@Lookout @thanatokephaloides @JtC
thanatokephaloides answer to me, it is clear that the way the IP addresses are recognized and assigned to your own computer and to the host server, is beyond a lay person's understanding.

I remember that in 1994 I had my own server and a fixed IP address. Someone, a guy that had the same role as JtC has here for C99p, remotely helped me to manage the server, when it was needed.

Later on IP addresses were assigned not as fixed ones, but as changing IP address each time you connected to the network. The little bit I once understood is all forgotten, so I may have never understood it correctly to begin with.

Anyhow, I didn't took this as something directed personally at me. I have donated little amounts of money to several candidates or sites, either on a recurring monthly basis or as a one time donation, either using paypal or cc cards. I had donated to Sanders before, as well as Gabbard, and other blogs- or news sites. It was definitely the first time I was asked to fill in my passport number. I can't believe that has not a specific reason.

Most of these sites have a webpage to fill out for your donations. You have to fill out from which Country you are accessing their webpage and after you do this, well designed donation webpages consequently change the lay-out for state and zip codes, as well as for telephone numbers. So this is all information you have to put in yourself. It is not automatically read by the host servers programs.

For example if they ask you for telephone numbers, many of the webpages designed for donations, only accept US telephone numbers. So if I correctly fill out from which country I come from, I get stuck, because I don't have a US telephone number anymore and I can't put in my German telephone number. The design of the web page doesn't accept non US telephone numbers.

But I think laws are changing dependent from which country you are accessing the networks, subnetworks and host servers and the web pages they host for their clients.

At least it was the first time I saw that they requested a passport number. It is possible that those who design the webpages for Sanders campaign are forced to ask now to prove who they are accepting money from, if the donor is not a US citizen. May be the campaign's system admins would get in trouble accepting money for the camaign from sources outside of the US without providing proof via the requested passport numbers.

As for SS numbers and IDs. I think that the ID card in US states were the Drivers Licenses they issued. And I think long time ago, the number on the US DLs were the same as your SS number.

That has changed, if I remember correctly.

In Germany you have an ID card with a number on it that is not related to your German drivers license number or to the equivalent of what is your SS card, the 'Rentenversicherungsnummer'. These are three different numbers and the ultimate internationally recognized ID is your German Passport number. So, I would say that's the last number one should post online on any web page.

Well, next time I send out a homing/carrier pigeson to carry my little check to the Presidential candidate's campaign headquarters. Of course they are also white pigeons to assure anyone they are exclusivly involved in peaceful activism. Definitely no threat for the good 'ole USofA.

Seufz.

#1

Just joking, but really in the scheme of things the bit that you or I might donate is minuscule in its real effect. So not to worry.

@thanatokephaloides

that the Social Security number would never become an ID number.

They lied, of course, and with few exceptions (curiously including the Department of Motor Vehicles, which switched AWAY from requiring your SSN) it actually is one.

#1

I am not allowed to vote in the US presidential elections. Does that mean now, I am not allowed to donate to the US presidential candidates online without posting my passport number into their frigging online donation webpages?.

You know, I think you have lost your mind to ask for passport numbers and/or drivers licenses online. I don't even know who the 'You' are. I have two drivers licenses as well, a US one and a German one. Which one do you like for 'data collection at your 'security feasts' and 'bankers'/oligarchs' parties'?

Actually, what we have here is a simple scanner for "absolute" IP addresses. If you made your attempt from Germany, the IP address of your machine right now comes from a pool of IP addresses assigned to Germany, and obviously detectable as German. This has nothing to do with you personally; were you to shut your machine clean off, your ISP would assign the IP address you had been using to another user via a process called DHCP. Were you then to reconnect, you'd get a different IP address via the same DHCP process. You would know if you had an unchanging, non-DHCP IP address; this is called "fixed IP address service" and you pay out the you-know-what for it.

So ride easy there, mimi. This has nothing to do with you personally.

While we're on this subject, one thing that has me really pissed off is the attempt to make some of these searches seriously personal by searching and discriminating not by IP address, but by the MAC address which is the absolute serial number of your machine's network hardware. This means a search down to the freaking serial numbers of the IC chips my machine uses to communicate with the physical Internet.

That ranks right up there with:

1. Voice recognition software
2. Face recognition software
3. Age, residential address, employment status,
4. My bank accouns from where the money I want the donation being paid from
5. My credit or debit cards from my bank accounts
6. My medical records
7. My passport number
8. My drivers' licenses numbers.

(p.s. You left out the worst one of all, at least for all Americans: the Social Security number!)