Category Archives: Web Site Stuff

Identity Tuples

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One of my friends asked me some questions the other day about my
constant focus on identity within the context of community. As
usual I was being asked about the “real” application of this notion …
not just the “philosophical” perspective. Well … I’m always
thinking the “real” application … I just don’t seem to express it
well.

I started to think about how – from my perspective – this notion would
be implemented in code, or within an identity store. All of this
relates back to my work on digitalMe while at Novell … and a group of
us were working towards this back then. As I thought more about
some of my recent comments, I realized that one of the “real world”
aspects was what I’ll now call “Identity Tuples”.

What exactly is an Identity Tuple? First, lets look at what most people use as examples of identity … simple name/value pairs.

  • age = 32
  • shoe_size = 12
  • job_title = CTO

There are a number of critical issues with this perspective, and to me it is the gross assumptions when we view this that make it nearly useless. Let’s first look at “age = 32” … uh, well 32 WHAT? Oh of course most people will call me silly and state “32 years of course!” But that is an assumption. And even if we do say that “age = 32 years” then we still have to reference what a year is, or also identify the context that the measurement “year” exists within. A “year” is what, exactly? 365 days? Nope … it’s actually 365.242 days. Who says so? NIST! Ok … and the second flaw in this perspective? WHEN was this true? Well, it would be at some epoch in time … or between some range of dates. Lastly, who is the community or authority that states this as fact?  When we state that “age = 32” it is a very incomplete statement. This is where an identity tuple can come into play … instead of storing “age = 32”, we would actually store:

It is how Identity “attributes” can be stored and represented.  What this provides is support for the fact that identity evolves with time!  I understand that most often people are asking about my identity right now, but there is considerable identity information that relates to the past, or trends in your identity.  Credit History is a classic example of this.  Likewise, if you have children you would know about the “growth charts” that compare your child to the averages of other children.

The other core value of Identity Tuples is that the context, or community, where this attribute is distinguished is referenced with the identity information.  To me, this is critical to be able to properly assess the identity information and determine its value to me.  It’s not enough to say that I am {x} years old … in the case of liquor laws, we want that information from a credible source.  We have to identify the community which will support my claims.

Now some people reading this will notice there are some subtle flaws in this example … it’s a rough example.  But it is an attempt to describe some of what I see lacking in existing solutions … and what a real solution will one day have to have to be more effective.

The edges of the Internet

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This year it has been fun to retest the edges of the Internet. 
What I mean is “How easy is it to get on the Internet from various
places?”

In May I took a trip to the Philippines (Philippines Videos)
and was blown away at how easy it was to get Internet access
everywhere.  There were cost-effective Internet Cafe’s all over
the place.  I was there from the 21st to the 31st, and travelled
from Manila to Baguio, to Iloilo and Bacolod, and back to Manila. 
Internet was everywhere.  Cheap and plentiful.

I’m posting this from the coast of Cuba, on the way to Labadee, Haiti.  I’m aboard the Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas,
and yes … there is Internet.  In fact, I’m on Wifi sitting in a
lounge on the 14th deck looking out over the upper decks of the ship
toward the distant horizon.  Somewhere out there is Haiti. 
We’ll get there sometime tomorrow morning … I think.

Slowly but surely access to the Internet is reaching everywhere on
earth.  Everywhere.  It was interesting to see that even
cellular is reaching out … there is a Cingular cell onboard the ship
and so I have full strength cellular service and SMS text.

As technology continues to advance, wireless technologies improve, and
business models support it … the edges of the Internet are slowly
going away.  It is inevitable that when something like the
Interent permeates the entire planet … there are no longer any edges
… it simply becomes something that is.

Undistinguished Identity

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This last weekend I was talking with a friend about Google, and the tracking of identity.  I blogged about Google, Identity and Privacy a few weeks back, and have been doing a lot of R&D in this area.  On Monday there was the uproar about the AOL leak of search queries
and how this data could be used to locate the person who was making the
queries.  What this article does not address is the
“undistinguished identity” that the person is revealing … information
about themselves that even they do not know.

The more that I discussed the issue with my friend, it started to
really get clear to me that my concerns about provacy and identity are
not as much my identity as most people think about it … but large
systems and companies that gain access to my undistinguished identity.

What do I mean by this?  To me, undistinguished identity
is all of my thoughts and behaviors that are completely a reaction to
stimulus around me.  Companies like Google are beginning to gain
vast amounts of information about me, what I search for, when I search
for it, and then have the ability to relate to to seemingly unrelated
events.

