[Foundation-l] identity disclosure and access to OTRS/Checkuser

Sun Jun 29 23:29:39 UTC 2008

2008/6/30 Phil Nash <pn007a2145 at blueyonder.co.uk>:
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>>> Oh my.  Serious legal consequences for forging such a thing.  I'm
>>>> sure the foundation has a method to vet these things.
>>>
>>> How could they do that? They might be able to tell if the passport is
>>> real or not, but there's no way they can tell whether or not it's
>>> actually yours.
>
> I can't speak for US passports, or indeed any other than UK, but it's normal
> for to provide some sort of declaration from a doctor, lawyer or priest who
> can certify that they've known the applicant for a reasonable length of
> time. Not completely foolproof, of course, if you've seen "The Day of the
> Jackal", but good enough for normal purposes. I find it hard to believe
> anyone would go to such lengths to gain access to OTRS, however. Checkuser
> may be an entirely different proposition in some of the contexts we have on
> en:Wikipedia, but again, I think it's such a remote proposition as to be
> practically discountable.

Oh, yes, there are plenty of methods for the passport issuer to
confirm the identity of an applicant before issuing the passport, but
that doesn't help the WMF. All I have to do I borrow someone else's
passport (a perfectly genuine one) and claim that's me and there's no
way the WMF could know any different.