4 ms·

The US Government is one of the reference implementations of PKI. Unfortunately, IDs are issued 50 different ways by the less competent states. Combine that w

The US Government is one of the reference implementations of PKI. Unfortunately, IDs are issued 50 different ways by the less competent states. Combine that with accusations that getting new IDs constitutes systematic racism (a widely held belief on HN), ignoring that the ruralest of India has been able to do this successfully, and you're not getting digital ID any time soon.

abirch 1mo ago
The difficulty for the US is people seem to be against a Federal Government ID. India doesn't seem to have this stigma and hence rural India can solve this problem.
- micromacrofoot 1mo ago
  I don't think people are against it, we already have the social security identifiers as a government layer... it's just that no one in the government is willing to do it for free in a way that is accessible to everyone
  - abirch 1mo ago
    I think this is the horse shoe theory where the far left and right are against it. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-conservative-and-liberal-allies-denounce-national-id-card-plan-intelligence https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-conservative-and-li... I know people who don't have a social security number because their parents didn't want them to be tracked by the system.
    - what 29d ago
      Do they live in the woods? How do they work and pay taxes?
      - abirch 29d ago
        Yes, very rural place or the woods. No idea about taxes, etc. I remember him explaining that you only need a SSN if you want to receive it and a diatribe about the mark of the beast. When the guy was trying to get a passport, he asked if anyone could show a picture of him from our high school yearbook.
  - dragonwriter 29d ago
    > I don't think people are against it Every time national ID gets moderately serious discussion it is revealed very clearly that yes, the people are against it. RealID—which was simply national standardization of state issued ID (when used for a variety of important purposes) had intense resistance, too—and its the closest policy to national ID that has passed. Social Security identifiers are not ID for the person, and anyway were adopted nearly a century ago at a moment of higher-than-current trust in the federal government.
    - iamnothere 29d ago
      It would help if the federal government didn’t show itself to abuse ID databases every time it gets ahold of one. I don’t see how we could develop a national ID in an environment of such low trust (bidirectionally). You need a government that’s responsive to citizens and obeys constitutional guardrails, and citizens who trust the government to protect their best interests. We haven’t had that since the prior century (and last century the government was still breaking our trust, it just didn’t make the news).
    - mixdup 29d ago
      People are against national IDs because of privacy, not racism like a previous comment in this thread suggested People are against requiring certain types of IDs to vote as racism or other forms of voter suppression because it may cost money to get those IDs or be very very hard to do so, when there are other methods to authenticate a person for voting Those are two separate issues and complaints.
      - fc417fc802 29d ago
        Just to add a bit. In a few different places in the US I've had multiple ID offices within easy driving (or bus) distance and wait times ranged from short to annoying but bearable. When I lived near the ghetto in a different state I had roughly 2 choices, one 30 minutes out and the other over an hour (by car without traffic). Bus? Hah! Have fun. Arriving at the nearer of the two within an hour or so of opening in the morning there was already a multi-hour line for service. Don't worry though, there's definitely not any sort of institutional racism behind the various efforts to require certain forms of ID to vote. /s
  - mrguyorama 29d ago
