19 ms·

> But the United States doesn't offer any type of universal ID, which means private institutions and even the federal government itself have had to improvise.

by wtmt 8y ago

> But the United States doesn't offer any type of universal ID, which means private institutions and even the federal government itself have had to improvise. Oh, please! No! No! No! India bulldozed a national identification number (called Aadhaar) on its residents and it has made more people vulnerable to many kinds of attacks, including phone number hijacking, draining people’s bank accounts, etc. To say that it’s been an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement. As with things related to government, the governing organization for Aadhaar, called UIDAI, always claims that it’s completely secure, while ignoring the fact that linking one number to everything in one’s life increases the attack surface and the severity of the threats. So please research on the number of ways Aadhaar has failed, and is making some feeble attempts to recover, before getting into a “let’s create a new static number to identify people with instead of a phone number or SSN”. That’d just be changing the narrative without achieving anything. Bottom line, it’s not the phone number that’s the problem, but having a unique and non-changing number and linking it to everything else (including one’s phone numbers).

addicted 8y ago
Can you share some starting points to research it?
- davchana 8y ago
  The law which implemented this ID, says, nobody can use it to malign purpose; The authority is found to use this clause against anybody who wrote about its flaws. The law also says that only Authority can disable this ID, anytime. So once somebody's ID is dead, they suffer civil death. No job, hospital, travel, mobile, taxes. Every week they switch from ID number is secret: ID number is not secret. This number can not be changed even for a person. To keep it safe, they introduced a virtual ID number, which, again is permanent for one's life.
- wtmt 8y ago
  Here are a few things to start looking at (the amount of information could be overwhelming): * https://www.rethinkaadhaar.in https://www.rethinkaadhaar.in * https://twitter.com/no2uid https://twitter.com/no2uid * Search for #AadhaarFail on Twitter * Search for “Aadhaar frauds” on DuckDuckGo or your favorite search engine
oopsman88 8y ago
Just because India (India, of all places) can't do things right doesn't mean that a universal ID is a bad idea. Most countries in the world have a universal ID that hasn't been hacked to oblivion.
- wtmt 8y ago
  It’s not the ID that’s the problem, but having one single ID linked to everything else. Look at how almost all adults in the U.S. have been made vulnerable to identity theft because of the Equifax breach and the leak of SSN and related information. These are irreversible damages.
  - oopsman88 8y ago
    The problem is not having one single ID linked to everything, which most countries do. The problem is pretending that ID is a secret, which it is not. It's stupid to treat SSNs as passwords.
    - tusharsoni 8y ago
      Aadhar is meant to be private but it cannot be used for anything without MFA (unlike SSN). In that sense, Aadhar is not really treated as a password like SSN is.
      - davchana 8y ago
        What kind of private it is when DHL holds your international incoming document parcel hostage asking for Aadhar copy for Customs Clearance; then delivery boy insisting on Aadhar photo in his phone for making sure to deliver to right person.
      - amf12 8y ago
        Aadhar is not meant to be private. It should not be treated a s a private key when you need to give a copy of your card everywhere like your bank, getting a new cell phone sim card, employment, etc. The problem with Aadhar (among other things) is that people think its a secret. Its not supposed to be that way.
rohit2412 8y ago
> including phone number hijacking, draining people’s bank accounts, etc. To say that it’s been an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement Can you give sources for that. It's a big claim. > linking one number to everything in one’s life increases the attack surface and the severity of the threats. I think looking bank accounts is absolutely necessary to prevent tax evasion. Intrusive linking with phone numbers etc is undesirable, but it's only for authentication, not surveillance. And having single Id is better than having 10 different disparate ones. Finally, I don't see any evidence that adhaar has been compromised, but that's it's improperly used.
