5 ms·

What do you propose?

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
I'm not sure I really propose anything, it's a hard problem. Maybe a more decentralized web-of-trust like identity system would be a good long-term goal? As for authenticating orders to your bank: You should be able to use any compatible product/software you like to sign orders to your bank with your private key. The bank should not have the ability to fake orders to themselves (see also the Wells-Fargo fiasco).
- agentdrtran 10y ago
  > You should be able to use any compatible product/software you like to sign orders to your bank with your private key. If a .gov smartcards are a pipe dream, this is a pipedream^10. Private companies will throw a fit if they can't lock people in.
- superuser2 10y ago
  >web-of-trust like identity system The most important thing about a government-level identity system is extreme difficulty of obtaining any identity other than the one you were born with. It seems inevitable in a web of trust that fraud rings would emerge to manufacture identities for those looking to escape debts, criminal convictions, etc by some combination of tricking and bribing people to sign authentications. >You should be able to use any compatible product/software you like to sign orders to your bank with your private key I'm not sure you should be able to use, say, a poorly written IE extension on your unpatched Windows XP machine. Something federated would be great, where any manufacturer can technically make something compatible, but it has to meet a FIPS standard or something. Keys could be generated onboard, and then you upload your public key or something. We're getting way ahead of ourselves - banks are extremely hesitant to use anything better than secret numbers. I'd rather a shitty 2FA implementation than that.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
    > It seems inevitable in a web of trust that fraud rings would emerge to manufacture identities for those looking to escape debts, criminal convictions, etc by some combination of tricking and bribing people to sign authentications. Which could possibly be counteracted by attaching a certain amount of liability to a signature? Also, you potentially can detect fraud rings. But, as I said: I am not really proposing anything. > I'm not sure you should be able to use, say, a poorly written IE extension on your unpatched Windows XP machine. Yes, you should, absolutely. Not only is it impossible to enforce anything else, but that's just your own responsibility, just as locking your own home or car or whatever is your own responsibility. > Something federated would be great, where any manufacturer can technically make something compatible, but it has to meet a FIPS standard or something. Federated? You mean an open standard? Yes, that would be the idea. But none of the FIPS crap, that never works. Certification only prevents improvements, security fixes and the like, and usually only guarantees a minimum level of security that's worse than what would happen without it. > Keys could be generated onboard, and then you upload your public key or something. No, keys are generated however the customer wants to generate them. The customer supplies a public key to the bank, and it's the customer's responsibility to keep the private key secure. If they think a smartcard from a specific vendor is the solution they trust, that's fine, more power to them. If someone else trusts more their own software on an airgapped raspberry pi, they should be able to do that. > We're getting way ahead of ourselves - banks are extremely hesitant to use anything better than secret numbers. I'd rather a shitty 2FA implementation than that. I don't. The more technically complicated the authentication system is, the harder it is to make people, and especially courts, understand what the failure modes are, and thus, who should be liable when something goes wrong. Lists of random numbers are relatively easy to understand (especially the fact that a bank obviously knows the "secret" numbers and thus cannot really prove that they got it from you).
markdown 10y ago
https://e-estonia.com/component/electronic-id-card/ https://e-estonia.com/component/electronic-id-card/
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
  That is just an idiotic idea, especially the voting part.
  - markdown 10y ago
    Wonderful. A downvote and a "that's stupid" comment. Is there a reason you can't articulate your views on a system that is live and working successfully?
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
      I can, and it isn't. It cannot be. First of all, I wrote above you in this thread, regarding smart cards for government ID: > That's not really a good solution either, though, because that requires trust in an essentially unverifiable system and the entity producing it. So, maybe you want to address that instead of just pointing out that people are in fact using a system that obviously has this problem that I already mentioned. As for why electronic voting or electronic counting of votes is a terrible idea (I would have thought everyone on here knows that by now): It's impossible to audit. Elections are the failsafe of a democracy that has to be able to remove a government from power that tries to prevent being removed, and they are about the control of huge amounts of recources. Therefore, you cannot have trust in a small minority as the basis for its reliability, you have to have a system that is very hard to corrupt even by the government. A government server counting votes is the exact opposite of that. See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI The fact that, so far, noone has seen any problems is completely missing the point. First of all, the whole system is set up such that it's really difficult to find out if something went wrong/was manipulated (that's just the nature of electronic voting). Secondly, most elections aren't all that problematic. In times of peace and prosperity, there usually isn't much contention over the results of an election. What makes a voting system good is when it's able to stay reliable and trusted in times of political unrest.

