Obama Eyeing Internet ID For Americans

Pickens writes "CBS News reports that the Obama administration is currently drafting the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which will be released by the president in the next few months. 'We are not talking about a national ID card,' says Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, whose department will be in charge of the program. 'We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities.' Although details have not been finalized, the 'trusted identity' may take the form of a smart card or digital certificate that would prove online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions. White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt says that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. 'I don't have to get a credential if I don't want to,' says Schmidt. There's no chance that 'a centralized database will emerge,' and 'we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this.'"

Comments

how about no

[trolman]

This Internet ID scheme has been floated a couple of times now and it is not going to happen. The Federal Government like big companies and big programs aka Comcast/NBC, Net Control(net neutrality) and National Healthcare. It is about controlling the most people with the least effort. This is no different than requiring me to 'show my papers.' All of this really needs to stop. --If the feds need something to do they could start by implementing IPv6 and getting everyone an IP address.

Re:how about no

[arivanov]

Typical American paranoia. Not that UK is much better.

Anyway, I have had a Bulgarian digital ID for nearly 4 years now. It is privately run - there are several companies which have been licensed to issue the certificates and they issue certs/smartcards to individuals and businesses. The govmint has nothing to do with it besides being obliged by law to accept a smartcard signed electronic document as a valid signature in any form of communication. I can sign a contract, sign my tax return, sell/buy stuff that requires a signed contract, give instructions to my bank and all of these are _EQUALLY_ legally binding to me showing up with a passport/ID and signing it in person. On top of that most cert authorities and smartcards fully support Linux at least on x86 so you do not even need to pay MSFT tax to use it.

On the negative side, banks, etc have been pretty quick on the uptake that this is an acknowledged and transactions are legally binding so you cannot do any electronic banking without it any more.

In any case - an example where "technological backwater" "undeveloped" "fifth world economy" and "third rate democracy" (all are labels which BG has had in USA press at various times) shows how this _CAN_ be run as a useful tool for individuals and companies to do business without the govmint having anything to do with it besides collecting some license revenue.

Re:how about no

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, typical paranoia. You write: "you cannot do any electronic banking without it any more." "I don't have to get a credential if I don't want to," says Schmidt. Of course the government will not make a central database when it gets tax return files signed by everyone in the country. No, certainly not. How stupid do you and the government think we are?

Re:how about no

[Seumas]

I'm sure Bulgaria has absolutely no political corruption and that everyone in the government is absolutely trustworthy and that there is and was absolutely nothing shady about the selection of the private entity (yay, another government utility monopoly!) to provide the services and that there are absolutely no questionable connections between government officials and the selected company, just like there are no relations in America between officials and the selection of companies like Haliburton, L-3, and various FDA fast-tracks, either.

I don't know a lot about Bulgaria, but Americans and Brits tend not to like to be identified and monitored, though their government and the stupider sheep among the population constantly do everything they can to undermine this desire. It's abhorrent enough that our SS# has gone from being something you ONLY provide to your employer to set aside SS tax in your account and to the government when you're ready to withdraw and has instead come to be used to get a driver's license, create a cell phone account, cable account, internet account, bank account, blockbuster rental account, etc.

Let's either value privacy and autonomy or throw up our hands and quit this charade and go full bore into fully complying with all wishes and desire of the motherland.

Re:how about no

[Anonymous Coward]

'Nanny state' is a teabagger code word for Democratic lead government. Republicans get a free pass from you'all as God puts them in power to extend his justice (or so you'all would seem to claim).

And... Using the word "teabagger" in an argument is liberal code for, "I think Anderson Cooper is really hot and maybe I'll come out of the closet."

Re:how about no

[Chapter80]

You mean all Americans are going to end up in concentration camps because of this digital ID? Look-up paranoia.

Naaah, not everyone. Just the bad guys. And the dissidents. Potential terrorists, and neo-nazis, too. And anyone who is on the TSA no-fly list. Really, any foreigners. And those who are against the 2-party system. Those tea-party wackos should really be identified and tracked. Lump the libertarians and green party people in there, too, because you really never know when they might "fringe out on us". What's the harm in "identifying" and "tracking" them. Especially if they're not doing anything wrong. What could they possibly be afraid of?

And if someone is a crack addict, we should track that. We don't want those people in power, or flying our planes. We certainly don't want to give them access to large sums of money. You have to admit, tracking crack addicts is a good idea.

But not a single person has ever *started* with crack. Usually they start with marijuana or alcohol. Don't believe me? Well, we should track that. We can actually predict which people are more prone to become crack addicts, simply by tracking the population, their purchases, and their habits.

Really, we shouldn't let someone behind the wheel, if they have purchased open liquor within the past 2 hours. We should track that.

And the people who are causing our healthcare costs to skyrocket. Especially those with Aids. And a genetic disposition toward expensive illnesses.

This country was founded with a strong religious bias, and God wants it that way. We should identify the atheists too. And the evolutionists. How dare you say I'm part monkey.

Really, the only ones who can be trusted are the ones like me. In thought, actions, beliefs, genetics, and disposition. So we need to classify and identify. No need to tattoo their arms - that's old school. Let's just track them by ID. No harm. If you aren't doing anything wrong, what is there to fear? I know I don't do anything wrong. I'll sign up, and even maintain the database for free.

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Re:how about no

[gandhi_2]

Problem that doesn't exist????

You don't get it. This could solve child porn, terrorism, and free expression in one shot!

Re:how about no

[Miamicanes]

> If someone can sign your name on a paper and send it by mail you'd be fucked to. ...

