[Aurornis]

> It's anonymous. The clerk or his POS system knows your name and age, but doesn't know your number. The vendor providing the tape doesn't know your number or your name.

Where does this 3rd party identity token provider come from?

For government-issued identity tokens, there are not separate parties. It's just the government, and they can choose to link whatever they want in their internal system if they decide it's in the interests of national security.

You're also forgetting that lottery tickets are tracked. This is how they can announce which store sold the winning ticket before anyone steps forward with it. It would be trivial to match a buyer to the ticket if they wanted to inspect the records. In the case of a government identity token service, there isn't even a separation of parties providing the records. They do it all and can have all the data.

[vkou]

> Where does this 3rd party identity token provider come from?

Some oracle whose job it is to print tokens and hand out rolls to the stores (and to the websystems). They would know which store got which roll, and which website authenticated it, but not who each ticket from that roll went to.

With a big enough roll, this is essentially anonymous.

Yes, lotteries know which store got the winning ticket, but they have no idea which of the patrons in the store got it. Not unless they ask Eve to get her telescopic lens and notepad out.

[Aurornis]

I'm talking about identity token services.

You're saying the real solution is that we bring in a private, 3rd-party company to start checking our IDs to access websites now?

[what]

It’s millions of third party companies checking ids. Anywhere that sells alcohol or tobacco could do it.

[vkou]

I was asked if this problem can be solved in an anonymous manner. I gave a solution that is pretty anonymous and fairly cheap.

I am not actually advocating for it. I'm just saying how it's possible to solve it given those constraints.