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Comment by kube-system | Hacker News Reader

Estonia was exactly what I had in mind when I wrote my comment. You can't just guess PKI keys, but they are less accessible. You need the physical card, you must have a process for issuing/reissuing, and the technology must be available to use it. There are trade-offs. They can be good trade offs, but they exist.

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In Mexico the SAT (IRS) adopted something similar: A PKI to identify taxpayers for which you have to sign electronic documents with your password-protected private key. So far it has worked quite well, and it is being used for things other than taxes.

I consider people in Mexico way less technically sophisticated than people in the US, and adoption has been going well. So I believe implementing something like that would be possible in the US as well.

The issuing/reissuing process has been solved and is working fine, reissuing can even be done online (key-pairs have a longevity limit).

>you must have a process for issuing/reissuing

Can't you piggyback off of the processes for social security cards?

You can. But, if I lose my SSN card I can still (usually) use my SSN because it exists in a functional form inside of my head. If it was a PKI card, I would physically need to have the card.

I have family who tried to get a replacement SSN card during COVID and the process has been entirely impossible. This a drawback to using physical tokens.

Also, this doesn't eliminate identity theft, the point of issuing is the weak-point for fraud.

Ok, but I got a replacement card several years ago and it was really not too hard. Took a few minutes at the SSA office with my passport (advice is to get their obscenely early to avoid waiting), and then waiting for the mail. Took a while to get in the mail, but wasn't hard, just slow.

Normally, it shouldn't be. But, my family ran into issues such as:

1. The office was physically closed for business during COVID.

2. They needed to get documentation which was physically in another country.

3. They could not travel to that country due to travel restrictions.

Lost my card, can confirm it's entirely tedious to replace

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