Actually, no. You could legitimately argue (in court, if necessary) that your signature was forged. Forgery is so common, assertions of it in court are almost automatically accepted by juries as credible unless the party claiming it's legitimate can bend over backwards and demonstrate (through supporting evidence, like driver's license data, video surveillance footage showing the individual perform the transaction, etc) overwhelming evidence that it's legitimate.

Smart card-based certificates upset that delicate balance of power. They don't prove that it was signed by you, but they do prove (almost beyond doubt) that something was signed by someone with physical possession of your card/cert and knowledge of its security code. Thus, they instantly shift the issue from claims by the victim that his signature was forged (something that's happened throughout human history, is commonplace, and an easy defense for consumers to successfully raise in court) to claims by the banks that you were negligent in your handling of the certificate and/or its security code. As a consumer, you have basically no duty to prevent someone else from forging your signature, because you can't. And the scenarios where banks could claim you were negligent would be almost impossible for them to prove. In contrast, with the cert/card, if anything goes wrong, banks have a MUCH easier time of shifting liability to you, the consumer.

You could argue that a similar situation exists with ATM cards, but ATMs have an advantage (for consumers) that internet transactions don't -- pervasive video surveillance. If a criminal coerces you to give up your PIN code, it's likely to be pretty easy to prove his involvement and demonstrate coercion. If the criminal is out of view, but the victim claims otherwise, the bank's in an awkward position. If the bank were to push the issue, a jury would probably sympathize with a victim complaining that the ATM offered no way for the coerced user to summon the police. If the bank were to argue that it doesn't provide that capability because it doesn't want to risk a lawsuit from somebody shot by the criminal for attempting to exercise the duty to notify the police implied by the existence of such a feature, the jury would STILL be unsympathetic because at that point, the bank has effectively admitted that to them, the amount withdrawn by the victim at gunpoint is pocket change compared to all possible alternatives. In contrast, there aren't surveillance cameras recording internet purchases. If a cert gets stolen, the instant presumption is that you, the cert's owner, are the one who engaged in fraud, and the burden is on YOU to prove that it was stolen, or your cooperation was coerced, and that you weren't negligent in safeguarding it.

Legislation to enable smart card signatures is nothing new -- I think it's been part of the UCC in the US for almost a decade (or at least, was proposed a decade ago). The problem is, the legislation was so completely lopsided in favor of banks against consumers that you would have had to be financially suicidal and have an economic deathwish to voluntarily participate in it. Even the banks were slightly embarrassed by it, and recognized that it was dead on arrival because no sane consumer would have ever agreed to it.

Slight conundrum?

[Chas]

We will be enhancing your privacy and security.
  By making you more uniquely identifiable and creating a single point of failure for the security method.

*HEADDESK*

no centralized database, for now

[Attila Dimedici]

There is no chance that a centralized database will emerge, unless of course this catches on, in which case a centralized database will be necessary to address abuses.

A great idea

[drinkypoo]

Digital signatures have been legally equivalent to normal ones for some time now, but where is the accountability? Many have long said the USPS should provide certs; I stand by that idea.

Might want to read the draft before commenting.

[ghelleks]

Comments on this draft closed in July, and it's been changed since. But this should give you a sense of what they're actually proposing. http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/ns_tic.pdf

Re:Ahem, democracy?

[Dunbal]

When are we going to graduate from this democracy myth and start calling the US the plutocratic oligarchic republic that it is?

      Never, thanks to an education system that ensures that 99.9% of the population don't even understand what plutocratic oligarchic means and parents too busy watching ESPN or American Idol to compensate for said system's deficit.

Re:You don't have to have one!

[markdavis]

Are you wacked? Of course you will have to have one. One by one, sites and services would be denied to you if you didn't have one. Eventually, you couldn't do ANYTHING without complying. Remember Social Security numbers- how they were supposed to be used ONLY for SS and never used for any other purpose. Tell you what, you just try to do anything now without being forced to give your national ID number- credit card, loans, electricity, health care, taxes, driving, ANYTHING useful.

Nobody here even knows what the story is about.

[BobGregg]

Seriously. Almost nobody commenting here even took five seconds to even think about what was actually being discussed. It's all just knee-jerk "jack boots are coming" nonsense.

"Internet ID for Americans" - Article title FAIL. This has nothing to do with a government identity of any sort. Nor is it a singular identity, credential, or technology. It's for use in commerce - you know, like OpenID? - but actually standardized so that companies will actually widely accept it. That's why the first sentence of the linked article, the whole point of the news of it, is that the Commerce department would head the effort, not Homeland Security. (Declan McCullagh, I like you, but you should be ashamed.) From the article: "This is not about a national identity card." From these comments: "It's a national identity card!"

"Single point of failure" - Reading comprehension FAIL. The published strategy talks about setting up an identity trust ecosystem where individuals set up any number of identities and credentials, of their own choosing, possibly using different technologies of use as they see fit. Much like the SSL cert ecosystem today provides a means of merchant identification, without there either being a single point of failure or sinister government control.

"Trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist" - Reality-check FAIL. I just don't know what planet you're from. If you're saying that identity theft on the Internet isn't a major concern, then you're seriously misinformed. It costs our economy millions, if not billions, in lost productivity and fraud. That's a valid government concern - making sure that economic activity can take place safely and thrive.

For frack's sake, the same people who were screaming about how Microsoft Passport was a bad idea (and it was, because it was monopoly-controlled) are now saying the free market should solve the problem. Or, you know, that there's actually no problem at all. No wonder it's so hard to get anything done in this country.

Having a national strategy to push towards building a real trust infrastructure is a GOOD idea. Reduces costs, reduces redundancy and waste, IMPROVES security on the Web. Trust infrastructure GOOD. Psycho spasmodic knee-jerk Fox-News "Govmint bad" reactions with no forethought BAD.