Microsoft, Accenture Team Up On Blockchain-based Digital ID Network (reuters.com) 53
Accenture and Microsoft are teaming up to build a digital ID network using blockchain technology, as part of a United Nations-supported project to provide legal identification to 1.1 billion people worldwide with no official documents. From a report: The companies unveiled a prototype of the network on Monday at the UN headquarters in New York during the second summit of ID2020, a public-private consortium promoting the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goal of providing legal identity for everyone on the planet. The project aims to help individuals such as refugees prove who they are in order to gain access to basic services such as education and healthcare. Blockchain, first developed as a public ledger of all transactions in the digital currency bitcoin, is increasingly being used to securely track data in other fields.
About time (Score:2)
I've been waiting for this tech to get into the ID biz
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Complete lack of trust. (Score:4, Informative)
I can't think of two companies I'd trust less.
So this is truly a test: Can strong enough cryptography overcome complete lack of confidence in counterparties.
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Math is math. I don't know this particular project but what the "blockchain" would allow you to do is to create a history for those people who need it.
The key point of worry is control of the passphrase. Say I make an unbreakable passphrase = "Bernie and Donald sitting in a tree k i s s i n g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Hillary in a baby carriage."
What happens if I forget it?
What happens if I give it to somebody else (stupidity, blackmail, whatever)
What happens
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What the hell are you talking about? Why are passphrases relevant to this discussion?
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If you have access to this information then you need a pass phrase. But what if you forget your pass phrase or die or are in a coma?
good business, just ask IBM (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM was in this business in the 1930s in Europe.
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What's next? (Score:3)
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It will be your identification pony once Vermin gets the presidency.
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As long as it's not done via voice recognition, otherwise I'm Not Sure.
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What can possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
Previous article https://politics.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org] about almost 200,000,000 US voters' info leaking. Next it's going to go global. Bad idea.
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Deer God (Score:4, Informative)
With accidenture you might as well be shoveling money to a furnace.
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We've hired them for about three dozen projects I know about. I think only one ever delivered a product. Some of the projects were as simple as making our shopping cart on Drupal responsive. We finally hired a local high school student who did it in 1/4 of the time that it took the five Accenture employees six months to fail at.
I don't understand why people trust Microsoft, but I really don't understand why in the hell anyone would ever trust Accenture.
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Have you ever been blown by an Accenture marketer? Until you have, you can't know.
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https://buyandsell.gc.ca/procu... [buyandsell.gc.ca]
Okay, is anyone nervous about this? (Score:3)
On one side, we have Microsoft, mass data collector who from Windows 8 started force feeding ads, private data extraction (see list here : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-... [microsoft.com]), also force feeding updates, lying about the nature of a number of their updates (categorized "critical" which includes a new ad server?!?) and their trying to force feed upgrades from Windows 7 (now trusting updates to windows 7 is also an issue).
On the other side we have Accenture. Does anyone remember that this is the new name for Author Anderson, who had a scandal with fudging financial records of a number of major corporations (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1023409436545200).
And THESE people are creating legal verification records? Also remember Accenture does a LOT of IT recruiting now. Anybody see a new data fudge coming? A new name and hair dye may change the appearance of a tiger, but it doesn't change it's stripes or it's nature.
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Accenture was previously known as Author Anderson Consulting, which was a distinct organization from Author Anderson Financial Services(the one with the notorious problem).
Accenture changed their name because the old one was contaminated by association, not because they specifically did anything wrong.
And Accenture has been doing lots of tech hiring for at least a dozen years now. (the culture is very big on 'up or out').
No comment on how effective their products are however(they are quite happy to hire 27
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Double-edged sword (Score:3)
From the article:
"Without an identity you can't access education, financial services, healthcare, you name it. You are disenfranchised and marginalized from society," David Treat, a managing director in Accenture's financial services practice, said in an interview.
And with one, you can't "start a new life." You can't leave the mistakes of youth behind. You can't hide from crazed ex's. You can't slough off whatever it is that has made your life untenable or even hazardous in order to begin again.
Or maybe you can, if you have enough money... I wonder what the "New Life" service will look like and if it will come with different levels?
Bronze = new ID going forward, but your old ID is still connected to you, and your new ID references your old ID.
Silver = new ID, your old ID can no longer be used to retrieve current information about you, but your new ID can references your old ID
Gold = new ID, and there is no connection between the new and old IDs.
Platinum = new ID with a fake history, old ID shows you died, and you get to select your fake death and fake new history from a menu.
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"select your fake death and fake new history from a menu."
Cookie-cutter is how it's obvious...
Accenture (Score:2)
freedom in the 21st century (Score:1)
Anyone who is not immediately repelled and horrified by this concept is not, and has never been free.
If a free person is not breaking any law then they are free to complete any transaction they would like without providing documentation or proof to a third party, including the government. Any excuse presented to curtail your freedom is just that, a transparent excuse to put you in chains. War on terror, drugs, think of the children, etc. Part of the cost of living in a free society is understanding everyone
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There are hundreds of applications where a publicly viewable transaction history is a good thing, even for freedom loving individuals.
As if... (Score:2)
Yea, as if ledgers can't be forged in a democratic-based blockchain.
Fuck right off you scam-sniffing fucks.
Microsoft _and_ Accenture? (Score:3)
So, over budget, behind schedule and full of bugs? They just need to add Oracle to the mix to get the trifecta of bad businesses! ;)
Re: Microsoft _and_ Accenture? (Score:2)
Also insecure as hell, add Oracle and both the UN and Accenture will be on the verge of insolvency at the end of the journey. Without Oracle, they'll just get fucked over and never grow further as a company.
Abandon ship! (Score:2)
You can bet MS only wants to get this fast money before it collapses.
Get out while you still can.
that's how it begins ... (Score:2)
"The project aims to help individuals such as refugees"
Do we all remember the old poem? "They came for the Wookies, but I wasn't a Wookie so I didn't speak up..."
So here they claim to 'help' the poorest, the disenfranchised and desperate. How can we criticize that? But where does it stop? Other minorities, other classes of poor and ignorant will be added to the list. Then union members and unemployed Uber drivers. I'll tell you where it stops--at the 1%.
Why limit these things? (Score:2)
"The project aims to help individuals such as refugees prove who they are in order to gain access to basic services such as education and healthcare."
Why limit these things to people who prove who they are instead of just letting everyone at all have access?
*cheers* (Score:1)
Tagging the cattle, how noble
Not going to be decentralized. (Score:2)
I will be VERY surprised if this is a decentralized solution with irreversible transactions, etc. Most likely it's just a bunch of buzzwords for a new centralized database that can be edited at whim by whoever happens to be deemed an authority.