[Unknown Target]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377479/Obama-administration-unveils-national-online-ID-system.html

Oh boy, sure glad we have the government helping free us from our current system of, quote;

" half-remembered passwords jotted down on post it notes and based on pets and mother's maiden names" which apparently is  "not enough."

[The E]

I wonder, do identity thieves have a lobby now?

[BloodEagle]

 

::EDIT::

Although the system is not yet up and running, the Commerce Secretary said a number of leading computer companies, including Microsoft, IBM, the Secure ID Coalition, and Wave Systems Corp, are developing ways to make the system most efficient and effective.

 

[JCDNWarrior]

They like to dress it as something to help us, but in the meantime.. Its a tool that can be used for true internet censorship. Not just a incompetent idea, sadly, but something that could very well be, or become, rather serious.

[Mikes]

They like to dress it as something to help us, but in the meantime.. Its a tool that can be used for true internet censorship. Not just a incompetent idea, sadly, but something that could very well be, or become, rather serious.

Serious as in: The end of the free web?

That was the most mentioned worry everytime personal Internet IDs came up... i.e. if they can ID you, then can charge you (just a minor step to link a CC). Say hello to microtransactions for... well everything.

"Thank you for using google, your search bill for your last search is 0,05 $."

[JCDNWarrior]

Yeah Mikes, I do believe it will incrementally cause the end of the free web - probably a more enclosed system to replace it, so that internet will still be used by large corporations, governments, military, etc, but the public would slowly start to see sites shut down and more and more control be put in place.

At least that's my expectation of what could happen, so it's probably better to take this particular thing more serious rather than another sign of incompetence.

[Mustang19]

you know herra told me that this whole government mind control thing is just paranoia

[JCDNWarrior]

Never mentioned mind control, so thats offtopic, but my opinion on that, is that its unprovable either way, while a interesting subject.

*Late edit: Might have been a bit too harsh. It's just rather off-topic, would prefer to stick to this subject here.

[General Battuta]

Never mentioned mind control, so thats offtopic, but my opinion on that, is that its unprovable either way, while a interesting subject.

 

[Sushi]

Time to break this out again:

[Topgun]

I hope this stupid thing gets shutdown

[Nuke]

i can imagine the government throwing billions at this, only to have a term change cut its budget and leaving us with a half-finished system that will be hacked in a week. there are some situations where applying politics to solve problems will result in a bigger mess than the problem itself.

[watsisname]

I imagine they think people who don't want NetID's must be terrorists or hackers or pirates.  :aargh:

[Polpolion]

Oh no, this is terrible! Obama sure is becoming a horrible despo - wait, what is this?

The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace will be voluntary, but some computer experts believe it is inevitable that most computer users will had a single ID for transactions in the future.

Well I'll be damned!

[Mustang19]

All they have to do is convince the big ISPs to mandate user IDs upon registration and voila- you can track everyone who uses the internet.

Somebody needs to, like, start hacking **** and shutting down the government ID database when that happens.

[Polpolion]

All they have to do is convince the big ISPs to mandate user IDs upon registration and voila- you can track everyone who uses the internet.

Somebody needs to, like, start hacking **** and shutting down the government ID database when that happens.

No.

The government could do that even without the ID system. And that's not what the ID system is for. If you were paying attention to the article, you can tell this is an attempt to bolster internet commerce by removing consumer fears of identity theft. Nothing about this has anything to do with censorship - or even piracy.

[Topgun]

Its only going to make identity theft easier.

[Mustang19]

No.

The government could do that even without the ID system. And that's not what the ID system is for. If you were paying attention to the article, you can tell this is an attempt to bolster internet commerce by removing consumer fears of identity theft. Nothing about this has anything to do with censorship - or even piracy.

But it's boring when you try to introduce facts into the conversation.

It is reasonable to suppose, though, that this would happen eventually in the private sector. Don't Facebook, Twitter and a few other sites already have a common login?

[Nuke]

i kinda think its somewhat inefficient to have every server on the internet manage its own user logon and password list. it is certainly exploitable. centralized credential services would be good if they had good security. i certainly dont want the governments running it though. also various websites would no doubt support completely different credential providers. can certainly see ms competing with google competing with yahoo, and a hodgepodge of lesser known companies all providing credential services, and websites that would support none of them, providing their own logon system. you would still have a pile of passwords and user names to memorize and store.

you could solve the problem with password managers, which of course that puts them in places that can be hacked or would be difficult to backup. perhaps its about as secure as writing down your passwords on a post it note and hiding it somewhere. perhaps it would be better if people didnt know their passwords at all. let the password management software generate a 128 byte password out of random data when you create an account, and have the system automatically generate a new password every month or so.

this still isnt something id let the government do. if anything id amend the tcp/ip protocal stack with protocols for exchanging and managing credentials for websites transparently to the user. make it so the only piece of information you need to give when signing up for an account is your user name. let the browser or password management service spew out a hash for identification. the user would be kept ignorant of this hash, and the storage of this hash would be highly encrypted. password hash would be updated regularly (such as after every 50 log-ons). reminders and automated recovery of forgotten passwords would be abolished. these only make it easier to get into the account. essentially the user is eliminated as a point of failure, leaving only the local password file and the credential service, or web host.

when it comes right down to it the real cause of all internet security problems boil down to human stupidity. people perhaps lack the discipline to manage their security. perhaps when all these logon standards were adopted the developers were short sighted and never considered that people would have to remember a hundred of them. perhaps were securing things that dont need so much security. you definately need more security in your bank webpage than in your facebook account. having the 2 share the same logon information is bat**** insane. perhaps some of these services need to stop asking so many questions. does photobucket really need to know my full name? does youtube really need to know my address. i sometimes fill those blanks with useless data. the whole system does need a mass rethinking, it goes against human nature and the inherent fallibility of human  memory.

[Thaeris]

Ultimately, however...

I do not see the need for a government regulated password system. If that warrants calling me short-sighted, so be it. But look at it this way - we have a government which is already deep, deep in the hole with respect to finances, and they're... creating a new institution? No matter how minor, this is just stupid in that regard...

Especially seeing as (a.) it does not satisfy any immediate needs, only a precieved one, (b.) is untested and will require further expenditure on an already over-streched system to operate, and (c.) inevitably will be abused by third parties, and more than likely the government itself. There are certainly counterpoints to this, but ultimately is there anyone here who seriously puts so much faith in the government to approve of this?

I do recall signing a petition against this... Unfortunately, it might take more than things like that to stop something like this from going through.