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USPS To Provide Personal Identity Certification

Posted by timothy on from the in-their-efficient-cheerful-fashion dept.

Zentalon writes "The United States Postal Service has announced that it will provide In-Person Proofing (pdf) to physically authenticate individuals before a digital signature certificate is issued to that person. This has a bunch of interesting ramifications; for instance, I could create a simple spam filter that only accepts mail from individuals and organizations that have an authenticated certificate. It could also allow for more secure financial transactions. Anyone know if any other national postal services are planning the same thing?" Funny, they don't seem to always know where to deliver so-called first-class mail ...

11 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Is this the start of it? by Blaine+Hilton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is this how they are going to roll out a national database system? Saying it will help in the fight against spam and forgery? Not that I'm "totally" against such a system, but it seems like they are misrepresenting the true nature of this.

    1. Re:Is this the start of it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Is this how they are going to roll out a national database system? Saying it will help in the fight against spam and forgery?

      Look, anything that can possibly improve the situation that someone picking up my social security number and date of birth and a few other simple facts about me can end up stealing my identity is a good thing. We're increasingly reliant on computers and digital information yet we have no decent national digital signature infrastructure in place. It is a very sad state of affairs when my mother's maiden name can still be expected to be used as some kind of secure authenticator to protect my bank account information.

  2. Amazing what the USPS does do with mail. by DaRat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just a comment about the "Funny, they don't seem to always know where to deliver so-called first-class mail ..." remark.

    Have I had mail lost? Yes. Is it annoying? Yes.

    But, think about how amazing it is about what the USPS does right. It moves billions of pieces of mail every day, and almost all of it (percentage wise) gets to where it should be going in spite of the fact that not every piece of mail can be automatically routed and multiple people end up looking at it at one point or another. And, in spite of the price increases, I can still send a letter anywhere in the US for 37c and it'll usually get there within a 2-3 days.

    Sure, dealling with the post office is a pain occasionally, and they do lose some mail. But, when I think about the scope and scale of what they do right, it does boggle my mind.

    1. Re:Amazing what the USPS does do with mail. by jdcook · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Mod parent up. I love how /. editors make fun of the post office for an almost imperceptible error rate in billions of pieces of mail but cannot even post a hundred stories in a row (I'm guessing) without a dupe or other obvious error.

      --
      Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
    2. Re:Amazing what the USPS does do with mail. by egburr · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Strange, my postman walks down my driveway to deliver packages that require a signature or are too large for the mailbox. My driveway is 200 feet long and the center is 15 feet lower than either end, so he literally does have to walk uphill both ways. Despite that, he is not out of breath (I usually am after walking it twice to haul the garbage to the curb) and has had a smile on his face every time.

      You might talk to your local postmaster and see if there is some reason he doesn't knock on the door.

      --

      Edward Burr
      Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
  3. Ramifications by the_pointman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The USPS' idea for certified proofing for digital signatures is in the right direction for securing financial transactions, helping to prevent spam (in the case of accepting emails only e-signed from registered people), but initiating such a project will bring the US closer to a National ID card.

    By attaching services such as online tax refunds or filings, the public will be /required/ to register with the USPS in order to take advantage of the online filings with the IRS. Sure, but what if people just file in paper? Without a doubt, the government will then ad a fee to paper filings to encourage taxpapers (everyone) to register with the USPS service.

    Let me see your papers, please!

  4. couple of concerns... by tx_kanuck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1) How well will this work with other authtication techniques? (ie. if other postal systems start this, will there be interoperability? If so, who coordinates this?)

    2) How good is the procedure to replace a lost/stolen certificate?

    3) What good is this for people not in the US?

    4) If someone lives in the US, gets one of these, and then moves, can it still be updated/replaced?

    5) I forget the other question.

    Granted, I only skimmed the article, so I may have missed the answers, but still....

    --
    Now, if that makes sense to anyone, could you please explain it to me? I think I've confused myself.
  5. Re:Sounds like... by t0ny · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The post office proposed offering email as a provided service long ago. But your complain has little merit, because many spam-stopping plans already propose adding a "cost" to email, even if it is a nominal fee such as $.01/message. A corportation would shrug at having to pay $8/day for email, but would a bulk mailer sending millions of messages per hour?

    The problem with people complaining about paying is that, for things that are worthwhile, its not about the money. Eventually you will have to pay for something, you are better off spending money on what you want, as opposed to getting what you dont want for free.

    --

    Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.

  6. But the USPS won't issue the certs, correct? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful
    After reading the article (hey! There's a first for everything!), it seems as though the USPS will only be providing official ID verification to 3rd-party CAs who will use it to determine whether they, not USPS, will issue the cert. In other words, the USPS will only be vouching for you to the CA - they won't be authenticating you to the public at large.

    Great. Just great. Now I get to deal with the Post Office and Verisign when I want to lock down an SSL site.

    Please shoot me.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  7. I hate X.509 by Sloppy · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Forget this X.509 crap, I want postmaster@usps.gov to sign my PGP key!

    I hate X.509. It's cumbersome and weird (that extra 'cert request' step), while also being functionally lame (only one signature, and you have to either completely trust it or not). Why anyone would want to use that when there's something so much better available (OpenPGP), is beyond me.

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  8. Illegals ID themselves for jobs, so can this work? by John+Jorsett · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If we can't screen out millions of illegal aliens who manage to come to the U.S. and present documents that are good enough to let them satisfy the government's requirements to prove to an employer that they are eligible to work in the U.S., how is this going to be better? If the answer is "better documents," how come we aren't requiring those better documents to be presented to the employers?