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You may be taking a narrow view of "the problem". Stella Rimington, head of British (internal) intelligence (MI5) courageously spoke some clear truth a couple o
by nonrandomstring 2y ago
You may be taking a narrow view of "the problem". Stella Rimington,
head of British (internal) intelligence (MI5) courageously spoke some
clear truth a couple of decades ago. She said there isn't and cannot
be a reliable connection between information and an active body in the
world with agency. In other words, she thought "identity" is a weak
idea and forcefully opposed the idea of "ID cards".
Individuals may occasionally be of interest in intelligence, but less
than you think. Identity really comes from banking, law and medicine
so that we don't give the wrong person money, drugs or put the wrong
person in jail. It's low-level, procedural, civic stuff.
Beyond that there's a lot more dark, unwanted applications of identity
and we forget how much it is a cultural artefact of the
individualistic society we presently inhabit.
We do have plenty of nearly-good ways of _re_cognising_ a living
person, if we have previously "cognised" them. Images, voices, faces,
and various biological scans are all limited and likely to be defeated
with coming technology.
So separating "trust" (as expected behaviour) from identity is a major
challenge, and a most fascinating one. They are not the same thing.
- monkeyfun 2y agoCould you share a quote or source for others to check out what she said? It sounds very interesting, I'd love to read or listen to what she had to say there.
- nonrandomstring 2y agoThese [0,1,2] are press opinions on her opposition to ID back then. The woman behind all that is far more interesting, but I can't find you more direct sources. She's a writer (fiction) too and may have expressed more in her autobiography or stories after coming out. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/nov/16/idcards.uksecurity https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/nov/16/idcards.uksecurit... [1] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/a-really-bad-idea-565683 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/a-really-bad-idea-5656... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/nov/17/idcards.immigrationpolicy https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/nov/17/idcards.immigrati...
- Jensson 2y ago> Her own opinion was that ID cards would be of use "but only if they can be made unforgeable". Internet identifiers with private keys are unforgeable unless the certificate authority is compromised, so seems like she would be in favor of this. There is no disadvantage with this compared to just having a public identifier with no private part (current SSN scheme in USA).
- nonrandomstring 2y ago> so seems like she would be in favor of this No I don't think she would approve of any zealous solutionism. Not that I personally drink tea with her, but from what I've read SR occupies that class of intellect that deals in philosophical fundamentals of human affairs high above the 'technician' who says "Oh we've solved this with new fangled thing X now". And I'd bet my comfiest boots on some "certificate authority" being compromised before the ink is dry on this comment. I mean... look at what the title of this thread is about. :)