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The lack of digital ID is a huge problem in many domains and enables a lot of scams and crime in the first place. Requiring identification in situations that d

by lxgr 11mo ago

The lack of digital ID is a huge problem in many domains and enables a lot of scams and crime in the first place. Requiring identification in situations that don't need it is where the problems start, but that's possible with analog IDs as well, and is often even worse there (since these provide neither security against digital copies, nor privacy, which digital ID can, e.g. via zero knowledge proofs).

nextos 11mo ago
Personally, I liked the low-tech solution of code cards + password (2FA), used by e.g. Denmark as digital ID, now discontinued. I am aware that it is imperfect, and if you are not careful with MITM attacks you can get in trouble, but it was a good compromise to avoid the temptation to track citizens. Something like a hardware TAN generator, but with protection against MITM, would be an ideal compromise. The current trend of moving towards mobile apps that require hardware attestation is worrying.
- lxgr 11mo ago
  Definitely, requiring the entire smartphone to be "trusted" is way too much. Small external signers with a display and confirmation button are a nice compromise (and also largely solve MITM!), since I don't mind an external device being under somebody else's administrative control as long as I can run what I want on my smartphone or computer. But people don't want to carry two things... Hopefully we can at least have both as alternatives going forward.
  - charcircuit 11mo ago
    >But people don't want to carry two things... It can be moved into a security processor within the smartphone's SOC.
    - lxgr 11mo ago
      True, but that's already a much less clean separation between the credential issuer's and my domain on many dimensions other than security. As an example, this was the security model for mobile contactless payments for the longest time, and arguably as a result these never really took off until Google came up with a software-only alternative for Android. The potential for rent seeking of the hardware vendor is often too great, and even absent that, it requires close cooperation of too many distinct entities (hardware vendor, OS developer, bank, maybe a payment scheme etc). (Apple had no issues, because their ecosystem is already a fully walled garden, and they can usually get away with charging access fees even for non-security-relevant hardware interfaces.) With a contactless smartcard, I might have to carry one more plastic card than strictly necessary, but the technology for that is pretty mature (wallets), and I can migrate to a new phone without any hassle or use my credential on somebody else's device in a pinch.
      - nextos 11mo ago
        Some of the current EU ID cards are actually smartcards, so in terms of privacy guarantees and separation of concerns, we are moving backwards. I am also more comfortable with a low-tech solution that is not linked to my personal devices. Something like a FIDO passkey would be ideal as those are also able to verify the identity of the other side, but are relatively low-tech and won't serve to track me.
        lxgr 11mo ago
        ICAO biometric travel documents, the underlying standard which almost all EU ID cards implement these days, aren't suitable for remote identity verification though, as they don't have any way of verifying whether the legitimate holder or a thief/fraudster is using them. Selfie or video face verification is susceptible to deepfakes, and remote fingerprint reads would also require trusted reader hardware. Some countries have domestic schemes implemented on the same cards (e.g. Germany), but these are not interoperable across the EU, and many countries just don't have any non-ICAO scheme on their cards to begin with, and are instead implementing eIDAS (the current EU digital signature scheme) using some alternate scheme.
phatfish 11mo ago
It's like people want to hand over scans of their passport and/or driving license to random businesses again and again, every time the need to prove who they are; and have their ID documents littered in Outlook mailboxes or company file shares with zero permissions. Or be forced to install yet another ID app from a private service that requires you have an iPhone or "compatible" Android. The debate about this in the UK is just crazy. Notwithstanding the current "febrile" state of politics. It has always received weirdly vitriolic push back. What really is the Government going to do with a digital ID service that they can't do already? I just want to be able to give estate agents, solicitors, a bank, etc my ID number and a time-limited code that proves I am in control of that ID (or however that might work), and be done with it.
- brigandish 11mo ago
  > It has always received weirdly vitriolic push back. Because, as the Home Secretary herself observed, it would fundamentally change the relationship between the individual and the state. > What really is the Government going to do with a digital ID service that they can't do already? This gives the impression of having done no research into a topic of which you now opine opposition to be "weirdly vitriolic". We live in an age of search engines and GPTs, free encyclopaedias and entire lecture series online, and even libraries are still open and free, but you've done nothing to get past the very first thoughts you've had on the subject. Was that weirdly vitriolic, or someone pointing out that an argument to undermine everyone's rights should have some effort behind it?
  - wholinator2 11mo ago
    I dunno man, your reply doesn't sound _kind_. Maybe you could try to explain the point you're defending rather than ad hominem and overextrapolate a perceived insult. I genuinely want to learn and it's frustrating that your comment does not do that.
    - jmye 11mo ago
      Calling their objections “weirdly vitriolic” belies both a complaint about “kindness”, and shows an explicit desire to not learn a single thing. Perhaps, if you have genuine curiosity in the future, you should be thoughtful about the questions you ask, and the ad hominem attacks you make in the asking, rather than whining after the fact because people didn’t excuse your lack of tactful interaction sufficiently? Or just complain about “kindness” more - it’s easier to accuse others of being mean than to look in a mirror, I suppose.
AnthonyMouse 11mo ago
> Requiring identification in situations that don't need it is where the problems start Which is exactly the argument against digital ID, because it reduces the friction to asking for ID in situations that don't need it, causing it to become epidemic. Meanwhile nearly all the instances where ID actually should be required are also instances where showing up in person should be required, like taking out your first line of credit with a financial institution, or signing on to a new job. Because the entire point is to verify that that person is the person on the ID and not someone in Russia who managed to hack their phone.
nephihaha 11mo ago
The problem with digital ID is that it can be switched off in an instant. I was talking to some people in a strike picket line about this. They seemed unaware of it. Suddenly you would be unable to travel, pay your bills and access internet etc for doing the wrong thing.
- BDPW 11mo ago
  If an authoritarian state tells a bank to block you as a customer you get exactly the same result. All these options of blocking people are already available to states in general.
  - lxgr 11mo ago
    Very different levels of friction, though, and that matters too in practice.
- Tor3 11mo ago
  A digital ID is not doing all of that. The way it's implemented in Sweden, just to take an example already mentioned, is simply to identify you, and only for certain parts of society (mostly governmental services, banks, insurance and the like, and a few more). It's not about authorizing you for travel. If you need an ID for picking up your valuable shipment from the post office then you simply show your driver's license or passport, you don't use a digital ID for that. At all. If someone took away your digital ID then that would mean zero for your internet access, and zero for your ability to travel. It's not used for that at all. What would be a problem is paying the bills, because the ID identifies you for using network banking. However, alternative ways for identifying you for the latter are far worse concerns.
  - lxgr 11mo ago
    But GP raise a valid point: If IDs are ubiquitous and commonly used for non-government business, the government does implicitly gain substantial "veto power" over non-government transactions (by revoking existing credentials or not issuing new ones). Availability has to be ensured just as much as security and privacy in such a scenario, and that's not trivial. (I still personally think it's worth trying.)