To me, it’s not just about companies knowing information about me that
I also know … it’s when they begin to know me, better than I know me.

Google knows who you REALLY are!

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It’s always fun to learn whole new layers of technology. What I’m
posting about here is probably known by a lot of people, but my recent
involvement in two new start-up companies has really started to have me
think about the breadth and depth of data mining occurring on the
Internet involving personal behavior and habits. And one of the
largest harvesters of all of that personal information is Google.
There are already others who cover this much better than I … Google Watch is one … however I still wanted to blog about this.

Two of the four start-ups that I am now involved in are working on web
applications – hosted services – that want to provide new levels of
social and affiliate networks. With one start-up we are creating
a new form of video advertising on the net, with a full affiliate
marketing network behind it. So it becomes important to track
when affiliates (bloggers or web sites that host the ads) cause sales
to occur. When that happens they get paid a commission.
With the other start-up we are creating a new interactive media type
that can be spread virally through web sites, e-mail and IM. With
this solution we want to be able to track and map the viral spread to
acknowledge and reward the people who are able to cause the most spread.

As my teams and I began to build both of these solutions we began to
examine how other vendors are accomplishing the same things. We
have now looked at dozens of implementations, and then created our own
solutions that we believe will give us what we are after. While
doing this I began to see a pattern that is an amazing wealth of
personal information that Internet users are giving away about
themselves … about who they REALLY are. On one of the largest
consumers of all of this personal behavioral information is
Google. It’s really the scale of their ability to gather this
data that caused me to pause and think.

It all starts with a cookie

In doing some research into how ot track consumers, I was surprised to
find that most people agree that 99%+ of web browsers operate using the
default settings when it comes to cookies. Cookies are the small
pieces of data that a web site can pass down to your web browser, and
from then on – until the cookie expires – that data is passed back to
the web site every time that you access it. Cookies can be
defined to last for a very short amount of time – just that particular
session – or a very long amount of time … decades, or even hundreds
of years.

So when you first visited Google … the very first time … you got
your first Google cookie. And this is a good starting point …
when did YOU lose your Google-virginity? When exactly was that
first time? Google knows. Even if you have changed
computers, browsers, upgraded, etc. there is a chance that Google still
knows. They know the year, day, hour, minute, and second.
You were given the mark of Google. Ok … big deal … so what.

Tracking what you search

The first thing they are now able to do is track every single search
that you perform on Google. Lots of people know about this, and
understand this is the case. They also know the time of day, day
of the week, phase of the moon, weather conditions, popular news, and
even the popularity of that particular search when you did it! So
what searches do you tend to do late at night during a full moon?
Ask Google … they know!

In my opinion, it’s not really the details of what you searched that
have the real value … it is when you did them, and in what sequences,
and what other patterns emerge about you. This is where your true
identity begins to emerge. What? You were on-line searching
on a Friday night? Not out with friends?

Proliferation of AdWords

Ok … now this next part is where I started to really think.
While working on how to dynamically inject video advertising into a web
page, I found that Google is using a very interesting technique for
AdWords and Google Analytics. Again … it’s very simple and
easy, and many people know this … however many people do not.
And the implications are very interesting.

If you have a web site, and you choose to place AdWords on your web
site, Google will give you a nice little bit of HTML to embed in your
page. That HTML includes a script tag that will fetch a snippet
of Javascript code from Google’s servers. The Javascript then
causes the AdWords ads to be rendered within your web page. It’s
actually pretty impressive that when I browse to your website, without
being told a thing, my browser will automatically load your page and go
and load the script from Googles servers. Clean …
transparent. Ok yeah … and when it did that … the Google
cookie went with that request. Remember the Google cookie?

Yes … now it’s not just the searches that you do on Google’s web
site that are being tracked, but also every single web page that you
visit that contains Google AdWords!

Tracking what web sites you visit

Google is now notified by your browser any time that you visit a web
site that hosts Google AdWords … and it only gets better. 
Google recently announced Google Analytics.  This is a service
that allows web site owners to get detailed analysis of the traffic to
their web site, and about the visitors to their web site.  Any web
site owner who wants this impressive reporting can simply request that
Google give them an account.  When approved, Google will provide
access to the Google Analytics web site, and there you get … another
little bit of HTML to put into your web pages.  The little snippet
again requests a script from Google, and of course passes along your
cookie!

