I have to believe that this problem, which has been discussed for over four
years according to Bob, is a red herring.
If you drop the idea of trying to make DNs unique and go back to basics,
everything becomes much clearer.
I grant that *if* there were a way to make unique IDs for individuals
(a global database of genome sequences?), then you might have a foundation
for tracking down people, enforcing contracts, ....
This is utopian -- and probably to be avoided at all costs because of the
police-state side effects.
It's like the FBI wishing to have all rooms wired with microphones to their
central office and all crypto keys registered in their database. Yes, it
would make surveillance easier -- so they could enforce the social
contract, perhaps -- but the price is too high to pay.
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With a public key, you have a unique identifier. You don't need any other.
What that key doesn't give you is:
1. a way to track someone's physical body down in case of default of
contract
or
2. a way to make sure that two alleged people, A and B, are not the same
flesh and blood.
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Forget the unique DN and certification hierarchy. Go back to basics. How
are such assurances achieved today? If they are achieved without digital
signatures, they can be achieved with digital signatures. If they're not
achieved today (eg., not provably) and Society still functions then maybe
they don't need to be achieved any better in the new world of digital
signatures.
1) If I am going to loan someone money or otherwise enter a contract which
might require legal recourse, I can demand that the person with whom I
enter the contract present a message signed by my local police force
attesting to that person's ability to be found and arrested. That would
give me far more assurance than I have today with mere picture ID cards.
In this case, the "being" making a contract is the public key, not the
flesh-and-blood person. The public-key-being offers a living body as
collateral, by getting it to present itself at a police station and engage
in whatever is required by the police to guarantee trackability.
2) If I have no way to make sure that A does not send B a copy of every
message I send A, then what difference does it make that A and B might be
the same person? If what you're worried about is indebtedness for judging
loan potential, then you need a way to interrogate a given asset (eg., bank
account, mortgage, ...) to learn for what level of debt this is already
listed as collateral.
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These issues can be addressed more fully by someone who gives it more
thought and brings more experience to the subject than I do here. However,
a guaranteed unique DN is by no means necessary at any step of this
process. There is no such thing today and Society functions.
- Carl