The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)
"We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "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."
The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project, Locke said.
Details about the "trusted identity" project are remarkably scarce. Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.
Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. "I don't have to get a credential, if I don't want to," he said. There's no chance that "a centralized database will emerge," and "we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this," he said.
So, if everybody won't 'have to' get it, what's the point? How much safer will we be? What's up with this, anybody heard about it? Let me know what you think....
geeeZ
10 comments:
All I can think of is the mark of the Antichrist.
My first reaction: too much possibility of hacking.
We've seen the hacking of other "secure" systems, including the identities of veterans -- through the VA and the DOD, I believe.
I wonder if these "trusted digital identities" will take away the possibility of being an anonymous blogger? Never mind the assurances in the article.
IT's worse than a national ID card unless the card has a RFID chip in it.
Can you imagine the fed gov being able to track everything you do online?
The Constitution really needs to be changed for privacy rights in the context of new technologies.
I'm sure they'll use 666-bit encryption.
Hello "1984".
""We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system."
Ummmm, when the government says it's only here to help, look out!
This reminds me of "there's no public option" in the healthcare bill. Right, they just took over the medical insurance industry, and health providers with government mandates and regulations, effectively controlling our healthcare.
So now it's a tracking program of internet users. Oh it'll be begun by private industry which of course will be beholden to, no doubt, government mandates! It'll be voluntary? Maybe at first, but this slope is very slippery.
As Z points out in her post, if it's voluntary, what's the point? Why would the government be so anxious to establish a so-called heightened security ID program if it's voluntary?
Well if you choose not to use it, but the online vendors, banks, or any sales outlet like say, ebay, demands it in order to accept your business, would it then be voluntary?
This is how these things start. First it may be voluntary, but then gradually, it will be more and more the norm, until it will be mandated by the Commerce Dept. thus making all our financial transactions online trackable.
Of course there will be a database. Every enterprise such as ebay, will have one. So what's to prevent the government from demanding those databases be shared with the government at some point?
So let's see, the IRS has access to our bank accounts, mandated in the healthcare bill, and now the Commerce Dept. will no doubt have access to our financial transactions online.
Another camel's nose under the tent. It won't be long before all the camels will need a bigger tent.
Beware the pretty, benign sounding words, and euphemisms, and remember this: Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!
Pris
PS. I suggest we should call our representatives in DC. Let's not wait until it's too late.
To me, this is the redux of anti-libertarian leftist Bill Clinton's "Clipper chip" idea to facilitate hacking and eavesdropping upon telephone and internet communications (and possibly planting incriminating information therein to frame political enemies)
You're right Beamish
And then it becomes super easy to modify the tracking database or files and say a political opponent, or even a citizen, had some, let's say, pedophile material on his machine.
How do you prove the system wrong?
It is frightening.
I see this move as yet another gradual take over of the freedoms of the people of this democratic republic. It will not end for us if we allow this to be enacted.
EVERYTHING these politicians dream up is calculated to strengthen ABSOLUTE POWER and CONTROL from the CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.
To achieve the dictatorial power they long for --–– and sincerely believe they DESERVE, because they KNOW they are SO much SMARTER, better EDUCATED and ENLIGHTENED than the rest of us --–– they will gladly LIE, CHEAT, STEAL and KILL to attain their oh-so-noble goals. These filthy DICTOCRATS are obsessed with a fervent belief that "the ends justify the means."
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.""Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty."
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
"The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power. The prize of the General is not a bigger tent, but command."
Oliver W. Holmes (1841-1935)
"The lesson we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."
~ Mr. Strohmann -- High School Civics Teacher c. 1958-59
~ Submitted by FreeThinke
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