[praveenster]

This might be an interesting avenue for the tech community to come up with a solution similar to digital certificates and apply it to SSN numbers with an RFC of sorts that gets whetted by security experts and submitted to the government as a proposal to fix the problem long term.

[s73ver_]

The thing is, it has to work completely offline. Not everyone uses computers.

[jaunkst]

Sure, but a public key could still be stored in the case of a security audit. And I don’t think the majority of mass breaching are on the paper level. We need a solution to allow a new revision of an identity to be issued, possible something block chain like.

[snuxoll]

Why does the block chain have to be applied to every problem? We already have a solution for this, many businesses and the US military use it - smart cards.

Generate a private key on the card, have the government sign it, keep it locked up with a PIN/password (and self destruct after X number of invalid attempts). You can verify authenticity offline as long as you can request the card to sign a response and verify the signature, problem solved.

[jaunkst]

It doesn't but it would be more ideal to have a decentralized identification system.

[s73ver_]

What would the blockchain bring to this? Nothing but a dependence on computers, and an inability for those without computers to use the system.

[jaunkst]

The risk is ONLINE..

[s73ver_]

The risk is not limited to online. And the use is most definitely not limited to online.