US Gov't To Issue Secure Online IDs 205
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Tom Groenfeldt reports in Forbes that the U.S. Postal Service has awarded a contract to SecureKey to implement the Federal Cloud Credential Exchange (FCXX) designed to enable individuals to securely access online services at multiple federal agencies — such as health benefits, student loan information, and retirement benefit information — without the need to use a different password or other digital identification for each service. SecureKey already operates a trusted identity service in Canada using identification keys provided by one of five participating Canadian banks. It allows Canadians to connect with 120 government programs online with no additional user names or passwords for everything from benefits queries to fishing licenses. The SecureKey program is designed to connect identity providers — such as banks, governments, healthcare organizations, and others — with consumers' favorite online services though a cloud-based broker service. The platform allows identity providers and online services to integrate once, reducing the integration and business complexity otherwise incurred in establishing many-to-many relationships."
Re:Super Timing (Score:5, Insightful)
Read as: "License to use the Internet".
Pretty fucking clever. Soon, you won't be able to get a stock-quote or the latest XKCD without this thing - much less, send an email.
Future Mandatory Requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
- First, all major government websites require usage of this.
- As more and more brick-and-mortal government offices close, more and more people start using the id.
- VISA, MasterCard, et al begin requiring these for all online banking.
- Taxable web transactions somehow get tied by law to having to use these.
- Soon, ISPs require you to log in with it periodically, (remember AOL internet 'sessions'?)
- All utilities, bills and such paid online start requiring it.
- Social networks require it for 'think of the children' safety.
Re:Super Timing (Score:5, Insightful)
Cool Farts (Score:1, Insightful)
[Read as if you're Robert Preston in The Music Man addressing the town]
Now we're all familiar with hot farts here on Slashdot. That sharp exit of heated gas that warms your anus for a few seconds during its escape.
It's a unique sensation, and it's often uncomfortable! But my friends there is another way to fart. Yes, I said another way!
Why just last week I was sittin'. Sittin' in this very chair, browsin' this very site.
Yes I was sittin'. And while I was sittin' I felt that familiar pressure. The pressure we all know all too well. The pressure of a tight little bubble of gas winding it's way through my bowels.
But this time it was different. As I felt that fart knocking on my door I took a look around. I say, I looked around for anyone who would see or smell or hear.
Friends, family, coworkers, even gosh darn strangers. But my friends the coast was clear. Yes I was free and clear to let'r rip!
But I decided to try something a little bit different. I passed on my usual lean and "foof". I opted against the raucous blast. I say I did something just a little bit different that made all the difference in the world.
Oh I leaned to the left. I leaned to the left and raised my right cheek off the chair. I raised it up and I put it back down. Right on the right edge of that chair.
Then I leaned to the right. This time to the right, raising my left cheek up and settin' it down.
Now over there on the left edge of the seat was one ass cheek. And way over there on the right edge was the other.
But right in the middle, free and clear and stretched nice and taught was my anus. And my friends what a glorious, clean pink anus it is. I took that anus and I opened the valve nice and slow. Like openin' a shaken up bottle of pop.
And just like that bottle of pop my anus let out a slow "hisssssssss". Yes a hiss! And as I savored the extended release of that one little fart, I felt a sensation. A sensation like none I'd ever felt before on this green Earth.
There was a coolness. A coolness from that escaping gas that refreshed my anus and rectum better than one of ol' Doc Miller's suppositories. It was a coolness that lasted. Stayed with me all day long! It put a skip in my step and a twinkle in my eye and that's why, my friends, I'm here today. Tellin' you about this new great way to fart.
Re:Super Timing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Super Timing (Score:5, Insightful)
I was just thinking... a single set of credentials for every online service, what could possibly go wrong?
... created by the government and sent to the lowest bidder on a system with no accountability for failure.
We'll be lucky if the oxygen tanks work properly.
Re:Super Timing (Score:4, Insightful)
why would we read it as that?
Because of past history, the government has been trying to force a national ID on everyone since at least the early 2000's. Remember the Real ID Act?
coming up for a single sign in is good efficiency, and cost savings.
It might be good efficiency, but having a single log in for everything is the absolute worst security model you can have. It would only take one web site infected by malware to compromised your entire online presence. Even us old timers know that you don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Identity verification should be a core function of a national government. This can be done right: by creating an agency that does not aggregate data, and serves no other function than to confirm that you are who you say you are when you ask it to. With proper use of two-factor keys and public cryptography, this agency can make data aggregation very difficult: your bank would know you by a different ID# than your cell phone provider, and neither would need to know your name or social security number.
It's true that a corrupt government can do identity verification very badly, turning it into a panopticon. But corporations don't have the longevity, security, or nationwide reach to be able to do the job well, and a corrupt government can simply force corporations to hand over identity data. So in the worst case scenario, identity verification by corporation is no better than by government. And having no centralized authority at all doesn't work either: the fragmentary system we use now is easy to aggregate, and its resistance to identity theft is only as strong as its weakest link -- which is typically very, very weak.
With identity verification managed by government, we can at least use electoral pressure to hold the identity agency responsible for its actions, and fight corruption within it. If it's managed by anyone else, we have no control over it at all.
Re:Two words (Score:3, Insightful)
You missed his point. He's saying people did vote for Democrats and now we are totally fucked, because there are never any serious Republican candidates. If only someone would run against the Democrats, things could (maybe possibly if we're both really lucky and really try hard) get better. But since the Republicans have abandoned the country, the kind of people who limit themselves to voting R-or-D (users of the "lesser of two evils" strategy) have no choice but to vote Democrat. (Now, we might not respect people who use that strategy, but you can't deny they are a majority of voters, hold most of the power, and that political campaigns must take them into account as pretty much the prime consideration.)
The Democrats are withdrawing their support for America too, just not as rapidly as the Republicans, so the Democrats win by default.
And that's exactly what happened in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. (Also 2004, but the situation was reversed.) Take a look. Who ran against Obama? Nobody serious, that's who. The R's whole crop was just a bunch of characters written by The Daily Show for comedic value, rather than being actual people. The Republicans gave the office to Obama, by not putting forth any candidates (well, they did put forth two of them (Paul and Johnson in 2012, for example), but then the registered Republican voters squashed them both in the primaries).
Maybe it's not a matter of "vote Democrat." Maybe it's a matter of every single American needing to register as a Republican, and fucking voting in the primaries so that we can have a real presidential election some day. Because until American becomes willing to vote third party, we're going to continue to have R or D people. So why not get some real politicians onto those two ballot slots?