- But the program isn't strictly limited to government use. The ultimate goal is a replacement of many logins and passwords people maintain to access content and participate in comment threads and forums. This "solution," while somewhat practical, also raises considerable privacy concerns...The problem is, ultimately, that this is the government rolling this out. Unlike corporations, citizens won't be allowed the luxury of opting out. This "internet driver's license" may be the only option the public has to do things like renew actual driver's licenses or file taxes or complete paperwork that keeps them on the right side of federal law.
Every passing day pushes me ever closer to hosting a darknet node.
Hmm, seems like with most government plans it has one good idea coupled with two bad ones. This makes a lot of sense for properly authenticating the user when accessing government services. It would be really convenient to have a unified ID for FAFSA, Tax filing, registrations and permit applications, etc. If you're like me and forgot your FAFSA PIN pretty much every semester when you tried to use it, it does seem useful. Two major bad ideas though: generalizing it for non-government logins, and storing the data with third parties. Dumb dumb dumb, and dangerous.
Oh the best is when you have a FAFSA account and your parent has a FAFSA account and you have a NYS TAP account and you have a college account and oh my god all the pin numbers. Thank fucking god I can pull all my tax info directly into the FAFSA filing by entering my pin, going to the IRS site real quick and clicking "yes".
Wait, hold on, if this is just something we have to use to renew driver's licenses on the internets or file taxes or do governmental paperwork and don't have to use to do other shit, it's basically the same damn thing we do offline or online with less centralization. What's concerning is the fact that this is being outsourced to a third-party company who might sell it. I don't think anyone's going to require an interbutt surfer license to access the internet in general or to use Hubski or Reddit. Is this what people are claiming is going to happen?
I think this is exactly what people are worried about. It's worth considering that people were initially very resistant to the census, then to SSNs. What seems outlandish to one generation seems perfectly normal to the next. These changes come slowly. IMO it's likely that at a future point, you will need to use a government-issued ID to use the internet. I expect that the rationale will be that anonymity isn't a requirement of free speech, only the protection of it is, and that storage of private data isn't a breach of privacy, only the examination of it is. Of course, I completely disagree with this rationale, but that's not to say that I don't find it likely to win. Obama obviously does not feel that people need or deserve extra-systemic protections from an abusive government.I don't think anyone's going to require an interbutt surfer license to access the internet in general or to use Hubski or Reddit. Is this what people are claiming is going to happen?
I guess what this makes me think is that the census does what it does for a reason, and SSNs are non-universal numbers which were originally used to track people within the Social Security program but which I suppose has gotten way out of its original scope by being used as a government form of identification and is useful for keeping all your government shit together and for things like obtaining passports and driver's licenses. So, yeah, there's potential for abuse with this system, but if I had to say what angers me so much about these sorts of arguments, it's the slippery slope idea. Then again it's possible to argue that the census/SSN and now internet ID thing was a validation of the slippery slope idea all along, but seriously, nobody in the government has been alive that long (the census is OLD) and I'm predisposed to using Hanlon's razor: it's probably stupidity, not malice. I mean, the government isn't a monolith, and neither is the FBI, the CIA, or the NSA, or whatever. Have you seen some of the leaked slide shows from the leaked data from the NSA? They look like they were put together by the kind of people I'd label 'douchebag'. Anyway, even high-ranking government officials are still people and it gives them more power than they actually have to react with this sort of abject fear.It's worth considering that people were initially very resistant to the census, then to SSNs
I absolutely agree. I highly doubt that the Obama Administration has entertained nefarious designs; unfortunately, that is an intrinsic part of the defense. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Just because the 'slippery slope' argument seems tired, or is often abused, that doesn't mean there aren't circumstances where it reasonably applies. We can have a well-meaning and bumbling bureaucracy walk us into a undesirable future just as easily as a cast of Machiavellian masterminds, if not with greater ease.I'm predisposed to using Hanlon's razor: it's probably stupidity, not malice.
Machiavellian masterminds are still pretty bumbling, if the arc of history is much of an indication.
Except for the let's-replace-all-the-logins-part, we've been doing this since 2010. Everyone needs a DigiD to fill their taxes online (the Dutch IRS can fill out most forms for you that way), apply for student welfare or get a drivers license. You can even turn on two-factor authorization, so you'll also have to provide a code from your phone. The reason nobody's worried about this is a) it provides actual use: it makes filing taxes far more efficient & easier and b) there is an opt-out or alternative, paper way of filing those forms most of the time. I'm not opposed to governments providing a standardized login system per se, although this version looks particularly intimidating. As long as it is confined to government interactions it can be a good working system.
US-owned? I'd give even odds that the NSA has access. :)In July 2011, DigiNotar, the company that was providing the certificates used for DigiD under the PKI root-CA PKIoverheid. Although not directly linked to certificates used by DigiD the result of above hack was that the government lost its trust in certificates issued by the company, both under their own root CA as well as the certificates under the governments root PKIoverheid. Prosecutors said they would investigate the U.S.-owned, Netherlands-based DigiNotar.
Unfortunately, politicians seem to be detached from the people they effect when pushing new legislation. Especially when discussing the likes of legislation + the Internet. This is a fine example of how the US government is a republic, not a democracy. I wish the gov't dealt with issues in relation to the internet in a democratic manner, it would be too easy.
Which is why I asked about wallets. I'mma tell you like the Wu told me, Cash Rules Everything Around Me. I don't care about what this country is supposed to be anymore, at least in any practical sense. I care about impacting somebodies bottom line, next quarter profits to make sure that they realize this would be a very bad thing.
US Is an Oligarchy Not a Democracy, says Scientific Study This study basically found that the opinions of the non-rich make no difference to legislation in the USA.