Normal people will lose key material. Systems administrators sometimes lose key material! In a sane world, it needs to be possible for someone with common sense to revoke and reissue your credential if you lose it. If this is categorically posisble, then your identity is leased, not owned.<p>Your SSH private key is not your identity, it&#x27;s just some bytes. Your identity is determined by <i>what public key is considered to be &quot;you&quot;</i>, i.e. what&#x27;s in ~&#x2F;.ssh&#x2F;authorized_keys. Your infrastructure provider can usually change this, with or without your permission.<p>Unless you own the <i>land</i> where the hard disk public key -&gt; account mapping resides, your identity is leased.