4 ms·
Mostly off-topic, but related: this is one of the major reasons email needs to finally go away. It was never intended to be the backbone of peoples lives in the
by epicide 7y ago
Mostly off-topic, but related: this is one of the major reasons email needs to finally go away. It was never intended to be the backbone of peoples lives in the way it has become.
Access to my email account probably gives you more access to my life and identity than my SSN [0].
I long for the day that we [1] all get assigned a public/private keypair instead of SSNs. That won't fix everything, but it's a huge step above a shared secret that is limited to 9 digits [2].
[0]: Even without signing up for a bunch of services, it's basically impossible at this point (at least in the US) to not have an email address associated with your bank account, car loan, mortgage, credit card, or even just watching TV.
[1]: "We" meaning "US citizens" or anyone else with a similar system.
[2]: I realize you also need info about the person and not just their number, but also apply that to keypairs.
- kardos 7y ago> I long for the day that we [1] all get assigned a public/private keypair instead of SSNs. What is the remedy for when someone loses or leaks their keypair?
- neetdeth 7y agoReport in person to an issuing authority for biometric authentication. Have them issue a new one and blacklist the old public key.
- epicide 7y agoAny number of things that are better than what currently happens when a SSN is leaked.
- m-p-3 7y agoHave the organization responsible of managing the PKI to generate a new subkey from your primary key (kept in cold storage) and publish a certificate revocation for the previous subkey lost/leaked. Most of our ID cards (health, driving license) already have an expiration date and the subkeys should have one anyway.
- epicide 7y agoNo reason you can't have more than one, either. You could even issue keys for people to act on your behalf (e.g. they get access to it on your death as part of your will).