3 ms·

I get the spirit and a m familiar with the CAC and general benefits, and using that for all .gov stuff is attractive (taxes, bills, FASFA, etc) I think you’re

I get the spirit and a m familiar with the CAC and general benefits, and using that for all .gov stuff is attractive (taxes, bills, FASFA, etc) I think you’re glossing over two major implementation factors that need to be part of the discussion from get-go: * how much CAC use is dependent on fairly specific govt tech infra to be widely deployed, and how will that work for everyone (ever tried to setup a CAC on a civ computer) * key control, either extremely decentralized like the iPhone (lock yourself out of your passport?), or extremely centralized and the newest honeypot OPM holds (root cert for all e-citizen PKI). US currently doesn’t have the internal cybersec chops to run that at all (closest equivalent is CISA).

toomuchtodo 6y ago
You're right to point this out, but my counter argument is that these are solvable pain points for such an implementation (either done today in competent zero trust security architectures in progressive orgs or at nation state levels such as Estonia). You won't need a CAC reader on computers, for the most part, if you have mobile apps that can perform the identity proofing (such that's already done with examples like Apple's biometrics systems, FIDO2/WebAuthn, Apply Pay, etc). You'd still have the card for interfacing at endpoints (banks, postal service, IRS/SSA offices, other trust anchors and government services endpoints). I already login to my US CBP Global Entry account with Login.gov and 2FA, why can I not today use the same IAM system to login to my Social Security account? Or my IRS tax account? Or to attest to my citizenship or other attributes that I'd normally need a certified document for (yuk!). I'm not arguing for such a system without robust support and reasonable downgrades for failure scenarios (identity reproofing if you lose your digital ID, for example). I'm arguing for, admittedly challenging, digital ID modernization without disenfranchisement. I genuinely appreciate you pointing out the challenges, as they must be addressed. US DHS CISA is absolutely a resource that needs to be leaned on heavily to implement what I describe, and to ensure a strong security posture throughout the federal government's infrastructure.
- westurner 6y ago
  FWIU, DHS has funded [1] development of e.g W3C DID Decentralized Identifiers [2] and W3C Verifiable Credentials [3]: [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aw3.org+%22funded+by+the+United+States+Department+of+Homeland+Security%27s+Science+and+Technology+Directorate%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aw3.org+%22funded+by+t... [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ [3] https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/ https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/ Additional notes regarding credentials (certificates, badges, degrees, honorarial degrees, then-evaluated competencies) and capabilities models: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19813340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19813340 westurner/blockchain-credential-resources.md: https://gist.github.com/westurner/4345987bb29fca700f52163c339a270f https://gist.github.com/westurner/4345987bb29fca700f52163c33... Value storage and transmission networks have developed standards and implementations for identity, authentication, and authorization. ILP (Interledger Protocol) RFC 15 specifies "ILP addresses" for [crypto] ledger account IDs: https://interledger.org/rfcs/0015-ilp-addresses/ https://interledger.org/rfcs/0015-ilp-addresses/ From "Verifiable Credentials Use Cases" https://w3c.github.io/vc-use-cases/ https://w3c.github.io/vc-use-cases/ : > A verifiable claim is a qualification, achievement, quality, or piece of information about an entity's background such as a name, government ID, payment provider, home address, or university degree. Such a claim describes a quality or qualities, property or properties of an entity which establish its existence and uniqueness. The use cases outlined here are provided in order to make progress toward possible future standardization and interoperability of both low- and high-stakes claims with the goals of storing, transmitting, and receiving digitally verifiable proof of attributes such as qualifications and achievements. The use cases in this document focus on concrete scenarios that the technology defined by the group should address. FWIU, the US Department of Education is studying or already working with https://blockcerts.org/ https://blockcerts.org/ for educational credentials. Here are the open sources of blockchain-certificates/cert-issuer and blockchain-certificates/cert-verifier-js: https://github.com/blockchain-certificates https://github.com/blockchain-certificates Might a natural-born resident get a government ID card for passing a recycling and environmental sustainability quiz.
- dogman144 6y ago
  Agreed CISA is probably the target for a lot of positive growth in US defensive security. So I get the direction you're going, but then this stands out: > if you have mobile apps that can perform the identity proofing This is assuming folks have a certain tech pattern of: a) smart phones on the right OS version b) smart phones properly patched such that an Android vuln on a cheap phone doesn't lead to your e-SSN getting compromised c) number locks on their phones to prevent SIM swapping, if there's a non-app option d) have a smart phone in the first place! The risk model there just gets nuts when phones are involved (as a specific counter), at the benefit of including 2FA reqs and somewhat hazy income equality judgements on users (a lot of folks don't have smart phones). If you're really into this, definitely look into mobile security concerns and the ideas around tying identity into it. Cellular network security is... not like internet security assumptions. That's on top of some really generous trust in US identity security practices... the OPM hack really has to be accounted for in this discussion, if in fact we're unifying IAM. Also, didn't Estonia's root cert get popped or something to do w/ low entropy keys on their ID cards from the manufacturer, leading to a total reissuance?

