Comment by csdvrx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by csdvrx | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

As technically interesting as using a card to sign stuff may be, I don't want that to be the government responsibility, as it then opens the door for it to be used in ways that limit our freedoms: a system that's too perfect can uniquely identify you, in ways that prevent disassociation (ex: the place of birth on the passport is of great interest to some totalitarian places, while only citizenship should matter..)

So for me, the ideal ID system is decentralized, self-declarative, and the weight of the proof depends on the length of history, not on "who" says it's true: there should be many such services where you could declare a name and an address and anything else you wish (phone, email...)

The value after a few weeks would be close to nil, so you could decide to "increase it" by having several people vouch for you (strength in numbers) instead of relying on a "who" (public notary).

Or you could totally decide that you care about your freedom/independence/whatever and NOT ask for any vouching. It may be hard, but after a few years of reliably receiving mail and orders at that address, it would acquire some serious weight - a bit like you tend to trust online accounts that have been open for some year.

Among many other things, this would also allow anyone the opportunity to "change" easily: want a new name/move to a new address/etc: create a revocation certificate for the old, sign it with the new, boom you inherit the credential history!

It's just a quick idea, but it shows how IDs could be more like URLs (multiple competing services, and you could have a few at the same time, why not!) by moving away from the current system that's a direct descendant of the census (give the lord a list of people to tax them) and the passport (limit freedom of movement during the war)

At the core, I believe people should be in control of their identity, not governments or states.

I have a governement id and a google logon. I worry a lot more about google than the gov.

There are legally enforced limits to what can be done with my gov id. Regulations say who can see it, what it can be used for, and a court for when things go wrong. If thing go too bad, a public backlash will occur, and politicians are very sensutive to it. Not perfect, but it works.

Google/Microsoft/Facebook, otoh, have no obligations to you. They use your id as they see fit. They revoke your id as they see fit. They prove to be bad stewards, have invisible everchanging rules, and only 1 punishment for violating it. Meanwhile you have to have an id with all if them, or network effects eill give you trouble when others use a service to contact you.

You're idea will not put people in control of their id, it would put the bigcorps in control of it. When big enough, a corporation is like governement's evil twin.

Well, we're the opposite then: If I want to be over and done with google, it's super easy. And if I don't think they delivered value for what I pay, I can have the payment reverted by my CC. And try as they might, google will have trouble putting me in jail or killing me :)

So yes, I really love that they have no obligation for me.

And if Google/Microsoft/Facebook can do ID, there will certainly also be a Linux solution, and I'll use it :)

The US government has no trouble killing or jailing people, even with only a half functioning id system. In fact I have no idea how it's acceptable to give everybody a social security number and then claim it is but a secret and a public identifier. It's the worst of both worlds.

Now without google account, you're locked out of a big chunk of the android world. I recently joined a group using hangouts, google account required. School and docter and a few others started to use ms teams since corona, requiring a microsoft account. I don't have facebook yet, but it costs me a lot of mini second hand sales in the neighbourhood. There are other such cases.

I could try to re-educate every one of these groups, but after a full time job and a family, that's not how I want to spend my time. There's a short amount of time to spend in life, and a worthy cause on every street corner. Feel free to mock me for not choosing these particular hills to die on.

I'd rather have consumer protection and/or anticompetitive action. The governement can spend some of my tax money on it, as it's their job. Meanwhile I'll use my id to log in at my healthcare provider, knowing that if they are stupid enough to sell that data, they get a backlash from the public opinion and some very unwanted attention of the courts.

> I have a governement id and a google logon. I worry a lot more about google than the gov.

See, it's the exact opposite for me: Google never built extermination camps. They are thus inherently more trustworthy than any government.

> I don't want that to be the government responsibility, as it then opens the door for it to be used in ways that limit our freedoms: a system that's too perfect can uniquely identify you, in ways that prevent disassociation (ex: the place of birth on the passport is of great interest to some totalitarian places, while only citizenship should matter..)

You mean like social security numbers, which tell anyone where you were born, down to a fairly limited range of zipcodes?

Or how about driver's license databases, which include your ethnicity, possibly your religion, etc? You think the guys in black helicopters are going to let a pesky little thing like "get the state's drivers license database" stop them, particularly when there's already a national clearing house system so states don't issue duplicate licenses, licenses to people who owe money or have had their license revoked, etc?

General hand-wave-y conspiracies about national ID cards making it easier for everyone to be death-camped are just a right-wing attempt to harm federal government effectiveness so they can continue to hamstring everything it does and then shout about how ineffective it is and thus it needs to be cut.

If the government wants to ship you off to gas chambers, it can do that just fine without a functional federal identity system and in the meantime everyone's lives would be significantly easier. Imagine if everything you did with local/state/federal government and healthcare no longer involved a page worth of identity crap, just presenting a free ID card.

> You mean like social security numbers, which tell anyone where you were born, down to a fairly limited range of zipcodes?

Indeed, I want none of that. I wish I could ask the SS to delete my registration and let me deal with the consequences.

> You think the guys in black helicopters are going to let a pesky little thing like "get the state's drivers license database" stop them

It may be nothing much, but anything that can make the work of a potential abusive government HARDER should be done.

> particularly when there's already a national clearing house system so states don't issue duplicate licenses, licenses to people who owe money or have had their license revoked, etc?

And you nail it: with the system I proposed, there would be duplicates, and people owning money etc. It'd be messy. And that's good: because that's where freedom is often found, in messy systems.

You’re an outlier in your belief systems. People don’t want messy, they want convenience and assurances.

> You’re an outlier in your belief systems. People don’t want messy, they want convenience and assurances.

It seems to me that people care more and more about their privacy.

As for convenience, most people I know use an iphone with an android tablet and a windows computer, so by revealed preferences I'd say their actions speak louder than their words.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com