The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized
In my ideal world, we have a framework for brick-and-mortar businesses to act as internet notary service providers.<p>If you want a general-purpose open-id style account, you visit a notary, and provide them with a fee and proof of your identity. You tell the notary how much information they can share (in particular, whether they can release your name to the internet, or just the "we verified this account is held by a real person" boolean).<p>The protocol would cover much more than passport info though. You could have a notary vouch that you're a licensed driver, or have a college degree, visited a certain country, etc.<p>That might cut through some flavors of online nonsense. It would also allow people to stay pseudonymous, and yet enable law enforcement to subpoena their identity, if they go on a killing spree, or hack a few million dollars worth of bitcoin.