    America has a substantial fundamentalist christian population who was handed a conspiracy theory about ID cards being a sign of the antichrist as depicted in Revelations decades ago and just will maintain that conspiracy theory for eternity. The minimum size of this population, people who are adamant that the world is 10k years old, that god created everything as it currently is within those past 10k years, and therefore that all of science is a conspiracy in league with satan to deceive you from god, is about 30 million people. That's the percentage of Americans that willingly state such a belief when an alternative survey option is "Earth is old but god is still real and meaningful and doing everything" ie the current Catholic Dogma. That exact same cohort is the singular reason for the Satanic Panic back in the 80s, for every child that "wasn't allowed" to participate in Halloween, for kids that weren't allowed to read Harry Potter because it "promoted witchcraft". These people insist we are in a constant and active war against actual physical demons that have infiltrated much of society. They believe they are losing this "war". They believe they are following God's orders. They believe anything is permissible in this war
    - fc417fc802 29d ago
      That's not a conspiracy theory. It's a cautionary tale in the same vein as Don't Create the Torment Nexus. Some people proceed to take it overly literally and engage in wild fantasy (ironic considering the typical views of that population on things like D&D).
pstuart 1mo ago
It is a problem for millions of Americans: https://voteriders.org/article/who-doesnt-have-an-id-in-america-today/ https://voteriders.org/article/who-doesnt-have-an-id-in-amer... Systemic racism is very much a thing, and while perhaps not foundational in this particular issue, we see still see political fuckery that definitely targets by race: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/tarrant-county-texas-votes-slash-polling-sites-midterms-rcna595338 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/tarrant-count...
Larrikin 1mo ago
IDs being required for voting is essentially a poll tax the way that it's argued for in the US. There's a minimum amount you have to spend to even get one that will expire in a certain amount of years. That's also assuming you can get all the documents you need for the initial ID. If you don't already have all the essential documents you'll need multiple appointments at government facilities. The local social security office usually has just one location. Mine required time off from work because they were open from 10 till 4 four days a week. This was just part of the process to get an ID for a child when we only had a copy of a couple documents instead of the originals. Getting an ID for my grandma who made the mistake of being born black in the rural South during Jim Crow was a year long process, since she didn't even have originals of most of the documents. It took that long and was handled by one of her children that was a lawyer. For her we were getting an ID so the family could take her traveling, years before it was turned into a political issue to disenfranchise people. Nobody arguing for the ID laws ever argues for raising their taxes for an ID that all citizens are guaranteed with the supporting infrastructure. They're arguing for it because they know people they don't want to vote will have trouble getting one
- SV_BubbleTime 1mo ago
  So… requiring an ID to buy a gun is also an unconstitutional tax on a right?
  - esseph 1mo ago
    Hey, you know what...
  - voakbasda 29d ago
    Yes, it is.
    - SV_BubbleTime 29d ago
      Agreed, but I like that the “requiring ID is racist but only in the USA” crowd doesn’t like the direct relation.
  - 29d ago
mistrial9 29d ago
every application packet for a US National Security clearance for twenty years, was stolen in bulk, by Chinese agents. Your characterization of the perfection of US Federal data management appears to be lacking nuance.
IAmBroom 29d ago
"India does it!" is not the absolute proof of a lack of racism that you believe it is. For multiple reasons.

