They went to Linux recently didn't they?
Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
91–100 of 194 posts
Re: Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Temporarily losing access is just inconvenience. Imagine the same but you lost the wallet with your only cash and your passport in pre-digital times, you are far from the nearest embassy and nobody understands your language. You are fully at the mercy of the locals and your money aren‘t coming back.
With Digital passports and ID's the route to recovery starts to get hairy. 1. You need to verify yourself in person to get id or passport. You may need someone you know with you and have real interview. 3. But government gives only digital ID's so you need a phone to get it. 4. You can't buy a new phone or get a new SIM unless you can pay for it. You can't pay for it unless you have a phone and credit cards there. Bu…
It's probably not a great idea to depend on friends or family to remotely bootstrap you out of a situation like that anyway, given deepfake impersonation scams.
Re: Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Temporarily losing access is just inconvenience. Imagine the same but you lost the wallet with your only cash and your passport in pre-digital times, you are far from the nearest embassy and nobody understands your language. You are fully at the mercy of the locals and your money aren‘t coming back.
With Digital passports and ID's the route to recovery starts to get hairy. 1. You need to verify yourself in person to get id or passport. You may need someone you know with you and have real interview. 3. But government gives only digital ID's so you need a phone to get it. 4. You can't buy a new phone or get a new SIM unless you can pay for it. You can't pay for it unless you have a phone and credit cards there. Bu…
Does any government in the world issue only digital IDs?
There‘s always possibility to have your travel passport as a backup (and when traveling abroad your domestic ID is suitable for recovering passport).
Re: Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand. We don't have real time revocation for passports, do we? In fact, we don't have real time revocation of any document until very recently...
We do. There are centralized databases of passport serial number, for blacklisting (revocation) or just persons of interest.
For all countries? I was always wondering about that when doing one of these wonderful "take a selfie of you holding your passport" "authentication" procedures...
Re: Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
For anything as high stakes as eID you need real-time revocation checks, which brings you back to at least some level of centralization.
Revocation lists can be distributed.
Yes, but they still originate somewhere, and if that source goes offline, you're still at risk of accepting stolen credentials.
Re: Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
#96Terrifying to live in a digital economy when something like this happens. You're usually about 1 service away from realising that the "money you have" is just an int32, that, if everything works properly, you can modify. Otherwise you have nothing except a pretty little plastic card. (I'm aware that payments systems are not affected, but it's a sobering realisation that I've had a couple of times, but it works enough…
Not an int32, but a BigDecimal.
Isn't it handled by COBOL or some other ancient language that only supports strings?
Re: Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Temporarily losing access is just inconvenience. Imagine the same but you lost the wallet with your only cash and your passport in pre-digital times, you are far from the nearest embassy and nobody understands your language. You are fully at the mercy of the locals and your money aren‘t coming back.
With Digital passports and ID's the route to recovery starts to get hairy. 1. You need to verify yourself in person to get id or passport. You may need someone you know with you and have real interview. 3. But government gives only digital ID's so you need a phone to get it. 4. You can't buy a new phone or get a new SIM unless you can pay for it. You can't pay for it unless you have a phone and credit cards there. Bu…
You are overthinking it. The physical cards to pay and identify yourself are not going anywhere. In fact, the same places that have the digital id rolled out are the places where having one issued is mandatory and often times it's also mandatory to have one in case the police asks you to identify yourself.
When I wanted to get a replacement id to be issued in the year 2019, I had to book an appointment, get to the place and by the time I got the desk, the clerk had the thing open with my face photo from the last time I had a passport issued.
There are less fortunate people, who have the hardcopy id present, but no digital file exists for it (because it was issued before the digital files became a thing) and the paper trail leads to the occupied territory. That is usually months long story where secondary sources are involved and sometimes you have to find a friend who can confirm your identity.
So yeah. Make sure that the issuing CA doesn't get overrun by orcs before the replica thinks and you a hardcopy that is trustworthy enough.
Re: Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
With Digital passports and ID's the route to recovery starts to get hairy. 1. You need to verify yourself in person to get id or passport. You may need someone you know with you and have real interview. 3. But government gives only digital ID's so you need a phone to get it. 4. You can't buy a new phone or get a new SIM unless you can pay for it. You can't pay for it unless you have a phone and credit cards there. Bu…
It's probably not a great idea to depend on friends or family to remotely bootstrap you out of a situation like that anyway, given deepfake impersonation scams.
For that kind of a thing you usually have to be present, for which deepfakes are not a threat yet.
Re: Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
#99I'm a British expat with a Danish job. I really dislike MitID and the Danish centralised world of (very good) public services that come with it. Each person has a number, CPR, which effectively defines your life solely to the state. Visit a library, doctor, tax man, anything official, and your ID is recorded. Buy alcohol online, go grocery shopping, use your bank card -- and sign in with it. This undoubtedly makes th…
I have experienced the same privacy culture shock in Denmark. Generally, I think the people’s trust in their government is the greatest social asset of the danish society, as well as their biggest blind spot.
Last year, I think, I saw someone talk about trust in Danish society and how it works. As a Dane it's not something I really think about, but I their conclusions where at least interesting. In Denmark you're given implicit trust, that's the default. Trust is given, not earned. That poses a problem for people coming from the outside, because trust can be lost, but because it's something that was given to you, there's not really any way to earn it back. If you don't understand that social contract, you can mess up your life pretty quickly, with no means of recovery.
Re: Tell HN: MitID, Denmark's digital ID, was down
#100Meanwhile the Netherlands is selling the DigiD system to foreign companies and today it came out that we are also are going to outsource of of our key tax systems to an American company.
> …today it came out that we are also are going to outsource of of our key tax systems to an American company.
That’s a remarkable failure to read the room, given the digital sovereignty initiatives across Europe.