That's an excellent point. I didn't address this aspect today, but I touched on it a little in a HN comment I posted a couple months back. Ideally, the identit

That's an excellent point. I didn't address this aspect today, but I touched on it a little in a HN comment I posted a couple months back. Ideally, the identity-side would be handled in a distributed way through a network of brick-and-mortar notary businesses. An account "for life" wouldn't be so iron-clad as to ruin someone's life. It would be onerous in the sense that one would have to pay a fee to the notary, and provide government ID to replace their account. At which point (after which the original, compromised user ID is marked as invalid). The point you make re: security-issues with retailers is relevant, but it applies primarily to the businesses who notarize users, probably not the retailers. As an example of the difference, the user could request the notary electronically confirm to the public that the user has a high school diploma, but not reveal any details re: from which school, or from which year. I haven't thought this through, but I could envision a "Mailboxes Etc" type business providing both notary, and PObox/reship services so that other retailers couldn't even find out a user's address.