Category Archives: Digital Identity Management

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When cameras are everywhere …
This is an amazing article, with a link to a web site that shows just how advanced criminals are becoming … and how they are leveraging technology.

The concept is simple as described below … what is wild is that they are using some fairly simple technologies to accomplish this. Just the other night I saw an episode of Law & Order where a high school student took pictures of other students in the gym locker room … with her cell phone … and then sent them to other people. I hadn’t even thought about the portability of these “wireless cameras”. This all makes me think about where we are heading when miniature cameras can be carried and left just about anywhere. And people are thinking that we can protect privacy?

ATM Skimmers with Wireless Cameras, Pickups. Automated Teller Machine customers now robbed wirelessly without knowledge: The University of Texas at Austin police have a compelling page that shows how a skimmer (which scans ATM cards before they’re inserted into the ATM) and a wireless camera in an innocuous position nearby can steal a card and the PIN. The skimmer reads the magnetic stripe; the camera can see the PIN being entered. The thieves park nearby and retrieve the information wirelessly. This is reminiscent of last month’s story of a wireless Israeli post office money heist. It may be just me, but after years of being warned about shoulder surfers in the 1980s and 1990s, I often cover my hand when entering a PIN on a phone or ATM. I guess my paranoia pays off. Also, I only go to one bank’s ATM machines, which are uniform. I think I’d notice a weird add-on…. [Wi-Fi Networking News]

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More hope for less spam … soon …
This appears to be some good momentum in the anti-spam area, as a good first effort to combat the problem. There are no doubt other proposals and standards that will emerge.

This specific solution will force companies to define their mail servers in DNS in a way that allows them to be held accountable for spam. This will provide a way to deny e-mail from being received, if the source of that mail can not be tracked down. It’s a very good start.

eWEEK: New Anti-spam Initiative Gaining Traction. A grass-roots movement to improve the SMTP protocol that governs e-mail traffic is gaining acceptance, and its lead developer hopes to get fast-track approval by the Internet Engineering Task Force to make the emerging framework a standard. [Tomalak’s Realm]

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Digital Communities, their Laws and Hierarchy
I would have liked to hear this presentation. This is covering an area that I am very interested in … digital identity and digital communities.

The hierarchy within a digital community is extremely important to maintain order, and to prevent chaos from spreading. If there is no hierarchy and “law” then the community will collapse. This looks like it was a fun presentation!

ETCon 2004: Robert Kaye on Social Networking-Based File Sharing Networks. Robert Kaye (slides) is describing social network file sharing systems.
The primary purpose of the social group is to share, discover, and
protect network. He proposes a hierarchy or tribes, chiefdoms, and
states with leaders at each level and “tribal elders” who set the
policies about who gets in. This sets the trust network. [Windley’s Enterprise Computing Weblog]

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LDAP and C#
I haven’t yet started to write code in C# … it’s something that I want to take a look at. I saw this posting and started to think that maybe I found some examples that might get me going. I enjoy developing code that uses LDAP directories and the data they contain … and this article demonstrates Novell’s work to continue to ease the development of LDAP-aware applications.

Jan 18th, 2004: LDAP class libraries in Mono tutorial.. Sunil Kumar has written an introduction to Novell.LDAP class libraries, which are part of Mono. [Mono Project News]

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RSS … the alternative to e-mail …
I really like the essay that Adam has written about using RSS as an alternative to the existing protocols used by traditional e-mail. In the “essay” link below, Adam outlines many of the advantages and ways that this could become a much more effective medium for communication when compared to e-mail.

The one area that I have to disagree a little – or at least have my own ideas – is when it comes to managing the “publish-subscribe” relationship creation. He indicates a variety of ways to encrypt the content, however after doing a lot of work in the past on digital identity, I have to think that there are some ways that I like the “username/password” schemes much better.

In my own thoughts, I believe there is a space for the creation of a new “personal introduction” protocol for the creation of digital relationships. This protocol – and I’m only beginning to think through how this would work – would automate the management of identity information, and the exchange of the necessary information to create the relationship.

