people will use, so you are effectively out of contact until you go to town and get a mass of missed calls! Also, to work internationally, not requiring a phone would be a good thing. Many people have second phones and/or SIM cards for use overseas, so removing dependence on a phone would be useful in those situations, or when you want a coffee on the beach!

Given the above, a suitable QR code (or other such identification) that can be put on a phone, or a card, or (NWO!) tattooed on the arm, could be scanned and referenced to a central database that displays an image of the individual and their vaccination status. Easy. But guaranteed to cause noise from the "privacy people"!

By the way, the current governments' "ability to do this" is irrelevant. It should be international, and therefore outside the ability of individual countries to b*gger up. Also, of course, the "government" is only the very top level, the rest of the "civil service" doesn't change when the government changes. And, to be honest, I would very much rest assured that the "civil service" is entirely unable to develop a working system. Let's face it, if they did succeed it would be the first time ever*.

*Multiple iterations and complete replacements of unnecessarily complex systems for paying income tax, superannuation, medical systems, "self service" systems at Service NSW that are so poor that they require a full time staff member to assist people to "serve themselves", right down to the covid check-in QR code where they sent companies (including me) the QR code for the wrong businesses (I kid u not!). They don't have an inspiring track record!

Nice summation, Warb.

May I add two further qualifiers:

• Robust - it will have a lot of wear and tear, every time it must be presented, and
• Credit Card Sized - like drivers licenses - it must easily fit the wallet compartments like so many essential identifiers.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller

Substitute any group you want to into that, many have.

My better half quotes it quite regularly and the various comments about privacy above make me quote it here.

No one has a right to view my private personal medical record including vaccination status EXCEPT were it is a LEGAL requirement such as an international requirement to enter a country.
Certainly not the staff at a local store and i'm glad to live in a jurisdiction where it would be considered a discrimination and in violation of rights.

I 100% support the call to get vaccinated and urge others to do the same and i'm just waiting time to get my own second jab.

Everyone has their own choices to make and i wish them the best.

I don't get attitudes like this.

If I had a highly communicable disease, such as TB or a haemorrhagic fever such as Ebola or Marburgs, how would it feel to know I went to the shops, the chemist, the local McDonalds, Bunnings, then sat in a movie theatre deliberately infecting as many as I could?

Lets say your children caught this and died.

Freedom!!! At all costs!!!


We already have dreadful epidemics burnt into our collective consciousness - polio, rubella, measles, small pox - where these caused untold misery.


On those writings, I've read them, I utterly fail to equate a rapidly escalating need for public health to the writings of an anti-semite Nazi supporter and sympathiser who was only sorry because he was caught and the system didn't work out for him.


Gassing and Shooting Jews and shovelling them into ovens is a far cry from flashing a phone with a green badge to show one has a had a vaccination.

If you want a REAL GLIMPSE into the minds of these evil bastards, take the time to read The Nuremberg Diary - Gilbert, G. M

It is a dreadfully illumining read. I can email the scanned PDF of the book to those who wish it. It is a diary from a Psychologist who spent time with them during the Nuremberg trials. It is both fascinating and deeply disturbing.

People who sprout this poem have absolutely and utterly no idea what they are talking about.


edit - added a link to the PDF.