3 ms·

How does this compare with Estonia and their use of public ID numbers? I just know they don't consider their ID numbers secret the way SSNs are in the US, yet t

How does this compare with Estonia and their use of public ID numbers? I just know they don't consider their ID numbers secret the way SSNs are in the US, yet they use them for everything. How do they prevent fraud and ID theft?

sebmellen 6y ago
In Estonia, a user has a digital ID card, which contains a secure chip. Neither they or their computers can ever read the private keys contained in this chip. The card is minted like a passport or driver's license, so it's basically impossible to get a card for someone you aren't. The voting system works similarly to this "right to vote" token model in the backend, from what I know of it. The only difference is that the ID card is where the sensitive data is statically encoded (not on a theoretically hackable computer). They did have some cryptography problems a while back though. The government says it was not too big of a deal because they caught the bug, and would never have held an election with the bug still present. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/estonia-advanced-digital-society-here-s-how-that-helped-it-during-covid-19/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/estonia-advanced-digi... https://www.reuters.com/article/estonia-gemalto/estonia-sues-gemalto-for-152-mln-euros-over-id-card-flaws-idUSL8N1WD5JZ https://www.reuters.com/article/estonia-gemalto/estonia-sues...
tpetry 6y ago
Many countries have id numbers which are not a secret. In those countries you simply can‘t do anything with the number. Creating a bank account by mail with a ssn? Impossible you have to be at the department and show your passport. You cant be at a department? The postal service in germany can verify your identity if you are there, or there are some online webcam solutions where you have to show your passport in the webcam, rotate it by instructions etc.

3 ms·

How does this compare with Estonia and their use of public ID numbers? I just know they don't consider their ID numbers secret the way SSNs are in the US, yet t

by marzell 6y ago

sebmellen 6y ago
In Estonia, a user has a digital ID card, which contains a secure chip. Neither they or their computers can ever read the private keys contained in this chip. The card is minted like a passport or driver's license, so it's basically impossible to get a card for someone you aren't. The voting system works similarly to this "right to vote" token model in the backend, from what I know of it. The only difference is that the ID card is where the sensitive data is statically encoded (not on a theoretically hackable computer). They did have some cryptography problems a while back though. The government says it was not too big of a deal because they caught the bug, and would never have held an election with the bug still present. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/estonia-advanced-digital-society-here-s-how-that-helped-it-during-covid-19/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/estonia-advanced-digi... https://www.reuters.com/article/estonia-gemalto/estonia-sues-gemalto-for-152-mln-euros-over-id-card-flaws-idUSL8N1WD5JZ https://www.reuters.com/article/estonia-gemalto/estonia-sues...
tpetry 6y ago
Many countries have id numbers which are not a secret. In those countries you simply can‘t do anything with the number. Creating a bank account by mail with a ssn? Impossible you have to be at the department and show your passport. You cant be at a department? The postal service in germany can verify your identity if you are there, or there are some online webcam solutions where you have to show your passport in the webcam, rotate it by instructions etc.