Identity
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Laws of Identity
When digital identity ceases to be a pain in the ass, we can thank Kim Cameron and his Seven Laws of Identity, which he wrote in 2004, formally published in early 2005, and gently explained and put to use until he died late last year. Today, seven of us will take turns explaining each of… Continue reading
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The gentle lawgiver
This is about credit where due, and unwanted by the credited. I speak here of Kim Cameron, a man whose modesty was immense because it had to be, given the size of his importance to us all. See, to the degree that identity matters, and disparate systems getting along with each other matters—in both cases for… Continue reading
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Remembering Kim Cameron
Got word yesterday that Kim Cameron had passed. Hit me hard. Kim was a loving and loved friend. He was also a brilliant and influential thinker and technologist. That’s Kim, above, speaking at the 2018 EIC conference in Germany. His topics were The Laws of Identity on the Blockchain and Informational Self-Determination in a Post Facebook/Cambridge Analytica Era (in… Continue reading
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On KERI: a way not to reveal more personal info than you need to
You don’t walk around wearing a name badge. Except maybe at a conference, or some other enclosed space where people need to share their names and affiliations with each other. But otherwise, no. Why is that? Because you don’t need a name badge for people who know you—or for people who don’t. Here in civilization… Continue reading
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Let’s get #deepreal
Deepfakes are a big thing, and a bad one. On the big side, a Google search for deepfake brings up more than 23 billion results. On the bad side, today’s top result in a search on Twitter for the hashtag #deepfake says, “Technology is slowly killing reality. I am worried of tomorrow’s truths that will be made in… Continue reading
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About face
We know more than we can tell. That one-liner from Michael Polanyi has been waiting half a century for a proper controversy, which it now has with facial recognition. Here’s how he explains it in The Tacit Dimension: This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know… Continue reading
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Thoughts at #ID2020
I’m at the ID2020 (@ID2020) Summit in New York. The theme is “Rising to the Good ID Challenge.” My notes here are accumulating at the bottom, not the top. Okay, here goes… At that last link it says, “The ID2020 Alliance is setting the course of digital ID through a multi-stakeholder partnership, ensuring digital ID is responsibly implemented and… Continue reading
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A Qualified Fail
Power of the People is a great grabber of a headline, at least for me. But it’s a pitch for a report that requires filling out the form here on the right: You see a lot of these: invitations to put one’s digital ass on mailing list, just to get a report that should have… Continue reading
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The problem for people isn’t advertising, and the problem for advertising isn’t blocking. The problem for both is tracking.
In Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking, @JuliaAngwin and @ProPublica unpack what the subhead says well already: “Google is the latest tech company to drop the longstanding wall between anonymous online ad tracking and user’s names.” So here’s a message from humanity to Google and all the other spy organizations in… Continue reading
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The Adblock War Series
Here is a list of pieces I’ve written on what has come to be known as the “adblock wars.” That term applies most to #22 (written August of ’15) those that follow. But the whole series works as a coherent whole that might make a good book if a publisher is interested. Why online advertising sucks,… Continue reading
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The most important event, ever
IIW XX, the 20th Internet Identity Workshop, comes at a critical inflection point in the history of VRM: Vendor Relationship Management, the only business movement working toward giving you both independence from the silos and walled gardens of the world; and better means for engaging with every business in the world — your way, rather… Continue reading
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A blast from the independent past
I just ran across a post (below) on my old blog from Tuesday, July 12, 2005: a few months less than ten years ago. It was at the tail end of what Tantek Çelik calls the Independent Web. He gives the time frame for that as roughly 2001-2005, peaking in 2003 or so. “We took it as… Continue reading
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What do sites need from social login buttons?
Not want. Need. If a site has one of these… … what is the least information they need from the user? Seems to me that “social” login buttons like these are meant for the convenience of the user. But too often liberties are taken with them. For example, here is what one company says in its… Continue reading
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Automated Assumption Fail (#AAF)
So I just got this email from Pandora: This is an #AAF: an Automated Assumption Fail. I love music, and Pandora; but what Pandora’s telling me here doesn’t square with my experience of using it. I mean, what is “that Lorde song”? Who are are the Royals? Maybe I do like them, but I don’t… Continue reading
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Seeing Deeply
Cities aren’t simple, especially mature ones. They are deep and complicated places that require equally deep attention to appreciate fully. That’s what I get from Stephen Lewis‘ insights about the particulars of present and past urban scenes and characters in Sofia, New York, Istanbul and other cities he knows well. His latest post, titled The Women’s… Continue reading
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IIW Challenge #1: Sovereign Identity in the Great Silo Forest
Who are you? What are you? If the answers come from you, they speak of your sovereign identity: that which is yours and you control. If the answers come from your employer, your doctor, the Department of Motor Vehicles, Apple, Facebook, Google or Twitter, they speak of your administrative identity: that which is theirs and… Continue reading