- wtmt 8y ago
  Please see my other comment below with a few starter links and search terms. There are many people who have lost a lot of money from their bank accounts (including pension money) because Aadhaar provided a new way to defraud people. UIDAI also says Aadhaar is not compromised. The point is that nobody would try hacking the UIDAI database directly when there are far easier and cheaper ways to get to the data through other means because it’s linked with almost everything (depending on the state one lives in). Also please read up on Rachna Khaira’s exposé (in Tribune) on how cheap and easy it was to get access to people’s information from the UIDAI database. That could also be called “hacking”, but the UIDAI won’t admit to that. All this can be blamed on “bad actors” to avoid taking responsibility, but it’s clear that the system and its usage never went through a proper design and test implementation. But all along, there was (and continues to be) a lot of coercion to get people to register for it and link it everywhere. FWIW, this topic makes me very frustrated.
  - rohit2412 8y ago
    It doesn't mean that adhaar is intently insecure, or it has been compromised. It merely says that people are not using it for authentication as they should. The attack vectors already existed without a central source of authentication, say with fake birth certificate and no authentication. I still don't see adhaar as a negative, merely being misutilized by different people.
sm64 8y ago
Every single developed country is the world has something like Aadhaar. The outrage is ridiculous. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
- wtmt 8y ago
  Your claim is blatantly false. Exhibit A: The United States of America. Exhibit B: United Kingdom And so on. Please do not get confused with social security numbers (or equivalents) as universal or national identifiers. They are not, although their use in such a manner has caused issues (as pointed out in my comments here).
  - r00fus 8y ago
    SSN is a superkey. Just because the USG doesn't permit one to use SSN as a key in your system (see HIPAA) doesn't mean it doesn't act like one for the purposes of exploitation or data aggregation.
  - walshemj 8y ago
    When I worked for BT in the UK misusing NI numbers as ID was a gross disciplinary offence.
  - robin_reala 8y ago
    The UK government isn’t allowed to issue mandatory ID cards after the Identity Documents Act 2010: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/40/crossheading/repeal-of-identity-cards-act-2006 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/40/crossheading/re... No ID cards are to be issued by the Secretary of State at any time on or after the day on which this Act is passed. The UK equivalent of a SSN is a National Insurance number, but it’s totally possible to be a citizen without one (e.g. naturalised non-working spouse). NI numbers also aren‘t guaranteed to be unique (if a person is assigned a temporary NI number it’ll be non-unique with other people with the same birth date).
    - psergeant 8y ago
      > The UK government isn’t allowed to This is reasonably misleading, as nothing at all stops a new government with a parliamentary majority from simply scrapping that law.
tusharsoni 8y ago
For almost all uses of Aadhar, 2 factor authentication is required with a one-time-password sent to your phone. It is already far better than SSN which has caused millions people's identity to be stolen and they have lost a lot of money because of it. Aadhar is new and people need to be educated on how to keep it secure but the system is better than a lot of other countries already.
- filleduchaos 8y ago
  Let me guess, this super secure one time password sent to your phone is sent via SMS?
  - miohtama 8y ago
    They also offer in-person authentication via a fingerprint or iris scan for transactions needing more security. https://m.indiamart.com/gsevensolution/aadhaar-biometric-uid-kit.html https://m.indiamart.com/gsevensolution/aadhaar-biometric-uid... However as stated above having some security in the authentication (SMS) is better than none (credit card).
    - shaan7 8y ago
      yep, and wouldn't it be a paradise for a malicious person to install software on that authentication machine which sniffs off the biometrics and sends that to his server?
      - amf12 8y ago