toomuchtodo 6y ago

You're right to point this out, but my counter argument is that these are solvable pain points for such an implementation (either done today in competent zero trust security architectures in progressive orgs or at nation state levels such as Estonia). You won't need a CAC reader on computers, for the most part, if you have mobile apps that can perform the identity proofing (such that's already done with examples like Apple's biometrics systems, FIDO2/WebAuthn, Apply Pay, etc). You'd still have the card for interfacing at endpoints (banks, postal service, IRS/SSA offices, other trust anchors and government services endpoints). I already login to my US CBP Global Entry account with Login.gov and 2FA, why can I not today use the same IAM system to login to my Social Security account? Or my IRS tax account? Or to attest to my citizenship or other attributes that I'd normally need a certified document for (yuk!). I'm not arguing for such a system without robust support and reasonable downgrades for failure scenarios (identity reproofing if you lose your digital ID, for example). I'm arguing for, admittedly challenging, digital ID modernization without disenfranchisement. I genuinely appreciate you pointing out the challenges, as they must be addressed. US DHS CISA is absolutely a resource that needs to be leaned on heavily to implement what I describe, and to ensure a strong security posture throughout the federal government's infrastructure.

westurner 6y ago
FWIU, DHS has funded [1] development of e.g W3C DID Decentralized Identifiers [2] and W3C Verifiable Credentials [3]: [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aw3.org+%22funded+by+the+United+States+Department+of+Homeland+Security%27s+Science+and+Technology+Directorate%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aw3.org+%22funded+by+t... [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ [3] https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/ https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/ Additional notes regarding credentials (certificates, badges, degrees, honorarial degrees, then-evaluated competencies) and capabilities models: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19813340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19813340 westurner/blockchain-credential-resources.md: https://gist.github.com/westurner/4345987bb29fca700f52163c339a270f https://gist.github.com/westurner/4345987bb29fca700f52163c33... Value storage and transmission networks have developed standards and implementations for identity, authentication, and authorization. ILP (Interledger Protocol) RFC 15 specifies "ILP addresses" for [crypto] ledger account IDs: https://interledger.org/rfcs/0015-ilp-addresses/ https://interledger.org/rfcs/0015-ilp-addresses/ From "Verifiable Credentials Use Cases" https://w3c.github.io/vc-use-cases/ https://w3c.github.io/vc-use-cases/ : > A verifiable claim is a qualification, achievement, quality, or piece of information about an entity's background such as a name, government ID, payment provider, home address, or university degree. Such a claim describes a quality or qualities, property or properties of an entity which establish its existence and uniqueness. The use cases outlined here are provided in order to make progress toward possible future standardization and interoperability of both low- and high-stakes claims with the goals of storing, transmitting, and receiving digitally verifiable proof of attributes such as qualifications and achievements. The use cases in this document focus on concrete scenarios that the technology defined by the group should address. FWIU, the US Department of Education is studying or already working with https://blockcerts.org/ https://blockcerts.org/ for educational credentials. Here are the open sources of blockchain-certificates/cert-issuer and blockchain-certificates/cert-verifier-js: https://github.com/blockchain-certificates https://github.com/blockchain-certificates Might a natural-born resident get a government ID card for passing a recycling and environmental sustainability quiz.
dogman144 6y ago
Agreed CISA is probably the target for a lot of positive growth in US defensive security. So I get the direction you're going, but then this stands out: > if you have mobile apps that can perform the identity proofing This is assuming folks have a certain tech pattern of: a) smart phones on the right OS version b) smart phones properly patched such that an Android vuln on a cheap phone doesn't lead to your e-SSN getting compromised c) number locks on their phones to prevent SIM swapping, if there's a non-app option d) have a smart phone in the first place! The risk model there just gets nuts when phones are involved (as a specific counter), at the benefit of including 2FA reqs and somewhat hazy income equality judgements on users (a lot of folks don't have smart phones). If you're really into this, definitely look into mobile security concerns and the ideas around tying identity into it. Cellular network security is... not like internet security assumptions. That's on top of some really generous trust in US identity security practices... the OPM hack really has to be accounted for in this discussion, if in fact we're unifying IAM. Also, didn't Estonia's root cert get popped or something to do w/ low entropy keys on their ID cards from the manufacturer, leading to a total reissuance?