Well, it's been doomed for quite awhile now, but especially now... http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/09/obama-administration-moves-forward-with-unique-internet-id-for-a/
I read about that last night. My understanding is that it will be voluntary, so I am doubtful that it will take off.
I'm pretty sure this will just make it incredibly easy for identity theft to occur. You'd have access to everything as soon as you had access to one. And doesn't Google toolbar already have auto-fill field options to automatically fill in username/password fields, for sites that don't already remember your account? I'm pretty sure the real reasons for this are completely different (i.e. internet browsing habits being monitored and easily linked to a real person). Anyway hopefully New Zealand doesn't do anything like this.
I'm very worried, because lately the US has had a very heavily influence on Canadian policy, especially security policy.
Okay people calm down. Not to sound rude or anything, but NEVER trust engadget to put up the full story. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/25/national-strategy-trusted-identities-cyberspace "The NSTIC, which is in response to one of the near term action items in the President’s Cyberspace Policy Review, calls for the creation of an online environment, or an Identity Ecosystem as we refer to it in the strategy, where individuals and organizations can complete online transactions with confidence, trusting the identities of each other and the identities of the infrastructure that the transaction runs on. For example, no longer should individuals have to remember an ever-expanding and potentially insecure list of usernames and passwords to login into various online services. Through the strategy we seek to enable a future where individuals can voluntarily choose to obtain a secure, interoperable, and privacy-enhancing credential (e.g., a smart identity card, a digital certificate on their cell phone, etc) from a variety of service providers – both public and private – to authenticate themselves online for different types of transactions (e.g., online banking, accessing electronic health records, sending email, etc.). Another key concept in the strategy is that the Identity Ecosystem is user-centric – that means you, as a user, will be able to have more control of the private information you use to authenticate yourself on-line, and generally will not have to reveal more than is necessary to do so." In other words, it's not like EVERY citizen must use authentication to access the internet... It's just to prevent identity theft and what-not. In order for it to be something REQUIRED, the entire planet would have to agree to it, because the U.S. doesn't house every site and server. I don't think we should worry about this. Engadget went overboard saying "that would involve giving each American a unique online identity." Doing so would be impossible, and would really make the wonders of Wifi obsolete. It just means you use the same account to pay your phone bill as your mortgage and taxes is all.
