Management of signature keys for government

[Paul Leyland]

Ross wrote:

> An employee of the Evil Empire wrote:

8-)

>> It seems to me that he's analyzing only the cost and not the benefit of
the
>> process.   Consider: a very large number of people go to substantially
more
>> trouble than that described above so that they can obtain a passport. 
>
> So far, to get a passport I've just sent in a form and waited a few weeks

Amazing.  You must have been especially favoured, or do you have official
contacts you haven't told us about?   ;-)

I had to fill in a form, find someone reputable such as an MP (!) or JP to
vouch for me, have a mugshot taken,  pay a significant fee *and* wait
several weeks.  Rather more hassle and a longer delay than the process you
described for smart card initialization.

Indeed, the passport hassle analogy could be used as a counter-argument to
the claim that for performance reasons only 10k different keys will be
available.

> If the government tries to make the benefit from owning a `personal
signature
> card' comparable to that of owning a passport - and they are already
talking

That is a different matter entirely.  I was picking up only on your rather
one-sided views on why smart-card initialization would be too painful for
the majority of the population.

If you wish, I can provide example of other activities which seem to require
an inordinate amount of hassle which, nonetheless, large numbers of people
undergo.  Don't even get me on to the subject of house buying and selling
right now 8-(


Paul