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The problem here is that there is no effective identifier for people. We currently use Social Security numbers, which were not designed for that purpose. We n

The problem here is that there is no effective identifier for people. We currently use Social Security numbers, which were not designed for that purpose. We need to have a new national identification system. I think a good idea would be to have two numbers: one public and one private. The public number would be used to identify you in public. The other would remain private and would be used as a confidential identification when matched to the public number, a major PIN, if you will.

pmiller2 11y ago
I don't see what that solves. In the short term, it would be better and more secure than using SSNs, but in the long run, you should assume hackers will breach any database it gets stored in. That means one should always assume that no identifier is truly "private."
cuchoi 11y ago
In Chile we only use a public number. I think that having a private one is a major security hole. I find amusing how much you can do with the last 4 digits of anyone's SSN.
Spooky23 11y ago
That's a big problem, because there are a ton of scenarios where many people are underrepresented and will fall through the cracks. The poor, elderly and migrant communities, which represent millions of people are often without good access to the types of proofing that will be required. The end result is that you'll have business process driven by the national ID, and people will get cut off.
spacehome 11y ago
This doesn't solve the primary issue which is that in order for me to verify my identity I have to give the other party sufficient information to spoof my identity. The solution is obvious: asymmetric cryptography, where I can prove I know a secret without revealing the secret.
- joshuaheard 11y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - spacehome 11y ago
    I'll try. There are a lot of ways to flesh out the details of such a system. The essence of all of them, though, is that each person has a public key which is known to everyone and simultaneously serves as a unique identifier to that person and a private key that is known only to the individual. Additionally, either the public key is derivable from the private key or both keys are derivable simultaneously via some process, but importantly, the private key is not derivable from the public key. And, depending on the system, messages can be encrypted with the private key and only decrypted with the public key, or vice-versa, messages can be encrypted with the public key and decrypted with the private key. The name for this broad category of cryptographic systems that have these properties is called "asymmetric cryptography". To give a specific example of how it could work, each person creates a public-private RSA keypair, and publishes the public key. If I want to apply for a credit line with my bank, my bank can read the publicly available public key and use it to encrypt a nonce (secret token) and send me the encrypted nonce. I decrypt it using my private key and send the original nonce back to my bank, proving that I am the person in control of the private key, without ever revealing what that key is. Thus, if a malicious employee at my bank wanted to impersonate me to some other company, he wouldn't be able to (which is a huge flaw with the current system of handing over secrets to prove identity). To tie public-private keypairs to real humans, you'd go to the DMV and give the government all the proof of identification that is required to receive a driver's license along with your public key, and the government could then publish that you're really the person associated with your public key, and all this still without the government having the knowledge required to impersonate you.
    - joshuaheard 11y ago
      This is what I had in mind, but you explained it much better. Now, how do we get it implemented?!
superuser2 11y ago
Any system of shared secrets is doomed to fail. Inevitably one of the dozens of entities trusted with them will leak them. Let citizens approve specific authentication requests via a secure channel to a government website or with government issue smart cards or something.

pmiller2 11y ago

I don't see what that solves. In the short term, it would be better and more secure than using SSNs, but in the long run, you should assume hackers will breach any database it gets stored in. That means one should always assume that no identifier is truly "private."

cuchoi 11y ago

In Chile we only use a public number. I think that having a private one is a major security hole. I find amusing how much you can do with the last 4 digits of anyone's SSN.

Spooky23 11y ago

That's a big problem, because there are a ton of scenarios where many people are underrepresented and will fall through the cracks. The poor, elderly and migrant communities, which represent millions of people are often without good access to the types of proofing that will be required. The end result is that you'll have business process driven by the national ID, and people will get cut off.

spacehome 11y ago

This doesn't solve the primary issue which is that in order for me to verify my identity I have to give the other party sufficient information to spoof my identity. The solution is obvious: asymmetric cryptography, where I can prove I know a secret without revealing the secret.

joshuaheard 11y ago
Can you elaborate?
- spacehome 11y ago
  I'll try. There are a lot of ways to flesh out the details of such a system. The essence of all of them, though, is that each person has a public key which is known to everyone and simultaneously serves as a unique identifier to that person and a private key that is known only to the individual. Additionally, either the public key is derivable from the private key or both keys are derivable simultaneously via some process, but importantly, the private key is not derivable from the public key. And, depending on the system, messages can be encrypted with the private key and only decrypted with the public key, or vice-versa, messages can be encrypted with the public key and decrypted with the private key. The name for this broad category of cryptographic systems that have these properties is called "asymmetric cryptography". To give a specific example of how it could work, each person creates a public-private RSA keypair, and publishes the public key. If I want to apply for a credit line with my bank, my bank can read the publicly available public key and use it to encrypt a nonce (secret token) and send me the encrypted nonce. I decrypt it using my private key and send the original nonce back to my bank, proving that I am the person in control of the private key, without ever revealing what that key is. Thus, if a malicious employee at my bank wanted to impersonate me to some other company, he wouldn't be able to (which is a huge flaw with the current system of handing over secrets to prove identity). To tie public-private keypairs to real humans, you'd go to the DMV and give the government all the proof of identification that is required to receive a driver's license along with your public key, and the government could then publish that you're really the person associated with your public key, and all this still without the government having the knowledge required to impersonate you.
  - joshuaheard 11y ago
    This is what I had in mind, but you explained it much better. Now, how do we get it implemented?!

superuser2 11y ago

Any system of shared secrets is doomed to fail. Inevitably one of the dozens of entities trusted with them will leak them. Let citizens approve specific authentication requests via a secure channel to a government website or with government issue smart cards or something.