OT: MS Passport to be used for online National ID system??

Jeff Hellige wrote: What's wrong with X.509 over SSL, in those few, isolated instances where ID is actually relevant or required? All vendors can support this. Most do already. Aside from subsidizing MS, all this will do is encourage unnecessary ID'ing, with the effect of reducing security, esp. given Passport and Microsoft's established track record. It will generally increase entropy and opportunities for Kafkaesqe bureaucratic irrelevance standing in the way of actually getting anything productive accomplished, and even inflicting actual harm on citizens. I should note that I am against the anti-trust suit. Three left turns still make a wrong, there, as well as here. Who set up the path MS took anyway? A succession of U.S. Congresses requiring the courts to make judgements based on conflicting, shifting, political and economic grounds, rather than justice or constitutional principles, among other things. Duh. MS is just a conventient whipping boy. Like a host of industrial giants in the '50s and '60s. jbdigriz