by lxgr 11mo ago

nextos 11mo ago

Personally, I liked the low-tech solution of code cards + password (2FA), used by e.g. Denmark as digital ID, now discontinued. I am aware that it is imperfect, and if you are not careful with MITM attacks you can get in trouble, but it was a good compromise to avoid the temptation to track citizens. Something like a hardware TAN generator, but with protection against MITM, would be an ideal compromise. The current trend of moving towards mobile apps that require hardware attestation is worrying.

lxgr 11mo ago
Definitely, requiring the entire smartphone to be "trusted" is way too much. Small external signers with a display and confirmation button are a nice compromise (and also largely solve MITM!), since I don't mind an external device being under somebody else's administrative control as long as I can run what I want on my smartphone or computer. But people don't want to carry two things... Hopefully we can at least have both as alternatives going forward.
- charcircuit 11mo ago
  >But people don't want to carry two things... It can be moved into a security processor within the smartphone's SOC.
  - lxgr 11mo ago
    True, but that's already a much less clean separation between the credential issuer's and my domain on many dimensions other than security. As an example, this was the security model for mobile contactless payments for the longest time, and arguably as a result these never really took off until Google came up with a software-only alternative for Android. The potential for rent seeking of the hardware vendor is often too great, and even absent that, it requires close cooperation of too many distinct entities (hardware vendor, OS developer, bank, maybe a payment scheme etc). (Apple had no issues, because their ecosystem is already a fully walled garden, and they can usually get away with charging access fees even for non-security-relevant hardware interfaces.) With a contactless smartcard, I might have to carry one more plastic card than strictly necessary, but the technology for that is pretty mature (wallets), and I can migrate to a new phone without any hassle or use my credential on somebody else's device in a pinch.
    - nextos 11mo ago
      Some of the current EU ID cards are actually smartcards, so in terms of privacy guarantees and separation of concerns, we are moving backwards. I am also more comfortable with a low-tech solution that is not linked to my personal devices. Something like a FIDO passkey would be ideal as those are also able to verify the identity of the other side, but are relatively low-tech and won't serve to track me.
      - lxgr 11mo ago
        ICAO biometric travel documents, the underlying standard which almost all EU ID cards implement these days, aren't suitable for remote identity verification though, as they don't have any way of verifying whether the legitimate holder or a thief/fraudster is using them. Selfie or video face verification is susceptible to deepfakes, and remote fingerprint reads would also require trusted reader hardware. Some countries have domestic schemes implemented on the same cards (e.g. Germany), but these are not interoperable across the EU, and many countries just don't have any non-ICAO scheme on their cards to begin with, and are instead implementing eIDAS (the current EU digital signature scheme) using some alternate scheme.