So now Google knows what you search, and what sites you visit that have
AdWords, and now any site that uses Google Analytics.  I’m digging
to find figures to understand just how much of the Internet now falls
into this category, but it is a large number of sites.  And just
like the searches, Google not only knows what web sites you have
visited, but at what time, in what order.  Combined with their
broad indexes of Internet content, they have the ability to categorize
those sites.  Combined with all other types of data they can
really begin to get an idea of just who you are, what you do and when,
on the Internet.  I really begin to wonder what some of the
patterns must look like.

If Google knows your real identity also …

Now … they know you by your cookie, but do they really know who you
are?  Well, if you choose to use any number of Google services –
gMail, AdWords, AdSense, etc. – then the answer is yes!  In most
cases, you join these services and begin to disclose personal
information that just might be a solid connection to the real
you.  And remember, each time you use these services that nice
little Google cookie ensures that they know it’s you.  Closing the
loop.  Connecting the dots.

Lastly … your friends?  Well … Google now knows via gMail who
you communicate with, and at what intervals and times.  They now
know the type of people that your friends and contacts hang out
with.  Google knows that YOU are the type of person that all of
these people communciate with.  From their e-mail address they
might even draw the direct connection to yet another person who they
have collected all of the data about … from their Google
cookie.  I haven’t really spent too much time thinking about how
much deeper all of this goes … however it makes sense why Google
wants all the storage and bandwidth they are building out.  It’s
not about providing search to you … it’s about owning a perspective
of you that no one else on the planet could recreate right now.

Google knows you like no one else.  Google knows more about you
and I then we know about ourselves.  Google will use this to
provide us what we really want … right?  Google will do no evil
… right?  Google would never use this data to use us … to
manipulate our undistinguished behaviors … right?  The Internet
is here, and some things appear to be inevitable …

Google knows who you REALLY are.

Adobe … the dark horse

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I’m back working on several very cool Internet/Web projects now. 
It’s fun to get back deep into the Internet, and catch up on what is
going on with the bleeding edge.  There are several areas that I’m
now really digging in … video on the net, and the whole SEO, web
marketing, web advertising, and affiliate marketing.

One thing that has now become evident to me, is that the acquistion of Macromedia by Adobe
was brilliant.  Adobe/Macromedia is now making huge inroads in web
properties, and seems to be linked to a lot of the best things going in
Web 2.0.

First lets look at YouTube … all based on the Adobe/Macromedia
Flash player.  So distribution of video on the Internet quickly
becomes ubiquitous and platform independent! 
Google Video?  Same thing … Adobe/Macromedia Flash player. 
There are now a half dozen video related sites … all using the
Adobe/Macromedia Flash player.

Besides the fact that the player is everwhere, and it’s on all the top
operating system platforms, by using the Macromedia player, the videos
can quickly be embedded anywhere in any web property.  This is one
of the core value propositions that we are leveraging in one of my new start-ups.

So then we get to Flex. 
Amazing stuff.  Again, Adobe/Macromedia now has a platform for
creating advanced applications, providing rich UI, and the player is
everywhere!  And the one key feature is that they can escape much
of the “sand box” surrounding current AJAX applications!  Writing
applications in MXML is now easier … they have adopted the Eclipse
development environment … and their plug-in can escape issues like
cross-domain access.  In one of my other start-ups, we’re looking
at embracing the Flex technology for all of it’s benefits.  We
immediately get a ubiquitous, cross-platform solution that produces
user content that can be embedded in any of the top web properties on
the planet.  Nice.

Oh yeah … and Adobe also got Cold Fusion in the acquisition.

I started to think about new metrics for measuring the success of companies in the Internet.  One possible metric is user viewable pixels … or even a percentage of user viewable pixels.  For example if you went to CNN.com
and looked at the page.  Out of all of the viewable pixels, who’s
technology “owns” what percentage of those pixels?  In the case of
CNN, there are all sorts of Adobe/Macromedia ads running, and even if
they are 10% of the viewable pixels … that is a lot of web real
estate.  Some sites are more.  Again … think of Google
Video … there Adobe/Macromedia has a huge
percentage of viewable pixels.  If you add in the number of Cold
Fusion sites on the net?  Adobe has a lot of the “web-top” now in
their pocket.

I think that people so quickly forget about the battles for the
desktop, and the complaints about Microsoft “controlling” the
desktop.  What is amazing to me is the penetration that Adobe now
has with the Acrobat reader, and Flash player … and the tools for the
creation of powerful content.

Identity Verification … by Tiger Direct

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A few weeks back I made an on-line purchase – for the first time – with Tiger Direct.
When completing the purchase – a $3000+ Plasma Display for a client – I
was really surprised when I was presented with a notification that I
was going ot have to answer some questions to verify my identity!

