It’s actually too late to sign up … but you could have had your name
included on a disc being sent via a spacecraft to Pluto! Be the first
one on your block to have your identity known to Plutonians? Click here to read more.
Send your name to Pluto. Want your name to be included on a list in a spacecraft headed to Pluto, and be returned to earth in 50,000 years? Click Here [The Hawker Squawker]
[tags: identity scottclemon digitalidentity pluto space ]
I remember talking with Phil Windley
about one of his ideas to leverage OnStar
as a distributed sensor network. He posited that all of these
cars tend to have temperature sensors, some form of GPS, and the
wireless communications … they could be used to create a nationwide
temperature map.
Now here is another article about taking this further to use cell
phones as the source of distributed sensor information. Very cool
idea. Everyone carrying the right kind of cell phone could opt-in
to providing sensor data to one or more servers. A huge variation
on SETI@Home!
Let’s see … what would someone pay me to participate in this? And protect my identity …
Saving the World With Cell Phones.
Scientists work to turn mobile phones into a distributed network
capable of measuring pollution levels — and possibly detecting
biological weapons before they can be launched. By Rachel Metz. [Wired News]
While at Internet Identity Workshop 2005 I really enjoyed meeting Kim Cameron in person, along with Mike Jones … both from Microsoft. They seem to be the current human-side of InfoCards.
I was really waiting to see a good demo of what they are up to, and I
have to say that I like the overall solution. It’s a very well
thought through solution, and I can see why Microsoft is going to move
forward with it. I’m not going to get into the good vs. bad
debates … and I’m not going to argue about the evil empire wanting to
own all of our identities. Its not about that, and I can see all
sorts of places where my companies can participate, and where even
those in the Open Source world could jump in if they felt like doing so.
There was one interesting place where I felt that InfoCards is lacking
… and that is removing the tedious re-typing of identity information
from the user. I hate entering data into forms. This is why
I really like the possible Firefox/IE enhanced form-fill
solution. The browser can start to enter information for me …
and only require my approval before posting.
Why I believe that InfoCards is lacking here is the example that I
asked Kim about during his demonstration. I wanted to write about
it here, hoping that he might offer a different perspective, or explain
how I missed something.
Kim explained how I can create new “self issued” identity cards, or can
have a card issued to me by a web site or other entity. What was
interesting to me was that if the site wanted to issue a card to me,
InfoCards would not provide any assistance in providing my information
to the issuer about my identity. I understand the security
choices here, however this is what I see coming …
I go to Domino’s web site … they offer to issue me a card. I
get a form and hand enter all of my information: my name, phone
number, address, favorite toppings, favorite drink. I get a
InfoCard from Dominos.
I then go to Wells Fargo’s web site … they offer to issue me a
card. I get a form and hand enter all of my information …
again: my name, phone number, address, employment info, etc.
I then go to E*Trade’s web site … they offer to issue me a card.
I get a form and hand enter all of my information … again: my name,
phone number, address, SS#, employment info, etc.
I then go to Delta Airlines web site … they offer to issue me a card.
I get a form and hand enter all of my information … again: my name,
phone number, address, seat preferences, etc.
I then go to JetBlue Airlines web site … they offer to issue me a card.
I get a form and hand enter all of my information … again: my name,
phone number, address, seat preferences, etc.
Great … I get all these cards that are later useful … but I have
had to enter my info over and over and over again. Yes … I hear
the Liberty Alliance folks out there yelling “But we’ll federate all of
these companies behind the scenes so that they’ll all know you!”
But I DON’T WANT THAT!
Maybe it’s going to take the full combination of technologies to solve
this … I use the Firefox solution (Mike … hurry up and write that
thing!) which actually fetches the form-fill values from a LID or SXIP
Identity Store, and then auto-fills the form that gives me an
InfoCard. Uh … it’s sounding complex … but maybe that’s it.
Oh … sorry Drummond … I’ll have to think about where I used the i-Name in there. 😉
While at Internet Identity Workshop 2005 this past week, one of the interesting issues that
came up several times related to name spaces. Specifically, there
were numerous times where people voiced their opinions about how name
spaces “should” map onto the Internet, and they used DNS as an example
of how things “should” be. The problem is that they demonstrated,
by their words and arguments, that they were ignorant of how DNS
works. The infrastructure of the Internet has become so
transparent, that it seems to me people have begun to make gross
assumptions about it’s architecture, and this is what is the root of
many of the security and privacy issues that we are seeing today.
