It is not only the .me TLD we should think about. Before .me and even during, there was also the .me.gov back when domains and such things were more delineated. There is the peril of not only contending with Montenegro but also the outside chance of Maine. Let's face it, .me was never a safe choice as a top-level domain for any country (or locality). It seems like a vanity TLD to too many people and it competes for a name space it has no place in. What we probably need is a whole new TLD specifically and only for something like this. I am sure IANA is capable, though policing it would be a nightmare, unless it were handed off to something like the defense department.
TreasuryDirect's login and account recovery experience has been notorious for years, both for user experience and for people easily getting locked out for weeks. It's good they're being careful with this rollout, as it serves both individual and institutional accounts where dollar amounts involved are epic even by bank standards, and rarely checked by hand, so even single account breaches are serious.
They used to support TOTP directly, but removed it in favor of their proprietary mobile apps. It's still TOTP under the hood though, just requires a couple API calls to "activate" it.
Does anyone know if there are any reasonable alternatives here if I don't want to create an ID.me account and hand my PII over to them? Do I just need to liquidate my positions and close my account out, or can I manage it offline via correspondence somehow? Seems absurd to have so quick a turnaround on this with no alternative options.
Last time I filed state taxes, I didn't qualify to use free electronic filing, because I was too poor, so I mailed in my taxes. I was a little concerned that postal employees present a security risk, but I'm not convinced it's more than the increased attack surface from whatever third parties handle electronic submission.
The more third parties they throw into the mix, especially when it's just to increase security theater, the more convinced I am that I should be mailing in any financial government paperwork, even if I am eligible to do so electronically.
A young relative of mine is having a miserable time cashing Treasury bonds that were gifted to her through TreasuryDirect for her tuition.
Treasury is requiring she get a medallion signature guarantee from a bank to access her funds but, like 40%+ of her generation, she uses online banking with no accessible branch. Treasury insists she can get this from any bank, but as the guarantor is liable for a loss, there's no way they will provide this to a non-client. They generally won't even make their ordinary notary public available.
So she is now switching financial institutions simply to access a modest amount in her TreasuryDirect account. If you are thinking about gifting saving bonds to someone: do them a favor and don't.
good grief. Guess I'll redeem my i series now. btw AI says print the redemption confirmation details while logged in prior to the cutover because you'll need them for taxes in 2027.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 23.8 ms ] threadSo many privacy concerns.
That will be rolled out before anyone can access the world wide web. And they will continue to claim it is for the protection of kids ...
And of course this will be used to track down illegal aliens.
[1] https://www.biometricupdate.com/202202/downwind-of-irs-decis...
They used to support TOTP directly, but removed it in favor of their proprietary mobile apps. It's still TOTP under the hood though, just requires a couple API calls to "activate" it.
The more third parties they throw into the mix, especially when it's just to increase security theater, the more convinced I am that I should be mailing in any financial government paperwork, even if I am eligible to do so electronically.
Treasury is requiring she get a medallion signature guarantee from a bank to access her funds but, like 40%+ of her generation, she uses online banking with no accessible branch. Treasury insists she can get this from any bank, but as the guarantor is liable for a loss, there's no way they will provide this to a non-client. They generally won't even make their ordinary notary public available.
So she is now switching financial institutions simply to access a modest amount in her TreasuryDirect account. If you are thinking about gifting saving bonds to someone: do them a favor and don't.