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Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

businessweek.com

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Re: Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

#61

Post by Natsu »

evilduck wrote: post #43
rorrr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make no sense. Driver's licenses are required , if you want to drive any car.

False. Drivers licenses are only required if you want to drive on public roads. If you have a lot of property with private roads (farms, quarries, etc), you're free to drive unlicensed. Hell, you don't even have to get a license plate for your car if you never put it on a public road (although you'll probably have to register it with the state for property tax reasons).

In other words, it will be possible to avoid this ID, but so ridiculously impractical for most people that almost everyone will be expected to have and use one.

Yeah, that sounds about right to me.

Re: Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

#62

Post by pyre »

nickpinkston wrote: post #46
javert wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it seems like where the companies (incl. GOOG) are trying to take net neutrality - into a controllable space with gov't teeth... This is why I'm opposed to net neutrality. Net neutrality has always been about "a controllable space with gov't teeth." Net "neutrality" is a contradiction in terms because it requires the government and corporate cronies to make it work, and the government and corporate cronies are no…

Yea, it's hard to say. Idealistically, I'm against NN on those grounds, but pragmatically, I tend to think some type of net neutrality may be able to prevent the internet from going the way of cable TV. To put it in utilitarian terms, I'd say the net benefit of NN > than the losses of possible stifled tech innovation and new law for corporatism - the latter already bought by them anyway. In the end - I'd love to have…

  > prevent the internet from going the way of cable TV
Not sure what you mean by this? Preventing government-granted local/regional monopolies? That seems to argue against government intervention.

Re: Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

#63

Post by nostrademons »

jerf wrote: post #56
T-R wrote: post #16

Atwood and others have been praising the idea of a centralized identification system for a while, and tying it to a government identification system makes sense, but tying this to the Obama administration could be a marketing disaster. I can already hear Glenn Beck associating it with Nazi Germany and advocating against its use. Similarly, its association with Verizon, AT&T, Paypal, Symantec, and Google is likely to…

... you think the reaction would be substantially different if the Bush administration seriously proposed this? Same script, different actors. The best measure of how much of our political arena our politicians aren't actually serious about is which opinions flip 180 when control passes from the demopublicans to the republicrats. "Hey, remember how we were against the idea of the Internet being controlled by the gove…

It's interesting, in just about every successful organization I've been a part of, the defining factor has been trust. Communities that trust their members tend to thrive; those who assume their members are out to screw them tend to get screwed.

And as a society, we don't trust anyone.

I wonder what that says about America.

Re: Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

#64

Post by nostrademons »

thwarted wrote: post #26
T-R wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not crazy at all, but it seems we've reached a point in the conversation where we can't produce anything meaningful without it getting drowned out by screams of "Fascism" and "Plutocracy". I think that both Government and Business stand to benefit from it enough that it's possible that there weren't underhanded motivations involved, or at least that they won't come to fruition.

Underhanded? I agree, most likely not. Created by busybodies though? Highly likely. EDIT: And I say this because I was reading something about this (can't find the link now) where it said something like the rate of on-line retail is growing and is now a 30 billion dollar business (I might be misremembering the numbers). And we must do something about this to protect it, protect it from fraud and a bunch of other "pro…

Fraud is usually a lagging indicator of high growth. First you get the growth, then you get the fraud, then the fraud causes the growth to reverse.

It's quite possible that people are seeing a rise in fraud and pre-emptively trying to address the problem rather than wait until things become completely unusable.

Re: Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

#66

Post by jschuur »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #39
rewind wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what? Saying there is zero chance of it being optional (once it exists) seems pretty extreme.

Zero chance. It will be optional in the way that TSA searches are optional at airports. Public Safety, of course. Terrorists, child molesters, hate speech. We'll have to be protected. Really, this script writes itself.

Relax. Breathe. Take a walk through a park and smell the roses.

Don't let the fear and negative thoughts cloud your head constantly and ask yourself how you can be positive and productive, without polluting the conversation with baseless doom and gloom statements.

Re: Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

#67

Post by chc »

pyre wrote: post #62
nickpinkston wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, it's hard to say. Idealistically, I'm against NN on those grounds, but pragmatically, I tend to think some type of net neutrality may be able to prevent the internet from going the way of cable TV. To put it in utilitarian terms, I'd say the net benefit of NN > than the losses of possible stifled tech innovation and new law for corporatism - the latter already bought by them anyway. In the end - I'd love to have…

> prevent the internet from going the way of cable TV Not sure what you mean by this? Preventing government-granted local/regional monopolies? That seems to argue against government intervention.

When you phrase it that vaguely, you can make anything sound like anything else. Oh, you're into carbon-based lifeforms? I know an amoeba you'll get along with well.

Re: Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

#68

Post by jeisc »

Why would we trust the government to secure our identities online? Does the government have any kind of interest to manipulate this system from the inside to respond to its needs? The federal intelligence community for one would be very interested by creating fake identities for its operatives thus creating a potential security hole for others to exploit. On the US money is written, 'In God we trust' but NOT 'In the Government we trust'.

Re: Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

#69

Post by webXL »

Natsu wrote: post #59
javert wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it seems like where the companies (incl. GOOG) are trying to take net neutrality - into a controllable space with gov't teeth... This is why I'm opposed to net neutrality. Net neutrality has always been about "a controllable space with gov't teeth." Net "neutrality" is a contradiction in terms because it requires the government and corporate cronies to make it work, and the government and corporate cronies are no…

> Net neutrality has always been about "a controllable space with gov't teeth." Eh? No. It was formed as a reaction to plans announced by the big telcos to monetize traffic flowing through their networks. Specifically, they were going to hobble the connection speeds of any popular website like YouTube unless they were paid money. So people who weren't even their customers could have their traffic throttled merely bec…

everyone from the ACLU to the Christian Coalition was outraged by this naked money grab. Basically, almost everyone hated the idea.

If this isn't an example of selecion bias, I don't know what is. These are two groups everyone loves to hate, some of it justified because one promotes their Jesus-loving to the point where it doesn't make any sense and the other sometimes forgets to emphasize the A and C in their acronym as much as the L.

And when were the "big telco" plans announced? Did I miss that? Doesn't seem very competetive at a time when they were adding bandwidth and not raising rates.

Re: Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration

#70

Post by webXL »

wmf wrote: post #51
protomyth wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure we are at the point where we should be picking. We are still very early and e-commerce seems to be doing fine without it.

We are "very early" in the sense that we're in the same place as 1996: usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, and SSL. (Or maybe we're worse off, since we didn't have much phishing in 1996.) What is it going to take to get some progress here?

It's not the government's job to pick winners and losers. Think about the words you selected: bully and progress. Together those don't sound very democratic to me. It's ends justifying the means thinking that gets well-intentioned people into trouble. Progress is people wising up about security, not forcing them to use certain technologies.
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