I was looking forward to the presentation by Drummond Reed about XRI/XDI. One of my concerns in any solid digital identity solution is the freedom to choose.
I am not a big believer in compulsory community membership, but instead
believe that true freedom is represented by our ability to move in and
out of various communities at will, and to create new communities as we
want. I really like this thought from “The Meaning of Life – Part II“:
Groups also serve as symbols in the social world. Groups with different
beliefs than your group provide you with viewpoints you wouldn’t have otherwise
considered. They also represent parts of your own mind that you are not focusing
on. However, if you fear those parts of your mind, this representation can
degenerate into projection, which is a bad thing.
What does this have to do with DNS and digital identity? It is that I want the freedom to NOT
have one name, one identity, or one reference across all
communities. Yes, there might be some places where I would
benefit from some level of federation. At Internet Identity Workshop 2005 I actually
saw where OpenID is intended to not only provide Single Sign-On, but
also is specifically designed to cause a level of federation across web
sites. I DO NOT
want this to be a requirement. I am ok with it being an option. It is this flexibility that I
believe will allow a particular solution to become successful and
ubiquitous.
So … I really wanted to hear more about XRI/XDI and i-Names
because I specifically wanted to learn if they were going to try to
“root” the entire name space into one fixed community. My real
question was: “Is XRI/XDI yet another Internet ‘tax’ like Domain
Names (DNS), where you have to pay some entity on an annual basis to
use the value of the technology?” Or, was XRI/XDI simply one
solution that could be “rooted” anywhere, and allow for the emergence
of various communites to use the technology, and have the naming
relative to the community. To my relief, the latter was
true. XRI/XDI is based on specified root servers, and so naming
resolution is based on what root servers you choose. In the end,
what this means is that my i-Name is only relative to the community. It is not necessarily a globally unique identifier
for me. It also means that any community can set up their own
root servers, and create name spaces of their own. In the end
this means that =drummond.reed only refers to Drummond within the context of a particular community! Bingo! I like it!
What shocked me was the almost immediate upset expressed by numerous
people at the conference. They wanted these names to be
absolutely globally unique . .. so that no one would ever be able to
get “my” name, and there would never be any ambiguity about who was
being referred to by an i-Name. I fully understand the desire,
however what shocked me was the references to DNS as having this
characteristic! People actually believe that DNS provides an
absolute unique identifier in any context! The DNS system has
become so transparent, and ubiquitous that people no longer realize
that it is simply one community for naming on the Internet … and
there is nothing locking people into using it. These people do
not seem to realize that I can set up my own root servers, and resolve
and DNS name to any IP address that I like! In fact, I’m quite
surprised that the Open Source community has not stepped up to revolt
against the “Intenet tax” imposed by ICANN and re-ignited the efforts
of OpenNIC, AlterNIC, and many of the other early pioneers in creating
a truly free naming system on the Internet.
DNS naming only works because
our servers, workstations and laptops all obey the rules, and the
default configurations imposed on us by our Operating Systems, ISPs,
and DHCP servers. Anyone who has installed a DNS server could
easily find the default InterNIC root server list in one of the files
on their system … /var/named/named.ca
on my Fedora Core 4 install. I could go into my DNS server and
define “www.amazon.com” to be any IP address that I want. If you
then happened to route through my DNS server (by being on my network)
then you would get *my* name resolution … not InterNICs. If I
was an ISP, or even an Internet Cafe, there is little that you could
do, and in fact you would most likely just trust
that the DNS server you were using was trustworthy. Another
common hack used by trojan horses on the net is to modify your local hosts file. Most all systems have a hosts file that will resolve naming on your local machine without requiring DNS at all! If I put an entry in your hosts file for “www.amazon.com” then it will never even use DNS to attempt to resolve the name correctly.
There is nothing in DNS that stops me from adding other root servers, and creating my own free
Top Level Domains (TLDs). It is only because people just fall in
line with the DNS configuration that it works. It is only because
we allow our machines to automatically join the ICANN community.
It is only because of our ignorance and lack of education about how all
of this works that we think that DNS names are globally unique in all
situations. DNS names, and all naming, are the products of
specific communities or contexts. Although these communities
might grow to be so large that we can’t seem to see anything else,
there still is the something else. I actually like it that way.
