Keith,
moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu wrote on 08/09/2002 14:34:27:
The US government is not trustworthy. A government that will break its
own constitution at a whim will think nothing of issuing false
credentials,
revoking certificates, and committing identity theft any time it is
convenient (of course they will claim it is in the national interest but
nobody will be able to verify such claims); and a government-controlled
PKI
would give them much more ability to do this than they currently have
with
paper documents.
Viewed as an absolute, no government, institution or individual is
completely trust-worthy. We might not even be happy if they were. Trust is
relative. It would be fantastic is we could build a broad web of trust
that didn't depend upon the trustfulness of any government, institution or
individual, but I don't think that is possible. The question, therefore,
is can we find any entities (governments, institutions, individuals, etc.)
that are trust-worthy enough. The answer I think is yes. We'd be in much
better shape if everyone had access to suitably reliable identities, even
if occasionally the issuing institution betrayed our trust. There is of
course and ancillary issue which is much more worrying to Americans and
(yes Marc) Britons, and that would be an absolute requirement to employ
that identity for non-voluntary transactions. Americans and Britons don't
have to carry identity cards and don't want to, though clearly they are
willing to produce suitable guarantees of identity when entering into
certain voluntary transactions. E.g., boarding an airplane, entering of
leaving a country, or cashing a check, etc. Europeans on the other hand
have been carrying identity cards for a long time, and at least since the
demise of totalitarian government, don't seem particularly worried by
this.
Nick
Nick Shelness
Independent Technology Consultant
Fellow - Differéntis Ltd.
Advisor - Oak Investment Partners
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