In the coming months, the Obama administration is planning on passing a new proposal, the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, to the U.S. Commerce Department regarding a national “cybersecurity measure” that will aim to give each U.S. citizen their own unique Internet ID, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke assures us, “We are not talking about a national ID card.”
Locke explains:
“We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities.”
Other than the proposed idea and Locke’s assurances, there really aren’t many details to the project, other than the potential for a government-controlled system to emerge from the unique Internet ID project–which would probably be a bad thing–or a convenient way to access anything and everything on the Internet, using one simple unique ID–which would actually be a good thing.
However, even if the unique ID is simply that–and not some creepy national ID card–one must wonder what’ll happen if said ID becomes compromised. Most secure modern day Internet users use a few different passwords and logins for various accounts, so at least if one account becomes compromised, the rest of them may not; however, if there’s only one ID for everything on the Internet and that becomes compromised, the Internet suddenly becomes an even more terrifying place than it already is.
