3 ms·

What do you do when you lose it though? Or it burns in a fire? A surrogate token still needs a replacement mechanism

• bombcar 4y ago
  It's pretty easy to implement that if you have a central authority to manage the public keys, which a government can do. A bigger issue is how to handle it being stolen (if the "card" also needs something like a passphrase it can reduce this risk, but it's probably better to make it relatively easy to "cancel" if you lose yours, and then you have to head to the DMV or whatever to procure a replacement). Certainly better than knowing 10 digits and where you were born and to whom.
  • kube-system 4y ago
    "Better" depends on which specific problem that someone is experiencing. If your problem is that someone stole the token, then you're better off with a PKI token. If your problem is that you have lost your token, then you're better off with a non-PKI memorable token.
• f38zf5vdt 4y ago
  Go to a government office and use biometric identification methods, then remove the old public key from databases and replace it with a new public key from a newly issued ID card.
• charcircuit 4y ago
  SSN already suffers from the same exact problem and has ways to request a new SSN card. You are limited to 3 replacement cards in a year and 10 during your lifetime.
  • kube-system 4y ago
    That is mitigated by the fact that SSNs can often be used without the physical card.