phatfish 11mo ago

It's like people want to hand over scans of their passport and/or driving license to random businesses again and again, every time the need to prove who they are; and have their ID documents littered in Outlook mailboxes or company file shares with zero permissions. Or be forced to install yet another ID app from a private service that requires you have an iPhone or "compatible" Android. The debate about this in the UK is just crazy. Notwithstanding the current "febrile" state of politics. It has always received weirdly vitriolic push back. What really is the Government going to do with a digital ID service that they can't do already? I just want to be able to give estate agents, solicitors, a bank, etc my ID number and a time-limited code that proves I am in control of that ID (or however that might work), and be done with it.

brigandish 11mo ago
> It has always received weirdly vitriolic push back. Because, as the Home Secretary herself observed, it would fundamentally change the relationship between the individual and the state. > What really is the Government going to do with a digital ID service that they can't do already? This gives the impression of having done no research into a topic of which you now opine opposition to be "weirdly vitriolic". We live in an age of search engines and GPTs, free encyclopaedias and entire lecture series online, and even libraries are still open and free, but you've done nothing to get past the very first thoughts you've had on the subject. Was that weirdly vitriolic, or someone pointing out that an argument to undermine everyone's rights should have some effort behind it?
- wholinator2 11mo ago
  I dunno man, your reply doesn't sound _kind_. Maybe you could try to explain the point you're defending rather than ad hominem and overextrapolate a perceived insult. I genuinely want to learn and it's frustrating that your comment does not do that.
  - jmye 11mo ago
    Calling their objections “weirdly vitriolic” belies both a complaint about “kindness”, and shows an explicit desire to not learn a single thing. Perhaps, if you have genuine curiosity in the future, you should be thoughtful about the questions you ask, and the ad hominem attacks you make in the asking, rather than whining after the fact because people didn’t excuse your lack of tactful interaction sufficiently? Or just complain about “kindness” more - it’s easier to accuse others of being mean than to look in a mirror, I suppose.

AnthonyMouse 11mo ago

> Requiring identification in situations that don't need it is where the problems start Which is exactly the argument against digital ID, because it reduces the friction to asking for ID in situations that don't need it, causing it to become epidemic. Meanwhile nearly all the instances where ID actually should be required are also instances where showing up in person should be required, like taking out your first line of credit with a financial institution, or signing on to a new job. Because the entire point is to verify that that person is the person on the ID and not someone in Russia who managed to hack their phone.

nephihaha 11mo ago

The problem with digital ID is that it can be switched off in an instant. I was talking to some people in a strike picket line about this. They seemed unaware of it. Suddenly you would be unable to travel, pay your bills and access internet etc for doing the wrong thing.

BDPW 11mo ago
If an authoritarian state tells a bank to block you as a customer you get exactly the same result. All these options of blocking people are already available to states in general.
- lxgr 11mo ago
  Very different levels of friction, though, and that matters too in practice.
Tor3 11mo ago
A digital ID is not doing all of that. The way it's implemented in Sweden, just to take an example already mentioned, is simply to identify you, and only for certain parts of society (mostly governmental services, banks, insurance and the like, and a few more). It's not about authorizing you for travel. If you need an ID for picking up your valuable shipment from the post office then you simply show your driver's license or passport, you don't use a digital ID for that. At all. If someone took away your digital ID then that would mean zero for your internet access, and zero for your ability to travel. It's not used for that at all. What would be a problem is paying the bills, because the ID identifies you for using network banking. However, alternative ways for identifying you for the latter are far worse concerns.
- lxgr 11mo ago
  But GP raise a valid point: If IDs are ubiquitous and commonly used for non-government business, the government does implicitly gain substantial "veto power" over non-government transactions (by revoking existing credentials or not issuing new ones). Availability has to be ensured just as much as security and privacy in such a scenario, and that's not trivial. (I still personally think it's worth trying.)