        > yep, and wouldn't it be a paradise for a malicious person to install software on that authentication machine which sniffs off the biometrics and sends that to his server? Sure. But, using that data to impersonate someone by creating a 3D or silicone model of your fingerprints/iris need a good amount of resources that your average Joe does not possess. Given enough resources, any means of authentication could be easily exploited. Honestly, I am not being snarky, but could you please suggest a better authentication mechanism, that is more secure, but can be used easily by people who can't read/write or live in slums, or in small villages, and don't run into issues like forgetting the crypto key or losing the auth device?
roywiggins 8y ago
Estonia's seems to be working pretty well, all things considered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_identity_card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_identity_card It even survived an crypto flaw. https://www.zdnet.com/article/estonias-id-card-scrisis-how-e-states-poster-child-got-into-and-out-of-trouble/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/estonias-id-card-scrisis-how-e...
- akudha 8y ago
  Compared to India, Estonia is so small that it is not even funny. India is too big, too complex (16 official languages plus hundreds of dialects). Estonia's population is ~1.3 million, India's is more than one billion. The sheer scale of it changes the equation dramatically. Add to all this, corruption is a way of life in Indian government(s) - central and local. Even if a system is solid (technology wise), there are tons of social problems to deal with. Comparing Estonia with India is not fair at all, at any level. This is not to take anything away from Estonia's achievement. Kudos to them for setting a great example! But their small size, having to support just one language etc gives them a tremendous advantage
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    India's universal ID has security flaws because India has hundreds of languages? That doesn't pass the smell test.
    - themarkn 8y ago
      It's ok for it not to pass the smell test, because what you have stated is not actually the argument being made. The number of languages and dialects was (presumably) brought up to emphasize the many differences in scale and culture (especially government corruption) between India's population and Estonia's that might introduce complexities, incentives, and opportunities for bad actions in one situation that are not applicable in the other.
      - mason55 8y ago
amf12 8y ago
> made more people vulnerable to many kinds of attacks, including phone number hijacking, draining people’s bank accounts, etc. To say that it’s been an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement. The problem is not really with Aadhar, but how people and companies use it. Bank accounts are drained because people share their OTP's with the people they don't know, when they should not. Phone number hijacking would have been a problem even without Aadhar since a lot of financial institutions across the world use to for 2FA. Without Aadhar though, it was even easier to steal someones identity by using a false id. At least with Aadhar based biometric authentication, that't not easy now. > Bottom line, it’s not the phone number that’s the problem, but having a unique and non-changing number and linking it to everything else (including one’s phone numbers). A unique and non-changing number and linking it to everything is not the problem, IMO, but with treating that said number as a secret number (akin to the US SSN). With people not being educated about correctly using Aadhar, and entities just using the SMS based 2FA as the authentication mechanism for critical transactions like banking.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > The problem is not really with Aadhar, but how people and companies use it. But the way people and companies use it is predictable. They'll tie everything to it in a way that isn't secure (because who are we kidding) in a way that information can't be updated if wrong (because even if the identity is centralized the data isn't). And it will be used comprehensively to coordinate surveillance. But that isn't even the major problem. The problem is that if someone compromises your bank they can steal your money; if they compromise your vehicle ownership info they can steal your car; if they compromise your phone they can invade your privacy; if they compromise your corporate ID they can get inside your company. If they compromise your One True ID, they get all of that all at once and the ability to take out credit in your name, enter contracts in your name, commit crimes in your name, etc. Correspondingly it increases the payoff (and so volume) of attacks and the