I agree about the "dumb magic numbers" but I don't think any digital system is the answer in the short term. Look at the complete disaster with ransomware, cryp

I agree about the "dumb magic numbers" but I don't think any digital system is the answer in the short term. Look at the complete disaster with ransomware, cryptolocking of databases shutting down or severely hampering businesses and health care orgs, the disclosures of data from organizations at every level of size and presumed technical sophistication, credit cards skimmed at will at ATMs, retailers, and online. It's a house of cards built on sand. Is the worst that can happen is the disclosure of public keys? What about the undetected exfiltration of the private keys that are used to issue everyone's certificates? Or the the random disabling/ransoming of the verfication infrastructure leaving nobody able to transact any business? I don't think we're close to being able to pull it off at anything approaching scale. It's not just a technical problem, hard as that is by itself, it's also a political problem, and a public trust problem. Right now, half the country would reject it based simply on which party is in power. "It could get complicated" indeed. I think we are a decade at least, maybe a generation away.