After getting home from Internet Identity Workshop 2005 there are a number of thoughts on my
mind. Probably the best conversation that I had was with the
group around Mike Shaver from Mozilla.org. He suggested a conversation about what client solutions could be developed to enhance digital identity … and I love client solutions.
The value of a client solution, and the core of this conversation, is
that client solutions can often be created without having to touch the
server! Mike wanted to hear what might be done in the browser –
Firefox – that could enhance digital identity, without any server
integration. My suggestion was – enhance the form filling!
Today we are all familiar with the “form fill” capabilities in the
browsers. They keep track of previous entries in text fields, and
also in username/password fields, on the various web pages and web
forms that we use. The browser is in a unique position to truly
add value to everything that I do … this is greasemonkey++ for digital identity. The browser could begin to keep a local or remote (e.g. LID, LDAP, etc.) store – that I can edit and alter – of all of the bits of my identity that are asked for by web sites. It could allow me to alter the values – on a per site basis
– to custom tailor what I give out to anyone. It would keep track
of what I gave to who. It could even incorporate functionality to
automatically post to web sites when I change my local information …
like when I move to a new home, or job. Mike suggested that a
repository of web forms could emerge as users develop and document the
multitude of sites and their forms and how to interact with them.
That is a grass-roots digital identity solution.
It seems to me that Firefox and Internet Explorer are best positioned
to take on this challenge, and to begin to incorporate truly useful
functionality that would remove much of the tedium of entering personal
information. In addition, they could allow me to stay “in
control” of what I am
giving to web sites and automating much of what I do today when filling
out forms. What is cool is that if Firefox did it, it would have
a huge leg up even if IE failed to adopt and implement the
capabilities. It could really become a killer app for Firefox.
The current implimentations are far too limited. Some of the issues that I have thought of so far are:
In my opinion, this type of enhancement could truly alter how we
interact with web forms, and share our personal identity
information. What is really cool is that this can be done today
… on the client … without requiring any server changes, and without
requiring sites to adopt new servers or technologies. Users
benefit regardless of what the web sites and servers do … imagine
that!
I’m sitting here today thinking through all of the various posts that I
want to write coming from Internet Identity Workshop 2005. It was a great workshop,
arranged by some great people, and attended by some amazing
people. It was fun to meet – face to face – some of the people
that I have read on-line and e-mailed with.
I’ve got thoughts on LID, OpenID, Sxip, and InfoCards … all of which
I’ll write about in the upcoming days. I also was glad to meet
other people there and engage in conversations about other software
solutions, hosted services, and open source projects.
If only I had a lot more time to focus on this space … I’m committed
to add some very cool identity management and social networking to our
GoBinder products …
If you have not yet read Accelerando I suggest that you purchase or
download (Yes! He has a free version that you can download!) a
copy. I am a big fan of Neal Stephenson’s SnowCrash and Diamond
Age, and this is yet another a fun book to read. Charles Stross
has done an awesome job of extrapolating today’s technology and
research into a great possible future.
Go get it … read it. Welcome to the future …
Well … I kept playing around with Radio prior to the Internet Identity Workshop 2005 and
all of the sudden it began to work! No idea why … maybe it knew
that I had my first two Drupal sites up and running … 🙂
Of course, it did me NO good at IIW, since the wireless network
completely sucked and was unusable. Now that the workshop is
over, I’m on my own network where connectivity exists.
For all of the people who think that “bandwidth and connectivity will
be everywhere”, I’d like to believe the story, but this workshop was
the second example in the last month where a “high-tech” conference was
unable to live up to the promise.
Ok … sorry for the complaining … now I’ll get to my blog posts!
I am now committed to locate a new blogging tool … although I know
that the search is going to be tough. For years I have used Radio
from userland Software, however it keeps giving me fits and I have now
been unable to get a blog post to “post” for weeks.
Radio has some incredible features that I exploit, and I have grown so
used to how to get things done I really like it. If only it would
work consistently.
I’m doing this as a test to see if threatening to leave this piece of software might cause it to work again …
Who knows …
Sorry about the barrage of blogging this weekend … I know that some
of the posts might not have been completely applicable to the topic of
this blog, however in my mind it all relates. I got some feedback
from some folks that wanted to know what the heck I was thinking …
and others that really liked the diverse set of posts that I wrote.
I’ll do my best to see if I can sort better in the future.