harm caused by each attack, for a polynomial increase in total damage with the size of the identity system. Creating one system for an entire major country means... you can do the math. On top of that, what if someone were to compromise the system itself, for everyone all at once? Armageddon, basically. Possibly literally if the system is used to control access to weapons of mass destruction. All centralized identity systems are inherently insecure. We don't know how to build something that can withstand the attacks that such a large payout attracts. It's the same category of problem as trying to provide secure law enforcement access to encrypted data. It's too much power to put all in one place. That much centralized power inherently draws in an insurmountable level of corruption and crime, and is a catastrophe as soon as it touches the normal background level of incompetence. And what's so bad about having one ID for your bank, another for your employer?
sametmax 8y ago
More than that, a unique id for people would make tracking and cross referencing database even easier. We are already moving fast toward a distopian scifi novel, let's not speed up the process bu 3 orders of magnitude.
tener 8y ago
A number of other countries have unique identifiers available for various purposes (people, companies etc. etc.) and somehow they work? So I'm not buying it that a single flawed implementation means all of these systems are flawed too.
virgilp 8y ago
How is a personal identification number a security risk? It's only so is it's considered a secret. If it's considered to be "public information" ( like eg your name), it's not problematic at all
Lazare 8y ago
I disagree; I think the issue is people using a mechanism for identification as a mechanism for authentication. If all it takes to drain someone's bank accounts is to be able to uniquely identify them, then there's an enormous issue with the banking system. > Bottom line, it’s not the phone number that’s the problem, but having a unique and non-changing number and linking it to everything else (including one’s phone numbers). Totally disagree. Linking it to a phone number is fine, but the entire point of such a number is that you should be able to print in on your business cards or wear it on your t-shirt. :) Knowing it should grant no privileges to anyone. Of course, I think your underlying point is that the real issue isn't that we want a good way of identifying people, it's that we want a good way of authenticating them, and we're no closer to solving that. And people keep misusing ways of identifying people as ways of authenticating them. But maybe we should be focusing on that instead?
- est 8y ago
  Even the identification with the same ID is considered harmful. Someone might try mass login with your ID on various platforms and observe a pattern for future social engineering.
- barrkel 8y ago
  Knowing someone's True Name is half the battle won. If you have a means of authentication, a shared identity means you can reuse that authentication on multiple other services. It greatly increases the power of keys, or conversely, increases the danger in loss of a key.
- slededit 8y ago
  Estonia gives everyone a smart card they can use to digitally sign things. Obviously someone can steal your card but it's pretty hard to forge otherwise. It's a solved problem, just nobody wants to fix it.
  - tripzilch 8y ago
    How much trouble are you in if your card gets stolen? Would you call a number to temporarily block it, and a fine to get a new one? If so, how does the call authenticate you? Second question, "pretty hard to forge otherwise", is about roughly how hard? Has it been proven possible / proof of concept? Or did you mean to say you're unaware of any successful forgeries but (naturally/obviously) can't honestly claim it's totally impossible, because you never know. I'm real curious about the Estonian smart card thing. Does it work well? Can you only sign government things with it, or really just about anything that needs your authentication? (say, commercial contracts) Does it have a private/public key type of thing so that you could also encrypt something with someone's public key so that only that one individual cardholder can ever decrypt it?
xg15 8y ago
> while ignoring the fact that linking one number to everything in one’s life increases the attack surface and the severity of the threats. Yet from the looks of it, this will happen anyway - the only difference being whether that number is a designated government ID or your phone number, e-mail address or facebook account.