I'm not sure I really propose anything, it's a hard problem. Maybe a more decentralized web-of-trust like identity system would be a good long-term goal? As for authenticating orders to your bank: You should be able to use any compatible product/software you like to sign orders to your bank with your private key. The bank should not have the ability to fake orders to themselves (see also the Wells-Fargo fiasco).

agentdrtran 10y ago
> You should be able to use any compatible product/software you like to sign orders to your bank with your private key. If a .gov smartcards are a pipe dream, this is a pipedream^10. Private companies will throw a fit if they can't lock people in.
superuser2 10y ago
>web-of-trust like identity system The most important thing about a government-level identity system is extreme difficulty of obtaining any identity other than the one you were born with. It seems inevitable in a web of trust that fraud rings would emerge to manufacture identities for those looking to escape debts, criminal convictions, etc by some combination of tricking and bribing people to sign authentications. >You should be able to use any compatible product/software you like to sign orders to your bank with your private key I'm not sure you should be able to use, say, a poorly written IE extension on your unpatched Windows XP machine. Something federated would be great, where any manufacturer can technically make something compatible, but it has to meet a FIPS standard or something. Keys could be generated onboard, and then you upload your public key or something. We're getting way ahead of ourselves - banks are extremely hesitant to use anything better than secret numbers. I'd rather a shitty 2FA implementation than that.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
  > It seems inevitable in a web of trust that fraud rings would emerge to manufacture identities for those looking to escape debts, criminal convictions, etc by some combination of tricking and bribing people to sign authentications. Which could possibly be counteracted by attaching a certain amount of liability to a signature? Also, you potentially can detect fraud rings. But, as I said: I am not really proposing anything. > I'm not sure you should be able to use, say, a poorly written IE extension on your unpatched Windows XP machine. Yes, you should, absolutely. Not only is it impossible to enforce anything else, but that's just your own responsibility, just as locking your own home or car or whatever is your own responsibility. > Something federated would be great, where any manufacturer can technically make something compatible, but it has to meet a FIPS standard or something. Federated? You mean an open standard? Yes, that would be the idea. But none of the FIPS crap, that never works. Certification only prevents improvements, security fixes and the like, and usually only guarantees a minimum level of security that's worse than what would happen without it. > Keys could be generated onboard, and then you upload your public key or something. No, keys are generated however the customer wants to generate them. The customer supplies a public key to the bank, and it's the customer's responsibility to keep the private key secure. If they think a smartcard from a specific vendor is the solution they trust, that's fine, more power to them. If someone else trusts more their own software on an airgapped raspberry pi, they should be able to do that. > We're getting way ahead of ourselves - banks are extremely hesitant to use anything better than secret numbers. I'd rather a shitty 2FA implementation than that. I don't. The more technically complicated the authentication system is, the harder it is to make people, and especially courts, understand what the failure modes are, and thus, who should be liable when something goes wrong. Lists of random numbers are relatively easy to understand (especially the fact that a bank obviously knows the "secret" numbers and thus cannot really prove that they got it from you).

markdown 10y ago

https://e-estonia.com/component/electronic-id-card/ https://e-estonia.com/component/electronic-id-card/

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
That is just an idiotic idea, especially the voting part.
- markdown 10y ago
  Wonderful. A downvote and a "that's stupid" comment. Is there a reason you can't articulate your views on a system that is live and working successfully?
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
    I can, and it isn't. It cannot be. First of all, I wrote above you in this thread, regarding smart cards for government ID: > That's not really a good solution either, though, because that requires trust in an essentially unverifiable system and the entity producing it. So, maybe you want to address that instead of just pointing out that people are in fact using a system that obviously has this problem that I already mentioned. As for why electronic voting or electronic counting of votes is a terrible idea (I would have thought everyone on here knows that by now): It's impossible to audit. Elections are the failsafe of a democracy that has to be able to remove a government from power that tries to prevent being removed, and they are about the control of huge amounts of recources. Therefore, you cannot have trust in a small minority as the basis for its reliability, you have to have a system that is very hard to corrupt even by the government. A government server counting votes is the exact opposite of that. See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI The fact that, so far, noone has seen any problems is completely missing the point. First of all, the whole system is set up such that it's really difficult to find out if something went wrong/was manipulated (that's just the nature of electronic voting). Secondly, most elections aren't all that problematic. In times of peace and prosperity, there usually isn't much contention over the results of an election. What makes a voting system good is when it's able to stay reliable and trusted in times of political unrest.