From: sidney@taurus.apple.com (Sidney Markowitz)
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 94 21:04:22 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Pseudonymous ID cards?
Message-ID: <9407130403.AA13396@federal-excess.apple.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


analyst@Onramp.NET (Benjamin McLemore) wrote:
> digital IDs, insurance cards, credit cards, etc. that protect privacy

I've seen articles about that here and/or sci.crypt and places like that.
If you think in terms of cryptographic authentication of smaller pieces of
information instead of a card that can reveal all about someone, it isn't
too difficult. If a traffic cop wants proof that you have a valid driver's
license, all they really need access to is the key to verify the
authenticity of something that certifies that you have a valid driver's
license. Your card can provide that certificate without revealing any other
information about you than the fact that you are licensed to drive. The
good thing about this kind of setup is that information can be partitioned
so that only people with a reason to be authorized to get that information
would have access to it. The bad thing about this is that it still makes it
easy for the government to require that we all carry around a card that
tells everything about us and makes access to all that only a matter of
legal authorization. I don't want a society where my cryptographically
secured private information is required to be shown at every police
seatbelt/alcohol/immigrant/drug/pedophilia/sedition checkpoint.

 -- sidney <sidney@apple.com>