by wtmt 8y ago

addicted 8y ago

Can you share some starting points to research it?

davchana 8y ago
The law which implemented this ID, says, nobody can use it to malign purpose; The authority is found to use this clause against anybody who wrote about its flaws. The law also says that only Authority can disable this ID, anytime. So once somebody's ID is dead, they suffer civil death. No job, hospital, travel, mobile, taxes. Every week they switch from ID number is secret: ID number is not secret. This number can not be changed even for a person. To keep it safe, they introduced a virtual ID number, which, again is permanent for one's life.
wtmt 8y ago
Here are a few things to start looking at (the amount of information could be overwhelming): * https://www.rethinkaadhaar.in https://www.rethinkaadhaar.in * https://twitter.com/no2uid https://twitter.com/no2uid * Search for #AadhaarFail on Twitter * Search for “Aadhaar frauds” on DuckDuckGo or your favorite search engine

oopsman88 8y ago

Just because India (India, of all places) can't do things right doesn't mean that a universal ID is a bad idea. Most countries in the world have a universal ID that hasn't been hacked to oblivion.

wtmt 8y ago
It’s not the ID that’s the problem, but having one single ID linked to everything else. Look at how almost all adults in the U.S. have been made vulnerable to identity theft because of the Equifax breach and the leak of SSN and related information. These are irreversible damages.
- oopsman88 8y ago
  The problem is not having one single ID linked to everything, which most countries do. The problem is pretending that ID is a secret, which it is not. It's stupid to treat SSNs as passwords.
  - tusharsoni 8y ago
    Aadhar is meant to be private but it cannot be used for anything without MFA (unlike SSN). In that sense, Aadhar is not really treated as a password like SSN is.
    - davchana 8y ago
      What kind of private it is when DHL holds your international incoming document parcel hostage asking for Aadhar copy for Customs Clearance; then delivery boy insisting on Aadhar photo in his phone for making sure to deliver to right person.
    - amf12 8y ago
      Aadhar is not meant to be private. It should not be treated a s a private key when you need to give a copy of your card everywhere like your bank, getting a new cell phone sim card, employment, etc. The problem with Aadhar (among other things) is that people think its a secret. Its not supposed to be that way.

rohit2412 8y ago

> including phone number hijacking, draining people’s bank accounts, etc. To say that it’s been an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement Can you give sources for that. It's a big claim. > linking one number to everything in one’s life increases the attack surface and the severity of the threats. I think looking bank accounts is absolutely necessary to prevent tax evasion. Intrusive linking with phone numbers etc is undesirable, but it's only for authentication, not surveillance. And having single Id is better than having 10 different disparate ones. Finally, I don't see any evidence that adhaar has been compromised, but that's it's improperly used.

wtmt 8y ago
Please see my other comment below with a few starter links and search terms. There are many people who have lost a lot of money from their bank accounts (including pension money) because Aadhaar provided a new way to defraud people. UIDAI also says Aadhaar is not compromised. The point is that nobody would try hacking the UIDAI database directly when there are far easier and cheaper ways to get to the data through other means because it’s linked with almost everything (depending on the state one lives in). Also please read up on Rachna Khaira’s exposé (in Tribune) on how cheap and easy it was to get access to people’s information from the UIDAI database. That could also be called “hacking”, but the UIDAI won’t admit to that. All this can be blamed on “bad actors” to avoid taking responsibility, but it’s clear that the system and its usage never went through a proper design and test implementation. But all along, there was (and continues to be) a lot of coercion to get people to register for it and link it everywhere. FWIW, this topic makes me very frustrated.
- rohit2412 8y ago
  It doesn't mean that adhaar is intently insecure, or it has been compromised. It merely says that people are not using it for authentication as they should. The attack vectors already existed without a central source of authentication, say with fake birth certificate and no authentication. I still don't see adhaar as a negative, merely being misutilized by different people.

sm64 8y ago

Every single developed country is the world has something like Aadhaar. The outrage is ridiculous. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

wtmt 8y ago
Your claim is blatantly false. Exhibit A: The United States of America. Exhibit B: United Kingdom And so on. Please do not get confused with social security numbers (or equivalents) as universal or national identifiers. They are not, although their use in such a manner has caused issues (as pointed out in my comments here).
- r00fus 8y ago
  SSN is a superkey. Just because the USG doesn't permit one to use SSN as a key in your system (see HIPAA) doesn't mean it doesn't act like one for the purposes of exploitation or data aggregation.
- walshemj 8y ago
  When I worked for BT in the UK misusing NI numbers as ID was a gross disciplinary offence.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  The UK government isn’t allowed to issue mandatory ID cards after the Identity Documents Act 2010: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/40/crossheading/repeal-of-identity-cards-act-2006 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/40/crossheading/re... No ID cards are to be issued by the Secretary of State at any time on or after the day on which this Act is passed. The UK equivalent of a SSN is a National Insurance number, but it’s totally possible to be a citizen without one (e.g. naturalised non-working spouse). NI numbers also aren‘t guaranteed to be unique (if a person is assigned a temporary NI number it’ll be non-unique with other people with the same birth date).
  - psergeant 8y ago
    > The UK government isn’t allowed to This is reasonably misleading, as nothing at all stops a new government with a parliamentary majority from simply scrapping that law.

