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> How do you verify identity in that prototype? By using a third party service to read your passport's NFC chip, we then generate a strong crypto hash of the c

by dom96 2y ago

> How do you verify identity in that prototype? By using a third party service to read your passport's NFC chip, we then generate a strong crypto hash of the concatenation of your name, DoB, and last 4 digits of your passport and we also encrypt that hash for good measure. I agree that it sounds invasive, but there is no better way to verify uniqueness of a passport (and by proxy a human's uniqueness). And yes, I am aware that a single human can have more than one passport. It's certainly not perfect. But it reduces the possibility of sock puppet accounts significantly. If you register (just with your email and password), you'll get a little explanation of all the data collected (and don't have to move forward if you don't want to). > this seems like it puts unreasonable trust into the "identity broker" preserving both anonymity and not certifying sockpuppets True, but with enough resources onlyhumanhub itself can become the identity broker, no need for a third party.

lxgr 2y ago
Newer passports intentionally don't support third-party verifiable signatures anymore (earlier ones did). Non-repudiation was always a bug, not a feature, and that functionality is going away in newer implementations due to privacy concerns [1]. So unfortunately it's back to a centrally trusted verifier even with chip-enabled passwords for this use case. > True, but with enough resources onlyhumanhub itself can become the identity broker, no need for a third party. That doesn't address my concern at all: Why should I trust that service with something as sensitive as the mapping of my real identity to any number of pseudonyms? What's the economic incentive to not eventually offer a de-anonymization service to the highest bidder? [1] https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/75058/using-epassport-with-active-chip-authentication-to-sign-documents https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/75058/using-epass...
- dom96 2y ago
  Hmm, I'm not using verifiable signatures though. Surely there will continue to be a way for a third party to verify that a passport's NFC is authentic and can be trusted. That and the ability to pull some data off it is all I need. > Why should I trust that service with something as sensitive as the mapping of my real identity to any number of pseudonyms? What's the economic incentive to not eventually offer a de-anonymization service to the highest bidder? Do you trust banks? Hotels? They all take a copy of your passport and likely store it insecurely. The information that I store for the passports is irreversible. It's hashed. So even if I wanted to sell it I couldn't. I mean, sure, in the future if this becomes big and there is a company around it, it could become evil at any moment and then start selling this data but then you could easily sue the company for this.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    > Hmm, I'm not using verifiable signatures though. That's even worse then for older passports (and inevitable for newer ones): Everybody will have to trust the service to be honest about not issuing sockpuppet identities. How would you prove that you aren't? > Do you trust banks? Hotels? They all take a copy of your passport and likely store it insecurely. That's not a concern I have at all. Every company providing service upon "identity verification" through a scan/copy of somebody's passport deserves everything bad fraudsters can throw at them. It's a non-verification method. And by the same token, the hotel could try to leak the fact that I've stayed there, and everybody taking passport copies seriously as evidence might believe them. I'm fine with that risk too. Conversely, a private proof-of-humanity service will, by its nature, attract users that want to prove their humanity, well, privately. > The information that I store for the passports is irreversible. It's hashed. But that hash is ultimately calculated over somebody's passport data, isn't it? This means that anybody stealing your database will be able to deanonymize any user they have passport data for (which is not exactly secret information, as you've illustrated yourself with the hotel example).
    - dom96 2y ago
      > Everybody will have to trust the service to be honest about not issuing sockpuppet identities. How would you prove that you aren't? Because that is the whole point of my service? It really feels like you're just trying to come up with ways that this won't work in very special and rare circumstances, where those really don't matter in practice for a social network (which let's face it, isn't a life or death service). It's all about upping the barrier to entry for casual users that would create hundreds of alt accounts to troll/spam people with.
immibis 2y ago
Government intelligence agencies, which can print passports at will, will be able to create millions of fake accounts, while the rest of us will be limited to just one. It's a similar problem to the money-given-to-charity idea: when you trust any actor to enforce identity, you're trusting them to enforce identity.
- dom96 2y ago
  I don't really think being resistant to evil governments is within scope here. Using passports isn't perfect, but practically speaking it's a hell of a lot better than what we have now which is a free for all.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    It only takes a single government losing their signing keys (through whatever means) to break such a scheme. And if that happens, what do you do? Deny service to that country's citizens?
    - dom96 2y ago
      How often does something like this happen? In that scenario there are a number of options though, one of which is just putting a banner on accounts that are impacted.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - lxgr 2y ago
        More often than you might think. The EU COVID-19 immunology status certificate scheme saw some fraudulent issuances, for example. And "putting a banner on impacted accounts" both partially deanonymizes and effectively bans legitimate users for no fault of their own. Travel documents are not a digital identity scheme, and using the ICAO biometric travel document scheme contrary to its explicit design goals is just asking for trouble.
  - 2y ago

