Ask HN: Would you use a government digital ID to sign on to HN?

The one and only site I will use a government ID of any kind is irs.gov and their auth provider id.me (this was a one time validation). Even then I rarely log into it. If they had a physical office that was close to me I would go there instead but they are a multiple hour drive. I only use their site to verify they received my payment so they don't play dirty games again.

No, that would have a strong "damping effect" on much of the comms here.

That's for signaling/logging you "really are" someone. That has a place and can be quite useful, e.g. when that is important. I don't really think HN one of those places.

HN thrives on pseuds, for good reasons.

HN doesn't even need/use "sign in by Facebook". HN is quite simple, and it works well enough as designed.

That would be like, for OfficialProfileHackerSocial.com or something. It could work, but it would no longer be HN.

That's a negatory.

Whatever happened to privacy?

No, absolutely not.

Unless it's to do official government business like taxes, I won't use any website requiring official digital ID.

If that means I can't use most of the internet, so be it.

yeah, no. Also I stopped using logins like "sign in with Facebook/Google/Whatever" when I realized I don't have any real control over any of those accounts. They can be revoked on a whim with no recourse.

id.me asked me to log in. I checked. It looked legitimate.

Asking for linked accounts, I chose the V.A. and thus began a round of uploading, and then social security number, at which point I just logged out.

I trust nobody and nothing at this point.

Send me snail mail.