Secure digital identities for Web users

[SameOldStory]

Why is this wonderful plan being mentioned here? I've noted that some people dislike the idea that Kindle, Sony, B&N, and others can track what they are buying.

And if it's a wonderful plan, companies will start to use the Identity Ecosystem when you want to buy anything from them. And after a while it will be required.

Don't bother me at all. How about you?

By the way, nice name - Ecosystem. Ecology, animals, mother earth, trees, warm fuzzy thoughts.



White House envisions simple, secure digital identities for Web users

""What has emerged is a blueprint to reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities and improve online privacy protections through the use of trusted digital identities," White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt said in a June 25 blog post announcing the release of the draft policy."

That way they will KNOW it was you when you're online buying something. The rest of the time they won't peek.


White House Releases Draft Digital Identity Strategy

"The White House on Friday released a draft strategy aimed at helping increase the trustworthiness of digital identities and online transactions."

That's good, right?

""No longer should individuals have to remember an ever-expanding and potentially insecure list of usernames and passwords to login into various online services." White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt said in a blog post."

Much better. The government is going to make it much better.

""We seek a future where individuals can voluntarily choose to obtain a secure, interoperable, and privacy-enhancing credential from a variety of service providers – both public and private – to authenticate themselves online for different types of transactions.""

That's good. Just like social security. When Social Security began there were 2 MAJOR stipulations. 1- Your social security card/number would NEVER be used to identify you except for your retirement. 2- The federal government could NEVER dip into the social security fund.

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(Ok, I'm back. Just had to drill out the camera on my laptop.)


Oh, yeah. PS- "and privacy-enhancing credential from a variety of service providers – both public and private – to authenticate themselves online for different types of transactions"

Well it doesn't matter if the provider is public or private. It'll have to meet the government "requirements".

Maybe it'll be a card. Yeah, a national card that identifies you. No. Someone may steal it. Better make it a RFID system and implant it deep inside everyone. Everyone who volunteers, that is.

Are the authors out there taking notes?


And another PS - Tracking you for taxable purchases is only logical. Right?

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On a personal note. All of this is possible now. Oh, it'll take many years before it's completed. But I'll be dead by then, so I can laugh at it.

[fishface]

How stupid do they think the public is. It doesn't increase the security of anyone. It does make it way easier for Big Brother to spy on you and for Big Money to figure out how to sell stuff to you.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by fishface

How stupid do they think the public is. It doesn't increase the security of anyone. It does make it way easier for Big Brother to spy on you and for Big Money to figure out how to sell stuff to you.

The public is really stupid. The love programs like this. Makes them feel safe.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Digital security is possible, but only a biometric system can be a secure and reliable identifier, and a basis to tie purchases to purchasers reliably (details of my thoughts on the subject are here). Anything else can be spoofed, stolen or counterfeited by almost anyone with a yen to take a bit of effort.

Of course, people will naturally be concerned that their purchases will be tracked by some sources. But since their purchases are already being tracked, targeted ads don't force anyone to buy things, and the world hasn't come to an end because of it, I don't know what the big deal is.

And people will be concerned about being spied on. Really, in almost all cases they give far too much credit to their governments' capabilities, and put far too much importance on themselves. (Big Brother=Wizard of Oz. Grip: Get one.)

Also important, from the second release:

If the strategy sounds somewhat broad and vague, it's because it is.

That means they don't have a strategy. They only have thinking points. No need to panic.

[fishface]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

a basis to tie purchases to purchasers reliably

I still can't think of a good security reason to do this. The only things I can think of is to avoid selling alcohol and porn to minors. Am I missing something here or is this whole thing addressing a nonexistent need.

[kindlekitten]

so what? I'm supposed to treat the entire internet like one big Amazon!?

yeah ok. can I have fries with that?

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

...

That means they don't have a strategy. They only have thinking points. No need to panic.

Most religious movements and tyrannical regimes have began as "thinking points."

Some have past, some are still here and some are yet to come.

Such noxious trial balloons must be shot to pieces.

[Musicman]

Their strategy is control - if your opinion goes against their views they know who you are so you might disappear.......

[Deneb]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Most religious movements and tyrannical regimes have began as "thinking points."

Some have past, some are still here and some are yet to come.

Such noxious trial balloons must be shot to pieces.

Agreed with that. And I don't have any problems with lots of pseudo and passwords. At least I have the freedom to change one when I want to.
I don't beleive in government altruism, any of them.

Unfortunatly, I also agree with Iphinome.:"The public is really stupid. The love programs like this. Makes them feel safe. " Just see how government can play on fears and security.

People should pay more attention to films like V for Vendetta, and I'm sure there is a lot of the kind.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by fishface

I still can't think of a good security reason to do this. The only things I can think of is to avoid selling alcohol and porn to minors. Am I missing something here or is this whole thing addressing a nonexistent need.

Simple: To prevent person B from being able to obtain and read an ebook purchased by person A. Tying a single iteration of an ebook to a person's single ID is intended to prevent unauthorized sharing of files, limiting piracy and protecting rights holders. That's the whole point of the exercise.

Originally Posted by Sonist

Most religious movements and tyrannical regimes have began as "thinking points."

Such noxious trial balloons must be shot to pieces.

Originally Posted by Musicman

Their strategy is control - if your opinion goes against their views they know who you are so you might disappear.......

Originally Posted by Deneb

People should pay more attention to films like V for Vendetta, and I'm sure there is a lot of the kind.

You guys need to put the kool-aid down now. Nobody is loading their guns and making up fresh bunks in their death-camps for you. They're talking about ways to protect rights-holders. That's all. These Big Brother personal paranoia delusions aren't helping.