by dom96 2y ago

lxgr 2y ago

Newer passports intentionally don't support third-party verifiable signatures anymore (earlier ones did). Non-repudiation was always a bug, not a feature, and that functionality is going away in newer implementations due to privacy concerns [1]. So unfortunately it's back to a centrally trusted verifier even with chip-enabled passwords for this use case. > True, but with enough resources onlyhumanhub itself can become the identity broker, no need for a third party. That doesn't address my concern at all: Why should I trust that service with something as sensitive as the mapping of my real identity to any number of pseudonyms? What's the economic incentive to not eventually offer a de-anonymization service to the highest bidder? [1] https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/75058/using-epassport-with-active-chip-authentication-to-sign-documents https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/75058/using-epass...

dom96 2y ago
Hmm, I'm not using verifiable signatures though. Surely there will continue to be a way for a third party to verify that a passport's NFC is authentic and can be trusted. That and the ability to pull some data off it is all I need. > Why should I trust that service with something as sensitive as the mapping of my real identity to any number of pseudonyms? What's the economic incentive to not eventually offer a de-anonymization service to the highest bidder? Do you trust banks? Hotels? They all take a copy of your passport and likely store it insecurely. The information that I store for the passports is irreversible. It's hashed. So even if I wanted to sell it I couldn't. I mean, sure, in the future if this becomes big and there is a company around it, it could become evil at any moment and then start selling this data but then you could easily sue the company for this.
- lxgr 2y ago
  > Hmm, I'm not using verifiable signatures though. That's even worse then for older passports (and inevitable for newer ones): Everybody will have to trust the service to be honest about not issuing sockpuppet identities. How would you prove that you aren't? > Do you trust banks? Hotels? They all take a copy of your passport and likely store it insecurely. That's not a concern I have at all. Every company providing service upon "identity verification" through a scan/copy of somebody's passport deserves everything bad fraudsters can throw at them. It's a non-verification method. And by the same token, the hotel could try to leak the fact that I've stayed there, and everybody taking passport copies seriously as evidence might believe them. I'm fine with that risk too. Conversely, a private proof-of-humanity service will, by its nature, attract users that want to prove their humanity, well, privately. > The information that I store for the passports is irreversible. It's hashed. But that hash is ultimately calculated over somebody's passport data, isn't it? This means that anybody stealing your database will be able to deanonymize any user they have passport data for (which is not exactly secret information, as you've illustrated yourself with the hotel example).
  - dom96 2y ago
    > Everybody will have to trust the service to be honest about not issuing sockpuppet identities. How would you prove that you aren't? Because that is the whole point of my service? It really feels like you're just trying to come up with ways that this won't work in very special and rare circumstances, where those really don't matter in practice for a social network (which let's face it, isn't a life or death service). It's all about upping the barrier to entry for casual users that would create hundreds of alt accounts to troll/spam people with.

immibis 2y ago

Government intelligence agencies, which can print passports at will, will be able to create millions of fake accounts, while the rest of us will be limited to just one. It's a similar problem to the money-given-to-charity idea: when you trust any actor to enforce identity, you're trusting them to enforce identity.

dom96 2y ago
I don't really think being resistant to evil governments is within scope here. Using passports isn't perfect, but practically speaking it's a hell of a lot better than what we have now which is a free for all.
- lxgr 2y ago
  It only takes a single government losing their signing keys (through whatever means) to break such a scheme. And if that happens, what do you do? Deny service to that country's citizens?
  - dom96 2y ago
    How often does something like this happen? In that scenario there are a number of options though, one of which is just putting a banner on accounts that are impacted.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - lxgr 2y ago
      More often than you might think. The EU COVID-19 immunology status certificate scheme saw some fraudulent issuances, for example. And "putting a banner on impacted accounts" both partially deanonymizes and effectively bans legitimate users for no fault of their own. Travel documents are not a digital identity scheme, and using the ICAO biometric travel document scheme contrary to its explicit design goals is just asking for trouble.
- 2y ago