Ok . .. so I was thinking some steps … but never would have imagined
what I was going to see. I was presented with a page that
appeared to contain an iFrame, and it suddenly filled with a set of
three multiple-choice questions. As I read the questions … I
was shocked.

  • The first question had my city name – Heber City, Utah – and it
    asked me to pick which street address was in that city. It listed
    four street addresses … and sure enough one was for another property
    that I own. Uh … ok … kinda’ weird.
  • The second question? This is the one that got me. It
    asked me to identify the name of someone that I know … and listed
    four names. The second name … was the married name of my
    younger sister. No way.
  • The third question showed a street address … and asked me to
    identify the city that the street was in. I immediately
    recognized the street address … but could not identify which of the
    four listed cities it was in … funny … must have been an old rental
    or something.

It really was a weird experience to see that type of personal detail
… being asked on a web page. Overall, I like it … it was a
cool system and I can see where it would be very tough for someone to
gather those pieces of information. At the same time, it was
strange to see personal information gathered in such a way.

What made me think about this tonight was when a friend indicated that
he requested his annual free credit reports today. He said that
the same system was used to verify his identity to request the reports
… wild.

Skype unblocked!

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I’m not sure that I want to say that it’s over … but as of today I
can SkypeOut again! I spent weeks on their on-line forums, and
posted 16+ support requests through their website (NONE of which were
ever answered!) and then as of today got a personal message on the
on-line forums indicating that I was unblocked.

My Skype account was blocked when I unsucessfully attempted to purchase
Skype credit with my credit card from the Philippines. That was
on the 28th of May! They blocked my account that night … and I
have been struggling to get it unblocked – on a daily basis – since
then.

Sure enough … I can use Skype again!

A kick in the blog …

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Man … too many new things since returning form the Philippines.
I’m going to get back into the habit of regular blogging … and I’m at
the Utah Blogger event tonight which is kicking me into gear.

I got home on the 1st of June, and thought long and hard about what I
have been doing with my life. I’ve been working at Agilix Labs and
having a lot of fun, however I realized that I wanted to do more … to
further pursue some Web 2.0 projects. In addition, Agilix is
realigning its direction to more focus on the student and mobilized
learning market … and for now not as much focus on the SDK and
developer community. I made the choice … time to move on!

I’m still going to be working closely with Agilix on some specific
projects, but I am now back out in the consulting world. I’ve
already landed two consulting deals, both which are working on some
cool new technologies and human-oriented services. I’ll be
blogging more about them as I get rolling and into the groove of the
new routines. What is really fun already is working deep in the
Web again … I’m developing in both ‘realms” … AMP and .NET.

The AMP development involves a lot of Javascript and AJAX, and has been
a great learning experience. It also involves a lot of digital
video, and so I get to play back in one of my favorite hobbies …
video editing. I’m not a pro at it … I just like to play
around. I posted my first video to YouTube and am going to be
posting a number of others.

The .NET development is for a social networking site … but
more. It’s actually looking to create a new type of media …
combined media … interactive media. I guess it’s kind of like
true ‘multimedia’ … a new way to deliver a media experience ‘wrapped’
into a single download. What is really cool also is that the site
is already leveraging some of the most advanced Atlas technologies
ffrom Microsoft … so taking the site to new levels of interactivity
and customization.

On top of this … I’m working on my new Software Development
Outsourcing company. The web site is coming quickly, and after I
have now been using a half dozen developers from overseas, I am ready
to share the power of these people with anyone interested.

Anyhow … I’m going to listen and blog about the Utah Blogger conference …

Still Skypeless …

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Amazing … I have been sending support requests every single
day.  And I get no response, except for the occasional reply to
some of the messages saying “We normally will respond within 72
hours.”  Uh guys … if you are hearing this … it’s now been
almost two weeks!  Uh … they still have my $10.00 …

I wrote them the following message:

Please … oh Skype gods …
let my account go! Please unblock me …

My prayer to the Skype gods … please have mercy on my account … PLEASE
unblock my account. Why haste thou forsaken me????

Our Skype who art in
Luxemburg,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy phone call come, thy will be done,
on
the Internet as it is on POTS lines.
Give us this day our daily
SkypeOut,
and forgive us our use of mobiles,
as we forgive our non-Skype
friends.
And deliver us from expensive calls,
for thine is the
$.02/minute, the p2p calling,
and the VoIP solution
forever.
SkypeMe.

Oh please Skype gods … please unblock my account
…

Will it work?  Hmmmm … we’ll see …