I have to agree with Adam, that once such a relationship has been created between two people (or entities) then the ability to terminate the relationship becomes much easier. The entire process becomes a “pull” of information that I am interested in … instead of being spammed with information that I do not want!

email dying – rss alternatives. Steve Outing [via sn]: “Any e-mail publisher with a survival instinct should be publishing RSS feeds of the content that it currently e-mails.” Nomention of my essay, so here’s the link again. [Adam Curry: Adam Curry’s Weblog]

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Steve Mann is still leading in new directions …
As always, I am impressed with Steve Mann and his thoughts on “cyborgs” and the extension of humans using technology. He has already run into numerous societal issues, and always explores the extreme edges of wearable computers, and “mediated” reality.

Cyborgs unite!. Professor Steve Mann just may be the world’s first cyborg rights activist. It is a future, he says, that is no longer the exclusive preserve of science fiction. [CNET News.com]

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TMDA … an anti-spam solution …
Several years ago, while at Novell, I began work on a simple idea that I called AgreeMail. It never went anywhere, however it was an anti-spam solution based on an idea that I got at a Foresight Institute conference.

The idea was pretty simple. For any e-mail that was sent to me, the AgreeMail engine would check to see if it came from an “approved” sender. If it wasn’t, then it would automatically kick back an e-mail to the sender with an “agreement” that had to be replied to. When the AgreeMail engine received the “agreement” it would add the person to the approved list and let their e-mail through.

Well … years later … here is the solution as an Open Source project! I am now updating my mail server, and will soon be installing the TMDA engine.

This article is a great overview of TMDA, and the benefits!

TMDA Ends Spam. Tagged Message Delivery Agent (TMDA) is a challenge/response style anti-spam system which I’ve been using successfully for about six months. The system is based on a white list. When someone not on the list sends me a message, their message is held in a queue, and a challenge is emailed back to them. When they respond to the message, they’re added to my white list, and their original message is delivered to me. I’ve seen some resistance to systems like TMDA. This resistance comes in two basic objections: (1) it doesn’t work, and (2) it’s too rude. These objections are based on encounters with systems with various obvious faults, but condemning all challenge/response systems based on some bad implementations is like saying that cars are a bad idea because the Model A Ford has some problems. I intend to show that TMDA works well and that the real debate is over whether a system like it makes victims out of the people who aren’t using it. [kuro5hin.org]

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Time Management for kids and ???
While I’m here writing about Utah companies, I might as well mention Time Scout. Time Scout is a cool little product for controlling the amount of time that any electronic product is used. The target market is for parents who want to control the amount of time their kids watch TV, play video games, or even use the computer.

It’s based on a simple hardware device that plugs into the wall. The electronic device is then plugged into the Time Scout and locked. There is then a simple control panel that consists of a card scanner and LCD display. The child is given a card that identifies them, and the parent assigns an amount of time in minutes. When the child wants to play, they scan their card and the LCD display shows their remaining time and counts down the minutes. When they are done they scan their card and it stops the counter.

This is a pretty cool gadget that allows parents to allocate an amount of time, and allows the child to learn how to manage the time that they have. I’m thinking that there might even be other uses for this product … I’ll be thinking about them!

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Improved efficiencies in information processing …
While I was working at Novell, I used the GroupWise solution that they offer for e-mail and collaboration. One of the terms that was used over and over again was the “Universal Inbox” … meaning that they wanted all of your incoming information to be delivered through the GroupWise user interface. It was actually a very impressive product, and I have to admit that I really miss using it. It never became what the creators envisioned, however it took great strides in the right direction.

This project at MIT is also moving in this same direction. It is exploring ways to consolidate a wide range of information sources into a user interace for optimal information processing by humans. It has some very impressive customization features, and I like many of the concepts behind it’s personalization.

This is more of a trend towards, what I call, Humaneural Software … software that enables humans to operate in a neural fashion …

Haystack – Universal Information Client [Nooface: In Search of the Post-PC Interface]