5 ms·

Honestly, I think this is pretty smart. If someone has compromised your electronic systems, they can probably solve whatever electronic recovery means you've i

Honestly, I think this is pretty smart. If someone has compromised your electronic systems, they can probably solve whatever electronic recovery means you've implemented, and they can probably do so on a large scale, re-compromising all the new accounts. Adding an in-person step makes things harder for the attackers in two ways: 1: It relies on existing ID cards, which presumably the attackers can't telekinetically change while they sit in people's pockets or something. 2: It's hard to attack at scale. Conceivably someone could make a fake ID and pose as a staff member or something, but the same person wouldn't get away with that more than a few times before someone in the office noticed that they looked familiar. And it's slow -- humans work at a finite speed, so brute-forcing 38,000 visits to an office isn't as practical as spawning a bunch of threads to attack login sessions or something. I think despite the inconvenience, this is a sane way to respond to a compromise, if your users are local and can visit an office to pull it off. At a major automaker who I won't name, they have an interesting way of handling password resets: They generate a new random password for you, and send half of it by SMS to the mobile phone in your employee record. Then they email the other half to your manager. Managers have instructions that when an employee calls to retrieve this (or if the manager has a moment to call the employee first), they should spend a moment in conversation first, really make sure they recognize the employee's voice and stuff, and if there's any doubt, ask them to meet at the personnel building badging office, where the administrative folk can check IDs and stuff. It works pretty well -- it would be _very_ hard to attack this system, especially at scale.

cesarb 7y ago
> It's hard to attack at scale. Conceivably someone could make a fake ID The "make a fake ID" step by itself is already hard. The identity card is not just a piece of paper. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_identity_card#Security_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_identity_card#Security_... to see how many anti-counterfeiting features it has.
- iancarroll 7y ago
  Nearly every feature in that list, save for maybe security strands, is commoditized and mass-produced in the USA's fake ID market. It would be kind of silly to exploit here, though.
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    I guess Germany's liberal drinking laws make for a much smaller fake ID market. You could still pull it off, especially since most people aren't really trained for spotting fake IDs. But a German fake ID is not exactly something you buy for $10 each at the drug dealer on the corner.
    - namibj 7y ago
      Especially considering it has cryptographically secured biometrics (iirc facial features and a subset of fingerprints) that can be accessed with credentials printed on the back. If they were to make use of that, any forgery would be be beyond the regular fake id market. The German Personalausweis is basically a stateless ID-1 passport.
      - neuronic 7y ago
        > The German Personalausweis is basically a stateless ID-1 passport. And as property it belongs to the state, not the citizen. You are required and expected to have it on you at all times. You are also required to report it missing. When I moved to the US, I was baffled that IDs are basically just driving licenses and you only have them if you... well have a driving license. I guess it's about where you draw the line in the end. I understand that many US Americans feel threatened by the federal government as it is perceived autocratic to be forced to carry a government issued identification card at all times. For me, it just guarantees that it is harder for someone else to walk around and impersonate me with some shitty fake ID.
        Tomte 7y ago
        > And as property it belongs to the state, not the citizen. That's a myth. It is the property of the citizen. You may be thinking of the passport, though. > You are required and expected to have it on you at all times. Again a myth. You don't even have to own an ID card (if you have a passport). In any case there is no law or regulation forcing you to carry it. There is no fine for not carrying it. It's still a good idea to carry it, because a police stop (which I encountered thrice in my life) is much quicker when you can show your ID card, instead of being taken to the police station for identity verification. > You are also required to report it missing. I'm not certain about this point, but I doubt that. Still, it's obviously a good idea, in order to nip identity theft and the hassle that comes with it in the bud.
- jen729w 7y ago
  If you’re checking 38,000 over the course of a week, how thoroughly are you checking them by 4pm on Friday afternoon?
- moooo99 7y ago
  From reading the PDF, bringing your university id with you is sufficient. You do not need an official passport/etc. A student id has a lot less security measures, they're basically just rfid cards with your data printed on. Assuming the attacker has access to the computer used for issuing these cards, it would probably be pretty easy to obtain the data neccessary to create such a fake id.
  - neuronic 7y ago
    But not 38k times.
thexavier666 7y ago
this is the reason why online/electronic voting is not allowed in several countries
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  We're rapidly going back to that, even in the US. In my state, I am shown a printed paper copy of my vote through a window, and actually watch it go into the submitted ballots box. I'm sure a digital record is used as well, but it's nice to know that the printed copy is there in case of a close race or dispute.
  - pvorb 7y ago
    In Germany, everyone is allowed to watch when votes are counted in their local election office. Is there a similar way to follow the counting in the US?
    - tathougies 7y ago
      Yes, you can observe the counting at your local county office in every state as far as I'm aware. Exact regulations vary by state of course: http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/policies-for-election-observers.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/policie...
    - donarb 7y ago
      Here is Washington state you are allowed (in fact encouraged) to visit the counting center during tabulation. This is addition to designated observers from each party that is allowed to monitor tabulations. Voters don't even have to leave home to monitor the elections, cameras are connected to the internet to show the counting process to any voter.
  - JshWright 7y ago
    I can only speak for New York State (which used a paper ballot that is then fed into a scanner by the voter for tabulation), but the paper ballots are generally sampled and checked against the "electronic" votes. They'll manually count enough paper votes until they have a match to the machine counted votes (within some acceptable confidence interval, obviously).

