The Commerce Department is proposing a system in which you will only need one password to access any web site on the Internet. The proposal could possibly use a chip to store encrypted information, with a single password, to connect to web sites that sign up for the program. According to the Commerce Department this will help consumers log on quickly to online sites and would increase online business sales.

According to one article it also stated that:

The plan calls for a single sign-in each time a computer or phone is turned on, using a device such as a digital token, a smart card, or a fingerprint reader. Once logged in, users would have access to any website that has signed up for the program. “You are your password in this system,” says John Clippinger, co-director of the Law Lab at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and an advocate of the plan.

So what this sounds like is that each of us could have our own unique Internet identity system or National ID of some sort, to log onto the Internet. The log-on would be controlled by a system that  would identify you, your computer, your smart phone or other device, so that you could shop online more securely. In addition the system should, in theory, make the web more secure for users. With just one log-on you could access Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google or any other online site.

Or will it? It would seem to me that such a system would allow a hacker to access everything you do online. By hacking just one single encrypted password, the system would save hackers a considerable amount of time, by just attacking a single log-on username or password. Once your ID is stolen the bad guys will have carte-blanche to everything you do online.

Another issue would be if your username and password were hacked, and you couldn’t log onto the Internet, who are you going to contact? As most of us already know, trying to contact any governmental agency is next to impossible. Maybe the government could have a toll-free number like U-Ben-Hacked ! LOL

What do you think? Good or bad idea?

Comments welcome.

Source – Bloomberg Businessweek