3 ms·

For such a system to work, you would need people to be able to understand the system and check it so that it's not hijacked locally. Since it's a system of gre

For such a system to work, you would need people to be able to understand the system and check it so that it's not hijacked locally. Since it's a system of great complexity (anything involving programming, crypto, networking and any electronic is, really), you can't guaranty that.

lisper 10y ago
Difficult != impossible. It can be done. Here is one possible design: The government would publish an auditable non-repudiatable key registry, i.e. a public ledger similar to a blockchain (except you wouldn't need miners because the government would serve as a trusted third party) which maps keys onto their owners and vice versa. Anyone can then at any time look up their key in the registry to make sure that it really is their key. The initial registration process would involve some sort of identity confirmation similar to what you have to go through to get an official government ID issued nowadays. To register a key you would go to a notary who would take a photo of you and attest to the fact that the key being registered is the person in the photo. The photos would not need to be published (though they could be). They would be used mainly when someone alleges identity theft. That would make it highly likely that anyone attempting to falsely register a key would be caught. That would remove a lot of the incentive to attempt it.
- sametmax 10y ago
  There are so many point of failures in your descriptions I don't know where to begin. - The network can be hacked; - the client can be hacked; - the server can be hacked; - people managing the server can be corrupted or forced to do things; - the system could have a subtile bug in either the client, server or network; - the system could have a failure in either the client, server or network. - how are persons suppose to be able to audit them ? Go to the server ? The network node ? - how much time a citizen must spend studying the system before he or she can start to even begin to assess the sanity of it. - how much time and persons to assess the entire system ? There is NO WAY an average citizen can even start to comprehend the full extend of all that, if you couldn't even see all those problems. Paper is simple. It sill can have it's problems, it's not perfect, but people can understand it and audit it quickly, easily, without being trained. It has less single point of failure, less complexity, more accessibility. Technology is NOT the answer here.
  - lisper 10y ago
    It's easy to make a list of general weakness that apply to any system, but you haven't actually described any specific attack. Yes, of course all of these things can happen, but all of these risks exist today in voter registries and passport registries. There's nothing really new in a key registry except that it's registering keys. There would still be humans -- notaries -- in the loop, and that would prevent most attacks.
- shalmanese 10y ago
  > i.e. a public ledger similar to a blockchain (except you wouldn't need miners because the government would serve as a trusted third party) So, like, just a ledger?
  - lisper 10y ago
    No, not just a ledger, an audtiable public non-repudiatable ledger, i.e. one where every entry is the result of some commitment protocol. For example, every entry could include a signature that covered the contents of the new entry plus the hash of the previous entry. If ever there were two entries with the same ancestor hash that would be evidence of tampering.

lisper 10y ago

Difficult != impossible. It can be done. Here is one possible design: The government would publish an auditable non-repudiatable key registry, i.e. a public ledger similar to a blockchain (except you wouldn't need miners because the government would serve as a trusted third party) which maps keys onto their owners and vice versa. Anyone can then at any time look up their key in the registry to make sure that it really is their key. The initial registration process would involve some sort of identity confirmation similar to what you have to go through to get an official government ID issued nowadays. To register a key you would go to a notary who would take a photo of you and attest to the fact that the key being registered is the person in the photo. The photos would not need to be published (though they could be). They would be used mainly when someone alleges identity theft. That would make it highly likely that anyone attempting to falsely register a key would be caught. That would remove a lot of the incentive to attempt it.

sametmax 10y ago
There are so many point of failures in your descriptions I don't know where to begin. - The network can be hacked; - the client can be hacked; - the server can be hacked; - people managing the server can be corrupted or forced to do things; - the system could have a subtile bug in either the client, server or network; - the system could have a failure in either the client, server or network. - how are persons suppose to be able to audit them ? Go to the server ? The network node ? - how much time a citizen must spend studying the system before he or she can start to even begin to assess the sanity of it. - how much time and persons to assess the entire system ? There is NO WAY an average citizen can even start to comprehend the full extend of all that, if you couldn't even see all those problems. Paper is simple. It sill can have it's problems, it's not perfect, but people can understand it and audit it quickly, easily, without being trained. It has less single point of failure, less complexity, more accessibility. Technology is NOT the answer here.
- lisper 10y ago
  It's easy to make a list of general weakness that apply to any system, but you haven't actually described any specific attack. Yes, of course all of these things can happen, but all of these risks exist today in voter registries and passport registries. There's nothing really new in a key registry except that it's registering keys. There would still be humans -- notaries -- in the loop, and that would prevent most attacks.
shalmanese 10y ago
> i.e. a public ledger similar to a blockchain (except you wouldn't need miners because the government would serve as a trusted third party) So, like, just a ledger?
- lisper 10y ago
  No, not just a ledger, an audtiable public non-repudiatable ledger, i.e. one where every entry is the result of some commitment protocol. For example, every entry could include a signature that covered the contents of the new entry plus the hash of the previous entry. If ever there were two entries with the same ancestor hash that would be evidence of tampering.