Why ID Cards Are Idiotic: Technical Impossibility

I hate to gloat (well, not much) but this story about the scrapping of a £141 million computer system by the UK's Department for Work and Pensions, after over two years of desperate efforts to make it work, is perhaps a tiny, tiny hint why the infinitely more complex ID card system does not stand a snowflake's chance in hell of operating successfully.

I suppose I ought to be comforted by the fact that the ID card's computer system is guaranteed to fail, as it means the scheme will never be implemented in its present, megalomaniacal form. But somehow, the idea of all those billions pouring into consultants' and contractors' pockets for nothing spoils this otherwise pleasant thought.