[SameOldStory]

Things will of course progress from benign, to useful, to something beyond our consideration.

Would the DARPA originators of the internet (mainly Al Gore) have envisioned what we do with it today?

The ARPANET people never considered YouTube and all of those things that, today, many consider ubiquitous. There are people saying that high speed internet is a right. Next time you look around, it will be a right.

My objection to the book 1984 was the ever present government surveillance. But there was no internet at all when I read 1984 (yes, ARPANET was around, but I don't think that it was used by civilians). Cameras were BIG and expensive. No way that stuff could happen.

For the people that think Kindle (et al) is providing your reading list (and those sections that you bookmark or highlight) to a company (Amazon in this case) let me ask "Do you think that your (any) government is better?

As a kid I used to scour the library for info on explosives - all I wanted to do was make my own firecrackers. In the future, if not today, they (the infamous and nefarious THEY) will pick up on that and brand me a subversive, terrorist, or just an out and out criminal.

If you read books with a homosexual theme do you keep the books private? When I was young, not only was homosexuality a crime, it was a listed mental illness. The "cure" could even include a lobotomy or electroshock "therapy".

Variations on a theme. In the book Fahrenheit 451 they burned all books. But suppose "THEY" wanted to find people that they thought were a danger to the public? Using your reading list could be of great use to "THEM".


Assuming that "THEY" will eventually be able to identify you on the internet. What do you intend to do to keep your reading private? Go back to paper books? Just don't use a credit or debit card. Don't even use a library card.

[DawnFalcon]

Providing the basis for a digital identity service is a perfectly valid government function. Allowing its citizens to identify themselves based on THEIR demand to others.

A zero-logging protocol is also appropriate.


SameOldStory - The only question is quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Quite simply, you are not realistically going to put surveillance technology back into the bag. Cameras become smaller every year.

As discussed in D.Brin, The Transparent Society back in '98, the only question is who gets to look through those cameras. I'd prefer city two, myself.

[SameOldStory]

I would feel better with a government that watches me less.

Others feel like they need to make things better. Such as Stalin and Mao.

And this great step that they propose would do absolutely nothing about a much bigger problem - credit card fraud. (That has occurred 4 times in my life.) Unless the white house thinks that credit card fraud people routinely have merchandise sent to where they live.


Yes, Steve Jordan, there is a touch of paranoia in some of these posts. But there is an inconsistency in the "Identity Ecosystem" proposal that leaves me doubting its full intent.

Unlike fishface though, I doubt that it's " Big Money (trying) to figure out how to sell stuff to you." "Big Money" has been tracking you for decades.

If " Big Money (trying) to figure out how to sell stuff to you" is your problem just stop watching TV.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Simple: To prevent person B from being able to obtain and read an ebook purchased by person A. Tying a single iteration of an ebook to a person's single ID is intended to prevent unauthorized sharing of files, limiting piracy and protecting rights holders. That's the whole point of the exercise.

This will most emphatically not prevent this.

[capidamonte]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

They're talking about ways to protect rights-holders. That's all. These Big Brother personal paranoia delusions aren't helping.

Rights-holders, in this case, and in every case that matters to the people making these proposals, are large, influential corporations.

This is where eternal , salable, transferable copyright and immortal corporations meet. The people who fear "government" must recognize that it has been co-opted by the business elite.

Nobody at that level of power gives a hoot about the copyrights of Steve Jordan, except as a fig-leaf to cover the agenda of the big-money boyz.

As Kovid says, it will do nothing to stop copyright infringement -- but it will deny you anonymity in purchases, speech, reading, etc. And it would become "voluntary" in name only if it were allowed to come to pass. Want a library card? What's your ID number? Want to join a gym? What's your ID number? Want to get a job? ID number? Bank account? ID number. Internet service. ID please. Just for security, you understand -- It's just that only criminals wouldn't have one. Or someone with a criminal mindset. This is voluntary, but we won't serve you without it.

Ultimately, you will be that ID, and it's purpose is clear -- to track your behavioral patterns and to track everything you do back to you. It's of a piece with ACTA, DMCA and all the other efforts by movers-and-shakers to put the Internet back in a box.

The fact that one might feel like they would never draw attention to themselves under such regime doesn't in any way justify removing anonymity from someone who would. We have a right to anonymity. Anonymity challenges authority.

Look at something like credit histories. It took decades for individuals to even have the right to see their credit histories. It's still nearly impossible to effectively and easily challenge those reports. The corporations compiling them have no interest in accurate information, simply in selling it -- their clients are other corporations -- and that it affects the lives of actual people barely makes a ripple. They've become gatekeepers.

It's human nature for someone higher up the status system to stand on the neck of someone beneath them, and tell everyone looking that they volunteered. Which they did, because the choice was either ostracism or the possibility of maybe standing on someone else's neck someday. It soothes the (faint) conscience of the elite to say it's a choice.

The fact that we're being tracked already doesn't justify adding further, more invasive and more permanent tracking. It's wrong in the first place.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

You guys need to put the kool-aid down now. Nobody is loading their guns and making up fresh bunks in their death-camps for you.

It'd be a great tool to identify the Jews, though, wouldn't it? Or the atheists? Or the gays? Or the anarchists? I mean, if you happened to somehow get access to it... say by getting elected? Or hacking it? Or being an influential member of a corporation?

The fact that it hasn't been abused yet, because it doesn't exist, doesn't change the fact that it would be abused-- and it would be abused because unequal balances of power are always used to the benefit of the ones with access to that power. It's human nature. The only answer is to prevent such power-bases in the first place.