tusharsoni 8y ago

For almost all uses of Aadhar, 2 factor authentication is required with a one-time-password sent to your phone. It is already far better than SSN which has caused millions people's identity to be stolen and they have lost a lot of money because of it. Aadhar is new and people need to be educated on how to keep it secure but the system is better than a lot of other countries already.

filleduchaos 8y ago
Let me guess, this super secure one time password sent to your phone is sent via SMS?
- miohtama 8y ago
  They also offer in-person authentication via a fingerprint or iris scan for transactions needing more security. https://m.indiamart.com/gsevensolution/aadhaar-biometric-uid-kit.html https://m.indiamart.com/gsevensolution/aadhaar-biometric-uid... However as stated above having some security in the authentication (SMS) is better than none (credit card).
  - shaan7 8y ago
    yep, and wouldn't it be a paradise for a malicious person to install software on that authentication machine which sniffs off the biometrics and sends that to his server?
    - amf12 8y ago
      > yep, and wouldn't it be a paradise for a malicious person to install software on that authentication machine which sniffs off the biometrics and sends that to his server? Sure. But, using that data to impersonate someone by creating a 3D or silicone model of your fingerprints/iris need a good amount of resources that your average Joe does not possess. Given enough resources, any means of authentication could be easily exploited. Honestly, I am not being snarky, but could you please suggest a better authentication mechanism, that is more secure, but can be used easily by people who can't read/write or live in slums, or in small villages, and don't run into issues like forgetting the crypto key or losing the auth device?

roywiggins 8y ago

Estonia's seems to be working pretty well, all things considered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_identity_card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_identity_card It even survived an crypto flaw. https://www.zdnet.com/article/estonias-id-card-scrisis-how-e-states-poster-child-got-into-and-out-of-trouble/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/estonias-id-card-scrisis-how-e...

akudha 8y ago
Compared to India, Estonia is so small that it is not even funny. India is too big, too complex (16 official languages plus hundreds of dialects). Estonia's population is ~1.3 million, India's is more than one billion. The sheer scale of it changes the equation dramatically. Add to all this, corruption is a way of life in Indian government(s) - central and local. Even if a system is solid (technology wise), there are tons of social problems to deal with. Comparing Estonia with India is not fair at all, at any level. This is not to take anything away from Estonia's achievement. Kudos to them for setting a great example! But their small size, having to support just one language etc gives them a tremendous advantage
- scarejunba 8y ago
  India's universal ID has security flaws because India has hundreds of languages? That doesn't pass the smell test.
  - themarkn 8y ago
    It's ok for it not to pass the smell test, because what you have stated is not actually the argument being made. The number of languages and dialects was (presumably) brought up to emphasize the many differences in scale and culture (especially government corruption) between India's population and Estonia's that might introduce complexities, incentives, and opportunities for bad actions in one situation that are not applicable in the other.
    - mason55 8y ago

amf12 8y ago

> made more people vulnerable to many kinds of attacks, including phone number hijacking, draining people’s bank accounts, etc. To say that it’s been an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement. The problem is not really with Aadhar, but how people and companies use it. Bank accounts are drained because people share their OTP's with the people they don't know, when they should not. Phone number hijacking would have been a problem even without Aadhar since a lot of financial institutions across the world use to for 2FA. Without Aadhar though, it was even easier to steal someones identity by using a false id. At least with Aadhar based biometric authentication, that't not easy now. > Bottom line, it’s not the phone number that’s the problem, but having a unique and non-changing number and linking it to everything else (including one’s phone numbers). A unique and non-changing number and linking it to everything is not the problem, IMO, but with treating that said number as a secret number (akin to the US SSN). With people not being educated about correctly using Aadhar, and entities just using the SMS based 2FA as the authentication mechanism for critical transactions like banking.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> The problem is not really with Aadhar, but how people and companies use it. But the way people and companies use it is predictable. They'll tie everything to it in a way that isn't secure (because who are we kidding) in a way that information can't be updated if wrong (because even if the identity is centralized the data isn't). And it will be used comprehensively to coordinate surveillance. But that isn't even the major problem. The problem is that if someone compromises your bank they can steal your money; if they compromise your vehicle ownership info they can steal your car; if they compromise your phone they can invade your privacy; if they compromise your corporate ID they can get inside your company. If they compromise your One True ID, they get all of that all at once and the ability to take out credit in your name, enter contracts in your name, commit crimes in your name, etc. Correspondingly it increases the payoff (and so volume) of attacks and the harm caused by each attack, for a polynomial increase in total damage with the size of the identity system. Creating one system for an entire major country means... you can do the math. On top of that, what if someone were to compromise the system itself, for everyone all at once? Armageddon, basically. Possibly literally if the system is used to control access to weapons of mass destruction. All centralized identity systems are inherently insecure. We don't know how to build something that can withstand the attacks that such a large payout attracts. It's the same category of problem as trying to provide secure law enforcement access to encrypted data. It's too much power to put all in one place. That much centralized power inherently draws in an insurmountable level of corruption and crime, and is a catastrophe as soon as it touches the normal background level of incompetence. And what's so bad about having one ID for your bank, another for your employer?

