A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by exabrial on Thursday February 09, 2023 @10:49PM (#34735378)

how about everyone gets a pgp key to establish a long term online identity... kinda like keybase sought to do.

Not so great for sending secret messages, but really great for an identity toehold.

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by EvanAnderson on Thursday February 09, 2023 @11:03PM (#34735461)

The USPS would be a great fit for this. Thru have delivery and address / identity verification infrastructure and lots of local physical presence. They could issue tokens and act as the root CA for the PKI.

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by DesiLurker on Friday February 10, 2023 @12:14AM (#34735887)

and also maybe a 1GB email mailbox for a small fee. that might serve as a good alternative to the ad supported webmail prevailing today.

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by ROTMetro on Friday February 10, 2023 @01:25AM (#34736320)

The USPS would be horrible for this. Small town post offices are too vindictive and not professional enough to be given this level of authority/power.

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by woodruffw on Thursday February 09, 2023 @11:30PM (#34735627)

Most people struggle not to lose their credit cards (which can be disabled and replaced without significant pain), much less long-term key material. I shudder at the thought of civil servants needing to understand key revocation.

(That's even before quibbling over whether PGP would be the right choice for civil cryptographic identities, which it probably isn't.)

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by kalleboo on Thursday February 09, 2023 @11:53PM (#34735765)

In some countries you get your private key embedded in the smart chip in your government ID card (accessible by NFC from any recent smartphone or a $10 USB reader), which you'll want to replace anyway if you lose it.

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by anonporridge on Thursday February 09, 2023 @10:54PM (#34735405)

You trust the average individual to keep a private key secure and backed up?

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by candiddevmike on Thursday February 09, 2023 @11:12PM (#34735524)

I imagine it would be the equivalent of a digital driver's license: signed by the government, can be revoked/reissued if you go in person to the post office or something.

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by toomuchtodo on Thursday February 09, 2023 @11:14PM (#34735537)

https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/id-card/

https://www.cac.mil/common-access-card/

https://www.fedidcard.gov/home

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by piuantiderp on Friday February 10, 2023 @03:11AM (#34736980)

The mexican version of the IRS already does that.

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Re:A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers al... by LinuxBender on Friday February 10, 2023 @11:54AM (#34742242)

I like the idea but my preference would be a hybrid of this.

- Go to the post office, have ID verified, papers verified, pictures taken, GPG keys created multiple so you can revoke one and leap-frog to another without being in an orphaned state, ID card printed that has a GPG signed PDF417 [1] code on both sides and a color picture.

- Lost card? Go back to post office and have them revoke your card and your active GPG key. Get new card that uses one of your unused GPG public keys that have already been uploaded to the various government servers.

- No RFID, no NFC, no Magstrip, no eco-friendly plastic. Make this thing nearly indestructible and only the PDF417 is used by sensors and can be scanned or photographed by someone paying their taxes or filing other government forms.

- Braille dots along top of card to make it easy to find the card and to show which way to hold and insert card in readers that should also have corresponding braille dots.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF417

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