[SoftTalker]

We also need changes so that posession of identifying information is not sufficient to establish identity. That sounds like a tall order but clearly this information is leaking all over the place and just because someone has my identifying numbers and date of birth and mother's maiden name and signature and fingerprints and whatever else, should not be adequate to gain access to bank accounts or execute contracts and other legal agreements.

[zrm]

The hard part of this isn't that we don't know how to do it, it's that people don't like the consequences of it.

Your bank can give you a bank card with cryptographic keys in it and then you need the card to make a transaction. But then if you lose the card...

At which point we fall back to birth certificates and things because there's nothing else available. The alternative would be that if you lose your bank card, you lose your money. Which could be mitigated by e.g. having backup cards that you keep at home in a safe, but some people would lose those too, and what then?

[MereInterest]

Why would losing your bank card mean losing your money? The bank card would be there to establish identity when performing a transaction. Going to a branch in person with government-issued photo id would be the way to establish identity when generating a bank card. It’s a pain to do, but it only needs to be done for a new account or to revoke/replace a card.

By analogy, the cryptographic key on the bank card is a cross between a session token and a private key. Like a private key, it is never directly exposed for verification. Like a session token, it can be replaced.

[zrm]

> Going to a branch in person with government-issued photo id would be the way to establish identity when generating a bank card.

You need to bootstrap it all somehow. All you've done is move the authentication problem to how you get a government id.

Suppose your house burns down and you're standing on your lawn in your pajamas with no identity documents of any kind. What now?

[SoftTalker]

At least walking into a bank with a fake birth certificate and other forged identty is not a form of impersonation that can be done remotely and at scale.

[e_i_pi_2]

I think there's generally considered to be three classes of authentication methods

- something you know, like a password - something you have, like an RFID card - something you "are", like a fingerprint

You can add multiple of these and choose from different categories to add security, but each time you do it also gets less convenient. You could require a birth certificate, DNA test, and social security number for any access to a bank account, but then it wouldn't really work as a checking or savings account, and if you lose your birth certificate you're locked out of your account.

Definitely worth considering the other side - when you need to access the account how much inconvenience and delay are you willing to put up with before you can? For a checking account it seems like people usually just want a single one of them - the debit card, account login, or face/fingerprint to authenticate