Why there aren't Internet Passports?

[mihaieminescu37]

Hi, I was just wandering why there's no passport on the Internet. When we travel to a country, we need a passport to identify ourselves, and if we did something bad in the past, we will not be allowed to walk in that country. It should be the same on the Internet, this will prevent fraud. In addition, a website will be able to ban an user and that user will never be able again to access that website. What do you think? Nobody will try again to hack computers, distribute viruses and send spam!

[carl6969]

Sounds like a pretty good idea if there was some way to make it work. I am reasonably sure that if this concept was feasible somebody would have tried to implement it by now. Electronic Internet credentials such as you are suggesting could, (and would), be forged, just as paper or plastic credentials are forged. People put up convincing websites and send convincing emails masquerading as reputable well known companies or organizations and attempt to victimize unsuspecting individuals. There would probably be some technical problems as well as both websites and individuals would need to have systems in place to both send, read, and process these credentials.

[essellar]

There was a program something like that at one time: the Thawte Web of Trust. At one level, it revolved around SSL certificates, but there was a verification mechanism that could be used by just about anybody. In essence, you were "nobody" until you had been trusted by at least one TWoT "Notary", and if enough Notaries trusted you, you could become a Notary yourself. Get blackballed, though, and you're "nobody" again -- and regaining trust isn't easy in a community where trusting the untrustworthy is grounds for losing trust yourself isn't easy. (Think of these Notaries as passport "guarantors".) It took money to run the program, though, and while it might have fit well with Mark Shuttleworth's view of the world, it doesn't quite fit Verisign's business model, so the project was closed.

[xav0989]

The thing is that passports identify you as a citizen of a certain country, rather as then as yourself. Now the country you are visiting knows things like your criminal history because countries share that information. If there were no information sharing, the country you are visiting would never know you, for instance, committed a series of first degree murders and were just released.
Now the problem is that on the internet, there are no boundaries, there are no countries. It's one big place, there are no limits. There is no real governing body. While most users abide by the recommendations, you don't have to, and you are under no obligations to do so.

[bhupendra2895]

We all are divided due to geopolitical issues in real world.At least internet is the place where we are connected with each other.This is the place where we can have relationship with person of each type regardless of difference in age, color, religion, country and.....so on.

Although every government around the world wants to govern internet.One government had developed the great firewall.Some governments had faced trouble due to social internet and most of them banned few famous social networking sites and in future they can develop their greatest firewalls too.Internet is a very wild place and very unsecure, at the same time it offers wealth of information.Its just like you are in wild forest with huge amount of tasty fruits and wild animals around you.Remember we need forest for ecological balance, we can't destroy it, so its up to us when we visit forest, how we keep ourselves secure.Same rule applies to internet, it needs governance but that governance should be self governance.An authority like UN can promote good practices about using internet.

As far issues of passport is concerned, may be some developers around the world might be working on it, ;)

[conzone]

whell my .net passport works with microsoft sites and others

[Qombat]

You're not taking into account the frequency of your 'border crossings' on the internet as opposed to actual border crossings. Unless you fly international every week (and even then it's nothing in comparison the amount of internet sites I visit per day).

[renr3n]

Somebody can and will breach any kind of security especially on the internet. There are many issues on security especially on home, office, and school that cannot be completely secured (as of now). How much more can you secure the entire earth? As they say, there is no 100% security. What you were thinking might be a security nightmare.

[Qombat]

Somebody can and will breach any kind of security especially on the internet. There are many issues on security especially on home, office, and school that cannot be completely secured (as of now). How much more can you secure the entire earth? As they say, there is no 100% security. What you were thinking might be a security nightmare.

Defeat a thumbprint and/or retina scanner and your post is valid.
Until then...

Security really is no matter in today's society if implemented logically.
Convenience is.

[galaxyAbstractor]

isn't this like what they try to do in china, or something similar... This will kill anonymity 100%. Also, Internet is no country