cesarb 7y ago

> It's hard to attack at scale. Conceivably someone could make a fake ID The "make a fake ID" step by itself is already hard. The identity card is not just a piece of paper. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_identity_card#Security_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_identity_card#Security_... to see how many anti-counterfeiting features it has.

iancarroll 7y ago
Nearly every feature in that list, save for maybe security strands, is commoditized and mass-produced in the USA's fake ID market. It would be kind of silly to exploit here, though.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  I guess Germany's liberal drinking laws make for a much smaller fake ID market. You could still pull it off, especially since most people aren't really trained for spotting fake IDs. But a German fake ID is not exactly something you buy for $10 each at the drug dealer on the corner.
  - namibj 7y ago
    Especially considering it has cryptographically secured biometrics (iirc facial features and a subset of fingerprints) that can be accessed with credentials printed on the back. If they were to make use of that, any forgery would be be beyond the regular fake id market. The German Personalausweis is basically a stateless ID-1 passport.
    - neuronic 7y ago
      > The German Personalausweis is basically a stateless ID-1 passport. And as property it belongs to the state, not the citizen. You are required and expected to have it on you at all times. You are also required to report it missing. When I moved to the US, I was baffled that IDs are basically just driving licenses and you only have them if you... well have a driving license. I guess it's about where you draw the line in the end. I understand that many US Americans feel threatened by the federal government as it is perceived autocratic to be forced to carry a government issued identification card at all times. For me, it just guarantees that it is harder for someone else to walk around and impersonate me with some shitty fake ID.
      - Tomte 7y ago
        > And as property it belongs to the state, not the citizen. That's a myth. It is the property of the citizen. You may be thinking of the passport, though. > You are required and expected to have it on you at all times. Again a myth. You don't even have to own an ID card (if you have a passport). In any case there is no law or regulation forcing you to carry it. There is no fine for not carrying it. It's still a good idea to carry it, because a police stop (which I encountered thrice in my life) is much quicker when you can show your ID card, instead of being taken to the police station for identity verification. > You are also required to report it missing. I'm not certain about this point, but I doubt that. Still, it's obviously a good idea, in order to nip identity theft and the hassle that comes with it in the bud.
jen729w 7y ago
If you’re checking 38,000 over the course of a week, how thoroughly are you checking them by 4pm on Friday afternoon?
moooo99 7y ago
From reading the PDF, bringing your university id with you is sufficient. You do not need an official passport/etc. A student id has a lot less security measures, they're basically just rfid cards with your data printed on. Assuming the attacker has access to the computer used for issuing these cards, it would probably be pretty easy to obtain the data neccessary to create such a fake id.
- neuronic 7y ago
  But not 38k times.

thexavier666 7y ago

this is the reason why online/electronic voting is not allowed in several countries

wayoutthere 7y ago
We're rapidly going back to that, even in the US. In my state, I am shown a printed paper copy of my vote through a window, and actually watch it go into the submitted ballots box. I'm sure a digital record is used as well, but it's nice to know that the printed copy is there in case of a close race or dispute.
- pvorb 7y ago
  In Germany, everyone is allowed to watch when votes are counted in their local election office. Is there a similar way to follow the counting in the US?
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Yes, you can observe the counting at your local county office in every state as far as I'm aware. Exact regulations vary by state of course: http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/policies-for-election-observers.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/policie...
  - donarb 7y ago
    Here is Washington state you are allowed (in fact encouraged) to visit the counting center during tabulation. This is addition to designated observers from each party that is allowed to monitor tabulations. Voters don't even have to leave home to monitor the elections, cameras are connected to the internet to show the counting process to any voter.
- JshWright 7y ago
  I can only speak for New York State (which used a paper ballot that is then fed into a scanner by the voter for tabulation), but the paper ballots are generally sampled and checked against the "electronic" votes. They'll manually count enough paper votes until they have a match to the machine counted votes (within some acceptable confidence interval, obviously).