sametmax 8y ago

More than that, a unique id for people would make tracking and cross referencing database even easier. We are already moving fast toward a distopian scifi novel, let's not speed up the process bu 3 orders of magnitude.

tener 8y ago

A number of other countries have unique identifiers available for various purposes (people, companies etc. etc.) and somehow they work? So I'm not buying it that a single flawed implementation means all of these systems are flawed too.

virgilp 8y ago

How is a personal identification number a security risk? It's only so is it's considered a secret. If it's considered to be "public information" ( like eg your name), it's not problematic at all

Lazare 8y ago

I disagree; I think the issue is people using a mechanism for identification as a mechanism for authentication. If all it takes to drain someone's bank accounts is to be able to uniquely identify them, then there's an enormous issue with the banking system. > Bottom line, it’s not the phone number that’s the problem, but having a unique and non-changing number and linking it to everything else (including one’s phone numbers). Totally disagree. Linking it to a phone number is fine, but the entire point of such a number is that you should be able to print in on your business cards or wear it on your t-shirt. :) Knowing it should grant no privileges to anyone. Of course, I think your underlying point is that the real issue isn't that we want a good way of identifying people, it's that we want a good way of authenticating them, and we're no closer to solving that. And people keep misusing ways of identifying people as ways of authenticating them. But maybe we should be focusing on that instead?

est 8y ago
Even the identification with the same ID is considered harmful. Someone might try mass login with your ID on various platforms and observe a pattern for future social engineering.
barrkel 8y ago
Knowing someone's True Name is half the battle won. If you have a means of authentication, a shared identity means you can reuse that authentication on multiple other services. It greatly increases the power of keys, or conversely, increases the danger in loss of a key.
slededit 8y ago
Estonia gives everyone a smart card they can use to digitally sign things. Obviously someone can steal your card but it's pretty hard to forge otherwise. It's a solved problem, just nobody wants to fix it.
- tripzilch 8y ago
  How much trouble are you in if your card gets stolen? Would you call a number to temporarily block it, and a fine to get a new one? If so, how does the call authenticate you? Second question, "pretty hard to forge otherwise", is about roughly how hard? Has it been proven possible / proof of concept? Or did you mean to say you're unaware of any successful forgeries but (naturally/obviously) can't honestly claim it's totally impossible, because you never know. I'm real curious about the Estonian smart card thing. Does it work well? Can you only sign government things with it, or really just about anything that needs your authentication? (say, commercial contracts) Does it have a private/public key type of thing so that you could also encrypt something with someone's public key so that only that one individual cardholder can ever decrypt it?

xg15 8y ago

> while ignoring the fact that linking one number to everything in one’s life increases the attack surface and the severity of the threats. Yet from the looks of it, this will happen anyway - the only difference being whether that number is a designated government ID or your phone number, e-mail address or facebook account.