abirch 1mo ago

The difficulty for the US is people seem to be against a Federal Government ID. India doesn't seem to have this stigma and hence rural India can solve this problem.

micromacrofoot 1mo ago
I don't think people are against it, we already have the social security identifiers as a government layer... it's just that no one in the government is willing to do it for free in a way that is accessible to everyone
- abirch 1mo ago
  I think this is the horse shoe theory where the far left and right are against it. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-conservative-and-liberal-allies-denounce-national-id-card-plan-intelligence https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-conservative-and-li... I know people who don't have a social security number because their parents didn't want them to be tracked by the system.
  - what 29d ago
    Do they live in the woods? How do they work and pay taxes?
    - abirch 29d ago
      Yes, very rural place or the woods. No idea about taxes, etc. I remember him explaining that you only need a SSN if you want to receive it and a diatribe about the mark of the beast. When the guy was trying to get a passport, he asked if anyone could show a picture of him from our high school yearbook.
- dragonwriter 29d ago
  > I don't think people are against it Every time national ID gets moderately serious discussion it is revealed very clearly that yes, the people are against it. RealID—which was simply national standardization of state issued ID (when used for a variety of important purposes) had intense resistance, too—and its the closest policy to national ID that has passed. Social Security identifiers are not ID for the person, and anyway were adopted nearly a century ago at a moment of higher-than-current trust in the federal government.
  - iamnothere 29d ago
    It would help if the federal government didn’t show itself to abuse ID databases every time it gets ahold of one. I don’t see how we could develop a national ID in an environment of such low trust (bidirectionally). You need a government that’s responsive to citizens and obeys constitutional guardrails, and citizens who trust the government to protect their best interests. We haven’t had that since the prior century (and last century the government was still breaking our trust, it just didn’t make the news).
  - mixdup 29d ago
    People are against national IDs because of privacy, not racism like a previous comment in this thread suggested People are against requiring certain types of IDs to vote as racism or other forms of voter suppression because it may cost money to get those IDs or be very very hard to do so, when there are other methods to authenticate a person for voting Those are two separate issues and complaints.
    - fc417fc802 29d ago
      Just to add a bit. In a few different places in the US I've had multiple ID offices within easy driving (or bus) distance and wait times ranged from short to annoying but bearable. When I lived near the ghetto in a different state I had roughly 2 choices, one 30 minutes out and the other over an hour (by car without traffic). Bus? Hah! Have fun. Arriving at the nearer of the two within an hour or so of opening in the morning there was already a multi-hour line for service. Don't worry though, there's definitely not any sort of institutional racism behind the various efforts to require certain forms of ID to vote. /s
- mrguyorama 29d ago
  America has a substantial fundamentalist christian population who was handed a conspiracy theory about ID cards being a sign of the antichrist as depicted in Revelations decades ago and just will maintain that conspiracy theory for eternity. The minimum size of this population, people who are adamant that the world is 10k years old, that god created everything as it currently is within those past 10k years, and therefore that all of science is a conspiracy in league with satan to deceive you from god, is about 30 million people. That's the percentage of Americans that willingly state such a belief when an alternative survey option is "Earth is old but god is still real and meaningful and doing everything" ie the current Catholic Dogma. That exact same cohort is the singular reason for the Satanic Panic back in the 80s, for every child that "wasn't allowed" to participate in Halloween, for kids that weren't allowed to read Harry Potter because it "promoted witchcraft". These people insist we are in a constant and active war against actual physical demons that have infiltrated much of society. They believe they are losing this "war". They believe they are following God's orders. They believe anything is permissible in this war
  - fc417fc802 29d ago
    That's not a conspiracy theory. It's a cautionary tale in the same vein as Don't Create the Torment Nexus. Some people proceed to take it overly literally and engage in wild fantasy (ironic considering the typical views of that population on things like D&D).

pstuart 1mo ago

It is a problem for millions of Americans: https://voteriders.org/article/who-doesnt-have-an-id-in-america-today/ https://voteriders.org/article/who-doesnt-have-an-id-in-amer... Systemic racism is very much a thing, and while perhaps not foundational in this particular issue, we see still see political fuckery that definitely targets by race: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/tarrant-county-texas-votes-slash-polling-sites-midterms-rcna595338 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/tarrant-count...

Larrikin 1mo ago

IDs being required for voting is essentially a poll tax the way that it's argued for in the US. There's a minimum amount you have to spend to even get one that will expire in a certain amount of years. That's also assuming you can get all the documents you need for the initial ID. If you don't already have all the essential documents you'll need multiple appointments at government facilities. The local social security office usually has just one location. Mine required time off from work because they were open from 10 till 4 four days a week. This was just part of the process to get an ID for a child when we only had a copy of a couple documents instead of the originals. Getting an ID for my grandma who made the mistake of being born black in the rural South during Jim Crow was a year long process, since she didn't even have originals of most of the documents. It took that long and was handled by one of her children that was a lawyer. For her we were getting an ID so the family could take her traveling, years before it was turned into a political issue to disenfranchise people. Nobody arguing for the ID laws ever argues for raising their taxes for an ID that all citizens are guaranteed with the supporting infrastructure. They're arguing for it because they know people they don't want to vote will have trouble getting one

SV_BubbleTime 1mo ago
So… requiring an ID to buy a gun is also an unconstitutional tax on a right?
- esseph 1mo ago
  Hey, you know what...
- voakbasda 29d ago
  Yes, it is.
  - SV_BubbleTime 29d ago
    Agreed, but I like that the “requiring ID is racist but only in the USA” crowd doesn’t like the direct relation.
- 29d ago

mistrial9 29d ago

every application packet for a US National Security clearance for twenty years, was stolen in bulk, by Chinese agents. Your characterization of the perfection of US Federal data management appears to be lacking nuance.

IAmBroom 29d ago

"India does it!" is not the absolute proof of a lack of racism that you believe it is. For multiple reasons.