[MasterYoda900]

What if every newborn received a chip implant under the skin (cryptographically unbreakable, unauthorized removal punishable by law), linked to a central government database with the chip’s unique identifier and a profile of the newborn’s DNA signature?

[Joker_vD]

There are reasons why SSN or its equivalents are unpopular as web identities. Can you enumerate those reasons?

[tuwtuwtuwtuw]

Where I live the SSN-equivalent is extremely popular as web identity.

Can you explain why it shouldn't be?

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Not sure about where you’re from but US institutions often treat the SSN as a secret which should allow account access. Which it’s not by design but nobody wanted to make a better system; it’s why banks have claimed that they are not defrauded by people and instead the fraudsters “steal identities”.

To answer the question more directly, it’s treating the identifier like a password that is problematic.

[tuwtuwtuwtuw]

Okay, but that is then about authorization and not about "identity". I agree that treating it as a secret is a bad idea.

The person said SSN and equivalents, so I guess it depends on what is meant by equivalents.

Where I live my personal number is used as identity, but to actually prove I am the owner of it another mechanism is used (private keys embedded in certs). The personal number is very public info by design and can't be used as a secret.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

If my web identity was my personal government tax identification number, I would be worried that one could use that to fraudulently and successfully claim to be me with a fair number of institutions because the authentication mechanism is lacking efficacy.

[tuwtuwtuwtuw]

Yes, I understand, but you mix up identity with proof of identity.

My non-web identity is my name. But me saying that my name is John Doe is not a proof that this is my name. In the same way, me saying that I have identification number 12345678 isn't proof that I actually have that number.

As I wrote, I have a government issued identification number. This number can be looked up by any citizen in the country since it's public info. You can even look it up online - it's not secret.

But someone knowing the number doesn't mean they can prove it is their number, because proof of identity is not in the number itself - for that we use public/private keys and other secure mechanisms.

I understand that this is not how it works in the US because some organization treats the SSN as secret. But that's not an issue with government issued identity number as a form of identity, it's an issue with the US system. Other countries does not have the same issue, since they didn't mix up identity with proof of identity.

[maxcoder4]

Of course this is extremely stupid (basically using the "username" as a secret, something everyone in IT and itsec knows not to do). If we started using SSN-equivalent identifiers as online ID problem would solve itself because by then they're not a secret anymore.

In my country my national ID numbers are nowhere near as problematic as SSN on the US (from what I understand).

[spacebanana7]

Most consumer & enterprise web services are international, and making an implementation for every jurisdiction is burdensome.

There are also some ugly edge cases - what happens if somebody is too young to get a SSN equivalent (e.g NI numbers in the UK), or somebody expatriates, or if some government allows people to request a change to their SSN-equivalent, or if a customer is a refugee without an SSN equivalent?

I do think SSN-equivalent identifiers may be useful for services which are inherently for tax paying adults like some accounting/banking services or marketplaces.

[nine_k]

Some of the chips would malfunction or get destroyed in incidents. You still need an update protocol!

[tim333]

Not convinced that's a vote winner.

See for example UK id cards scrapped in 1952 and again in 2010

>...very unpopular with the public, and was regarded as an alien imposition on the British way of life. https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/identity-cards/

[extrememacaroni]

keep hackernews away from the newborns

[Dan42]

I can't believe such satirical gold is getting downvoted.

[goodpoint]

This is HN. There are equal probabilities that the post is not satirical and that the downvoters are not getting the sarcasm.