[OpenID] owning one's own identity

[John Kemp]

On Sep 9, 2009, at 8:28 PM, Johannes Ernst wrote:

>
> On Sep 9, 2009, at 17:20, John Kemp wrote:
>
>> What services would the US government offer someone whose identity  
>> is asserted by a foreign IdP?
>
> Well, I'm a citizen of country A who happens to live in country B.  
> It makes every sense to me, as an individual, to use a country B  
> identity to identify myself to country A, because country B is  
> "where all my stuff is", and it's much easier to come to the office  
> for an id check, for example.

Like a social security number? Or an alien registration number  
perhaps? I think it would be quite natural for the government to offer  
services to those living within its boundaries who are not necessarily  
US citizens. One US government website I use myself already is the  
Immigration & Naturalization website - where I check the progress of  
my citizenship application. The government collected my email address  
in return for getting these status updates - it would have been quite  
nice if I could have instead given my OpenID.

>
>
> Where this gets really tricky is from a national security  
> perspective. I left that unsaid in what I wrote, but that is what I  
> meant.
>
> You could devise really, really insiduous attacks using an IdP  
> during, or in preparation for war time.

The problem with all identity systems where there is some disconnect  
(like the Internet ;) between humans is that you often need some level  
of assurance that the person asserting a claim is who he says he is.

- johnk