Re:NY Man Pleads Guilty in $20M SIM Swap Theft
by AnthonyMouse on Thursday December 16, 2021 @07:41PM
(#29586144)
> How about turning them into a kind of value-added identity verification service where any company wanting/needing an identity verification could rely on the Post Office to accept someone in person to prove who they are (through fingerprint, document, etc) and be the 3rd party to make this proof easy?
Consider how you would like the Post Office to verify your identity and then ask why someone else, e.g. the person you're trying to prove your identity to, couldn't do the exact same thing.
One advantage of an ID is that it's a physical token, so they can't just guess your password, they'd need to physically have it. Unless they can forge one, so you'd really want to use some kind of cryptography. You've just reinvented a YubiKey.
The actual problem isn't that we don't know how to solve this. It's that people prefer insecurity to minor inconveniences. Especially when the liability is on someone else.
Consider how you would like the Post Office to verify your identity and then ask why someone else, e.g. the person you're trying to prove your identity to, couldn't do the exact same thing.
One advantage of an ID is that it's a physical token, so they can't just guess your password, they'd need to physically have it. Unless they can forge one, so you'd really want to use some kind of cryptography. You've just reinvented a YubiKey.
The actual problem isn't that we don't know how to solve this. It's that people prefer insecurity to minor inconveniences. Especially when the liability is on someone else.