

Ask HN: Minimally-intrusive ways to verify real name? - jff

I'm sketching out a system which would need to associate public keys with real names. What's the best way to verify that the person submitting a key is, in fact, named "John Smith" as he claims? I've seen credit cards used for this purpose, but a lot of people are understandably wary of passing out credit card numbers.<p>A method involving actually phoning someone up, or sending snail mail, would also work. Each user would only have to verify once, although having provisions for invalidating a previous key would also be good.<p>Any thoughts?
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mschuster91
You might try out Facebook or Google Plus logins - users are accustomed to
these flows and both platforms are quite tight now when it comes to real
names.

Another way would be using credit-report sites, or having them submit a
scan/photo of their ID card/driver license. I do not know if this is legal in
the US, though.

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jeffreyshaw
IDology has a service for what you're looking for I believe. It's called KYC
or "Know Your Customer". I use it on my site to verify identities before
opening bank accounts in their name. For my use, we require SSN, DOB, and
address as inputs. It checks credit agency and other public data. If user
enters any of this info incorrectly, it switches to OOW "Out of Wallet" method
and will prompt user to answer questions only they should know, like "What
year did you purchase your Ford Bronco?" If they answer 2 out of the 3 of
these questions correctly it assumes they are who they say they are.

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jeffreyshaw
Not sure what your use case is; but rather than identifying the PERSON is
unique, you can identify that their PHONE NUMBER is unique. Require a text
message code be entered on screen. Most people have only 1 cell phone; and if
push comes to shove their real name is linked to their cell phone in most
cases, so they could be found out via court subpoena.

