4 ms·

> It should be inconvenient to authenticate real identities over the internet because otherwise it will be used for tracking. Depends on how it is implemented.

by V__ 3y ago

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
It doesn't. Once you're required to give your name, there will be political pressure to create a process for associating the name with whatever you did in the event that you did something "bad" and then tracking infrastructure will be tacked on regardless of whether it was in the original system. Meanwhile the more convenient it is, the more websites will use it, but there are people who won't risk giving their name because they're a persecuted minority. So they get excluded from spaces they can currently exist unless they put their lives at risk by hoping that the security of the system holds even though it was designed by committee and implemented by the lowest bidder. It's still tracking even if you're not supposed to store the information, when there is no way for the client to verify that.
- V__ 3y ago
  That is a bad implementation, then. You could just as well design a system, where the only parties involved are the person and the party asking for identification. The only way to then track behavior would be to be embedded at every single business, etc. Take the German eID system, for example. Every national ID thus person has a signed certificate on the ID chip. Let's say a porn site wants to know you are over 18. They ask you to provide this. The chip response with a signed yes. No name, no other data. The site checks if the certificate is signed correctly but doesn't know anything else about you. The government also doesn't know anything about your behavior.
  - zeeZ 3y ago
    Documentation: https://www.bsi.bund.de/dok/TR-03130 https://www.bsi.bund.de/dok/TR-03130 https://www.bsi.bund.de/dok/TR-03124 https://www.bsi.bund.de/dok/TR-03124 The individual specification PDFs are in English.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > Every national ID thus person has a signed certificate on the ID chip. Let's say a porn site wants to know you are over 18. They ask you to provide this. The chip response with a signed yes. No name, no other data. The site checks if the certificate is signed correctly but doesn't know anything else about you. The government also doesn't know anything about your behavior. If the government knows when or how often you're requesting/generating a signature, you have a timing attack that allows use of the service to be correlated with the signatures. If anyone can generate completely anonymous signatures that no one can ever trace back to them then the system is pointless because someone will set up a service that will sign for anyone and there is no way to know who is operating it. You can't know how old someone is without knowing who they are. Otherwise they can just use someone else's ID.
    - V__ 3y ago
      The certificates are generated once for each document. So every 10 years for a national ID. The information is then signed using the certificate with the helpg of your local device. Since the government is the CAA, the receiver can quickly check if a valid certificate was used, thus whether the information is valid. The certificate is saved on the chip which is embedded in the ID, preventing the user from altering the data. > You can't know how old someone is without knowing who they are. With this scheme you can. The system guaranteed that the ID used is either a certain age or above/under 18. > Otherwise they can just use someone else's ID. Just like in the real world. That is why with increasing stakes, say a bank account, additional information or tests might be needed.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > The certificates are generated once for each document. So every 10 years for a national ID. So what stops someone from correlating your certificate with your identity and continuing to be able to do so for the next ten years? > With this scheme you can. The system guaranteed that the ID used is either a certain age or above/under 18. That's because the system knows who they are, which is the vulnerability. > Just like in the real world. In the real world your ID has your picture on it and they can compare it with your face. Also, if you're 11 years old they can tell that you're not 55 years old.

> It should be inconvenient to authenticate real identities over the internet because otherwise it will be used for tracking. Depends on how it is implemented.

by V__ 3y ago

> It should be inconvenient to authenticate real identities over the internet because otherwise it will be used for tracking. Depends on how it is implemented.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

It doesn't. Once you're required to give your name, there will be political pressure to create a process for associating the name with whatever you did in the event that you did something "bad" and then tracking infrastructure will be tacked on regardless of whether it was in the original system. Meanwhile the more convenient it is, the more websites will use it, but there are people who won't risk giving their name because they're a persecuted minority. So they get excluded from spaces they can currently exist unless they put their lives at risk by hoping that the security of the system holds even though it was designed by committee and implemented by the lowest bidder. It's still tracking even if you're not supposed to store the information, when there is no way for the client to verify that.

V__ 3y ago
That is a bad implementation, then. You could just as well design a system, where the only parties involved are the person and the party asking for identification. The only way to then track behavior would be to be embedded at every single business, etc. Take the German eID system, for example. Every national ID thus person has a signed certificate on the ID chip. Let's say a porn site wants to know you are over 18. They ask you to provide this. The chip response with a signed yes. No name, no other data. The site checks if the certificate is signed correctly but doesn't know anything else about you. The government also doesn't know anything about your behavior.
- zeeZ 3y ago
  Documentation: https://www.bsi.bund.de/dok/TR-03130 https://www.bsi.bund.de/dok/TR-03130 https://www.bsi.bund.de/dok/TR-03124 https://www.bsi.bund.de/dok/TR-03124 The individual specification PDFs are in English.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Every national ID thus person has a signed certificate on the ID chip. Let's say a porn site wants to know you are over 18. They ask you to provide this. The chip response with a signed yes. No name, no other data. The site checks if the certificate is signed correctly but doesn't know anything else about you. The government also doesn't know anything about your behavior. If the government knows when or how often you're requesting/generating a signature, you have a timing attack that allows use of the service to be correlated with the signatures. If anyone can generate completely anonymous signatures that no one can ever trace back to them then the system is pointless because someone will set up a service that will sign for anyone and there is no way to know who is operating it. You can't know how old someone is without knowing who they are. Otherwise they can just use someone else's ID.
  - V__ 3y ago
    The certificates are generated once for each document. So every 10 years for a national ID. The information is then signed using the certificate with the helpg of your local device. Since the government is the CAA, the receiver can quickly check if a valid certificate was used, thus whether the information is valid. The certificate is saved on the chip which is embedded in the ID, preventing the user from altering the data. > You can't know how old someone is without knowing who they are. With this scheme you can. The system guaranteed that the ID used is either a certain age or above/under 18. > Otherwise they can just use someone else's ID. Just like in the real world. That is why with increasing stakes, say a bank account, additional information or tests might be needed.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > The certificates are generated once for each document. So every 10 years for a national ID. So what stops someone from correlating your certificate with your identity and continuing to be able to do so for the next ten years? > With this scheme you can. The system guaranteed that the ID used is either a certain age or above/under 18. That's because the system knows who they are, which is the vulnerability. > Just like in the real world. In the real world your ID has your picture on it and they can compare it with your face. Also, if you're 11 years old they can tell that you're not 55 years old.