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The logistics of travel and immigration

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The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by cthia   » Sun May 28, 2017 6:28 am

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I am wondering about the logistics of travel and immigration in the Honorverse. Even though I don't travel between countries as nearly as often as I once did in my younger years I probably still do much more than the average person. And Customs has never been a quick, painless, uneventful and joyous occasion to look forward to. Especially reentering my own country now, after certain changes effected since the terrorist attacks of 911.

It is something that has always interested me. Here on Earth everyone must pass through the Customs of a particular country possessing at least a passport. My wife had to additionally carry her marriage certificate until her passport was renewed since her passport was issued under her maiden name. In the Honerverse, said Customs must act as the filter for the entire planet shortstopping illegal imports, criminals, diseases, technology, etc. and I imagine the task to be daunting and prohibitively time-consuming at the capacity represented by freighters and tackled with the tech and methods of present day Earth.

However, I also imagine the technology and methods might have advanced in certain areas to assist with the task. E.g., DNA identification technology that checks, confirms and identifies one's identity in seconds. I can certainly conceive of such a tech anyways, just not so certain it would be legal in the Honorverse, or accepted or recommended with the ability to clone widespread.* It also makes me wonder how spies like Cachat can sneak onto a planet with everyone's DNA tested as a child and entered into a planet wide database to facilitate law enforcement. Although I'm not certain that DNA databases would be shared between planets.

* I certainly do not think it would be legal today but it seems it would move much closer to a foolproof way to shortstop terrorists and any other undesirables if, along with a passport, your DNA is checked and archived in moments to confirm your identity.

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Last edited by cthia on Sun May 28, 2017 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun May 28, 2017 9:33 am

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Crown of Slaves (the first of the 3 books focusing on Torch and Mesa) covers some of this. But the short answer is that technology advances help spies / criminals as well as customs agents.

Honorverse biomedical advances let people with access to them adjust their biometric data enough to fool at least casual / routine checks. It's not the kind of thing a reputably hospital would do without good reason, but a spy agency or significant criminal organization wouldn't have any particular trouble getting access to that service.



Even today, without that level of biomedical capability, a routine DNA check is only as good as it's collection method. If you know the check always takes a cheek swab (for example) it wouldn't be too hard for someone with the backing of a major organization to arrange some kind of oral insert that interposed a culture of someone else's material (and presumably a non-permeable backing) in front of your actual interior cheek; so the collecting swab only gets DNA off the insert material - not from that actual person they're trying to check.

And of course similar tricks can work for fingerprints, iris scans, etc if you know ahead of time what and how the biomatrics will be checked, and it's a fairly routine check that has only routine levels of supervision. (As would nearly inevitably be the case for biometrics checks when entering a country / planet)
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Re: The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by saber964   » Sun May 28, 2017 10:35 am

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Look how far DNA has advanced in the last few decades. When DNA testing first came out it cost as much as $100,000 a test and could take upwards of a year to complete now it's down to $1000 per test and can be completed in hours. I imagine in the future you could carry the equivalent of a driver's license with your DNA encoded on it. Also IIRC the Honorverse has DNA sniffers that can identify body parts in seconds from multiple jumbled sources.
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Re: The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by Lord Skimper   » Sun May 28, 2017 11:22 pm

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Could just finger print everyone, USA used to do that for a while. Honorverse might take pictures of everyones tongue. Zoltan Istvan suggested using implants on all immigrants coming into the USA so they can be tracked. It was part of his Libertarian POTUS campaign.
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Re: The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by Kizarvexis   » Mon May 29, 2017 10:57 am

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I'm sure the Peeps changed Cachet's 'official' biometric data when he was going to go undercover for St Just. I would expect that Torch would do the same later. Not to mention all the ideas Jonathan S came up with and more.

I also would expect that both Zilwicki and Cachet both would forward each others actual biometrics to their respective spy agencies to be secretly kept and used by those agencies.
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Re: The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by Fox2!   » Mon May 29, 2017 1:21 pm

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Kizarvexis wrote:I'm sure the Peeps changed Cachet's 'official' biometric data when he was going to go undercover for St Just. I would expect that Torch would do the same later. Not to mention all the ideas Jonathan S came up with and more.

I also would expect that both Zilwicki and Cachet both would forward each others actual biometrics to their respective spy agencies to be secretly kept and used by those agencies.


In one of the last two "Torch" stories, Cachet states that there is no record of his personal data on Haven.
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Re: The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by Somtaaw   » Mon May 29, 2017 10:21 pm

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Fox2! wrote:
Kizarvexis wrote:I'm sure the Peeps changed Cachet's 'official' biometric data when he was going to go undercover for St Just. I would expect that Torch would do the same later. Not to mention all the ideas Jonathan S came up with and more.

I also would expect that both Zilwicki and Cachet both would forward each others actual biometrics to their respective spy agencies to be secretly kept and used by those agencies.


In one of the last two "Torch" stories, Cachet states that there is no record of his personal data on Haven.


Didn't he state that StateSec expunged all copies but theirs? StateSec had riddled most of the networks with backdoors, and that Security guy for Giancola (who setup to assassinate Grosclaude) had at least some of those backdoor codes.

Which would mean it is possible to steal even Cachet's biometric data, except StateSec seemed fairly competent at counter-intel so it's unlikely the data is labelled with names. So first you'd have to steal a copy of StateSec's stored biometrics, then you'd need to steal the list(s) that converted cover names to real names, then hope somewhere on the list you stole was the person you wanted data on, in this case Cachet.

Edit: Essentially, think the entire plot of the original Mission Impossible, but substitute "American agents" for "Havenite agents", and you'd pretty much have what anyone looking for Cachet's biometric data would likely need to do.
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Re: The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by kzt   » Tue May 30, 2017 12:33 am

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Somtaaw wrote:Edit: Essentially, think the entire plot of the original Mission Impossible, but substitute "American agents" for "Havenite agents", and you'd pretty much have what anyone looking for Cachet's biometric data would likely need to do.

No, you ask the SL for his biometrics. They have them in their files as he worked at the Peep Embassy.
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Re: The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by Fox2!   » Tue May 30, 2017 12:54 am

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kzt wrote:
Somtaaw wrote:Edit: Essentially, think the entire plot of the original Mission Impossible, but substitute "American agents" for "Havenite agents", and you'd pretty much have what anyone looking for Cachet's biometric data would likely need to do.

No, you ask the SL for his biometrics. They have them in their files as he worked at the Peep Embassy.


Assuming that the Peeps gave them anything near Victor's actual biometrics.
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Re: The logistics of travel and immigration
Post by kzt   » Tue May 30, 2017 1:19 am

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Fox2! wrote:Assuming that the Peeps gave them anything near Victor's actual biometrics.

Welcome to Earth! Can I please have your passport and please place your hand on this plate and look into that camera there?
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